With just about everybody connected to the Internet, it's tempting go overboard and presume that everything that could be done over the Internet should be done that way. We need to keep reminding ourselves that the Internet is a useful tool, a good way to connect people to people, but just one of a variety of tools that can and should be combined to get just the right mix to serve customers quickly and easily and keep costs to a minimum.
That came through loud and clear in last week's chat session with Jenny Hamby and Preston Campbell as our expert guests talking about "teleseminars."
When I first scheduled them for the program, I presumed that "teleseminars" meant seminars delivered at a distance, over the Internet. But no, for them the prefix "tele" is short for telephone. And they actually mean delivering learning-type content through concalls with anywhere from two to over 200 callers. They use the Internet, sometimes, not always, as a supplement -- a way to deliver related materials or to have followup discussions, or as an aid to the concall, giving participants a way to indicate that they want to ask questions or comment, or letting them visit websites to see examples of what's being talked about. They also share notes and presentation materials by emailing them in advance or by sending people to a website to download them. Jenny and Preston agree that the optimum length for a teleseminar is about an hour, followed by up to 30 minutes of questions and answers.
Some companies charge their teleseminar participants. Others offer teleseminars for free, using them for promotion, for instance driving up participation in high-priced face-to-face events. Often the teleseminars that Jenny produces are a way to "get people in seats, by giving them a taste of what's to come at the live event." The face-to-face seminar that's being promoted might cost thousands of dollars in entry fees, plus travel costs. Giving prospects a sample of what the speakers have to say helps make the sale -- especially in times when money is tight.
She notes that other companies use teleseminars to train customers on how to use products, to answer frequently asked questions from customers, and to hold meetings with employees.
Preston Campbell, who has written a book called "Teleseminar Success Secrets", notes that he often uses them for group meetings, holding regular coaching sessions with his sales team. As he says, "Conversation is probably the most efficient form of communication ... since you can do them for free why not just make the calls." He points out that through a company named FreeConferencecall.com, you can do a teleseminar for free for up to 96 people. Their URL is www.freeconferencecall.com. Anyone can go to that site and set up a conference line (phone number and pin) that they can use over and over at any time. He points out that they make their money through add-on enhancements to their basic service, such as operator assistance, larger calls, webcasting, etc. Webcasting means using the teleconference service to broadcast your presentation to all the viewers through a website.
So how do you manage a concall with a hundred or more people connected? It's hard enough managing a text chat session with just a dozen active participants.
Preston claims that teleseminars are easy to manage. He says that the key is setting the right rules and providing the right kind of instructions up front, so everyone understands the norms of behavior in this medium. He also relies on standard concall capabilities, like the ability for the person running the session to selectively mute other participants or give them the right to talk. . With many services, participants can mute themselves by pressing *6. He makes it sound easy. "You toggle the mute on and off; you can take a question, mute, answer, unmute, take another one, etc."
Jenny adds that you need to explain etiquette, for instance the importance of minimizing background noise, and the need to introduce yourself at the beginning. That includes avoiding cell phone and cordless phones and speaker phones, all of which generate too much noise. She prefers to give the presentation first, then open the lines for questions toward the end. That approach lets you deliver your content without interruptions.
Preston adds that you can use email or an Internet chat session or an instant messaging service to let people submit questions while their phones are muted. If you do that, you should have a second person deal with it so you can focus on talking.
Jenny points out that most people are shy about asking questions. So even if hundreds of people are connected to the concall, you are likely to have just a couple of people fighting to speak, not dozens. Preston adds that, in fact, you usually have to stimulate people to ask the host questions. That element of human nature helps make these concalls manageable.
Preston typically has his sessions recorded. The teleconference service charges about $25 per hour for recording; and a transcriptionist usually charges $50 to $80 for an hour call. He can then make the audio (streaming or download) and/or the text transcript available over the Internet.
I could imagine using teleseminar concalls as a decision-making mechanism. I've seen many instances of groups trying to use the Internet as a substitute for face-to-face discussion, where just a couple people post and post and post; and the rest lose track of what's going on or lose interest, and it takes forever to come to decisions, and then many people don't feel committed to the decisions because they weren't deeply involved. I'd think that a wrap-up concall session might be a way of moving beyond that. In other words, you could use the Internet for preliminary discussion, then have everyone connect by concall to firm up details, arrive at decisions, and make commitments. In other words, instead of the teleseminar being the warmup for a face-to-face event, have the Internet be the warmup, and the concall serve for decision-making.
In any case, this chat session made it clear to me that simple applications, like email and instant messaging, used in coordination with an ordinary telephone concall can produce very interesting results. You don't really need a be-all and do-all super application or service to build a very effective and profitable service.
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