Hands up who is tired of online meetings and conferences? I know I am. And I bet you are too.
I wanted to have an honest conversation about this.
When lockdown happened in March 2020, I remember being happy to stay at home, learning a new way of working and meeting people, having virtual after work drinks, spending time with my husband, son and even the dog got to have regular walks in the forest.
Everyone felt like a winner to have stepped down from the treadmill. I thought the new way of working from home was so cool and stress-free. I was fully converted to online meetings and conferences.
Let’s fast forward to March 2021. Looking back to 2020, I can but laugh at myself. Just the thought of sitting behind my computer full time, at home, sounded ridiculous to me. I was so wrong.
It is true that with modern technology and online meetings we have access to a lot of new contacts, bigger live audiences, and great possibilities to sponsor events. Undoubtedly there are numerous other benefits. However, regardless of these potentially massive audience numbers, I started to become sceptical towards these events.
What really is the percentage of attentive listeners? Who is really focusing on yet another online presentation? Is everyone else able to focus all day without being distracted? Is there something wrong with me because my attention span is so short? My intake on these online conferences is that engagement rate is unfortunately often low and attendee attention as well as attendance limited. Follow-up meetings sometimes happen, but most frequently not.
Personally, I struggle with the thought of even attending one more online conference. It is evident we would need to have the bulletproof discipline to focus to be present and to have quality and meaningful meetings online. It is difficult to read people’s body language when you only see their faces. We don’t know what else they are focusing on, how many other tabs they have open on their screens.
Even if we, at Polymermarketplace, work to promote digital sales tools, we do acknowledge the importance of personal contacts when it comes to larger business decisions. Business relationships, just like friendships, cannot fully be replaced by online meetings. Fundamentally there is less trust to conduct business with people (or a company) you never met in person.
We preach about online sales tools and their benefits. When the world opens for travel again, sales teams and account managers will need to get in their cars, planes and trains and meet with their customers again and strengthen the existing or new business and human relationships. This is exactly where the unique digital sales tools, like Polymermarketplace, are created to allow the sales teams to spend time building on those invaluable business relationships. Intelligent sales platforms are developed to support sales decisions, capture market intelligence, and move inventory fast and efficiently with the best possible prices.
I am ready to travel again and keep on building my relationships, so we can continue the work online
If you are curious to find out more about Polymermarketplace please reach out! Will be our pleasure to meet with you and explain how we work and what are the benefits of having a digital sales tool to help support your business decisions.
You can reach us by phone at +31(0) 85 48 54 120 or by email at [email protected].
Written by Leila Oksanen
