10 Reasons Why Online Meetings Are Better Than Face to Face Meetings

I’m a huge fan of webinars, so in this post, I’m going to give you 10 reasons why I think they’re great, and I’m going to do my best to stay away from why I don’t like face-to-face meetings. In the last 5 years, I’ve delivered more than 100 webinars, and in the process I’ve seen numerous ways for others to save £thousands.

Webinars are cheaper, quicker, to the point, and use people’s time more effectively. They allow us to multiply the value of the webinar content because we don’t need to spend money on employing a traditional sales team.

What is a Webinar?

Webinars are live meetings or training sessions that take place over the internet. When you’re in a webinar, you will be able to see the presenter’s screen and their face. Depending on the software that you use, you will be able to engage with your presenter, often through audio or text chatting. I’ve seen webinar software improve a lot over the last few years, as in the past it was quite unstable and not that helpful. This has changed, it’s so reliable now that IT departments no longer have webinar panic attacks and I usually get at least a 95% connection rate with webinar guests.

So, why do I love webinars? 10 reasons...

1. Convenience. You can attend a webinar from your smartphone or tablet, on the move! Apps for all the major webinar providers are pretty good - so as long as you have an internet connection, a device, and earphones, you should be good to go.
2. Convenience. It is worth saying again! You can participate in a webinar from a location of your choosing, be it your home, your office, or even alongside a client.
3. Convenience. If there’s a part of the session that’s not relevant to you, you can dip out and do other work, like check your emails. No one will know! This is quite hard to do during face-to-face meetings!
4. Convenience. If you can’t attend at the allotted time it’s often not a major problem as you will (depending on the service) get sent a recording afterwards! No need to read the minutes of a meeting, just view the recording.
5. Convenience. There’s no need to make arrangements for external guests. With webinars you do not have to book a meeting room or parking spaces for your guests. You don’t need to arrange lunch, or teas and coffees. All attendees join from wherever they are, and you can have many more guests than would typically fit in a boardroom!
6. Convenience. Time Savings. Because there is no need to travel to participate in a webinar, you save valuable time in your busy schedule, as well as the time of the other attendees too! Imagine pulling in 12 people from across the organisation (even if it is just on the same campus), that’s at least a 30 min saving for each attendee. You’ve just saved your organisation 6 hours! If the hourly rate all in is £30, you just saved £180! Multiply that by the number of meetings you have a year and you can begin to see why webinars are a much better option.
7. Effectiveness. Take pressure away from public transport, roads and parking spaces. No travel means no emissions, no frustration, no change for the pay and display, no rushing around and no need to get stressed!
8. Effectiveness. Cost. You do not travel to participate in a webinar, so you save those costs. You will also see that the cost of products and services will reduce if you encourage sales webinars rather than meetings. You can pass this on to your customers and make more sales at the same time.
9. Effectiveness. Use of space. No need to take up the space of a meeting room, in fact, you can host your webinar from home and nobody has to know!
10. This quote: “Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organisations habitually engage in.....” This quote speaks volumes to me, as I know that meetings are not as effective as webinars.

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