Do you ever feel overwhelmed and can’t seem to get a handle on all of the emails, correspondence, projects, delegated tasks you know are vital to your success? Jimmy visits with Maree Moscati of Copytalk, Inc. and shares his team’s use of the Copytalk App for iPhone that makes his life so efficient and how he saved more than $3,500 per month when his company performed transcriptions internally.
Episode Keys
You will gain insight into:
- The use of a simple app that can replace personnel in your office to provide you correspondence, memorandums, to-do lists, reminders, and much more.
- How to outsource tasks with confidence that are vital and important to your company’s success.
- Jimmy’s 2nd Brain – Why its important you remove the ideas, notes, to-do’s and other information from your mind and dictate it to be stored in Evernote or other archival systems.
- Thinking about the various aspects of your business and how to leverage your resources to gain marketshare and maintain compliance with regulations impacting your business.
- FREE – You can receive a complimentary, unlimited use 7-Day Trial of Copytalk by going to here: www.copytalk.com/Jimmy
Podcast Transcript
Good morning! This is Jimmy Williams, your host for Live a Life by Design. Your Monday morning moments of motivation to help you live life on your terms. I’m the only one on the air today, folks, with a PhD in Positivity and a Master’s degree in Motivation. Bringing you those things in life that are most important so you can live life by design. Today is an outstanding episode with some great content. So I’ve got a special surprise for you at the end of the episode and it will also be in the show notes of how you can take advantage of one of the greatest tools I’ve ever discovered in my career. And I do not mean to embellish. It is just simply fact. This tool is at my hand at any time I can push a button, literally, and command letters to do lists, I can make reminders, I can assign assignments. I can even, and you’ve heard this right, quote my book in it to be transcribed that I’m currently working on. It has been a fantastic, fantastic tool.
Now what if I asked you, what would it take in your office, your team, or if you just hired a contractor to transcribe all of your letters only. Let’s say that you just dictate your letters only. What do you think that would take? It’d take salary, it’d take employee benefits, it’d take another person that guess what, sometimes they get ill. Perhaps and can’t show up that day. But if you had someone 24/7 based in the United Stated that could take care of all of these transcription needs for you and for a very cost effective price per month, I assure you you would want to take advantage of it. So I am even more excited to tell you who is our guest today. Our guest is one of the most busy, I mean this lady is so busy I had to book her like six months ago. Pre-pandemic as we say at our office. But she is a busy, busy professional. Here she decided she would give us a few moments of her time and I know she’s got a busy schedule. So let’s just get right to it. The CEO of Copytalk is Maree Moscati, glad to have you today, Maree!
MM: Glad to be here Jimmy, thank you.
JW: So, let’s just jump right into this. What’s life like for a CEO for yourself with as many team members as you have scattered all over Georgia and Florida? Man, what’s it like during a pandemic?
MM: Fun. Lot’s of fun, lots of twists and turns. And I will not say this will be our new norm. God willing it won’t be. But it has definitely been a change and a transition. As well as the challenges along the way. But I’ve always said in any business, you surround yourself with the greatest people and you empower them. And you employ them for their diversity and include their ideas and suggestions and you can never lose. And I’ve always been a big believer in that and I’m very, very fortunate because our team is amazing. So, as challenging as it was, we’ve got through it. We got through it for ourselves and for our employees. And certainly for our clients.
JW: So, let’s just jump into this. What’s a typical day like for you as CEO of Copytalk. One of the busiest transcription services in the United States.
MM: I don’t know that anything is traditional. But it’s, day starts early. As you can well imagine. We pretty much work around the clock. But my day starts very, very early. I like to be very organized. So I certainly go through a ton of emails to make sure of whatever is urgent and set my day. Have communications. I’m very big on communications, especially now as a lot of our teams are working remote. So it’s, we do have call. We set up a call, whether it’s with the operations manager, it’s with, whether it’s my development team. My IT team. My sales team, or my customer service team. So, it’s kind of like the morning huddle if you will. And we set the tone for the day, for what the vision is, of what we need to accomplish. And what the expectations are. So, we want to keep that…
JW: Wonderful.
MM: That keeps us pretty busy. And we also, you know, on occasion, do what I call a focus group with our clients so we can check in to check on the good, the bad, and the ugly. What’s working, what’s not working. And what do they need from us that they’re not getting.
