Marco Gutierrez is a former chemist living in Mexico.

With a Masters degree in Business Innovation as a background, he started a language school but has been out of it for 3 years. He is now relaunching it.

He realized that there is now a lot more competition in this field than before. Consequently, he developed the idea of offering added value to employees by developing their personal skills while teaching them a new language.

Marco read the Business Model Generation book and did some of the exercises already before our work together.

When I made the offer of a Free Current Business Model session, he showed his interest. We got on a Skype call, then started the process.

If you read the previous blog posts, then you will be familiar with the following steps. However, each process and the lessons learned are all somewhat different.

I first asked Marco to fill the Business Model Canvas and to then send me a photo when he was done.

I transferred it to Mural.ly so that we could both work on it and add more details to the canvas in the following iterations.

I reviewed each component of his Business Model, and added my comments in gray. You can view the image below in full size by simply clicking on it.

We got on a visual online  meeting using GotoMeeting. Notice, in dark blue, a couple of key actions to take in order to move forward. We also clarified what gives Marco credibility (how he can give proof of the value he’s offering – to the right of the canvas), as well as assumptions to validate (in red).

We did the math of costs and revenues by adding concrete numbers from experience to validate whether this model is financially viable.

Normally the free process from the special offer would have ended here, but since we still had a lot to discuss, I decided to offer him another free session. The most important points about this step are that we validated the assumptions from iteration #2, and expanded on the channels.

After iteration 3, I asked Marco for some feedback:

What did you think would be most valuable, when we started?

For me it was to explain to someone else (different than my inner relationship circle) an idea. When you explain an idea you are passionate about to someone you are related to, the feedback is not always “impartial” since there are some feelings.

In terms of the canvas, I would say the fact of clarifying customer segments with targeted questions. It’s not always easy to describe your customer segments since you see your product as something for everyone.

What was indeed most valuable after 4 iterations?

Clarifying the idea of the business.

Any other comments and feedback?

It is great that you do this! It is a lot of help when you are dealing with “new” ideas. I have no complaints and no suggestion since everything was great to me. Thanks indeed.

We finally got on a short Google Hangout to talk about his experience of going through this process.

Do you have a business or a business idea? Request your free Business Model Review to get help clarifying and improving your business model. Simply comment below and we will email you within 24 hours.

We reconnected recently, and he took me up on the Free Business Model Canvas offer.

Lead-Web is an internet marketing and web development business located in Montreal. They offer lead generation, social media and other internet business solutions.

Louis is the President of Lead Web, and he won several awards in 2011:

• Best Startup Innovation in Canada (Spin Master Fund / CYBF)
• Best Startup Business Plan (Yes Montreal)
• Best Montreal Startup (Montreal Mayor Foundation)
• Best Montreal Startup (Quebec Entrepreneurship Contest)
• Best Local Startup (SDEVM)

He sent me a photo of his canvas, and I transferred it as is to Mural.ly. I found some logos for Google, Zoho, cdec and SAJE and I added them to the mural.

I invited Louis to the mural, and before I had time to review his business model, he added several elements to complete it. You can see his changes in the mural below.

• Key resources: Kall8, Eckler, Activix, Google Engage and Blanchette Vachon.
• Key activities: Consultation + Turnkey marketing products -> Retainer.

I then reviewed his business model:

• Customer Segments: His customer segment was ”Small & medium businesses with more  than 10 employees that are looking to perform better online and are willing to have an internet department”. I considered that most businesses are looking to perform better online, and this was not narrowing his target market down enough.
• Value proposition: I presented his value proposition differently. I was considering that he was offering consultation, turnkey marketing solutions and reports to help his clients grow their business with an internet department.
• Other comments: I added several comments in blue, challenging his target market, and suggesting other changes. Take a minute to go through them now by clicking on the image below to view it in full size.

 We finally had an online call (see the image below):

• Customer Segments: We narrowed the target market, clarified it and added examples of industries.
• Customer Relationships: It became clear that it is a service business. Consequently, the type of relationship is Personal assistance.
• Value Proposition: We detailed each of the services.
• Channels: He is also communicating with clients via email and Skype.
• Key Activities: These are the important activities that his business needs to do to serve his Customer Segment with these Value Propositions. This is not what he understood when doing his draft, so we did it again and filled this section based on that definition.
• Key Resources and Key Partners: There was a bit of confusion around what is a resource and what is a partner. We worked on both of those, and placed the elements in their appropriate box.
• Cost Structure: Louis had already done great work detailing all of his expenses in a spreadsheet, so we simply added a few details to each main category of expense. Unfortunately, I cannot share with you the actual spreadsheet with the numbers.
• Revenue Streams: We eliminated one of the revenue streams (% commissions on sales), and clarified the difference between the $1200/week retainer and the $2500/week retainer.

What you see above is the final result of our work together. I then asked Louis for a bit of feedback:

Tell us a bit about you and your business
Lead-Web is an internet agency focusing on improving the performance of sales internet department.

What prompted you to do some work on your business model?
To have a better understanding of my situation and get a better business positioning

What has been most valuable for you throughout the work that we did together?
The canvas is a good mind map to really understand how we make money. Its a great tool for new employees.

Would you mind describing the process that we went through – how I helped you clarify and improve your business model?
First we went for the value proposition. It was the area we worked the most. I was able to really clarify my added value to customers and the clients. Second, we went for partners and ressources. We made a clear cut between the two.

Who would you recommend this service to?
Any start-up looking to clarify and optimize their business model.

Do you have a business or a business idea? Request your free Business Model Review to get help clarifying and improving your business model. Simply comment below and we will email you within 24 hours.

Teresa Ciscar

She connects clients with resources related to marketing and communications. She lives in Spain and speaks Spanish, English and German. Her background is industrial engineering, in the field of renewable energy.

We went through a two-iteration process to clarify her business model.

After an initial call, I asked her to do a first pass on the Business Model Canvas. She sent me a photo of what she came up with:

I created a new mural in Mural.ly, a new online visual collaborative tool, and transferred the information from photo she sent me.

I then reviewed each component, and added comments and questions (in blue).

I usually focus this revision on the Customer Segments and Value Proposition, which are in my opinion the two most important components of a business model. You need to have a clear target market and to know what they  need (and what you’re offering them to meet those needs).

And with most people I have worked with, Teresa’s target market was too general. She also had two (Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses), and I recommended that she focus on one to start with.

I invited her to join the mural, so that she could add her comments. She addressed my questions and comments (in orange).

The next step was the online call. We discussed each component, and put more emphasis on Customer Segments, Value Proposition and Revenue Streams.

After sending her the handout of all the iterations, I finally asked her for a bit of feedback:

What did you think would be most valuable, when we started?
Learning about the business model canvas applied to my business idea.

What was indeed most valuable after 4 iterations?
It has been very detailed oriented, giving many ideas, advices and extra information. It has been talking about reality and it has put me in action

Do you have a business or a business idea? Request your free Business Model Review to get help clarifying and improving your business model. Simply comment below and we will email you within 24 hours.

The offer ends on May 3rd at midnight Eastern time, so apply now if you’re interested!

Simply post a comment below to apply, or get more information first.

One of the teams that already took advantage of this offer  allowed me to share with you the work that we have done together so far.

Alexander Shai Lipkovich and Alyse (Laura) Wonder both live in Montreal and are considering starting a socially responsible dog walker business.

They are in the concept phase, and needed to figure out if this was a viable business to avoid wasting time and money.

Here is the process that we went through so far:

1. Preparation call: Shai and I had a 30-min call to gather information about his projects, and which one to use the Business Model Canvas on.
2. Initial draft: Shai and Alyse did a first pass on the canvas by themselves.
3. Iteration 1 – my feedback: I reviewed their draft and challenged some assumptions and added questions to the canvas.
4. Iteration 2 – more offline discussion: They addressed some of the questions I had by adding their answers to the canvas.
5. Iteration 3 – online call: During the 90-min visual call, we discussed the Customer Segments, Value Proposition and Revenue Streams.
6. Iteration 4 – face-to-face meeting: We locked in the Customer Segments, Value Proposition and Revenue Streams, and worked on some of the other components. We reached a point where they need to validate assumptions and mitigate the biggest risks, before we can keep on building their business model.

Preparation Call

Shai applied for the free business model session via the initial blog post that offered it. We connected on Skype, then talked for about a half hour about his projects.

Out of those, I realized that one project could definitely benefit from additional clarity: the one about socially responsible dog walkers. He mentioned their potential collaboration with SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and introduced his partner Laura.

I accepted to work with them on this project and help them clarify and validate their business model, in exchange for feedback and a testimonial – as mentioned in the explanation blog post.

I then asked them to print out the Business Model Canvas and, using post-its, to fill it out as well as they could.

Initial draft (Shai/Laura)

A few hours only after our call, Shai sent me a photo of what they had done.

However, realizing that what he sent was hard to read, he decided to create a mind map of it.

I took this draft and transferred it to a digital canvas in Mural.ly, to prepare for the following iterations.

If you go back to the mind map above, you will notice that they had listed a few potential issues. Those elements do not fit in one of the components of the business model canvas, so I added post-its in Mural.ly in the blank space below it.

Iteration 1 – review (Fluent Brain)

Once the canvas was in Mural.ly, I reviewed it and added questions and comments (in gray). I also added a few images. The elements in green are things that I added that I thought were potentially missing.

Iteration 2 – more questions and comments (Shai/Laura & Fluent Brain)

Shai and Laura answered a few of my questions that I had posted to the mural. I also added a few more, mostly on the Value Proposition and the Potential Issues. This iteration was short and not very substantial, but it played its role – every question counts, every thought counts.

Iteration 3 – online call (Shai/Laura & Fluent Brain)

We connected online with GotoMeeting. Shai and Laura were in the same room, and I was in my home office. We could see each other because we each had a webcam, and they could see my screen.

I had Mural.ly open and was modifying the canvas as we were discussing. Even though they could open it at the same time and see my changes live on their end, it was better for them to look at my screen.

Most of the call was spent talking about the Customer Segments, which was important to nail before looking at the rest. It was decided to target “SPCA dog owners with a job who live in Montreal along a metro line”.

We also touched on the Value Proposition and the Revenue Streams.

I extracted some information about each component from the Business Model Generation book, and put them in a mural. I shared that mural with them, and we referred to it during the session.

You can listen to the entire recording of that call:

Iteration 4 – face-to-face meeting

Laura suggested that we meet, so this last iteration happened in person in a coffee shop. However, it could just as well have been done online like the previous iteration.

We cleaned up the Customer Segments component, and clarified the Value proposition. We worked a bit on the Key Partners and Key Resources. We listed a few potential issues that arose.

The second half of this meeting was focused on doing the math, i.e. validating that it makes sense financially.

It is now in their hands

The main critical assumption that they now need to validate is whether group walks are possible with SPCA dogs. These dogs are typically more aggressive than “normal” dogs and less able to walk with other dogs. If group walks are not an option, they might have to reconsider the whole business model and see if it’s still viable.

It’s better to know now than 6-months in the project, or worse!

Once this important point has been addressed, then we will keep working together and I will update you on our work together!

I asked them to provide some feedback about the process

Here is what Laura said:

I think the work we did together was very valuable. I have no clue about how much it could be priced, but definitely the value of this work for us was doing together a reality check before starting. Pointing out the flaws, the limits and the strenghts of the initial idea and the possible issues.

So saving money/time and maybe avoiding a flop.

Planning such a business project on the paper is very important to have a wider view (everything seems doable when you have an idea and you can get excited and lose the sense of reality).

I would suggest a similar work to every start-up business.

In my opinion for us the still partially blurry thing was the financial part and the sessions together helped us to focus it. Also it was important to highligth the advantages for each part involved (SPCA, dogwalkers, the business) and understand better the market and the competitors, what they offer and what we can offer instead. Which it could be the plus-value offered by our business.

Shai answered my feedback questions individually:

What did you think would be most valuable, when we started?

Clarifying my business model. Getting a second opinion.

What was indeed most valuable after 4 iterations?

• Thinking realistically about my business plan, taking it from the idea world to reality. Narrowing it down to a “almost-conceived baby” from a very wide and abstract idea
• Being able to create financial estimations more easily and realistically
• Being able to share the business plan with others – great for finding investors, financing, BDC, etc.
• Being able to involve others’ opinions and points of view in the conception of the business – involving more than one brain in the process.

Any other comments and feedback?

I found the process to be quite fun. It was cool to brainstorm with you and Laura and massage the idea from all kinds of directions. Also emotionally I felt like my heart sinks when it seemed like it wouldn’t work out and a sliver of hope when I saw that maybe it would.

Do you wish to clarify and improve your business model (how your business makes money) ? Simply comment below to apply (make sure to enter a valid e-mail address), and we will contact you within 24 hours.

]]> http://fluentbrain.com/blog/free-infographic-how-to-capture-notes-during-1-on-1-online-calls/feed/ 2 http://fluentbrain.com/blog/how-to-produce-professional-pdf-handouts-from-your-mind-maps/ http://fluentbrain.com/blog/how-to-produce-professional-pdf-handouts-from-your-mind-maps/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 02:17:25 +0000 Matt http://fluentbrain.com/?p=3011 Most mind mappers simply export their huge one-page mind map to PDF or to an image.

