How To Conduct a Successful Teleconference
The key to any successful teleconference is in the planning. Here are a few tips to make sure your next teleconference runs as smooth as silk.1. It is always important to have an agenda. Know what you’re going to talk about, how long the call is going to take and what expected outcome you have.
2. Ask your participants to review your agenda prior to the call.
3. Don’t forget to send all participants the dial in number and pass-codes.
4. Consider arrangements for hearing impaired participants.
5. Avoid headaches and panic attacks. Have a back up plan for potential technology failure.
6. Be sure to tell your participants if they have to have a file or website open on their computer for the call. Make sure all supporting documentation has been delivered well before the call.
7. If you’re facilitating, log on early so that you’re the first one online.
8. Greet and know the people that you’re speaking with. Try to announce everyone’s name before they speak.
9. Find out if anyone needs to leave the call early. You may need to restructure the agenda. Be prepared to do so.
10. Call from a quiet location and make sure your technology is strong and doesn’t have any annoying feedback or distracting sounds.
11. Give listeners the chance to get up and stretch if the call is a long one.
12. Take advantage of guest speakers to keep the call engaging.
13. Track who speaks so that you can involve all members in the conversation.
14. If the group gets off the agenda take steps necessary to refocus the conversation but promise to come back to the issue if there is time at the end.
15. Generally, the larger the group, the more directive your facilitation needs to be to keep a small number of people from dominating the call.
Teleconferencing is a fantastic tool to not only meet with people all around the world in different time zones, it is a great tool to educate, inform and connect with your customers and prospects. Simple steps to ensure that the meeting is planned and structured as well as steps to ensure that common courtesies are given will take you a long way toward a successful teleconference.
How to Apply for a Business License
Applying for a business license is something you should do as soon after you decide to start your business as possible. There are different requirements for getting a business license at the federal, state/city and county levels. Each locality is different in those requirements and there are even some localities that do not require you to have a business license, but you need to determine what your business requires by following and completing the steps below.
If your business is in the United States, you can find tons of information on starting your business, including applying for a business license by visiting the Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov).
There you will find links to help you determine, what if any licensing requirements there are for your business. You’ll be able to determine what type of license your business requires based on the type of business you own. Just a few of the common licenses include:
Business License
This is a basic business license that says you are allowed by law to do business in your locality. Some places require it, others don’t so be sure to check with your local and state taxing authorities to determine your individual case.
Occupational & Professional Licencse
There are certain professions that require you to carry a special license in order to conduct business. Some of these businesses include:
Accountants
Doctors
Barbers
Security Professionals
Real Estate Agents
Licensing Based On The Type of Products You Sell
Tax Registration
One of the biggest reasons a business license is required is for tax purposes. The type of business you run, along with other factors, will determine your tax rates at the state and federal level. It will also help to determine certain taxes, such as sales tax, etc. that you may be exempt from paying.
Trade or Doing Business As (DB) Name
Many states require a special license if you are a sole proprietor doing business under a name other than your name.
Employer Registration
If you have, or plan to in have in the future, employees this is definitely a must to check into. You can find more information about what all is required of you as an employer by checking with your states Department of Revenue or Labor.
A business license is something that, if you’re required to have one, you should acquire as soon as possible. Some states can and will penalize business owners who operate a business without the proper license, so don’t delay in finding out what your business needs. Many states have business workshops to help make certain owners have everything they need in place. Check your state or www.sba.gov to find one near you.
How To Grab Your Reader’s Attention From the Get Go
The trick to writing anything whether it is a sales page or a how to article is to hook your reader’s attention immediately. Of course you have to hold on to that attention too but that’s significantly easier once you already have it. Here are three must do’s if you want to grab your reader’s attention right away:
1. Headlines are the end all be all of copywriting. Newspapers know this, advertisers know this and you must too. What makes a compelling headline? Several things actually:
* A promise. A good headline can make a promise – Lose 30 pounds in 30 days-guaranteed.
* Make it newsworthy. New diet guarantees fast, healthy weight loss.
* Ask a question. Is the food you eat making you sick?
* Offer a benefit full of emotion. You’re going to absolutely love your new body-guaranteed.
* Appeal to their self interest. Know the secret to losing weight permanently?
* Offer value. 3 easy steps to losing weight naturally.
* Headlines must use strong verbs and powerful words. Compare these two headlines:
- Lose weight with our enzyme based diet
- Weight literally falls off with enzyme based diet.
