Palm Beach County's Finest Will Be Celebrating 13 Years in Business March 7 2018 [TeamBynes]

It's that time of year again. What time of year are you talking about, you're probably asking yourself. Well, this March 7, Bynes Transcript and Typing Services will toasting to another successful year working as a home based office support service. It's 13 years to be exact.

What makes this celebration so special is the fact that we're a virtual office supporter for small businesses. As I wrote above, we're a home based operation and have clients all over the world that run and maintain their back office tasks. Some of these tasks include, but not limited to are:

• General transcription
• Contact management
• Billing and Invoicing
• Customer Service
• Word Processing

 Start up businesses are the easiest to market to when we started out. [We thought] We soon discovered that getting potential clients to understand the concept of working on a project remotely was a task in and of itself. Just the mere fact of someone or a team of people working for a company in a different location ironically scared people off as opposed to attracting them for future business. UNBELIEVABLE.

I can remember a conversation clearly as if it happened yesterday. It was 2006, and I was in a post office, collecting mail. I was wearing a business T-shrt that said something to the effect of Virtual Office Support, contact us today....or something like that. A gentleman in line looked at my shirt and said, "What the hell is virtual support?" Laughing to myself, I said, "Virtual support or virtual office support is working with a client performing back office tasks from another location," or something like that. I vaguely remember word for word. Anyway, the guy continued to say, "I don't get it. You mean to tell me that if I needed a secretary to help me with some office work, that she could do it from her office?" I was like,"Yep." The guy was like, "Get the hell out of here. Impossible."

Boy, did we have our work cut out for us. We really did. Then, something astonishing happened....in a short amount of time after we decided to form our company, the concept of working remotely was catching on. People were signing on all over the country to have an independent contractor take on their clerical projects while working from a different location. So, we continued to market our products and services and within the following year, we landed a few clients.

According to the website, The Workplace Analytics, and based on the latest statistics on the work-at-home/telework population in the U.S. based on an analysis of 2005-2015 American Community Survey...

 Regular work-at-home, among the non-self-employed population, has grown by 115% since 2005, nearly 10x faster than the rest of the workforce.

And on the website, Gallup.com...

Thirty-seven percent of U.S. workers say they have worked from home, up slightly from 30% last decade but four times greater than the 9% found in 1995.

 Keep in mind that this can easily include workers who chose to work from home as a small business. 

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that we [Bynes Transcript and Typing Service] was onto something huge in 2005 and bit off a piece of the pie.

HAPPY 13 YEARS TEAM BYNES!! 

 

Why You Need To Research When You Are Transcribing [TeamBynes]

EDITED January 28 2018

Being a transcriber requires skill, talent and a passion for this kind of work. Being able to type isn't the only skill involved in transcribing. And settling for little nuances like not being familiar with unusual words is no excuse.

Today, we're going to shed a little light on the Importance of researching. To deliver quality results, you will need to search the internet [or current reference books] for correct spelling of important or stand out names, and/or the names of group affiliations. 

It can't be avoided that you will encounter
certain words that may be foreign or new to you. The worst thing you can do is hand the client back the completed transcript without doing your due diligence. We call this move a career killer, a disaster waiting to happen. In other words, this practice of not searching for information for validation could end your career as a transcriber.

Clients DO NOT WANT to have to go behind you to correct errors they paid you to do. You can guarantee they'll never call you again. 

Freelancers with web research experience prior to transcribing can use this to their advantage. You already have the skill of 'looking' and you'd know where to look as opposed to someone who hasn't a clue of where to begin. It's highly recommended to learn as much as you can about the transcription industry. Another thing to do would be to practice, practice. We're not asking you to practice for speed. This will come later. You're being asked to practice to increase efficiency and productivity.

With Bynes Transcript and Typing Services, it's imperative for the freelancers we work with to be efficient and have a high accuracy rate. We expect this from every single team member in our organization. 

CONSIDER THIS A GOLDEN NUGGET FOR YOUR NEXT PROJECT: Look first, do your research, practice, practice and practice.

Recommendations: We strongly recommend anyone NOT to get into this type of work just for the money. This reason has the propensity to affect work quality. We need focused and highly passionate folks who love what they do.

Coming up....The Reasons Why People Transcribe and How This Can Affect the Quality of Your Work

Congratulations Ronalyn and Ellen! [TEAM BYNES] Palm Beach County

Bynes Transcript and Typing Services is proud to acknowledge two great team members; Ellen Flores and Ronalyn Flores.

Thank you for an outstanding job on our most recent projects; 3 typing projects and a List Management/Data Entry project. With some setbacks, we were able to successfully complete the job, leaving the client happy.

Bynes Transcript and Typing Services appreciates the workmanship of our team members, so as much as possible, we go out of our way to recognize their skills and talents.

 Ellen Flores works as our Lead Administrative Assistant. She's been with us since 2013.

Ronalyn is our clerical assistant. She has been with us since the beginning of this year, 2017.

Thank you guys!! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK

Bynes Transcription Service's FREE Report: Why You Should Read It! [#teamBynes]

Our Transcription Service's FREE Report: Why You Should Read It!

We want to tell you about our new Transcription Service FREE report.

Team Bynes started this amazing entrepreneurial journey more than 10 years ago. We started from ground ZERO, and can remember a time when getting clients was tough, so we wrote this report because we want to share our HAPPINESS with you of becoming an entrepreneur, in the transcription industry.

Okay, here's why you should read it!

This report has incredibly VALUABLE information that will make starting your business so much easier. This report is an excellent tool for freelance transcribers, too. If we had a dollar for everything we had to learn on our own, the hard way, we'd probably be billionaires...lol.  So yeah, it took time and money, but you don't have to go that route because we've OUTLINED it all for you in this easy-to-read report. 

Here, you'll learn whether or not your skills are enough to be SUCCESSFUL. We'll even give you some pretty incredible tips on how to find your first clients by using some of our marketing techniques. 

BOTTOM LINE

We really wish there had been someone there to guide us, to tell us how to bid and win clients, and how to keep them coming back for more, but there wasn't. Today, we want to share our JOY and help new entrepreneurs like you, so we're giving you this report at absolutely NO cost. YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT!

 

So come on! Join the team that participates in one of the largest growing industries in the nation – General Transcription Services.

Pre-ORDER a copy NOW! And Embark on a NEW and Exciting business venture. 

I'D LIKE TO 'PRE-ORDER' A COPY OF THE FREE REPORT, "How to be The Best Transcriber on the Planet" >> [click here]

For support, email us at Perfect_transcribers@bynestranscriptions.com

To stay on top of this product, join our Facebook group. Just search 'the perfect transcriptionist'.

Notice to all transcribers! Blog Update! [TeamBynes]

Greetings, it's been a while since 'The Perfect Transcriptionist" posted on our blog. This year has been extremely busy. We've been behind the scenes working on various projects for our back office and as well as our clients.

We trust you've all enjoyed reading our posts on learning more about the transcription industry; punctuation, the need to research, grammar and etc.

Our plans are to change the focus a little bit and discuss different aspects of the transcription business; things such as project management, how to get clients, how to produce quality transcriptions and so forth. If you haven't already, we highly recommend subscribing to this blog in order to receive our information in your email.

 

TeamBynes is pretty serious about working in the transcription industry. We take pride in working with people who feel the same way. Several freelancers have come to us and asked for our help to make them better transcribers. We appreciate this because under skilled people who work only to turn in poor work compromises business success. So we take the initiative to teach all those who want to learn.

If you're thinking about getting started as a transcriber, but don't know where to start, subscribe to this blog to receive tips and advice on being the best transcriber on the internet.

Here are some questions newbies should ask themselves:

• Can I type?
• Am I good at meeting deadlines?
• How is my grammar and punctuation?
• How fluent is my English?
• Can I work independently?
• Do I have what it takes to start and run a transcription business?
• Am I good at research?
• Can I sell my services? 

We hope you enjoyed this post! Subscribe now to receive tips in your email!

Mgmt

Staying Organized In A Transcription Company

Staying organized in your workplace organization is vital to maximize the success of your transcription company. It's not just during those busy times that you have to stay organized, but the quiet days are as important. That is why it is quite essential that you constantly work towards staying organized no matter what. To get started, you can try out these tactics that we have laid out for you to help you stay organized.

Tactics

1. Organizing your files make it easy to find them so you save time and effort and focus on the important things.

2. Have a To Do List that syncs with your mobile phone and use a strategy that makes it simple for you to cross off things.

3. Don't let your electronic devices or applications control you. Instead, make them work for you.

4. Simplify your life and take the necessary steps to unclutter your life and your lifestyle.

5. Use applications and software that can help you stay organized and stay on top.

Applications

If you are wondering what applications to use to stay organized, you can check these out and utilize them for your own.

1. Evernote can help you stay on top of office needs and live a more organized life as a working professional. You'll be able to put similar items together in one notebook making it easy for you to retrieve them.

2. Yammer acts like a social networking application that allows you to organize meetings and events, share them with your employees and keep track of their progress and performance. It allows you stay up to date with the happenings in the company and helps you delegate tasks in an orderly way.

3. Insightly is a great CRM tool that will help you manage your customer relationships and projects. This in turn, will make you become more organized and efficient.

4. Another tool that we recommend is Zendesk which is a lightweight help desk solution. Zendesk's job is to help you organize your knowledge base into categories making it easier for you to look for content that you need.

5. And who can forget Gmail? Gmail is outstanding when it comes to managing your email as it syncs with other Google apps that may be vital to the company. You can organize your emails into separate tabs so that you can get to your most prioritized emails without the other emails blocking your way.

With these tactics and tools, you'll be able to get started in staying organized with your transcription company. Staying organized is quite crucial to your business as this helps you progress and become more successful at what you do. 

You'll be able to focus on the most important things in your job and will help you increase your personal productivity skills. That means more work is done in less time.

What applications are you using to keep your business organized?

Verbatim Transcription Rules

When you receive a transcription job and you are requested to transcribe it verbatim, are you just going to type away with your knowledge about verbatim transcription? Or are going to search more about it to be able to deliver the perfect verbatim transcription? What about retrieving clarification from your client?

Here in this post, we'll share some of the rules that you can consider for a verbatim transcription. 

But first, let's have a look at what verbatim transcription is.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, verbatim means "In the exact words" or "word for word". Does this mean that we have to transcribe every word including false starts and the uhms and ahs in the file? 

Absolutely. 

Verbatim Transcription means typing out every sound and every word on an audio/video recording. You should convert the original source to text with every corresponding word and you must be skilled in doing so.

You should be able to listen attentively without ignoring the fillers and false starts. You must have a great attention to detail and the patience to clarify every word you hear in the recording. 

Aside from the obvious, here are some rules that you can follow with regards to Verbatim Transcription:

• Don't leave out the non-verbal communication

When transcribing, you may have the tendency to just transcribe the spoken word. However, when you are required to do a verbatim transcription, you must also consider the non-verbal sounds in the recording such as laughing, hand gestures, and pauses. Be sure to include those in your transcriptions.

• Note external sounds

The difference between the non-verbal communication and the external sounds is that the external sounds pertains to doors banging, phone ringing, or dog barking. 

There are some instances when clients and customers require that this should be included in the transcript. Especially for transcriptions needed for market research or qualitative research, they often want to know what's happening with the surroundings while someone is speaking. It is vital to have these sounds noted. It can be placed inside brackets and may or may not have time stamps in them.

• Capture every word (Don't paraphrase)

Since this is a verbatim transcription, you ought to transcribe it word for word even if it's not quite readable. For business transcriptions, you might not need to do this. However, if the transcription is for researchers and analysts, be sure not to paraphrase the statements and always transcribe the recording word for word. This is because the emotion is captured more when each word is transcribed. Depending on the purpose of the transcription, this will really have a big difference. So when you're asked to do a verbatim transcription, always type them word for word.

So whenever you are being asked to do a verbatim transcription, consider these three rules and you can never go wrong.
 

Freelancers: What's Your Worth? (A Guide to Calculating Your Hourly Rate)

How much should I charge? As a budding freelancer, you might that question and wonder how much you should ask for your services. Or yet, if you are an experienced transcriber, as you become more adept at what you do, you may begin to wonder on when you should increase your hourly rate and how much. 

Setting rates can seem like it's one of the most complex parts of freelancing but it doesn't have to be like that. Whether you are a newbie in the world of freelancing or a pro, it's quite important to set reasonable rates that will allow you to attract clients and employers without undervaluing yourself.

The first thing that you must do is to determine the lowest equivalent hourly rate you are willing to work for. If you are just starting off as a part time freelancer, you can calculate this depending on how much you value your time. You need to work for an amount of money that puts you in the right mindset to deliver a commendable service. If you do anything less, you may deliver poor work and end up damaging your reputation. As you develop as a freelancer, this may increase based upon how much you want to earn.

Next is the value of your service. It's essential to view your work through the perspective of your clients and from a commercial perspective. You can ask questions like: How will my work benefit the client? How will it affect their bottom line? The answer to these questions will dictate a part of the amount that you can charge. 

Aside from that, you should also consider the competition when calculating your rate. You should check on how others in the same level as you charge. If you find freelancers who charge cheaply while others charge more, you should always consider the average of it. Note that charging cheaply can mean a compromise of the quality of work they provide. So if you charge at a very low rate, clients and employers may think that the quality of your work is not excellent. Always take the quality of work that you can give into consideration. Not just on competition alone.

Finally, if you still have a hard time in calculating your hourly rate, you can check out the FreelanceSwitch Calculator to give you a guide based on your costs, number of billable hours and desired profit. It will only take you about 5-20 minutes to complete it depending on much you spend time as you give each calculation.

Our Administrative Assistant

Ellen, Admin Assist. Bynes Transcriptions

Today, we'd like to introduce to you our administrative assistant. Ellen Flores. She plays a very important role in the business as a whole. We'd like to discuss how Ellen's contributions to the growth of the business as well as her tasks, expectations and responsibilities within the company. We are happy and proud to have her on our team.

An administrative assistant, in any functional business, handles all or most of the day-to-day tasks to make sure the office is running smoothly. Some of Ellen's responsibilities are, but not limited to recruiting new applicants, testing, the screening process and initially filtering the applicants out to see if they are suited for transcriber positions. She is responsible for making sure every applicant hired is competent enough to do their assigned tasks.

Other than recruiting new applicants, Ellen is also responsible for capturing leads from various resources and closing clients' accounts. She's also involved with some of the marketing, such as following up with clients and leads. To top it off, Ellen takes part in filling in with some of our transcription projects, maintaining our CRM database and logging in information and tracking figures across all of our company departments..

Ms. Flores has come to be a very important asset with our company. She's been employed with Bynes Transcript and Typing Services since November 2012. Her scope of responsibility is not only limited to administrative and marketing, but also to the actual services of the company. Hence, she plays a very important role in the business.

Being an administrative assistant requires one to be flexible, organized and skilled when it comes to handling major parts of the business. It's not an easy feat so, we definitely consider the importance and the value of Ms. Ellen Flores as our administrative assistant for our company.

Use the comment box below to say hello to Ellen!

Dealing with Homophones: Words That Sound Alike But Have Different Spellings

In transcribing a recording, you may encounter words that can have different spellings and meanings. You may be wondering on what the correct spelling is and you may get confused as to what the word should be used. So how do you deal with these?

Words that sound alike but have different spellings and different meanings are called Homophones and to be a competent transcriber, one must carefully consider this group of words as this can make or break a transcription project. 

To be able to distinguish one word from another, you must be knowledgeable in the English vocabulary and you must know the meanings of each word so that you can take it into context and find out which one is the best suited word. 

Here are some of the words that one can get confused and are often misused when it comes to transcribing:

• There, They're and Their

You can notice that these three words are simple to read, but are often the most misused. Especially when you are listening to a recording, one can mistake a "There" for a "Their" or a "They're" for a "There". The best way to deal with this is to understand first and foremost the meaning of these words by stopping first at transcribing and looking them up in the dictionary. Once you have gotten a good grasp of their differences, listen to the recording once again and take each word into the context of what is being said. Then compare which one makes sense the most.

Other homophones that are often misused include the following:

• Right, Write
• His, He's
• To, Too, Two
• Hear, Here
• Weight, Wait

This are just a few of the many homophones that are commonly muddled. Be sure to improve your English vocabulary to decrease the chances of committing this mistake and consult your dictionary as a grammar or a spell checker may still accept a wrongly used homophone.

Transcription for Starters

For newbies who are just starting the Transcriptionist Career, transcribing can be a daunting task especially if you've been given an audio where you can barely hear what the speaker is saying and has a lot of noise around it. You'll end up getting frustrated without finishing the job. You might be confused as to what equipment you need to prepare or what software to use in order to transcribe effectively and efficiently. To have some clarity in transcribing, here are some snippets of what you can do to start transcribing away.

Transcription Software and Headphones

First and foremost, you need a transcription software and headphones that you can become comfortable with. The software must have all the functions and features necessary to transcribe seamlessly and that it must be user-friendly as well. There are many transcription software that you can choose from and here are just some that you can try out for yourself. You can weigh out their pros and cons to find the one according to your preferences.

Express Scribe - It is a free transcription tool that can both run on PC or Mac. It's one of the most popular transcription software out in the market so go ahead and give it a try.

InqScribe - With Inqscribe, you can caption and transcribe audios. It's very useful when it comes to transcribing and it quite easy to use. You will be able to work faster and more efficiently in using this tool. InqScribe comes with a price but you can, however, download a 30-day trial so you can try it out for yourself.

EureScribe - EureScribe is another software which can help you in transcribing audio files and supports a lot of audio and video formats. You are sure to face transcription challenges with ease using this powerful software.

With regards to the headphones, make sure that both channels are working and are enough for you to hear every word spoken from the audio.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Once you have selected your preferred transcription software and downloaded it, you will now need to set up keyboard shortcuts that you are most comfortable with. If the software that you are using is user-friendly, you will be able to find the settings on how to change this base on your preference. 

Audio Transcription

Now that you have set up your transcription software and keyboard shortcuts, all you need to do is upload the audio that needs transcribing and then start away.  

If you are transcribing an audio wherein the speaker speaks very fast, a lot of transcription software has a key to slow down the audio. This will make it easier for you to clarify what the speaker is saying. Then you can just return it to the normal speed by pressing another key when it's not hard to understand anymore. This is to save time in transcribing.

Proofreading

Now that you have finished transcribing the file, another important thing to do is to proofread your transcription and find any spelling, grammar, punctuation and comprehension mistakes in it. You must have a good command of the English Grammar, Spelling, and Reading Comprehension to make sure that the transcript is impeccable. And after that, you can then format the transcript based on your template to retain consistency.

Now this does not constitute all there is to know about Transcription. This is just the beginning and it will take a lot of practice and a lot of transcription jobs before you get a hang of it. Be sure to practice always and find ways to become better at transcribing.

Are you a newbie and would like to share your experience? Post it in the comments section below.