The Conference Coach™ » telecommunications

CEO Blog: Is Bigger Really Better?

Conference Coach Jon — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:22:12 +0000

Carolyn Bradfield, CEO

The conventional wisdom in America has been that bigger is usually better. Go into any fast food restaurant and you will be asked to “super size” your meal. Businesses consistently tout that they are the largest in their industry, that they are the number one provider, that they are BIG. But, does that really make them better?

Take the fast food industry. We are living in a nation of fat people. I know that is not a politically correct or popular statement, but the % of Americans that are obese or grossly obese is alarming. Super sizing a fast food entrée, getting a massive amount of food in your order, and having it served on a platter motivates the consumer to eat way more than they need to.

Let’s take the case of General Motors, the largest car company in the world. 2 years ago, they outgrew their ability to understand and manage their organization. They had redundant brands and operations, did not take advantage of the economies of scale and did not recognize that the consumer wanted quality and were willing to go elsewhere to get it. They teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and were only spared when the US government bailed them out and took a stake in their company. Remember the statement “too big to fail”. Today, they are smaller, have less brands, and are coming to the realization that they need to shed the “big guy” mentality.

In the business world, I think we are beginning to recognize that size isn’t what it used to be and that “bigger” comes with its set of disadvantages. In the technology arena, most of the small guys (and Copper is one of them) can create partnerships with bigger players to accumulate a suite of technology services it can offer to its customers. We’ve long gone past the notion that we have to “build it here”.

In the rental car business, Avis, who always played second fiddle to the giant sized Hertz had a genius advertising slogan “We try harder”. I think that is true about the small guy vs. the big guy. As a smaller company, a smaller technology provider like Copper, you have to distinguish yourself in other ways so the customer has an advantage in working with you vs. the giant organization that has many more people to throw at your account.

Smaller guys tend to be more responsive. They tend to be more personalized in the way they service an account. It’s like being in a small town where you know everyone’s name. There are certain advantages to picking up the phone and being able to reach a live person who knows you are and appreciates your business.

Remember that when you are the big guy, the one on the top of the mountain, the only direction you can generally move is down. If you look at the Fortune 50 over the last 100 years, many of those companies don’t exist, went out of business or fell on really hard times. That’s because they get fat, complacent, unresponsive, unmotivated and lose their drive and creativity.

The next time when you are evaluating who to do business with, think about whether in today’s marketplace, size really still counts in the same way it did in years past. In the conferencing industry, I can tell you that the answer is a resounding no. The largest conferencing company in the world is still InterCall. They are also the most reviled by their customers. They are known for their poor customer service, for their lack of response, and for piling on additional fees to cover for the customer base that walks out the door in disgust. They have been sued by their own customers who have questioned the ethics of adding fees that they didn’t agree to. (By the way, they lose most of these battles)

Copper Conferencing has no aspirations to be as big and it never loses sight that we have to earn our customer’s respect and trust every day. We never take that for granted. We’re the little guy and damned proud of it.

About Copper Conferencing
Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, Copper Conferencing provides audio conferencing and web conferencing services to businesses in all industries. Copper’s Conference Coaches™ provide expert guidance in audio and web conferencing services and online account management. From On Demand reservationless audio conference calls to highly interactive webinars and special event calls, Copper Conferencing helps businesses save time and money while improving productivity. Copper’s audio and web conferencing services are backed by fully managed, carrier-class platforms to power communication for thousands of customers. For more information about Copper Conferencing, visit www.copperconferencing.com or call a Conference Coach at 866-903-7521.

CEO Blog: The Greatest Generation

Carolyn Bradfield — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:52:25 +0000

Carolyn Bradfield, CEO

They say that we lose over 1,000 World War II Veterans every day. Today is the day that one of those was my father, Tom Woosley who was 86 years old. He wasn’t sick; he had no lingering illness; he just walked into the hallway of his house and died.

Although my heart breaks at the loss, it’s not often that someone leaves this world with absolutely no regrets. He was one of those people. He grew up poor in Albemarle, North Carolina, the only child of a cook in a school cafeteria whose husband had left the family when he was very little. World War II came along and even though he could have gotten deferred, being an only son, he enlisted and flew in Japan as a radio operator on a B24 Liberator.

The GI bill gave him the only opportunity for a college education and he took advantage of it, graduating from college and graduate school in North Carolina. He went to work for General Motors, in their finance group GMAC, and spent his entire career loyal to the company, retiring early as GM right sized their workforce.

We moved to a sleepy small town, LaGrange in the 60’s, just after his beloved mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, dying in her mid sixties. There, he and my mother made lifelong friends and their life revolved around family, their church, and their friends. My dad retired early, but always gave back to the community, volunteering for Meals on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity and for any cause that needed his help. He was a life long Rotarian and lived his life by their principles:
• Is it the truth?
• Is it fair to all concerned?
• Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
• Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

In his later years, he was called on to serve again, but this time for a cause closer to home. As my mother became forgetful, began repeating herself, and needed to retreat closer to home, he cared for her unselfishly and endured her repeated questions when others came to visit. Their routine became one of church, and occasional breakfast meetings with friends.

Every Saturday, they joined a group of friends at Charlie Joseph’s, a hot dog place in LaGrange, to visit, to think about what is going on in the world, and to check in with each other. This Saturday, Tom won’t be there, but the group will still convene, talk about good times and miss their friend Tom.

Tom left the world with good friends, with a son and daughter that he raised to be confident and principled, with a love of the Lord, and with no regrets. We should all be so blessed.

CEO Blog: 100 Years and Still Counting

Carolyn Bradfield — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:05:26 +0000

Carolyn Bradfield, CEO

Believe it or not, this week IBM is celebrating its 100-year anniversary. People familiar with IBM are not only struck by how long IBM has been in business, but by how the company has continued to reinvent itself over the years.

IBM started its corporate life making clocks and cheese slicers. When the Social Security Act became law, IBM created the punched-card tabulator to keep track of Social Security recipients. Over time, they invented the Selectric Typewriter, magnetic tapes, he memory chip, mainframes and personal computers. Today, IBM is known for its services and its software.

IBM has been one of the richest and largest companies in the world and one that has been on the brink of financial disaster. In 1962, Tom Watson, Jr., the son of IBM’s founder, spoke to an audience on the 50th anniversary of the company, startling them with the following statistic. Only two of the top 25 industrial corporations in the United States in 1900 were still on the top 25 list with 6 being absorbed, 2 disappearing and 15 slipping way far behind. Fast-forward to today and only 2 of the top 25 companies at the time of Tom Watson’s speech are still at top 25.

The founders of IBM believed that success was fleeting, but if they created a philosophy that worked they could sustain the company for the long haul. In the words of Tom Watson from 1962, here is that formula for success:

“I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions.”

You could infer that this statement refers to a value system, but beyond that, it speaks to what makes the company unique and how it wants to be viewed in the marketplace. IBM clearly wanted to be known as an innovator. They wanted to bring creative solutions to the marketplace that solved a problem and allowed their customers to be more productive. They wanted their customers to come to IBM for these solutions that they could get from nowhere else.

Copper Conferencing models that philosophy by having a defined corporate value system that is used to benchmark all decisions. At the core of that value system is the premise that the customer needs always comes first. We also want to be known as an innovator, creating an experience that makes life easier from the customer and that get only from Copper. We developed easy to use online customer management technology. We deployed a nationwide network of local dial in numbers to control cost. We just launched Conduct to make the promotion, management and delivery of webinars much easier and much less expensive.

“I believe that if an organization is to meet the challenges of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself… except those beliefs…”

IBM’s long corporate history reflects their willingness to change, to evolve and to reinvent itself, preparing the company to serve the marketplace as it evolves. Look at the progression of computing. IBM had tabulation machines, then typewriters, then room-sized computers, then computers that sat on the desktop and finally the software and services that drove the information age. There is no doubt IBM will continue to evolve. Their slogan, “Think” is what they do best.

