The Business Advantages of Conference Calling Using the Internet

The Internet provides a practical venue for the conference call. With its low cost and ability to accomodate many listeners it is now practical to open a conference call to almost anyone (at least to listen). Many firms now do. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal related how IOMEGA does this as an efficient way to control the irresponsible babble on Internet bulletin boards. People posting idle chatter now attract accurate responces from others who have heard the actual story on a conference call. As a result, the irresponsible postings are controlled.
Naturally, investment professionals complain that this allows the novice to access raw information that needs interpretation by someone more knowledgable - namely such a professional.

However, companies like the ability to make one public statement, and then be free from goverment limitations on how investment information must be released. And individual investors like it too, as access to this information gets them access to information that once only slowly reached the average investor. Even Chairman Levitt of the SEC sides with the theory of greater access for the masses. According to an article in the 24 May 1999 issue of the Wall Street Journal, the NASDAQ has even funded a pilot program to pay for public access to conference calls. Firms such as DELL and Cosco are early participants.

Calling Conference

Using the Internet has many advantages besides the instantaneous international release that results. It is possible to save the audio files so that the call can be accessed later at a more convenient time. Plus it would be possible to edit out meaningless portions to provide sort of a "Cliff Notes" of each conference. Naturally, there are some limitations. If everyone could ask a question, real brawls could result as the conferences became uncontrolled. So most Internet systems limit who can ask a question.
An outstanding advantage for the average investor is to witness directly a firm's management in action. While the information might be the same, an investor gains confidence in management that presents a virtuoso performane over one that is defensive, hesitant, and obfuscative. The details aside, the speed of responce and other items that don't get incorporated in an analyst's report can add a lot to one's understanding. Previously, a small investor's only such access might have been at a company's annual meeting.

Several firms have opened to provide investment-related conference-call services in one form or another over the Internet. Some require membership and user fees, but the trend seems to be toward company funding of the low cost service, and free or very low cost access by the public. According to the WSJ article mentioned above, firms now providing some for of access include: Vcall (Philadelphia), broadcast.com (Dallas), c-call.com (Street Fusion, (San Fransisco), and CCBN.com (Boston). Expect that more and more firms will offer the public Internet conference call. Encourage firms you are interested in to do so. This form of communication is yet another form of ultimate corporate democracy.

The Business Advantages of Conference Calling Using the Internet

Grow Your Network Marketing Business - Six Ways to Leverage Conference Calling

Network Marketing, or Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), as it's also called, has become a very popular marketing and sales strategy for a large number of firms of all sizes. Highly skilled marketing professionals from around the world have joined the growing trend, and many successful campaigns have been launched, earning well for both marketers and the companies they represent.

Marketers who employ this strategy are constantly developing new and unique ways to get the most possible benefit from the network marketing model. All of the most popular forms of media are being tapped-television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the internet, and more.

Calling Conference

The key is to reach as many people as possible, at the lowest possible cost; and what sometimes distinguishes the more successful network marketers from their competition is the ability to identify and implement techniques that have not been used historically for network marketing.

Conference calling is one such approach. Many successful network marketers have found free conference calling to be a quick, easy way to reach a wide audience. Here are six important ways in which conference calling can significantly improve the effectiveness of your network marketing campaign.

1. Increased Access
Conference calling allows network marketers access to larger groups of people. With the wide array of very competitively priced or free conference call services on the market today, it is possible to reach large audiences at minimal cost. This is a good opportunity for network marketing, which relies on the ability to get a message out to as many people as possible.

2. Improve Marketing Options
Advanced conference calling services provide extremely versatile features, which greatly increase available marketing options. VoIP technology has made conference calling much more versatile in recent years, and new advances are being made available every day. Features such as call recording, dial-in-to-conference, question and answer scheduling, hosted conference calling, and others help make the process much easier.

3. Refine Targeting
Specifically targeted messages can easily be directed toward the correct audience, with a high level of accuracy. Many conference calling services allow you to limit access to your conference calls, so that only members of the network are able to access the system. Network marketers are also able to produce and disseminate specially developed messages to different groups in the network.

4. Enhance Sophistication
This provides a mechanism for enhanced sophistication; network marketers can develop systems with any number of different levels, and with this technology can manage the multiple levels without confusion.

5. Expand Secondary Levels
Ease of access to technology makes it easy for secondary levels in network selling models to reach out and create their own followings. The new generation of phone conference technologies is easy to use, making it relatively simple for top level marketers to instruct downline distributors on use of the system with their own promotions.

6. Facilitate Brainstorming
Brainstorming sessions among multi-level marketing partners are more convenient to organize. Conference calls are perfect for brainstorming, which for the network marketer is an opportunity to train second-level marketers to be more effective, while at the same time encouraging and strengthening commitment to the campaign.

In the final equation, conference calling is well suited to the MLM model, and in the hands of a knowledgeable and inventive marketer, phone conferencing can be a very effective tool.

Grow Your Network Marketing Business - Six Ways to Leverage Conference Calling