Virtual Meetings With Clients: 5 Tips to Succeed

A few of the most important reasons for holding meetings is the need to communicate ideas, meditate upon past discussions, and also to share new information among a set of people with mutual interests. However, the constraint of time, location and distance might pose as an inhibitor to the achievement of any of those purposes mentioned above. Thankfully, the advent of new media and technology has made it possible to defy those constraints quite easily with the rise of what we now know as ‘Virtual Meetings’.

What is a Virtual Meeting?

A Virtual Meeting is any meeting held in real-time on any virtual platform without the attendees being together physically. These may include audio conference calls, video conference calls, texting-based applications, and other arrays of different meeting tools. A very famous example of a virtual meeting tool is Skype – a video calling application.

How Do Virtual Meetings Improve Client Relations?

As freelancers, being able to meet with clients without having to be with them physically is a great feat in the professional world. For the first time, your ability to meet the needs of a client located in any part of the world can be actualized virtually; allowing you the luxury of serving them while still in your comfort zone! If you make use of this to your advantage, you can not only achieve more for less costs; you can also expand the geographical reach of your freelancing.

How Do I Do This Right?

As with most new concepts and strategies, there are a few but aggravating snags in the overall running of Virtual Meetings. This piece will, however; show you not just how to run Virtual Meetings with little or no complications, but also, how to ensure they succeed excellently well.

Preparation is Number One

Failing to plan is already setting yourself up to fail. The number one thing to do before you meet virtually with a client is that you must plan adequately. In said planning, you must first schedule a convenient day for yourself, free of distractions and previously scheduled engagements. It could be embarrassing to cancel with your client after you have already fixed a date or to attend to other things while a meeting is going on. After this, you must lay down a meeting plan on how you intend your meeting to go – freelancers don’t have all day. When this is also in place, you can then proceed to inform your client with all the necessary info they need about the upcoming meeting.

This information must include the date and time of the meeting, an overview of the meeting, list of attendees (if applicable), link to the meeting, dial codes/phone numbers and then an avenue to confirm whether or not they would be available for the meeting. To further add a professional touch, this can be sent as an invite via the platform that would be used for the meeting. A poor meeting preparation would reflect in the meeting itself, so this has to be taken with all importance.

Share Important Documents and Test Run Beforehand

Virtual Meetings are known to consume much time, an issue that may arise during your meeting may be the inability to share necessary documents in the course of the meeting. This may leave one party lost during the conversation. To avoid embarrassing situations as these, you could prepare an agenda as well as an essential document as related to the meeting and then distribute among attendees of the meeting before the scheduled day. This would allow everyone to have ample time to read through, digest and understand the core of the documents and aid a smoother flow of information during the meeting. You can also do a quick test run of your virtual meeting tool, to ensure that you have a good grasp of it if you have had no previous knowledge of how to use it.

Don’t be a Bore. Please!

When finally, the meeting day arrives, try not to be too monotonous and boring. Sometimes, your client might have no idea what your professional terminologies and jargon mean. Keep it simple and understandable across board. It is not a chance to show off your vocabulary skills, instead, aim to carry your client along so that there can be a mutual understanding of what is going on during the meeting. It is possible to employ visual aids to break the monotony. Also, 65% of people are visual learners, and we commit about 90% of visuals to memory. If you want to make a lasting effect on your client, visualizing a part of your meeting overview would increase the chances. Visual aids can be shared during your virtual meeting using tools such as Screen share, Join.me, GoToMeeting.

Maintain Meeting Etiquette

Just like you have office etiquettes, dining etiquette, and many others, there is a level of decorum and comportment that must be maintained during your meeting. If you have a virtual meeting via audio call, it goes without saying, that you do not eat while on the phone, or chit-chat with someone in the vicinity or fiddle with distracting items that produce jarring sounds. It makes you look unprofessional, disorganized as well as disrespectful towards your client.

If you are on a video call with your client, avoid twitching on your seat or fiddling with distracting items such as sweet wrappers, picking at your nails, fiddling with your hair, etc. Also, always try to maintain eye contact with the camera from time to time, and not just the screen, this would help your client know you are making eye contact with them. Due to internet connectivity issues, allow about 2-3 seconds delay before you speak to make up for the time-lapse that may occur during the calls. Speak audibly, slowly, and clearly.

Make Sure to Follow-Up

At the end of your meeting, it is always important to follow-up the issues that have been raised for action during the meeting. An excellent way to do this is to send a brief reminder, email or note to the meeting attendees with a summary of the meeting and the various commitments which they had promised to fulfil. It can also serve as a means of checking for feedback from the client and other attendees about how the meeting went and what needs improvement or encouragement.

Conclusion

Remember, the probability of having a successful virtual meeting begins with the preparation you put in at the initial stage to making the meeting a success. With adequate preparation, proper meeting tools, and following the laid out steps, you are surely equipped to effectively, and successfully impress your clients during your next virtual meeting – you should try it!