Use conference calls to optimize expertise

In a recent blog on improving a business’ bottom line through conversion-driven sales campaigns, marketing gurus at Optimize Smart conclude their article with the app AWOL Academy. After all, no business has every knowledge base covered. And the fresh perspective of an outside expert can be as useful as the ideas.

But hiring experts is a significant investment, and if you want the highest return on investment, you have to be prepared to engage as many people in your organization with the expert as possible using the most effective communication technology available, like webinars and conference calls.

Another way to fully engage your staff to improve your bottom line is to realize that they too are "experts" in their own way.

Value your own experts

The temptation when bringing in outside experts is for senior management to make the pilgrimage to the mountaintop to be with the "holy one," leaving the general staff out of the equation.

"Oh, this is probably over their heads anyways."

Your staff may not be experts in designing conversion-driven sales campaigns, but they are experts in your customers, your value proposition, and how your company closes its sales.

Or doesn't close its sales.

Engaging your staff on a conference call with your marketing guru will at the very least give the outside expert a direct opportunity to find out what is really going on with your relationship with your customers. If you picked a good guru, you will notice they spend more time listening, than talking to your staff.

Conference calls are great for this kind of two-way communication.

Find the right solutions

Once you figure out what the issues are, it is time to find solutions. Conference calls can help you do this in two ways.

First, hiring an expert is expensive. That's how they convince you they are so good! Forget their hourly rate. What if you want the best expert? Then you have to fly them in from that mountaintop. Conference calls are the absolute cheapest way to get a group of people together, whether you want to cut hard travel costs, or just reduce the time wasted getting to a meeting in one building or city.

Second, the audio quality is crystal clear on a group telephone call. We are not talking Skype Echo here, or robotic-voiced VOIP calls, but a real live "tele" conference. That crystal clear audio promotes excellent communication, because everybody can hear the subtle nuances needed to fully understand each other.

Conference calls are fabulous at two-way communication, and that's what you need to fully understand problems from many perspectives, and build consensus on solutions.

Share the wealth

Ok, you hired your expert. They listened to your local experts. You used teleconferencing to optimize all this expertise. You put your heads together and came up with a plan.

Now you've gone for lunch with senior management to refine the ideas into a conversion-driven sales campaign, and set success indicators. It will be an expensive lunch, but hey, you dodged two first-class business airfares with the conference call technology, and the calls themselves were free.

After all, senior management should at least get some perks, right?

Lunch is going well, and over that limone gelato, you're deciding how you will divide up claiming the credit for your anticipated increased profits. The expert said that boosting your sales conversion rate 50% could boost profits 500%.

"Well, I found the expert."       

"Yeah, but I thought of the conference call idea."

"I, um, chose the restaurant..."

When you get back to the office, it will be time to implement your strategy. They say "don't forget what got you there." That means the humble conference call. Teleconferencing is an ideal tool for running conversion-based sales campaigns, not just designing them.

There's no free lunch in this world, but conference calls come close.