The Tools You Need To Run Your Financial Advisory Business: A Review of ScreenMeet

As a busy Financial Advisor, it can be overwhelming to manage all the various tasks at hand. Luckily, there are tools to help simplify your busy life. With some financial advisors running their entire business online, it’s critical to streamline virtual meetings. Various online meeting tools to conduct virtual meetings with clients will help you turn your advisor business into a lead generation machine.

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Ben Lilienthal, co- founder of ScreenMeet, an online screen-sharing platform that has already been making waves in the financial services space. What’s especially unique about ScreenMeet is its availability among various platforms- from desktop to Android to PC/Mac and iOS. Learn more about ScreenMeet below, by reading my conversation with Ben:

1) In a short summary, how does ScreenMeet differ from other online meeting and screen sharing tools?

ScreenMeet makes online meetings easy. It just works on every device for attendees!

Unlike other online meeting and screen sharing tools, ScreenMeet does NOT require a download to attend a meeting, ever.

We focused on building a service that just works with no frustration and no hassle. Furthermore, we have focused on making the service compliant for regulated industries such as Financial Services and Healthcare. Our encryption and security measures mean that we have been qualified by Fortune 500 corporations as FINRA and HIPAA compliant.

2) Why should a user use ScreenMeet over other tools such as GoTo Meeting or Join.me?

If you want to save 5-10 minutes of every online meeting, you should use ScreenMeet. If you don’t want to be frustrated by having to do IT support for your clients, you should use ScreenMeet.

If you want the peace of mind of knowing that the information you are sharing with your client is secure, you should use ScreenMeet.

By not requiring a download and having the meeting just work on every device, ScreenMeet gives you the security that your online meeting is going to be a piece of cake. We’re the big red easy button for online meetings.

3) What inspired the need for mobile capabilities? Was it a tough process to enable this important feature?

We started from the idea of meetings should just work, instantly, on every device. This meant that instantly viewing from mobile was a key component of the product architecture. We got this working with no download on every smartphone and tablet. We then thought it would be cool to enable presenting from mobile. It took us most of last year to perfect the host apps that let you present from mobile. This is obviously a much smaller percentage of the usage (for now) but we think it positions us well for the future. It terms of building it, we were the first company to release a present from mobile app on iOS and Android.

4) We’d like to learn a little bit more about you, Ben. Can you tell us about your background and how you ended up founding ScreenMeet? What inspired you to start ScreenMeet?

I was an anthropology major at Amherst College and then got my MBA at NYU. Along the way, I have started 4 communications companies. They all follow a similar thesis which is taking a key business activity and building it for the next computing platform. Most recently, I sold a company to GoToMeeting that was the first company to do conference calling over the Internet and over regular phones. We became the audio conferencing platform for GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar.

After working there for 2.5 years, my company was the fastest growing division, I realized that there was a massive opportunity to reimagine the online meeting business for the mobile and cloud world. That was the impetus for starting ScreenMeet.

5) What is the most challenging aspect of starting a company, like ScreenMeet? And the most rewarding?

The hardest part is overcoming the intellectual uncertainty that your idea is good. Once you have gotten validation from the market, that is also the most rewarding part.

6) In this innovative world, how do you keep up with changing trends and needs of society?

I read a lot. I watch people interact with their computers and phones. I talk to customers and prospects.

I try to think deeply about where the future of computing is going and how our software can help to make it easier for people to communicate.

7) What keeps you inspired throughout the day? How do you stay creative?

I’m competitive. I like to see people adopt our product over the incumbent solutions. Also, I think we’re right. We actually make life easier for end-users and care about that. The products and services we compete against have lost their focus on their customer. I also spend a lot of time looking at products in adjacent markets and think about innovations that we could leverage.

8) As a founder of an online company, what piece of advice would you give to someone looking to start their own business, app, or third party tool of some sort?

Stay focused, stay nimble, stay humble.

9) To you, what are the most important aspects of an innovator? A leader?

For innovators, It’s the old Thomas Edison quote, 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. For leaders, I think the main thing is to stay in touch with your team and keep them informed of your successes and your failures. The worst leaders are the ones who say everything is always great…

Let’s Sum It up

We hope you got a better understanding of ScreenMeet in this conversation and how it compares to the Virtual Meeting tools you may already be using. Learn more about the next steps for download here.