The map contains way too much information. It is hard for other people to understand it, and know where to look. There are just too many branches.

Also, most maps that I come across do not look professional and attractive, such as the example below:

Would you like to be able to create beautiful professional handouts easily from your mind maps? Below is an example of what you can produce, in three easy steps.

Keep reading to learn how!

1. Build your mind maps

If you are using Mindjet or XMind, you can download the free Fluent Brain mind map themes which offer clear hierarchy.

Add images

If you are fast with the computer, you can add images to your maps as you build them. Otherwise, add images once your maps are complete. Google Images works well, though stock websites have a larger selection of quality images.

Be careful not to overload your maps with images –  one for the central topic, one for each main branch and an image on a few of the sub branches is usually enough.

Use Powerpoint’s photo effect or a similar effect with other presentation or image software to easily improve the format of those images.

Break down the information into sub-maps

If you are creating a mind map in a live session with one of your clients, then you will most likely not have the time to break down the information in multiple maps as you are capturing it. What you can do is prepare the maps that you need ahead of time, if you happen to know what the topics discussed will be.

If not, simply take a few minutes to break it down into a few maps of reasonable size (3-9 main branches). Make sure that it can be comfortably viewed on a relatively small screen, such as a laptop.

Then, link your maps together visually. The actual link within the mind mapping software isn’t important. What matters, is that we can see a hyperlink in the parent map to its child (detail) map.

Resize long parent branches

Long topics that have children make that side of the map wider.

And a wider map makes the text smaller in the final handout, which is harder to read. So it’s better to keep the size of the maps under control. Resize long “parent branches” (branches who have children), but don’t make them taller than the sum of their children branches.

Resize long leaves as well.

2. Create the handout

Export the maps to images

From your mind mapping software, you now need to export the maps to images.

For a document that is 16 x 10 inches, generate PNG images that are 4000 pixels wide. That way, the quality of the PDF will be high enough so that when you zoom in, the images will be crisp. They can also be JPEG images – just avoid bitmaps, as they are uncompressed and their file size is too large.

For a document in A4 format, generate images of about 3000 pixels wide.

Create a Powerpoint file

Or use similar presentation software. Here are three Powerpoint templates that we have created for client handouts, that you can download for free:

The template used for the example handout in this article (16 x 10 inches)

A regular template (16 x 10 inches)

A template in A4 format

If the handout is meant to be viewed on the screen, the PDF should have a size of 16 inches by 10 (a ratio of 1.6) or greater to ensure high quality.

If you are creating your own Powerpoint file, make sure to disable image compression.

Add pages

Add as many pages as you need for the handout. Count one page for the cover, one for the table of contents, and one for each map image.

Add a cover page

The templates above offer three types of cover pages. In the Demo Mind Map Handout (the first template above), the cover page also acts as a table of contents. If it is the handout for a meeting, it is useful to add the pictures and names of the participants on the cover page. But keep it simple and light.

Add a table of contents, or what I call a “menu page”

This is the page that links to all or most of the other pages. You can use the same Powerpoint photo effect as mentioned before in the “Build your maps” section.

You can add hyperlinks directly on images and text, but you might want to add a transparent rectangle and bring it on top of images and text, and add a hyperlink to that rectangle. That makes a clickable region in your document.

Fill the content pages

First, since the images are 4000 pixels wide, they will be multiple times the size of the canvas. Resize them to fit the canvas.

Second, adjust the size of the mind map images so that their text size is all about the same.

Next, remove the alternate text. To do this, right-click on the image, select the option “Size and position”. Then, under the Alternate Text tab, remove the text in the field below.

In the top left corner, add back arrows, that simulate an internet browser. People are used to clicking the “Back” button on their browser to navigate back to the page they were before. Add an hyperlink on that arrow to the table of contents, or to the parent page.

Download the arrows that we use, for free.

Use breadcrumbs if you have parent and child maps

Whenever one of your maps is linking to a submap, then breadcrumbs make it easier for the readers to know where they are.

In the example below, the house represents the table of contents, then each icon after that is a different level. We are 4 levels deep in the mind map hierarchy.

A best practice is to use the same image as the one that is in the middle of each mind map.

3. Generate the PDF

I have experimented with various “PDF printers”, but none work as well as Adobe Acrobat to generate high-resolution PDFs. Powerpoint itself only generates low resolution PDFs. Getting the Acrobat plugin is definitely worth it if you want the result to be good, particularly for the images and when zooming in.

If you find a free option that generates PDFs in 300 pixels per inch and higher, please let me know!

Validate the result

Open the PDF, and test all hyperlinks. Viewing it outside of Powerpoint helps to gain some perspective on your work. Make sure that the final result is looking good. If so, then you’re done!

As a visual thinker, we tend to have a specialty, to revolve around one or a few particular visual techniques and categories of visual thinking.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of those:

• Doodling
• Mind mapping
• Graphic facilitation
• Graphic recording
• Presentation design
• Cartoons
• Video infographics
• Infographics
• Concept maps
• Data visualization
• Charts & graphs
• Diagrams
• Flow charts
• Sketchnotes
• Graphic design

I believe that as visual thinkers, we have a lot to gain by connecting with other types of visual thinkers, and sharing ideas and resources. So back in December, I founded a not-for-profit (though not legally so, yet) community of visual thinkers called the Visual Thinking Hub.

Below is what this Hub is all about:

We welcome people across industries and the range of expertise: mind mapping, sketching, infographics, data visualization, presentations, visual software companies, teachers, business consultants & coaches – basically, anyone with an interest in visual thinking. 

The Visual Thinking Hub helps visual thinkers to improve their skills and accomplish more by connecting online, sharing ideas and co-creating valuable content with other visual thinkers. 

Weekly tele-conferences are organized each Wednesday at 7pm GMT/UTC. The purpose of those calls is to meet other members, build relationships and share insights and resources.

We are currently working on the website, which is VisualThinkingHub.org. It will soon contain a directory of members, a visual list of resources, and valuable blog articles around visual thinking.

So far, we’ve had two “homes”, a Facebook group page and a Google+ Community. In total, the Hub has about 200 members right now, and people are signing up every day.

If you’re interested in visual thinking, go ahead and request to join one or both of our groups!

• Facebook group page
• Google+ Community

Typically, when a meeting needs to be organized, people will simply send an email and mention a few days when they are available.

Then, this is followed by back-and-forth email communication.

Often, these emails are spread out over a few days. As a consequence, by the time that you get all the answers, it might be too late.

If the members of the team are spread out in different time zones, it is even worse. Responsiveness goes down, and the time it takes to schedule a meeting goes up.

Doodle cuts down on the email exchange by providing a simple way for each attendee to check when they are available.

With Doodle, you can indicate time slots where you might be available. By email though, people usually give only their preferences, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they cannot be available.

At this point, the negotiation (or pressure) begins until one or a few of the members modify their schedule to make it work.

I realized that, if you are not using Doodle or a similar tool, a simple table of everyone’s availability helps to visualize which times can potentially work. It doesn’t remove the necessary negotiation and schedule change by one or a few team members, but it certainly makes the situation clearer and easier to navigate.

Create a new document in a word processing tool, or a spreadsheet. Make the rows the participants, and the columns the potential meeting times. Send it as an image (like the example above) by email to the team, and it will accelerate the process.

In some cases, there is actually no time slot where everyone is available. Whether you are using Doodle or not, this is a real problem. You can then either offer new times for the team to consider, or do the meeting anyway without one person.

Does this resonate with you? Do you have other valuable insights to share? Go ahead and comment below!

I recently had to make recommendations of free online collaboration software for an international consulting firm. The tools were to be used within a small team of 8 people. My first question for them was, what do you need to be able to do?

Based on their needs, I broke it down in three categories:

1. Team task management
2. File sharing
3. Knowledge management

Team task management

They wanted team members to be able to assign tasks to others, attach files, and add comments. I recommended these three tools:

Asana is free for teams that have up to 30 people. For more than 30 people, they charge for it.

Do.com is also a freemium model. It does pretty much the same thing that Asana does, but has a few different features. The free version allows for 1000 contacts and 10 deals.

Basecamp isn’t free, but at $30/month for up to 15 projects, it’s very reasonable. I find the team task management to be significantly better with Asana and Do.com. However, Basecamp does have features that the other two don’t. It contains a calendar, and file management.

File sharing

Online file sharing tools become handy when needing to send and receive files to and from your clients, as well as within your team. Here are the three best options in my opinion. I personally used the first two extensively.

Google Drive lets you store all your files including documents, photos, videos and Google Docs online and access them anywhere. You get 5 Gb of free storage. You need to pay to get more.

Dropbox lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. You can also share files with other people easily. It is free for 2Gb of data. You can get up to 18Gb of free space if you refer other users to Dropbox and spread the word. They charge for extra storage.

Box.net lets you store all of your content online, so you can access, manage and share it from anywhere. This tool is only free for personal use. For a team, it is $15/user/month.

Knowledge management

To put your brains together and capture ideas, issues, questions, websites and resources, I recommended the following tools.

Mural.ly is a new online visual collaboration tool that allows you to brainstorm on and share ideas. You simply drag n’ drop documents, websites, images,… You can comment, add post-its, stickers, etc.. They have a mobile phone app, and they’re working on an iPad version as well. I think that this is the best tool for the job. It is free right now, though when they launch officially (they’re still in beta), it might be a few dollars a month. Though very simple to use, it has a slight learning curve for people who are not tech-savvy.

Wikis are great online collaborative tools to capture, organize and communicate collective knowledge. Here are a few good free open-source wikis: MediaWiki (it was developed for Wikipedia originally), Tiki Wiki and DokuWiki.

Evernote Business, at $10/user/month, is an interesting option. I have started using the personal version, and am getting to like it more and more to capture ideas. It can actually search the text that is in your images! The business version makes the sharing of information in your organization that much more effective.

Would you recommend other tools not listed here, and why? What other categories do you see for online collaboration?

I will talk about online meeting software in another post. But for now, I want to share with you the Dos and Don’ts of online meetings – in regards to the audio-visual component.

1. Wear a headset

Using a headset for your online meeting is best.

It ensures that you don’t generate any echo. Feedback (echo) is produced when the sound from your speakers feeds into your microphone. It is, to say the least, very annoying during online calls.

With a headset, the quality of your voice will also be higher. Others on the call will hear you well.

If you run a lot of meetings over the Internet with international clients, then investing in a good headset is a must.

Here is the one that I am currently using: Logitech H555.

My friend and mentor Danny Iny (Firepole Marketing) recommended it to me, after using it himself. He purchased it following a recommendation from Mitch Joel.

I bought it on that recommendation, without reading reviews. I recently took a look at the reviews, and they are mixed. Some people love it, some people don’t.

My experience with this headset has been positive. The microphone records good quality sound, and the headphones are good as well. I like that I can fold it and put it easily in my laptop bag. It can sometimes become a bit uncomfortable on the left ear after wearing it for a few hours, because of the extra weight of the microphone on that side.

2. Really, get a headset. Otherwise, microphone + headphones will do.

Only a small percentage of clients and people I had online meetings with use a headset.

However, I find that it makes a noticeable difference. It removes some of irritation from poor sound and feedback.

The second-best option is to have a microphone – either integrated in your computer, or separate – and to use headphones. The headphones are important to avoid producing feedback, just like with a headset.

If you go for the microphone/headphones combination, then make sure to have a microphone that is good enough so that others can hear you clearly.

As for the headphones, any type will do, even the low-quality ones. It is not as important as the input device (the microphone).

3. Mute yourself when not talking

Especially if there is feedback or if the environment you are in is noisy.

If you don’t have a headset, nor headphones (hence using a microphone and listening through speakers), then you MUST mute yourself. It is almost guaranteed that when others speak, your speakers and microphone will create a feedback loop.

If you have people or things in your office, house or immediate environment (or not so immediate, such as a plane) that make noise, then it is your responsibility to mute yourself when you are not talking.

Muting yourself when not speaking is a good habit to build, even if you’re using the setups #1 and #2 above.

4. Say Cheese! Show yourself with a camera

It is well-known that face-to-face meetings allow for more rapport building and trust between people. You see and can unconsciously (or consciously for some) analyse their body language. It is a more intimate type of relationship.

Why not bring this component to online calls as well?

I suggest that you purchase a $50-100 camera, and your meetings will also be more enjoyable.

5. Avoid being on a wireless connection

High speed Internet cable connections are about 10 times faster than wireless connections. Enough said? : ) Thing is, even with high-speed Internet with a cable, the speed can vary a lot and the quality of your audio and video be poor. It is never guaranteed, but a broadband cable connection is clearly a better option than wireless.

It does work on mobile devices with 3G/4G, and I had several calls where I could see and hear those people well. It is really not always the case, so that’s playing with fire. Better to put all the chances in your favor to have a good connection by avoiding being on a wireless.

What has been your experience with online meetings so far? What other tips would you give the other readers? Go ahead and leave a comment below!