2. Make sure your most compelling copy is above the fold. First, let’s clarify what the ‘fold’ is. When you look at a website, the fold is the point at which you need to start scrolling down. This means that anything above the fold is what you see immediately on your screen. If your good stuff is below the fold, most people won’t stick around to read it. You must make sure that your most compelling copy, your headline and your first paragraph, are immediately viewable.
Of course everyone has a different screen size so you want to work for the least common denominator – the smaller screen sizes.
3. Make sure your copy is scannable. There’s an old joke about what people read on the web. The joke is – they don’t. What people do is scan. They spend about 20 seconds evaluating your web page, if it isn’t easy to read they’re gone. If you want to grab your reader’s attention immediately – make your copy easy to read. Use bold lettering for words that you want to stand out. Space the copy well so that it is easy to read. Use bullets and numbers to list benefits or steps.
There are many expert tricks of the trade and these three will take you far. Make your headline strong and compelling, keep your strongest copy above the fold and make sure your copy is easy to scan. You’ll have visitors that are more than happy to spend time reading your web content.
How To Get Your CamStudio Video On Your Website
Once you have your tutorial or video recorded on CamStudio and saved your next step is to get it onto your website. Here’s how:Step One: Open CamStudio.
Step Two: From the tools file open the SWF producer. This tool converts AVI files to flash files.
Step Three: Once inside you want to go to the file menu and open the file that you want to convert to a flash file. Click on the blue C to convert. A menu will pop up which gives you a few options, make your choices, name your file and click okay.
Step Four: Add it to your website as a link. This is the easiest way to add a video to your website. Links are easy to follow and they won’t slow down the load time of your website.
Step Five: Rather have the file embedded onto your web page? Take care that it won’t work for all visitors, because they’ll have to be able to view flash videos and because videos take up a large amount of space and download time. Here’s how to do it:
Open your web building software like FrontPage or DreamWeaver. Open the page that you want your video to appear on. From your toolbar click on insert and choose video option. You’ll have several choices to make in the menu box that pops up, choices like how many times do you want the video to loop and if you want the file to play as soon as the page is opened.
Note: Your file can be an AVI or a Flash file here. Using a non-AVI file means that you’ll have to set the window size of your movie, this can be done in the general tab on the menu.
If however, you want to embed your movie as a plug in then you’ll again visit your insert button on your toolbar. Go to insert web component and advanced controls and choose Plug In. A menu will pop up asking for some information.
Go ahead and add your video and then click on the extended button at the bottom of the menu to determine how often you want the video to loop and when you want it to start. You can even add a message to visitors without plug in capabilities.
Adding a video to your website is a great way to interact with your visitors and to add some interest to your site. It can take a little trial and error time to get your video to work but is well worth the patience and effort – your visitors will appreciate it too.
How To Create a Video In CamStudio
CamStudio is an opensource software screen recorder. This means that you can use it to record screen videos – videos using your computer screen.
You can also record audio using your computer’s microphone and/or audio coming from your computer. It’s perfect for tutorials and best of all…it’s free!
Step 1. Visit CamStudio.org and download the free software.
Step 2. Once CamStudio is installed, you can make your video adjustments. Open CamStudio and click on the options button at the top. A menu will drop down and you’ll see Video Options at the top. Adjust your video to compress via one of the listed programs, you’ll have to download these from the other programs websites or you can leave it on the default settings.
Step 3. You have a choice of two video formats, either AVI or SWF. AVI is a standard video format that most people can easily open however SWF is better if you want to publish your file to a website. SWF is a flash format. Some feel SWF is better for web publication because you don’t have to embed it onto your site.
Step 4. Your next step will be to adjust your audio options so that you can either record via your computer’s microphone or record using your computer’s speakers. This means that if you’re recording a game or some program that has sound, the sound will be included in your video. The program’s default is to have the sound turned off.
Step 5. You can go ahead and simply click record right now and see what happens. When you’re done recording you simply push the stop button and you’ll see a prompt on your screen to save the file. However, you may want the CamStudio screen to be minimized so that it isn’t included in your video. Scroll down to program options and choose the Minimize program on the start recording option.
Step 6. You’re essentially done at this point and may begin recording. I suggest that you give yourself an hour or two to play with the program. You can change how your curser looks. You can pan in and out and even control the speed. You can adjust whether you record a full screen or simply a portion of your screen. You can also add screen annotations and adjust how they look.
CamStudio has a few bugs, it doesn’t work in Firefox, but they’re working on it and when it comes to opensource screenrecorders, it can’t be beat. It’s simple and straightforward to use and the results are quality. Download it and give it a shot today, you may find that your next information product is only a few clicks away.