Conduct is positioning Copper Conferencing to evolve, to redefine itself and to prepare for the changing needs of the marketplace. We are not just making webinars easier to manage and deliver, but we intend to serve the need to have a focused solution for business people to easily find business content that helps them “think” and evolve. We want to make sure that this content is not co-mingled with videos of laughing babies and twittering celebrities. This year is the year for Copper to evolve.

Congratulations IBM. 100 years of keeping true to your core beliefs, of creating a culture for success and having the courage to continue to evolve. We hope that companies will take a page from your playbook so they can survive, grow and thrive. Copper has certainly watched you and is following your example.

CEO Blog: Three Little Words

Carolyn Bradfield — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:03:19 +0000

Carolyn Bradfield, CEO

Most of you don’t know that I started life as a middle school English teacher, still my favorite all time job. I spent the vast majority of my time teaching students how to write, a skill that I hope has served them well over the years. Part of the secret to good writing is to know how to be concise, getting your point across using a few powerful words.

Good Morning America on ABC has a fun segment that they call “Your Three Words” which couples viewers’ very short videos with 3 words that deliver a message. You’ll see a traveling college student whose words are “Send Money Now!” or “Practice Makes Perfect” from a Little League team holding their championship trophies. You get the picture.

I thought I would use GMA’s technique and use my three little words to describe Copper Conferencing’s new service, Conduct.

Make Life Easier
We’ve been inundated recently with the news that the Dow has dropped below 12,000, that jobs aren’t coming back and that budgets are still tight. That means that we have to learn to continue to do more with less. Conduct takes the process of webinar and event management to a new level and makes life easier by creating and managing the marketing and management activities without a lot of staff and with minimal expense.

No Training Needed
Going through the frustration of trying to figure out a piece of technology, of having to ask your I/T department for help or having to spend hours in training takes away from the job of creating, marketing and selling. Conduct is self-directed with no training needed.

Promote, Manage, Deliver
In order to execute a webinar, you have to promote it to your audience, register people who are interested in attending, remind them to show up and manage all of the communication needed to get them into the call. Once you go through the 5-minute set up process, Conduct creates the promotional email, the sign up page and all of the registration and reminder emails automatically.

Be a Hero
When you generate high quality leads, attendance on your webinar, or a great promotional campaign and you do it at a fraction of the cost of trying to manage multiple systems and services to get the job done, you’re going to get noticed. That’s how people get recognized and promoted – by delivering revenue and reducing expenses!

OK, you get the “your three words” concept. Here are my last three words – “Try It Now”. Copper has just launched Conduct and for a limited time, you can try it for free. Just go to the Sign Up Page on this website and check it out (whoops, another 3 words!) – No contract required – there I did it again!

CEO Blog: It’s Too Hard

Carolyn Bradfield — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:54:05 +0000

Carolyn Bradfield

In April, I celebrated 20 years in the conferencing industry. When I co-founded InterCall in 1991, AT&T owned 95% of the marketplace and conferencing was not a widely used technology. Today, most of us just dial in, enter a code and the call starts, but back then conferencing was pretty hard.

In 1991, an AT&T call began with a reservation and every call had the operator dial out to each participant. Before the call, you had to give AT&T the name of each person and one or more phone numbers to reach them. Even for small calls, the set up time was lengthy. The operator had to call each person and then try and recall them if they didn’t answer. If the call ran long, AT&T would drop all of the connections so the next call could start. No wonder that many people found conferencing too hard.

Although conferencing has gotten way easier, there are certain aspects of how it functions that are still too hard. Let’s start with audio conferencing. Not all calls are reservationless. Sometimes, you need an operator to capture the name of each individual, formally open the call, introduce the speaker and perform other duties.

