Are your company's conference calls lasting entirely too long? Are you finding that nothing seems to get accomplished during them? Are you fed up with the way that they're being run?

If you answered yes to any or even all of these questions, it's time to make a change. Rather than continuing down the path you're going down now, take steps to make your company's conference calls more effective moving forward.

It should start with creating a clear conference call agenda prior to the start of every call. That will go a long way towards increasing the effectiveness of your conference calls.

Check out some ways to make your conference calls more worthwhile with a conference call agenda below.

Clearly Define the Purpose of Your Conference Call

The first thing you'll want to do when creating a conference call agenda is define the purpose of the conference call. Even if it's a regularly scheduled conference call, there should be a clear purpose for it in place.

If you walk into a conference call without any solidified purpose, you're pretty much asking for trouble. It won't be long before your group gets stuck talking about one specific topic and fails to address some potentially more important issues.

List the Important Items That Will Be Discussed in Order

Once you have the purpose of your conference call written down, the next step will be to break your purpose down a little bit further. There are likely a handful of important items related to the overall purpose that will need to be discussed during your meeting.

Begin by jotting down those important items. Then, list them in their order of overall importance. Start with whatever the most important topic is and work your way down to the less important topics at the end.

There is always going to be a chance that you don't make it through all of the topics that need to be discussed in one conference call. If that turns out to be the case, it's better to talk about the most important topics first than to leave them for the end and run out of time.

Indicate Who Will Speak About Each Item on Your List

Figuring out who is going to speak during a conference call and when they're going to talk is another problem that companies run into during meetings. People often end up talking over one another or not participating at all when there aren't any set speakers.

Combat this by indicating who will be responsible for speaking about each item on your list. This will give people the time they need to prepare what they're going to say. This will help them avoid rambling on during your conference call and taking up valuable time.

That's not to say that others can't chime in with their own thoughts on a specific topic. But you're going to run into issues if you simply present a topic and then open the floor for discussion. It'll often lead to too many people trying to talk at once.

Set Aside Enough Time for Each Talking Point

After you've chosen the topics that will be discussed and assigned people to speak about them, you should also designate a certain amount of time to topics.

Whether you choose to devote 30 minutes to an important topic or 2 minutes to something that seems less important, the goal should be to give everything on your conference call agenda a time limit.

Conference calls just about always take up more time than they really should. By assigning a specific amount of time to topics, you can keep things moving along.

Table Discussions That Drag on Too Long

If you find that a particular topic is dragging on too long and not coming to a conclusion, table it and consider devoting an entirely separate meeting to it.

That topic might be too large to discuss in the middle of a conference call. You're likely better off putting together a smaller call to get to the bottom of whatever problem you're having with it.

This will prevent you from losing your employees' attention, which is something that's become a big issue for those who attend conference calls.

Leave Time at the End for a Brief Meeting Overview

At the end of every conference call, there should always be 2 or 3 minutes set aside for a meeting overview.

Throughout the course of the meeting, there should be someone designated to take notes on what's being said and what decisions are made. That person should then be able to provide a quick overview of what took place during the meeting so that everyone is on the same page before hanging up from a conference call.

Utilize a Reliable Conference Call Service

Despite the reputation that they've earned in some circles for being too long and not efficient enough, there are so many advantages to holding conference calls.

They can keep your business' employees connected and allow hundreds and even thousands of people to attend a meeting at one time. They can also come in handy if you have a lot of remote employees or employees working in different offices throughout the country and the world.

But in order to take full advantage of conference calls and your conference call agenda, you need to work with a reliable conference call service. It'll ensure that everyone can hear what's going on during a conference call and follow along with the agenda you've provided.

Start Using a Conference Call Agenda Today

If you aren't happy with how your recent conference calls have been going, do something about it. Pass out a conference call agenda from now on that will make it easier for people to pay attention to what's happening during your calls.

Your company will get more out of these calls as a whole, and you'll find that people won't dread seeing the words "conference call" pop up in their email inboxes. They'll start to enjoy conference calls and the information that they get from them.

Contact us to see how easy it is to set up an effective conference call for your company.