Conference calls are here to stay. They make conducting global business accessible, allow organizations to keep in touch regularly and easily, all which reduces the number of face-to-face meetings required. However, without being able to see the person you are talking to, audio conference calling will always have a somewhat impersonal feel. Conference calls don’t have to die; we just have to find ways to keep the calls more interesting to compete with the ever-present distraction of the computer, tablet, and mobile phone.
It’s very important to note that the people on the other end of the line are getting less information than they would if you were in-person, which makes the format already less interesting than an in-person meeting. It is a constant uphill battle to keep people’s attention and gauge whether or not they’re still listening. Here are some steps to take to keep everyone on the conference call active and engaged.
Standing up gives you more energy and smiling warms up your vocal tone. When you sit down for long periods of time, you tend not to breathe properly and you get lethargic. Fight that by standing up. Smiling alters the muscles in your face and throat, and subtly affects your voice. If you don’t believe it, call up a friend and ask them to tell you if you’re smiling or not… you’ll be surprised! If you have trouble remembering to smile, prop a mirror up on your desk and watch yourself while you talk.
Conversations are interesting; listening to one person drone on for hours is not. If one person is doing a lot of talking, break at least every 10 minutes to go around all the participating sites and get feedback, questions, and so on. Announce in advance that you will do this so that people aren’t surprised.
Even though you can’t connect face-to-face with your audience, you can still humanize yourself by telling personal stories and anecdotes. Not only do anecdotes make your presentation more relatable, but storytelling is a great way to make a dry topic more interesting.
Conferences are a quick, efficient way to keep people connected, get feedback and collaborate on new ideas, but they can easily get off track. Prevent this by focusing on updates and discussion pertinent to decisions. Avoid general updates – people can catch up on those themselves.
Remember you have to speak up and participate! If you’re in a meeting in person, it’s easy to look at that person whom you want to respond to your comment or question. This cues that person to respond. On a conference call, you have to specially ask that person – such as, “Steve, what do you think of that plan?”
Normally, we decode the intent, emotion and attitudes of the speaker through body language and to a lesser extent through tone of voice. On the phone, you only get tone of voice, and it’s not very good at that because the fidelity of telephones is notoriously bad. So you have to work hard in telling people how you feel; they won’t necessarily pick it up from your body language. Use words that label your emotions so that no one is in doubt how you feel.
Many people look forward to a conference call with the same enthusiasm as a trip to the dentist. Audio Conference calls don’t have to be torturous. Remember to use our above tips and you will start to see a big difference in the quality of your meetings!
One Cherry Center
501 S. Cherry St., Suite 215
Denver, CO 80246 USA
Toll Free: 1-866-523-1137
Local: (303) 623-2530
Fax: (303) 623-1294
450 rue Baden Powell
34000 Montpellier
France
Tél: +33 (0) 1 84 88 01 67
