The current economic climate is forcing many consultants to travel further and work longer hours for a lower rate. It's something I experienced recently, dropping my rate by 33% to work on an under resourced project at the other end of the country. For me, it is an area of work I am looking to break into, so there was an investment element, but for many it is the norm.
Dropping your rate is annoying and it got me thinking about how I could claw back some of the rate and the extra time I was spending. The answer came in the first phase - interviewing all of the executives and senior managers - which is traditionally a slog, with back-to-back interviews, loads of note-taking and write-ups. If you are working alone or with a close colleague, and you have neat hand writing and are disciplined then scanning and sharing your hand notes is an option. If you are in a larger team, as I was, then there's little chance of getting away from typing up your notes. But hey, its costed-in so its chargeable time!
The ideal solution was to take notes - with the usual sketches to aid understanding and squeezed-in notes as the interviewee jumps around trying to throw me off the scent - and then dictate them. Dictating and hour's meeting took me 5-10 mins depending on how much information was gleened, and this can be done between meetings or over lunch and before leaving at the end of the day - you can then add other notes and recollections that wouldn't normally get added by hand. I use Microsoft Groove, so simply dropping the audio files in the space automatically synchronises with my Virtual Assistant. She then types up the notes whilst I'm in the next meeting or driving home. It's such a relief not having to type after a long day.
The upshot is, I saved half a day's typing time for every day interviewing. The rate for a typist at £15 /hour is
far less than my rate which pales into insignificance overall, so I'm effectively getting 50% more at my rate and I'm releasing half a day to spend on another project or business development. Perfect!
The same can apply to preparing content for presentations and producing the draft final report. Most Virtual Assistants will type, format reports and pull together presentations, and some offer a wide range of other Admin Support Services too. It's down to us to figure out how to make best use of these in our business.
For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle Search This Blog or visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk
