How to run a meeting online: A beginner’s guide
Running an online meeting is a necessary skill in today’s business. Good leaders know how to run a meeting. Exceptional are also every bit as skilled with online meetings.
Online meetings can save you money on travel, boost communication between workers and clients, even increase sales. If you run them right. Follow these 8 tips and you’ll be ahead of the game.
1. Send an agenda in advance. Yes, I know this is a standard recommendation. It’s still an important part of a successful meeting. More so online, where we have to add more visual and verbal cues to keep things on track.
2. Get familiar with the features of your web conference application. You need to know how to share your desktop, use the whiteboard, and pass control to other participants. If you have to, sign up for a free trial and practice there — nearly all the major vendors offer trials.
3. Check on whether participants have done their prep work. For reasons I’ve never understood, people seem more willing to blow off preparing for online meetings. You’ll want to gently nudge with a reminder. I prefer to do this over the phone.
4. Keep a confident smile on your face. You’ll find that your tone of voice follows your face. Since the attendees can’t see you, they’ll read more into your voice than they would otherwise.
5. This should be obvious, but just in case: keep the noises out of the background. Have dogs? Put them in a different room. (Mine are guaranteed to bark at a car 5 minutes into a call.) Ask participants to turn their cell phones to vibrate. Don’t use a keyboard near the phone. No eating. You get the idea.
6. Have minutes be taken by another attendee. You will be using your computer to present content (PowerPoint, Spreadsheets, whatever) and should never ask people to watch you type meeting minutes. It’s like watching paint dry…
7. Check for understanding. After each key topic, make a point of pausing and asking a question or two to gauge their understanding. It can be as simple as “Does this approach to the budget make sense?” Use this feedback as a replacement for seeing their facial expressions.
8. Manage the participants. Some online meetings tend to mushroom – people pull coworkers into the conference to listen in “just in case” and suddenly you have a lot of unexpected inputs. At the very least, you should know who’s participating. Start the meeting with a request to quickly list who’s in each location – your participants will appreciate knowing who’s hearing their input.
These tips will take you a long way in your desire to run a successful online meeting. Still feeling uncomfortable? Sign up for a free trial with a internet conference vendor (see resource box for helpful links) and practice a bit with a friend. You’ll both emerge knowing exactly how to run a meeting online.
