Most conference calls – even when they involve participants from different organisations – are polite, orderly and even-tempered. However, occasionally you might be on a call that involves hostile participants or other types of difficulties – such as:

• Nasty participants (hostile, rude, unhelpful and the like)
• You can’t get a word in
• Someone wants to derail the process
• Hidden or inconsistent agendas
• Personal attacks on you

This sort of call requires particular skills.

Observe three guiding principles when handling difficult calls:

1. Knowledge is power
2. The earlier the better
3. Formality and structure give control

Knowledge is power

First, the more you know about what you’re likely to face, the easier it is to manage it effectively and still meet your outcomes. This knowledge comes in many forms:

• Knowing the participants on the call
• Knowing what they really want out of the call
• Knowing who’s really got the power to make decisions (it might not be the person with the most senior job title)
• In a negotiation, knowing their walk-away position and their “BATNA” (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)
• Knowing your walk-away position and BATNA
• Knowing who is on your side, both openly and secretly
• Knowing your options if things start getting out of hand
• Even just knowing you’ll be facing a difficult call is part of the battle won.

The earlier the better

The more you can anticipate the potential problems and plan for them, the easier it is to manage them. There’s nothing worse than being caught off guard when somebody “innocently” springs a potential deal-breaking question right in the middle of a call that was going smoothly!

You can do a number of things to prevent – or at least minimise – the problems before the call:

• Do more background research yourself, so you’re clear about your facts.
• Do more background research about the other side (if there is one), so you understand their position as well.
• Ask them to honestly share their issues before the call, to help you prepare (and of course you do the same for them).
• Communicate in other ways before the call – by e-mail, one-on-one telephone calls, face-to-face meetings, or whatever is most appropriate – to understand or even resolve some of the issues.
• Enlist the help of people who can assist before or during the call to resolve the issues.

Formality and structure give control

Formal meeting procedures are the chair’s biggest weapon when facing a difficult or hostile meeting. All participants must speak “through the chair”, which means the chair can regulate who speaks and for how long. The chair can reprimand participants for breaching points of order and, in some instances, has the procedural power to expel people from the meeting.

However, formal meeting procedure is becoming a lost art in business and may not be practicable to implement for certain types of conference calls.

Nonetheless, the principle that formality and structure give control is extremely relevant and can be implemented in other ways where a call might become difficult. For instance:

• Certain technology will by their nature give the chair that level of control.
• If participants agree to follow a conference calling etiquette they are less likely to misbehave and can be called upon to adhere to their agreed level of behaviour.
• A structured agenda gives less scope for participants dragging the call off track or following their own agendas.
• If participants argue with each other, keep interrupting or talking over each other, stop the discussion and introduce a debate format (For instance, each party has 60 seconds to put their point of view without interruption).

Finally, a lack of formality or structure – for instance having no appointed chair or no agenda – will increase the risk of difficulties.

Want to make better conference calls?

My book Best Practice Conference Calls will teach you everything you need to know about being professional, credible and productive on your next conference call. The article above is from the chapter about handling difficult conference calls.

Find out more about the book here.

One of my predictions for 2010 is that we’ll see a massive growth in the use of virtual meetings – in the form of conference calls, teleseminars, video conferencing, webinars and the like. Virtual meetings save time, but they can still be time-wasters if they’re not run well – and few are!

I recently read an interesting blog post by Mitch Joel about 15 ways to have a better meeting. Both the post and the comments are worth a read.

My friend Brandon Munro and I have written an e-book “Best Practice Conference Calls”, which helps you participate in (and chair) conference calls more effectively.

You can get the e-book here or buy it in printed form here.

Even if you don’t get the entire e-book, please download our one-page conference call etiquette guide, with our compliments.

One of my predictions for 2010 is that we’ll see a massive growth in the use of virtual meetings – in the form of conference calls, teleseminars, video conferencing, webinars and the like. This is probably not a surprising prediction, because these technologies have been gradually gaining momentum over the last few years. But I’m willing to go out on a limb and suggest that 2010 will be the year they reach a tipping point. In fact, I’ll predict that face-to-face meetings will decline as a result.

There are a number of things that make me confident this will be the case, including:

• Greater access to reliable broadband Internet connections.
• Organisations wanting to trim expenses and cut costs.
• Better, affordable technology for virtual meetings.
• Educators and businesspeople becoming more comfortable with the technology.
• Greater reliance on outsourcing, off-shoring, working across remote offices and telecommuting.
• The higher cost and inconvenience of travel.

If you want to be aligned with this trend, you must learn how to perform in an electronic meeting room, whether as a meeting participant, a chairperson or a presenter.

My friend Brandon Munro and I have written an e-book “Best Practice Conference Calls”, which helps you participate in (and chair) conference calls more effectively. You can get the e-book here.

Even if you don’t get the entire e-book, please download our one-page conference call etiquette guide, with our compliments.

Conference calls are easy, cheap and accessible to all businesses. If you’re not using them already, you’re falling behind.

MP3 File

There are a variety of technology options available for you to conduct conference calls, teleseminars and webinars. They can range from a simple two-way telephone call with participants on speaker phones at each end; through to calls with hundreds of participants in different locations, with visuals as well. Yours will probably fall somewhere in between.

When evaluating conference call services, it’s difficult to simply choose one and define it as “best”, because the services vary depending on your requirements. Here are some factors to consider:

• Hosting cost: How much do you pay for the call service itself? And is this a single up-front fee, a fixed monthly subscription, or a per-use fee?
• Call costs: How much do participants themselves pay to be on the call?
• Connection type: How do participants connect to the call? Is it over the Internet or via a regular phone line? If the latter, are they doing it using a land line, a mobile/cell phone, using a free 1-800 number or a toll-free number, by making an international phone call, or calling from a hotel room?
• Medium: Is the conference call conducted using the standard telephone system, or is it done over the Internet? The standard telephone system is usually very reliable, and is more than enough for typical voice conversations. However, Internet phone calls can be cheaper – or even free.
• Meeting size: Is this for a few people, a medium size group or a large group? Some conference call technology limits the number of callers. Even if there’s no limit, with a bigger group you might choose a system that gives you more control over the callers.
• Call setup: Is it quick and easy to plan a call, or does it require a lot of advance planning – and perhaps booking a time slot for using the service? If you don’t require the service for informal calls at a short notice, this might not make any difference to you.
• Scheduling support: Would it be useful to use a conference call service that automatically e-mails all participants with the call-in information, sends them regular reminders leading up to the call, and perhaps even sends an automatic follow-up e-mail after the call? These services are available, though they typically cost more. So if you don’t need them, you might choose a cheaper service.
• Call control: What control do you want over the call? Some services offer additional features, such as recording, “muting” participants, a chat window, the ability to show visuals, and so on.
• Operator support: Do you require an operator to assist you in managing the call? This probably isn’t required for small meetings, but can be very useful as the group gets bigger, especially if it’s not a tight-knit group of people or you know it’s a controversial topic.

Would you like to know more?

My friend Brandon and I have created an audio program The Seven Biggest Mistakes People Make With Conference Calls. For a limited time, we’re giving the audio program away to anybody who asks for it. It’s an MP3 audio file, so you can download it right away.

So if you’re interested in improving your conference call skills, get the audio program here at www.betterconferencecalls.com.