Hosting an Impromptu Remote Meeting with GoToMeeting

Article summary

Here’s a little story, common to many of you, that I’m going to call “Stuck at the Airport While an Important Business Meeting Awaits in a Far-Away City.”

This was the situation: My partner and I had clocked many hours putting together a proposal for an RFP. We went after this job with a vengeance because it was interesting and challenging (aka “fun” for us at Atomic Object), and it was a new client to us.

On a Friday, we got the call that we were a finalist. We were scheduled to make a final, in-person sales pitch in “far away city” the following Monday. Awesome news!

As the clock ticked that weekend, our presentation got more awesome… and an ice storm began brewing. After many hours at the airport that Sunday evening, it was apparent that we were stuck in our hometown with no way of being there to do our presentation.

We were deeply vested in this sales opportunity at this point. There is a definite advantage to being there in person, but that option was off the table, so we needed a viable plan B. We ended up pulling it together using GoToMeeting, and the feedback we got was great. The jury’s still out as to whether we won the job, but if I had to bet…

Our Remote Meeting Solution

We used a Keynote presentation plus a video feed. Here’s how it worked:

1. I hooked my laptop up to secondary display.

2. I configured Keynote as follows:

remote meeting settings

3. I opened an account with GoToMeeting (we took advantage of a 30 day free trial), and selected the “Meet Now” option to start a new meeting.

4. I told GoToMeeting to share the secondary display.

5. I invited my in-office teammate to the meeting via GoToMeeting.

6. My teammate and I both shared the feed from our laptop webcams so the prospective client could see our faces.

7. I called the prospective client and let them know we were ready to go. They also had a projector set up for their team. I asked them to call when they had connected.

8. I sent the prospective client an invite through GoToMeeting. They launched it, and the meeting commenced. This is what they saw:

remote meeting screenshot

9. We used the “call-in option” with a speak phone on each end, rather than relying on computer microphones and speakers.

10. We approached the presentation professionally (i.e., just because you’re in front of your computer, snowed in at home, doesn’t mean you should show up in a robe).

Would you have done something different? What would your remote meeting solution be?