Be Prepared Your First Conference Call

You have decided to start using a conference call for your business needs. You have made a wise decision. You will now be able to have everyone attend no matter where they are in the world at the time of conference. Now, you need to be prepared your first conference calling meeting.

Let’s look at what you should know before starting a conference call.
You are you inviting to attend the conference?
What are the telephone numbers of the persons attending the conference?
Call every participant and let them know the time, date, and anticipated length of the conference.
Give all participants the telephone number needed to join the conference.
Take into consideration of the different time zones that your participants may be in; also remind them of the time in their time zone.
If they need to see any paperwork that is going to be pertinent to the conference be sure they have this information prior to the meeting and in time to review it prior to the meeting.
Try to use good quality speaker phones, you do want to hear the conference and have others hear you.
Ask every one attending the conference to please not use cell phones; the quality in sound is not as good as a land line telephone.
Ask your participants to use their mute buttons if they are going to have a lot of background noise. This will be an interruption in your conference.
Every participant use stop call waiting during the conference.
Have a clock near the phone, so you can be sure to stay on schedule.

Remember this is your conference call and you in charge. Make sure that every that is suppose to be in the meeting is there and be sure to introduce anyone that needs to introduced. Start with why you called this conference, and also go over the rules of this conference. Be sure if you have other speakers, let them know the order in which they will be speaking and when others can speak. You do not want everyone talking at once. You can not see the others attending the conference, so be sure that when you want to speak to a certain person or ask a question to a certain person attending the conference that you address that person by name. Remember to get other people to offer suggestions or to ask questions at the time allotted for this. If you are planning on having another conference call be sure to let everyone know the time and date before ending the call.

Some of the rules or explanations that you should convey to your participants are when using a conference call are:
Do not speak to fast; they want to get their questions or answers across. Explain to them that should let everyone know who they are when start speaking. Also, stop and wait for others to respond to the comments that were just mentioned. If there are terms or definitions that some participants attending the meeting may not understand, be sure to explain them clearly. Be sure when stating number to spell them out if you think that is pertinent. Be sure to have soft spoken individuals speak louder or closer to the telephone so everyone in the conference can hear them.

After you use conference call for the first time you will want to use this for all of your conferences. Everyone will be able to attend even if they are in a motel room thousands of miles from where you normally hold your conferences. You will be glad that you started using a conference call.