While growing your new virtual assistant business, if you have the skills and experience, transcribing is a great niche, or a great area to focus on while building your clientèle in other areas of virtual assisting.
Contrary to popular belief a transcriptionist is more than just a "typist." An effective transcriber, must be excellent spellers, be patient, be able to decipher various accents and dialects. We have to have a great eye and be a good proofreader. We have to be able to listen to people speak, use a foot pedal, type at the same time, and be relatively quick about it. Also, a good transcriber should be an intermediate to advanced user of a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.
There are a wide variety of areas where your transcription skills can be put to use, some requiring experience in the area, such as legal and medical transcription, and some not, such as transcribing meetings, focus groups, and interviews, author's notes, podcasts, et cetera. However, both specialized and non-specialized areas have at least one thing in common. Each requires the ability to be able to follow directions! Although general punctuation and grammar guidelines are expected to be adhered to, each client will have their own set of guidelines that you will have to follow as far as how they want their projects completed.
As a transcriptionist that types projects frequently with a lot of scientific and medical jargon, one resource I have found has truly been a lifesaver is one of Google's many resources. Google Suggest http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en . As you type a word it "suggests" correct spellings. There hasn't been a word yet that it hasn't found for me (well maybe one or two doozies!). Clients often comment on how impressed they are with how well I do with spelling the difficult words. The cat's out the bag-Google Suggest is my secret weapon. A good transcriber will not riddle their documents with a boatload of "inaudibles" or "unintelligibles." An efficient transcriber will take the time to look up the words they aren't sure about, and as a last resort phonetically spell it and indicate with [sp] or [sp?] that they aren't sure if the spelling is correct.
How Fast Are You?
The question should be, "how fast do you need to be?" The answer depends on your client. I have some clients who require a fast turnaround of 24 to 48 hours on two to four hours of audio. How fast you can complete the job depends on a variety of factors. Is the audio clear? Do you have to start and stop to look up words a lot? Best case scenario, it takes me three to four hours to transcribe one hour of audio. This INCLUDES proofreading time. Worst case scenario, it has taken me up to six hours to transcribe one hour of audio - it was horrible. Speakers weren't speaking in the microphone; multiple speakers with very heavy accents, I had to keep going back to try and figure out what was being said. You get the picture. Some transcribers will simply put "inaudible" and continue moving forward, and sometimes so will I. but it absolutely drives me crazy to not be able to figure it out. So most times, if I feel I can do it and still meet the deadline, I will try to decipher the word(s), and clients appreciate the extra effort.
If you type less than 65 wpm accurately and can't say honestly that all of the above attributes apply to you, transcribing is probably not a good area for you to focus on!
Before accepting a transcription assignment, you should ask the client these questions:
Anything that needs to be completed in 48 hours or less, I charge a rush fee. The reason being is transcription is a time consuming task, and if transcription is what you are focusing on, for that block of time, you really do not have time to focus on non-transcribing projects. When charging for this service, you have the option of charging per audio hour, per page, or per line. Sometimes the client has a preference. My preference is per page.
Transcribing can be a great niche to focus on; or if you find you thoroughly enjoy it; you might want to make that your complete focus; however, if transcription is the only serve you provide, I don't think you can officially call yourself a virtual assistant, by definition. One thing is for sure, you're not "just a typist."
Evelyn Mack is a owner of Emackulate Assistants, a virtual assistant company providing transcription, closed-captioning, administration, marketing, and event planning services. With nearly 20 years of experience in the corporate, legal, and educational environments, Evelyn now focuses her efforts in partnering with her clients for entrepreneurial success. Evelyn is the epitome of professionalism, with excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and expects everyone on her team to convey those same attributes. Her philosophy is"if you go above and beyond to ensure your client is happy with the end result, you are building relationships that are lifelines to the success of your business and theirs."
Evelyn Mack can be contacted at 1-800-363-6801 or via email at info@emackulateassistants.com Visit Emackulate Assistants on the web at: http://www.emackulateassistants.com
Subscribe to Emackulate Assistant's blog, "The Emackulate V.A." at http://www.emackulate.wordpress.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Contrary to popular belief a transcriptionist is more than just a "typist." An effective transcriber, must be excellent spellers, be patient, be able to decipher various accents and dialects. We have to have a great eye and be a good proofreader. We have to be able to listen to people speak, use a foot pedal, type at the same time, and be relatively quick about it. Also, a good transcriber should be an intermediate to advanced user of a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.
