Many Indian and foreign companies are on their way to catching the lucrative Indian market. But the language barriers stand in the way of their endeavor to reach every potential Indian customer.
They need to make the customers understand the value of their products. Here comes the role of a transcriptionist.
A transcriptionist converts either the live or recorded video or audios into written text format. Transcription of important business meetings, seminars, interviews is very important to assess the growth of any business and take steps accordingly.
Though the introduction of speech recognizing software has limited the scope of medical transcription jobs, there is huge scope for the job and business opportunity in general and legal transcriptions.
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The future of general or business transcription is bright. It will see a huge boom in the near future.
So as a new entrepreneur, you can start your business in the field of general transcription.
Scope and Futures
The role of a medical transcriptionist is to transcribe the voice recordings made by doctors, nurses, and medical researchers.
The introduction of automotive software has reduced the scope of the medical transcription business.
Yet, the demand for an expert medical transcriptionist is still high. You need to get an MT certificate to act as a medical transcriptionist.
Legal transcriptionists work in courtrooms, listen to court proceedings, and transcribe these into written form for ensuring a healthy judiciary. Its demand is moderate but not as high as a general transcriptionist.
General transcriptionists perform their duties in companies, govt. Agencies and non-govt. Organizations. Many companies are recruiting general transcriptionists to write captions on their YouTube videos to reach potential customers. More companies are spreading their business across the globe.
India is a land of language diversity. Though there are as many as 800 languages spoken all over India, only 22 languages are listed in the viii schedule of our constitution.
So there is a huge demand for transcriptionists to eliminate the digital divide.
Steps To Get Started
Enrolling for transcription course
You can enroll yourself in an industry-specific transcription course for your transcription business in India.
It will help you gain a specific industry-oriented style and approach. You will learn specific industry-related terminology.
After all, a basic knowledge of a certified course will make you understand how this industry works.
and here are the two most popular platforms where you can enroll and start your transcription course today:
Have some experience
If you can have some prior knowledge and experience of an industry, it will be very easy for you to succeed within a short time. So, start freelancing or working as a full-time employee in a company for some time to dip into this business.
Register business
Now it is time to get your transcription business licensed. Get registration from the authority concerned. If you need any local authorization from the municipalities, you should take it. Know about the GST registration. If necessary, consult a tax adviser.
Finding a location
You can work from home. But if you can set up a separate office, it will give your business a professional look. So try to get a room for rent.
Capital investment
To start a transcription business, you may have to invest around 2 lakh to 2.5 lakh initially.
What you need:
- A desktop or laptop
- High-speed internet connection
- Digital printer
- Transcription software with auto-correct features
- Foot pedal for controlling typing speed
- Headset
- Initial balance for staff payments
Pro tips
Demand for specialization will continue to go high. So try to get specialized in a particular field to build up a brand for your company. You will have to decide whether you want to go for medical, legal, or business transcription.
Marketing your service
Now you are ready to promote your business to reach potential clients.
You can do it by:
- Hire an agency to create a website for you.
- Printing some brochures and cards
- Contacting directly to the clients through mails
- Branding through social networking sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Doing ground-level research of your competitors and knowing their price rate and quality of work.
- To do this all you have to hire a digital marketing agency.
Final words
Before entering any business, you must be aware of the hurdles and challenges you might have faced in the future. In the transcription business, you also may face some unwanted issues for which you should prepare yourself.
Some challenges that may haunt you:
- Poor audio quality
- Wrong price estimation
- Ineligible and inexperienced staffs
- Under-rated and low-quality software
- Videos or audios with very fast-talking
- Inability to meet the deadline
So, before taking any project, you must check the audio and video quality of the content. Feel free to raise the issue to your clients and talk about the probable solution.
Price negotiation with your client is very important because it is related to the growth of your business. A wrong estimation can cause you financial loss. You should be very careful in selecting transcriptionists.
A wrong choice can diminish the reputation of your brand. You can appoint some interns in your company and train them to come up to the mark.
You should weigh in your company’s capacities and take projects accordingly so that you can meet the deadline.