Pick up the phone

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing (highly recommended, by the way) wrote a great article recently regarding technology and meetings. With gas prices and time being so valuable, small business owners need to start thinking outside the box with respect to meetings.

Although face-to-face meetings are sometimes warranted, it is my experience that many meetings could generally be held over the phone. Think about it - let's say you have a 1/2 hour meeting schedule across town to discuss a new idea. If it is a 15 minute drive to the meeting you might leave a 1/2 before the meeting so you're not late, hold your 1/2 meeting, then drive back to your office. For that 1/2 meeting, you just burned 1 1/4 hours, not to mention the gas burned to get there and back from the meeting. You have to ask yourself - was it that critical to meet face-to-face? There is plenty of inexpensive technology resources available, such as Zoho Meeting and FreeConference.com, if additional resources are needed for a meeting.