JW: Well I do know your customer support team, that the executive assigned to our team has been phenomenal during this pandemic. I want to let you know. He has been very responsive. You heard me say during the introduction perhaps that I’ve been using Copytalk even to write some of the chapters and things to my book. So, that’s available of course. Copytalk can set you up with either one of their standard type services, or I like to say hey, if they can do seven minute, per you know, transcription, can you do more? And of course, they can! So, tell me a little bit about how you define the services you wish to offer, how did you determine how many minutes or how long should something be in your traditional service?
MM: Well, it’s, believe it or not, there’s a true science behind it all. And I cannot take credit for it. However, as we grow and expand as a firm, I didn’t start the firm, they started back in 2001. So they’ve been around for a very long time. However, there is a science. So we look at typically what it takes and what it would cost to have our live transcriptionist listen intently and transcribe accurately what somebody is saying. So our basic service starts at the four minute mark. So we can deliver back in a relatively short period of time to our clients. And then we justify the cost for the actionable upgrades. The longer time frame that you go. In accordance to what it costs us to pay for that employee to do that work. Traditionally, again, for what you do when it’s book writing or podcasts, that’s our traditional mobile scribe. You know, documenting the why. The memorializing conversations. Things of that nature. But then our other service is called Digiscribe. Digi for short. Which is really booming these days, actually both services are. But Digiscribe is really booming. A couple of years ago we started to work on audio and video transcriptions, and because of our security and privacy protocols, Jimmy, it was an organic growth into the closed captioning houses. And we do some work for several closed captioning houses. With movie houses, production houses. So that became very interesting.
JW: Wow
MM: That’s a service where we can do audio, video transcription. We can do speaker identification. Time stamping. All of that good stuff that goes along. But if somebody wants to make a presentation or write a book, or even a blogger in today’s world, that’s the service that they would use because it’s a different way that we charge. It’s a charge per minute and it’s unlimited minutes. So, it really depends on what your needs are. So, it’s been a very interesting growth pattern for us.
JW: That is wonderful. So, let’s just boil down to the even bare essence for our listeners that may not be familiar. I’m in the wealth management business. So, the financial services industries. And Copytalk is just, to me, so well suited for our profession of what we do and how we do it. And the fact is, I’ve got to be honest with you Maree, I don’t know if you guys know this, but I’d like you to tell your sales team, your customer service team. We can’t live without you now. We are that hooked on this stuff. So, let’s talk a little bit about, if you would, what Copytalk really is and how easy it is to use with the app.
MM: That’s a great question Jimmy. And thank you for those accolades. I sure will pass that on to our team. We love hearing that. I can’t tell you how that warms my heart. Cause we do work hard, we take pride in what we do. So, that to us just fuels us to even be better. So, thank you.
JW: You’re welcome.
MM: Copytalk is, I come from 30 years in the financial services, wealth management industry. And in my later years in my career I used Copytalk, and just like you I couldn’t, what was I thinking by not using it sooner. Cause it just makes life so much easier. So, we are very heavily in regulated industries. Mainly wealth management, financial services. Because of our security protocols and how we set the standards in the industry. Some of the things that we do that a lot of people may not be aware of, but it’s critically important to me as CEO, as well as the filters down to my management team and actually to everyone of our employees. Even our transcriptionists. So we memorialize conversations. As you all know in regulated industries, you’re mandated to document client meetings, the why you’re doing it. I always say document the why. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? What was the reasoning behind it? What was the thought process? How did the client accept it? And in our industry, now with Reg B I out there, in the open, that’s even another big explosion. If you will, of must haves for people in the wealth management/ financial services industry. So we make it very, very simple. And coming from the, this industry. And have led close to 200 advisors at some point in my career. You learn the KISS process, is the way it is. Keep It Simple Stupid. I mean, it’s no matter where you are. No matter what platform. It’s always that KISS platform that I keep in the back of my mind. It’s so simple. You don’t have to…and I will say, I’m a Baby Boomer. I come from a Franklin Planner generation. Give me my Franklin Planner book, for those of you that know what the Franklin Planner is. Everything, your life was written down in this book. It was beyond even a diary. So for me to give up my book and go digital, if you will, really dating myself. I started when I was 12. But to go digital was, I mean, met with great, great, great force against it. So, I get it. I get how different generations accept to technology and going digital in different ways. But this is so simple. There’s nothing you need to download, other than our app if you choose to use our apps. If you can leave a voicemail, you can use Copytalk. That’s pretty much our motto. That’s how simple it is. You pick up a phone, or you go into our app, and you say subject, and then text, and boom. You’re good to go. And what’s really super, super cool that a lot of people don’t realize. We’re not voice recognition. We’re not a bot. We have live transcriptionists. Typically working in our facilities, all U.S. based. Of course the subset in these days are remote. But still under the same security and privacy, even stricter security and privacy protocols then ever before, as you can well imagine. And within a few hours that transcription comes back to you via email, or direct integration into your CRM. But what’s super cool if you say operator, delete the lessons, or operator bold the next three words, or operator this is a letter format. When you say the term operator you’re telling our transcriptionist to stop typing, they’re getting a command. Which is cool. You cannot do that with the Siris or the Alexas of the world. And unlike the Siris, and nothing wrong with using them for short items that you need to have perfectly fine. But again, our security, our privacy protocols are second to none. So it’s that simple to use. And Jimmy, I’m so excited about this, it’s my first patent pending.
