Speaker 1: Hi there, it's Alicia here at newvaadvice.com, and today I wanted to take a minute to answer some questions about the live course that I have coming up called General Transcription Boot Camp. While there is a fax sheet on my website, there are also some other things that I felt would be better to kind of tell you in a video so that you get a sense for the course. The first thing is, what does it mean by live course? Well, it doesn't mean that you need to be available at a certain time or a certain day for a webinar or a phone call, but you have to make live at a particular time. What it does mean is that the course work and information is going to start coming to you by email on September 22nd. It's approximately a six week course, so you want to schedule some time in for yourself and dedicate that to yourself and your education over, like I said, about a six week period that you're going to make time to work on the course materials as they come in. So again, you don't have to make it online, for example, on Thursday nights at 6pm or anything like that. So the course material is going to come through emails. You will get the materials a couple of days apart for each session. Depending on how much is involved on your part, I've scheduled them to go at different times. You may get a piece of the course and have three days before you get the next part or you might have six days before you get the next part, depending on how much work you need to do before you move on to the next piece. So what exactly is in the course? I know you can see information on the page about the program, but let me give you a general idea. The first couple of sessions that you receive by email are more education and information. So it's a lot of reading and comprehension. I go into the whole concept of general transcription, what clients are looking for from you and some guidelines on how to give them what they need, templates to use for that. So you get all of that. You also get printouts and sheets to hold onto so that you have things to reference through the course. This is a skills course, so we're really focusing on honing your skills of transcription. This isn't a course where we really go into how to get those clients and market your business and set up your business. This is for skills. So like I said, the first section of the course, the first so many weeks is really that information. It's reading and comprehension. It's learning the terminology and what clients are looking for and giving you the templates for that. I also give you the free software that we use to transcribe. There's going to be a link in your course materials for that. You can download the software on your computer and it's free. And then the second half of the course is really I think what sets it apart from any other program that might deal with transcription. The second half of the course is where I give you real sample files. They are actual client files of mine, audios that I have transcribed for clients. I give you those files by email and then I give you an amount of time to work on it and create your own transcript from that based on what you learned in the first half of the course. When you're finished with your file, you email that back into me and you will get an email from me personally giving you critique and advice and proofing that file for you. So that's the big part that makes this course stand out from others. You're getting that one on one time with me and you're learning exactly how clients want their work right now. Like I said, these are clients of mine that the files came from. They've given me permission to use them in the course. These are files that I have done myself and you're basically getting one on one email coaching time with me to go over that information to really hone your skills. The next question I'm usually asked is what kind of equipment do you need in order to take the course? Well, you don't really need a lot of things. Like I said, I'm going to give you the link for the free software for doing transcription and listening to the audio. I'm going to give you guidelines and templates to use. So in order to start out, you need a computer with internet access and you need some type of headphones or earbuds. I don't recommend just listening to the sound that comes out of your computer speakers because you really need to listen in a different way. So whether you don't have a lot to shell out right now and you just want to start with your earbuds or some kind of headphones that you might have from some other equipment, that's fine. I'm not asking you to go out and spend a lot of money for some fancy headset or noise canceling headphones. You don't need all that to start out. My idea with this course is to give you the simple basics that you need. So we don't use a foot pedal. I'm not saying that you can't, but I don't go over that information in the course. However, it is compatible with what I teach and with the free software that I give you to use for transcription if you chose to do so. I just don't go over that information. I personally don't use one myself. So you're going to be learning the basics in the course. As far as any other equipment, you can also use Open Office, which is great if you're using Mac, because then it's compatible with pretty much any kind of program. So that's what we use to actually create the transcription, the type of files that we're going to be working with. So another thing I get asked is, who is best suited for this course and do I need transcription experience coming in? The answer to that is no. I did not personally have any transcription experience when I started my business. And that's one of the reasons that I created this course. I want to help people who have those basic skills of great English grammar and punctuation. You may already be a fast typist. You are a good listener, but you haven't done any transcription work for anyone yet. You might be thinking of adding this to your already existing VA services or just making it a standalone service business. So you feel that you have some of those base skills, but you've never actually done transcription for anyone. That's the position that I was in and that's where I felt that I could have used a little help starting out. I really didn't find any courses except the ones that were way over my budget to help me learn those things. So it was a little nerve wracking taking on my first couple of clients because I hadn't done it. So the idea with this course is that you get this experience with me so that you feel confident in your skills and you're working with someone who is still working currently with transcription clients. So you feel like you have a handle on this. You have this training course under your belt. Now if you want to add that service, you have an idea of what the clients are looking for. So the other question I get asked is what if you have questions during the course and how this is going? Since we don't actually have any live phone calls, how is that handled? You do have access to a private Facebook group that's only for those attending the course. We also have graduates of the course in there as well that will sometimes jump in and answer questions or colleagues of mine that can help you. So you have that space. Now I understand that some people aren't on Facebook or that's not their thing. So in that case, you do have email access to me throughout the course. You know, like I said, I'll be critiquing your transcripts, but if at any time you have any questions going through anything in the beginning of the course, in the end of the course, anywhere, please don't hesitate to ask questions. You'll be given a special email address to use for the course materials. And that's where you can send me any questions you have or concerns as you're going through. So you always have access to me. That's another big bonus of the live version of the course. Now if you're thinking that you would like to learn this information, but you don't necessarily need one-on-one, you're good working on your own, if someone gives you the materials and how to do it, you can do it on your own. I do have a self-study. I'll send you some information below this video on the link to that program, but basically you could go to the newvaadvice.com website and there's a section for general transcription info and products. You'll see that there's a self-study program for this course. However, if what I said today resonated with you and you really like the idea of getting that one-on-one time, having the extra support available to you and the extra bonus material that will come with this, then feel free to join us for the next live version. We start September 22nd. I leave spots open for six people and two of those are filled. So there are still four spots left and there's plenty of time to get in. Like I said, this type of live course, you don't necessarily have to be available on September 22nd at a certain time to get started. Just make the commitment to yourself and dedicate time to yourself and your education and you can jump in and join in with us this time around. So if you want more information about it, you could always email me at alicia at newvaadvice.com or check out the link that you see on the screen there that will give you details of the course, the sessions, and all of the great bonus materials that you get and that link is newvaadvice.com forward slash general hyphen transcription hyphen bootcamp. You can find more information there. Enrollment will be open up until September 22nd and of course contact me with any questions. You can also leave them in the comment section of this video as well. And I hope that helps and I hope to see you in the live course this year, September 22nd for general transcription bootcamp. Thanks.