Recession-busting advice from Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year
February 19, 2009
One of our clients – Andy Bounds (we helped type his best-selling book The Jelly Effect for him) – has won the prestigious title of Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year 2008/9.
One of the key reasons for his success is his unparalleled ability to help organisations sell more, especially in these troubled times (his clients won £3 billion last year!).
I asked him for some top tips on how to sell more in a recession. This is what he said:
- More than ever, it is imperative to deliver a significant, measurable return on investment (ROI) for your clients. They just will not spend unless they can see they will be in a better place after buying from you.
- This means, of course, that traditional selling messages – “about us”, “our credentials”, “why we are great” – won’t work any more, because they don’t highlight ROI.
- Instead, when talking to potential customers, our sole focus must be on them – not us – and the future value they want us to bring. To do this, simply ask lots of future-based questions, to find what’s crucial to them, such as:
- What are you looking to achieve here?
- How will you know it’s worked?
- How would you judge our working relationship to be a success? etc.
- Clarity on their desired future state will guide your ensuing discussions. After all, which legal practice would you buy from:
- Practice A: who said “We are experts in X, X and X, have X partners in X locations and are specialists in X”; or,
- Practice B: “When we spoke last week, you said that – in the current climate – your key focus has to be on your core business. You want to give all your time and energy to it. We can help you do that, by removing the current time you’re spending on certain legal issues, freeing you up to …”
It’s an obvious choice. Notice how the Practice B repeatedly used the word “you”. If you’re talking about the client, you’re helping them. If you keep talking about yourself, you’re selling. And nobody wants to be sold to these days.
It’s good advice, isn’t it? Simple, obvious and practical. Andy has lots of other free advice about wining business on his Resource centre – click here to take a look.
Or, if you feel your practice could do with an immediate injection of new business, go straight to the man himself on andy@andybounds.com.
Do you want to know how outsourcing works?
February 5, 2009
Outsourcing typing must be one of the simplest and quickest ways of increasing efficiency, controlling overhead costs whilst at the same time, improving your lifestyle. Work is produced faster, pay as you use means costs are controlled and outsourcing removes the headaches of recruiting, training, re-training, finding holiday/sickness cover and, if staffing is reduced too, it also reduces the amount of management time needed in running your business.
So with all of the free trials on offer, promises of a value added services from template production and superfast turnaround times, what is stopping you from having a go?
This article is lengthy and it contains detail of our processes.
- Do you use a digital dictation system already? If no, go to question 2. If yes, then skip number 2 and go directly to question 3.
- Every firm is set up slightly differently and each individual has their preference to how they work with dictation. Below are questions we ask you, to find out which is the best dictation system for you to use.
- Do you sit at your desk and work at your computer? If so, we will offer you our Winscribe Author dictation program, at no cost to you, which can be installed on your computer or laptop. This program works with a Philips Speechmike which plugs into your PC. Creating a new dictation is as simple as creating a new email. You can type notes to your dictation and also attach documents, if, for example, you needed to send us a specific template or perhaps a document which needs copy typing or amending.
- Are you on the move? If you dictate away from the office, prefer walking around and generally don’t like wires, then my favourite, the Philips Pocket Memo, is a good choice for you. Instead of using tapes, the Pocket Memo has a memory card and the device has the familiar slide control. Once you’ve dictated onto your Pocket Memo, the sound files need to be transferred to the Document Direct typists.
- No software needs to be installed and you can send your dictation from any computer connected to the internet. Simply go to our website to upload your dictations direct from your device. Our help guide is available here.
- If you’re dictating a lot of small jobs then uploading onto the website might be a little time consuming and fiddly for you. Winscribe’s Importer program can be installed on your computer. The Importer program is constantly scanning your PC for new dictations, so when you connect your Pocket Memo to your computer it copies them and sends them across the internet direct to the Document Direct typists.
- Do you work with your mobile phone? Winscribe’s dictation software for Blackberry is now available from Document Direct. Using your Blackberry as an all-in-one device means you can send your dictation from anywhere, receiving your work back to your phone too with mobile email.
- All of the above options are subject to your company IT infrastructure (if any) but are cost effective and require very little capital outlay.
- You already have a dictation system and depending on which type you have there are a number of solutions for you.
- If you use Winscribe we will liaise with your software assurance provider to configure your system so that Document Direct appears as an additional typist group. You may also be interested in Winscribe’s 360 Degree product which tracks the progress of each dictation which is outsourced.
- If you use the BigHand dictation system then we can arrange for the BigHand Outsource Module to be installed onto your system, at no cost to you. The Outsource Module adds Document Direct as an additional typist to your company. Your fee earners can choose to send dictations direct to us or an administrator can choose which dictations to drag/drop to the Document Direct typist. The progress of the outsourced dictations can be tracked and will show on the screen when the dictation is finished and the fee earner should expect their work to be in their system.
- Philips/Olympus systems have their own proprietary software but the sound files are produced in the DSS format which is compatible with the Document Direct system. As each firm is set up differently and has unique needs we will liaise with your IT department to install and configure Winscribe’s Importer program (see above).
