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I want to ask you a question. Have you ever thought about using audio dictation in your business?
Did you know people speak 7 times faster than they can type?
If you run your own business you will no doubt spend a lot of time typing and if you don’t know your way around a keyboard and you’re slow at typing it can really slow you down and keep you from other work.
Throughout my career as a legal PA I’ve always been an audio typist. The lawyers I worked for would dictate lengthy emails, letters and reports and I would type it up, format and proof read. As a touch typist I’m fast and can type more than 80 words per minute. By dictating the lawyers can move onto other work without spending hours doing the typing themselves.
What is audio dictation?
Dictation is a method of recording and editing the spoken word in real-time. Dictation involves you recording into a handheld Dictaphone machine or by using an app on your smartphone.
When you’ve finished recording you send the audio file to a transcriber/audio typist. The audio typist will listen to the recording and type up the recording. Depending on software, the typist will often use a foot pedal. This is often used when transcriptions are lengthy as it helps to be able to rewind or fast forward the recording.
Dictating saves you so much time and avoids long spells sat at your computer. Wouldn’t it be great to grab your dictaphone and record on the go? Whether it’s on the bus, at home of an evening or out walking the dog, it can give you so much flexibility to get more done.
Sometimes you can run the risk of forgetting key points after a meeting or a discussion that might have taken place. You intend to type up the notes when you get back to the office but other events take over and it’s forgotten.
Using dictation means you can quickly record everything when you get back to the car, get your Virtual Assistant to type it up and it’s ready and waiting for you when you get back to the office.
What can you dictate?
Anything. You can dictate anything that needs putting into words. Some examples might be:
- Content for social media posts
- Blogs
- Emails
- Letters
- Presentations
- Memos and telephone notes
- Notes for your CRM
- Notes following a networking event.
Do you have lots of videos? Yes? Why not have the content typed up so you can use them for posting throughout your social media platforms or turn them into blogs?
What is the best software to use?
Whilst there are plenty of free options, it all depends how often you intend to dictate and the volume of dictation you’ll want transcribing.
I use the Phillips Speechline software with a couple of my clients. It’s secure and the files encrypted end to end and uploaded to a cloud and archived after 30 days or earlier if desired. It’s a professional software and works well for larger volumes of dictation.
I also have earphones and a foot pedal so it’s much quicker for me to type up the transcription. There are a lot of free audio apps out there but some don’t have the capabilities to hook up the foot pedal, thus meaning the typist will need to keep pushing play, stop, play, stop on the phone.
COST
For a yearly licence fee of £106 + VAT I can set you up with your own licence so all you need to do is download the Speechline app onto your smartphone and start dictating. I will receive your audio files straight into my in tray.
To find out more about my audio transcription charges per dictation, please check out my rates page.
If you want to start using audio dictation in your business then get in touch to find out more info@kelliesimpsonva.co.uk.
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