Even though operators aren’t dialing out to participants, getting them into the call can still be difficult. Participants still have to wait for an operator to answer and take their name, entering each person one at a time. Because most calls happen on the hour, the wait times can be lengthy and participants can get frustrated.

There is an easier way to conduct an operator assisted call, removing the frustration and manual intervention needed to enter a participant but still capturing key information. This new process reduces set up time, minimizes waiting and is many times more accurate than having the operator take the person’s name and other key information. Here is how it works:
• Participants dial in to the conference call and enter a conference ID as they would for an automated call.
• Each participant then enters a unique PIN code that is matched to that individual.
• When the post-conference report is delivered, the participant name and other key information about that person appears on the report.
• The operator opens the call as usual and manages their other responsibilities.

Here is why this is so much better:
• Participants don’t have to wait.
• The information about that participant is accurate
• The call is easier to produce, requires less people and is much less expensive.

Managing a call this way combines all of the advantages of an automated call with the benefits of having an operator to moderator and direct the call. Now I’m sure everyone is thinking about managing the logistics of delivering a unique PIN to each and every participant on a large conference call. A PIN entry operator call seems easy, but the management of the PINs must be considered.

On June 15th, Copper brings the advantages of automating an operator assisted call to the marketplace by offering a new service to register participants and automatically deliver their dial in information, including the personalized PIN. It’s easy, straightforward and a much less expensive way to produce a high quality operator assisted call.

No conference call needs to be too hard and Copper is ready to demonstrate that there is always room for improvement.
hings in life. I love chocolate, but hate the calories. I love shopping for shoes, but hate the credit card bill.. You get the picture.

Meet Jace Harris

Alycia Maier-Turner — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:29:56 +0000

Jace Harris

If you’re a Copper Conferencing customer, then you may already have met Jace. Jace has been a valued member of the Copper Conferencing family for over three years. Jace’s experience includes customer service, account management and sales. In fact, Jace won a scholarship from the Boy Scouts of America for outstanding popcorn sales by placing first in regional sales for four consecutive years. (For you BSA folks, you know that’s quite an accomplishment!)

Jace’s unique style and broad knowledge of conferencing has enabled him to provide first-class customer service on all of Copper Conferencing’s services including On Demand audio conferencing, all of the marketing leading web conferencing solutions, Operator Assisted conference calls and our online customer portal, Connect To Copper.

In his off time, Jace enjoys playing golf, racquetball and tennis. Jace is currently working toward a degree in Business at American Intercontinental University.

For customer support questions, please contact support@copperconferencing.com. Or you can email Jace directly at jharris@copperconferencing.com.

Copper Conferencing Exhibits at ACLEA

Susan Purifoy — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:01:17 +0000

Copper Conferencing is pleased to announce its booth at the 47th Mid-Year ACLEA meeting in San Francisco, California on January 22- 25, 2011.

Copper Conferencing and ACLEA (American Continuing Legal Education Association) are partnering to provide audio conferencing services to ACLEA members.

Stop by and see Copper in January at the ACLEA show to learn more. Contact BJ Bates at bjbates@copperconferencing.com or 303-951-4177 to schedule a meeting at the show.

ALA Region 3 Conference and Expo next week! Will you be there?

Conference Coach Jon — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 15:22:31 +0000

Copper Conferencing will be at the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) Conference & Expo in Chicago, Illinois on October 15-16, are you attending?

As a member of ALA, we hope that you will come by our booth during the Region 3 expo. The Expo will be held at The Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. The ALA Conference & Expo is designed to expand your knowledge, gain new skills and learn about new resources in all areas of legal management.

Come by Copper’s booth and we will show you Copper Legal and the benefits of using conferencing to help cut costs and increase productivity. When you choose to use Copper, you get world-class audio and web conferencing services, outstanding customer support and ways to trim your costs such as using our Nationwide Local Dial-In Network to get a discounted conferencing rate.

Copper Conferencing is a proud sponsor of ALA, a leader in the growing legal industry. Copper Conferencing promotes the utilization of resources that help meet and solve ALA member challenges and business needs. Find more about Copper Conferencing at www.copperlegal.com.

ALA Region 1 Conference & Expo: Will we be seeing you in New Jersey?

Conference Coach Jon — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:47:54 +0000

Copper Conferencing will be at the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) Conference & Expo in Long Branch, New Jersey on October 29-30, will you be there?

As a member of ALA, we hope that you will come by our booth during the Region 1 expo. The Expo will be held at the Ocean Place Resort & Spa in Long Branch, New Jersey. The ALA Conference & Expo is designed to expand your knowledge, gain new skills and learn about new resources in all areas of legal management.

The expo begins on Friday, October 29, but Copper is planning on attending the Thursday evening dinner and we hope that you will come. Come by Copper’s booth and we will show you Copper Legal and the benefits of using conferencing to help cut costs and increase productivity. When you choose to use Copper, you get world-class audio and web conferencing services, outstanding customer support and ways to trim your costs such as using our Nationwide Local Dial-In Network to get a discounted conferencing rate.

Copper Conferencing is going to the ALA Region 3 Conference in Chicago

Conference Coach Jon — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:48:43 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COPPER CONFERENCING ADDS ALA REGION 3 CONFERENCE TO SCHEDULE

Denver, CO and Atlanta, GA — September 30, 2010 Copper Conferencing, a leading provider of audio conferencing and webinar services to the legal community, announced today its participation in the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) Regions 3 Conference and Expo. Copper Conferencing is actively supporting the ALA at four regional conference & expos in September and October.

“The ALA, its chapters and members are a priority for Copper Conferencing. With firm commitment to engaging at all levels of the ALA, Copper Conferencing is showing support in a number of ways including exhibiting at regional conferences in Region 5 & 6 and Region 4,” said Carolyn Bradfield, CEO of Copper Conferencing. “Additionally, with Copper Legal, law firms and legal administrators have access to audio and web conferencing services specifically designed for the legal community.”

Copper Legal is a suite of web and audio conferencing services that are easy-to-use and cost effective. The client matter cost tracking feature ensures calls are allocated to the correct cost center, department of client matter number. With easy-to-use online account management tools, legal administrators or teleconferencing managers can quickly and efficiently manage everything from individual users to client matter number tracking to paying invoices and usage reporting. For more information about Copper Legal, visit www.copperlegal.com.

Sara Stilson, Director of Sales for Copper Conferencing, will be attending the ALA Region 5 & 6 conference September 30 – October 1, 2010 at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, California. Stop by our booth or click hereto schedule an appointment with Sara.

Carolyn Bradfield will be attending the ALA Region 4 conference September 30 and October 1, 2010 at the Four Seasons Resort & Club Dallas at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas. Stop by or click here to schedule an appointment with Carolyn.

BJ Bates, Major Account Executive, will be attending the ALA Region 3 conference October 15-16, 2010 at The Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. Stop by or click here to schedule an appointment with BJ.

Kathleen Thompson, Director of Customer Care, will be attending the ALA Region 1 conference October 29-30, 2010 at the Ocean Place Resort & Spa in Long Branch, New Jersey. Stop by or click here to schedule an appointment with Kathleen.

About Copper Conferencing
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado with a major communications center in Atlanta, Georgia, Copper Conferencing provides audio conferencing and web conferencing services to small and medium-sized businesses. Copper’s Conference Coaches™ provide expert guidance of enhanced conferencing services. From On Demand reservationless audio conference calls, to highly interactive webinars and special teleconference event calls, Copper Conferencing helps businesses save time and money while improving productivity. Copper’s conferencing services are backed by fully managed, carrier-class platforms to power communication for thousands of customers.

For more information about Copper Conferencing, www.copperconferencing.com or call a Conference Coach at 866-903-7521.