- If you have any other dictation system then we would ask that you email a sample sound file to us so that we can check compatibility with the Document Direct system.
- So now the dictation system has been chosen the next stage is telling us what documents you need typing.
- If you have a bank of standard documents, templates and precedents then simply transfer them over to us.
- If you have some standard templates but are not happy with them, tell us. We will modernise them, add word processing features such as automatic numbering, page numbering, headers and footers - at no added cost to you. A sample of our templates is the Particulars of Claim template.
- If you have a house style, or would like one, tell us. We will build up a knowledge base on your preferred style of documents so they’re produced just the way you like them.
- What happens after the dictation is typed? How do you collect your finished work? Again, each firm and individual will have their own preferred method.
- We can email documents to a preferred email address.
- This can be direct to a fee earner, or to an appointed secretary. In many cases it’s the secretaries that we’re helping as they are far too busy with their PA duties, being an unqualified fee earner, and they prefer to choose which dictations to outsource.
- Each individual author can have the work sent to as many email addresses as required and can be changed at any point. It’s useful for any users who have mobile email, are not always connected to a company network and perhaps want copies to be sent to an administrator.
- The completed documents can be collected from our website and downloaded. Whilst this system cuts down email traffic it is necessary to have a computer connected to the internet.
- Work can be completed within the firm’s case management system. We will liaise with your IT department to discuss your infrastructure and requirements for us to connect remotely to your systems.
- We can email documents to a preferred email address.
- How much does it all cost? Once you’ve decided out which dictation system you’re using the cost of outsourcing to Document Direct is based purely on the amount of dictation sent to us. We base our charges on the length of the recordings and have just one standard rate, regardless of priority or urgency. We produce a report which totals your dictations and forms the basis of our invoice. Our reports can be as detailed as you wish and can even include a client reference so you can assign your typing charges as a disbursement to client files.
Cost = number of minutes x £1.30
You may have lots of questions still unanswered in which case don’t hesitate to drop me an email or give us a call.
Mobile dictation on a Windows PDA
November 18, 2008
Your multiple-use mobile phone can do so much more than make phone calls, and deliver and receive emails. Now your PDA can be a digital dictation device with Winscribe’s Pocket Author software.
Download the free software by clicking here. Click on RUN and the application will be intalled on your PC and linked to Active Sync. When you next connect your mobile phone to your PC the dictation program will be installed on it.
You will need some magical pieces of information from us to have the program connect to our system and get you started.
Contact us now to have your free account set up.
Confidential outsource typing services
September 9, 2008
Loading ...Outsourcing has received some bad press in the past. Using typing services offshore has proved very unpopular, especially as we have a very willing and able workforce on home turf. One of the reasons for outsourcing offshore has not been related to cost but an assurance of confidentiality.
What more can we do to ensure confidence from our local workforce? At Document Direct we ask each of our typists to sign Confidentiality Agreements and refer our clients to our terms of business which set out our position with regard to confidentiality. Should we go a step further and have our candidates CRB checked? Answer our poll and let us know.
What’s your reason to outsource your typing?
August 14, 2008
Document Direct is here to provide you with the best outsource typing service that you want and need. We’ve found many reasons why businesses and individuals choose to outsource their dictation. Answer our poll and let us know your reason. If you choose “other” then please leave a comment in the box at the bottom of the page.
Loading ...Feasibility of outsource typing
August 2, 2008
A busy lawyer dictates 30 minutes per day. This costs £36 per day to outsource. Over a month (20 days) this equates to £720, that’s less than £9,000 a year. The average cost to employ a secretary is £20,000 a year when on-costs are taken into account. It’s possible to slash the secretarial overhead by 50% yet still have 100% efficiency.
Preparing a cost analysis for a business which is already using a digital dictation system is quite easy. A digital system with workflow management allows reports to be created so it’s easy to see the length of the recording, how long it’s taken to be typed and who by. Document Direct uses the reporting system from its dictation system to calculate the charges on per minute of recording basis so costs comparator between in-house typists and outsourcing can be given almost immediately.
For those businesses still using analogue tapes, it would be useful for the length of the dictation to be recorded manually (for at least a week) as the dictation is being completed. Otherwise, quite often the only comparator will be the number of typed pages and completed documents.
A useful guide will be to “see” how much dictation a busy personal injury lawyer produces each week and how many typed pages that equates to.
In the documents available below it can been seen that a busy personal injury lawyer has produced 3 hours 11 minutes dictation in one week in June, which has produced 142 typed pages of text. The costs for this, at our current charge of £1.30 per minute, equates to £248.30. The length of typing time is irrelevant as the cost is fixed to the dictation time. Needless to say, all deadlines for completion of the work were met in good time. What is interesting to note is that the dictation was received during the working hours of 8.30am and 6.00pm, Monday to Friday, so costs should be compared to the emloyment of a temporary or permanent secretary in-house for those hours.
There are many different reasons to outsource and just as many benefits. Don’t take our word for it - click on the links below to download case studies from Document Direct clients.
- Case Study from Parkin S Booth, Insolvency Practitioners
- Case Study from India Buildings Chambers, Barristers
- Case Study from Brown Turner Solicitors
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