Friday, October 31, 2008

Use Web Conferences to Weather the Economic Slowdown

By Christopher Blanchet

On Thursday October 16th, CNBC's The Big Idea had a spectacular guest, Jim Cramer, an investment guru who provides great assistance to average, blue-collar individual investors. What Jim made clear throughout the program was that this looming recession will be deep and lengthy. A few callers during the program really stood out, however. Without going into details, Mr. Cramer's message came across quite clearly: fight with everything to keep your American Dream alive. Quote Stork Solutions provides more than just surface motivation or product recommendations; it provides tangible solutions to help you keep your Dream alive.

One caller from the show noted that this year's revenue would come in at only 20% of forecast, which means decades of strong sales have been wiped in a single year. For this caller, this has resulted in deep cuts to payroll, heavy layoffs, and reduced expenses. While Quote Stork recommends Reducing expenses in its 3-tranche model, this exercise has heightened importance at times like this when long-term survival is an actual goal for an enterprise.

But playing the reduction game alone doesn't guarantee survival. One thing any business will need at the end of a recession or economic slowdown is customers. During slow economic periods, however, business development often takes a back-seat position to cost reduction. So how can small business owners and entrepreneurs reach a broad audience at the least cost possible?

Through a web conference of course. A lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs might have previously hosted seminars for new and existing customers and may still be putting on such events. These might have taken the shape of an open house, an information night, or other group meeting at some central location (hotel ballrooms are common for larger events).

Web conferences allow several great benefits when compared to a traditional seminar. One of them is cost savings, in particular the room rental fee or deposit. Another is time savings; with a web conference, you don't have to pre-book a room several weeks or months in advance. Also, you won't have to focus tremendous amounts of energy to filling that room. And cancelled web conferences don't cost your deposit.

Another benefit to you is that you won't feel that terrible sinking feeling when confirmed attendees fail to show up; with a web conference, your attendees won't see empty chairs. In fact, attendees won't know whether 1,000 people confirmed and only 10 showed up, or whether 10 were invited and all 10 showed up.

The simplest web conference solution on the market is GoToMeeting, which will run you $39 per month and allow meetings for up to 15 attendees. GoToMeeting uses 128-bit encryption, which means your meetings are secure. Another great selling feature with GoToMeeting is that you can record your web conference for later playback, allowing you to improve your delivery for future meetings. The process generally starts with an invitation through e-mail or instant messenger (GoToMeeting integrates both), and allowing your attendees to click on the link to the meeting. They will then see and hear your web conference through their own web-enabled computer from anywhere in the world. At your discretion, you can even allow interactivity with attendees. For larger projects, GoToWebinar will allow up to 1,500 attendees for a marginally higher price.

Currently, you can enjoy a free trial of GoToMeeting and through ProBusinessReview and QuoteStork.com, you can enjoy an additional $10 off. For web conferences of groups greater than 15, you should consider GoToWebinar by the same provider. - 14915

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