There are a wide variety of areas where your transcription skills can be put to use, some requiring experience in the area, such as legal and medical transcription, and some not, such as transcribing meetings, focus groups, and interviews, author's notes, podcasts, et cetera. However, both specialized and non-specialized areas have at least one thing in common. Each requires the ability to be able to follow directions! Although general punctuation and grammar guidelines are expected to be adhered to, each client will have their own set of guidelines that you will have to follow as far as how they want their projects completed.
As a transcriptionist that types projects frequently with a lot of scientific and medical jargon, one resource I have found has truly been a lifesaver is one of Google's many resources. Google Suggest http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en . As you type a word it "suggests" correct spellings. There hasn't been a word yet that it hasn't found for me (well maybe one or two doozies!). Clients often comment on how impressed they are with how well I do with spelling the difficult words. The cat's out the bag-Google Suggest is my secret weapon. A good transcriber will not riddle their documents with a boatload of "inaudibles" or "unintelligibles." An efficient transcriber will take the time to look up the words they aren't sure about, and as a last resort phonetically spell it and indicate with [sp] or [sp?] that they aren't sure if the spelling is correct.
How Fast Are You?
The question should be, "how fast do you need to be?" The answer depends on your client. I have some clients who require a fast turnaround of 24 to 48 hours on two to four hours of audio. How fast you can complete the job depends on a variety of factors. Is the audio clear? Do you have to start and stop to look up words a lot? Best case scenario, it takes me three to four hours to transcribe one hour of audio. This INCLUDES proofreading time. Worst case scenario, it has taken me up to six hours to transcribe one hour of audio - it was horrible. Speakers weren't speaking in the microphone; multiple speakers with very heavy accents, I had to keep going back to try and figure out what was being said. You get the picture. Some transcribers will simply put "inaudible" and continue moving forward, and sometimes so will I. but it absolutely drives me crazy to not be able to figure it out. So most times, if I feel I can do it and still meet the deadline, I will try to decipher the word(s), and clients appreciate the extra effort.
If you type less than 65 wpm accurately and can't say honestly that all of the above attributes apply to you, transcribing is probably not a good area for you to focus on!
Before accepting a transcription assignment, you should ask the client these questions:
- Is the audio fairly clear?
- Do you have a sample format?
- Is there a lot of non-standard jargon (i.e., scientific, medical, et cetera?)
- Do you require a thorough proofing (i.e., reading the document while listening to the tape after you've finished the transcription)
Anything that needs to be completed in 48 hours or less, I charge a rush fee. The reason being is transcription is a time consuming task, and if transcription is what you are focusing on, for that block of time, you really do not have time to focus on non-transcribing projects. When charging for this service, you have the option of charging per audio hour, per page, or per line. Sometimes the client has a preference. My preference is per page.
Transcribing can be a great niche to focus on; or if you find you thoroughly enjoy it; you might want to make that your complete focus; however, if transcription is the only serve you provide, I don't think you can officially call yourself a virtual assistant, by definition. One thing is for sure, you're not "just a typist."
Evelyn Mack is a owner of Emackulate Assistants, a virtual assistant company providing transcription, closed-captioning, administration, marketing, and event planning services. With nearly 20 years of experience in the corporate, legal, and educational environments, Evelyn now focuses her efforts in partnering with her clients for entrepreneurial success. Evelyn is the epitome of professionalism, with excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and expects everyone on her team to convey those same attributes. Her philosophy is"if you go above and beyond to ensure your client is happy with the end result, you are building relationships that are lifelines to the success of your business and theirs."
Evelyn Mack can be contacted at 1-800-363-6801 or via email at info@emackulateassistants.com Visit Emackulate Assistants on the web at: http://www.emackulateassistants.com
Subscribe to Emackulate Assistant's blog, "The Emackulate V.A." at http://www.emackulate.wordpress.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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