JW: Oh.
MM: We have a new technology that has come out. It’s been a very slow roll out. But we’re working on, which I can’t talk about. Between being handcuffed confidentially. But it’s a technology called the Copytalker. And because we go back to that KISS platform. And because I’m very, very big on being face to face and having focus groups with our existing clients. What they said to me is we want all our technology. We want it in one place, in one spot. I don’t want to Toggl, I don’t want 50 thousand different passwords that I always forget. I need it when I need it. I want it at a push of a button. Voila. The Copytalker was born. It’s under patent pending now, trademarked. And it’s a simple button that sits on your workstation, your dashboard within a CRM. Within another Fintech engine that we may collaborate with and you could just, whatever device you’re using. As long as they have a microphone, you can simply push a button and speak your notes and your notes will go in directly where that integration is set forth for it to go. It’s super, I’m very excited about it. If you couldn’t tell.
JW: Yea!
MM: It really just warms my heart that collectively, between my developing team and my IT team, you know, I can have a vision and they just like, go to work.
JW: That is awesome.
MM: It’s awesome. It’s so awesome.
JW: So, I look forward to that coming out to play with on my phone, or wherever it’s gonna be able to be put. I just think that’s awesome. So, you’re using, you explained, excuse me, the use of Copytalk in some of its most simplest form. I’m gonna say it even simpler, if I may Maree. Now you’re the CEO, but I’m just one of your very, very useful clients. I just love this app. So, let me explain it this way folks. A free app, by the way, you just put it on your iPhone, your Android. All I do is literally tap an icon and hit one button, start talking. That’s it. And then I hit another button that says save and I’m done. It automatically push technology to one of your team and it’s then encoded. So you don’t have any identifiers on this piece of information that would get your identity. I know a lot of people go, oh, I’m concerned about my identity. This does not have anything identifiable on there about you as a person. It just transcribed and emailed back to my system. Not me, again, getting me out of the loop, right Maree? Let somebody else that has a better talent at typing. I don’t know about you, not a very good typist myself. I went to the hunt and peck school. Did you go there? That’s kind of what I do. But anyway, I can type a little better than that. But one of the things I love about your service is, is I figured out how much savings it was going to be for me. So I’m going to be very upfront with you, as I am with all of our listeners. I had one person who was busy at least 30 to 40 hours per week on our team doing all of my transcription all the time. And I had an electronic system that automatically would take the recorder, set it in a cradle, it would then download to her system. She would then take that list and copy, she had a foot pedal system, all this. We spent over $3,000 on all this equipment. And then her hourly rate, her you know benefits. So Copytalk to me, for what little I pay each month saved me well over $3,500 to $4,000 a month. How do you feel about that?
MM: You’re hired.
JW: Not trying to….
MM: Thank you.
JW: Matter of fact I will say, folks listening. Maree did not ask me to say any of this. I’m just that proud of this product. I have told everyone, I refer everyone I talk to and say look you can not afford to hire people for what they can do this for. Just using this service. So let me ask you this, let’s talk about you having a unique employee mix. And I want to talk about one of those employees now. Your Chief Comfort Officer, I believe the name is Sirius. Tell me, when did Sirius start working at Copytalk and what’s the importance of that role and position for Sirius.
MM: Well, for those of you who don’t know, if you go to our website, you will see under our executive team, Sirius is listed there. Sirius is such a beautiful animal. He is a rescue animal. And we’re, all of us are animal lovers at Copytalk. And I will tell you, the role of Sirius is to come in and to wag his tail and put smiles on everybody’s face. To just take a break from what we do and play with him. Give him biscuits, he loves his biscuits. And then when you don’t give him biscuits, he does start to bark, which we have to calm him down because people are on the phones. Or on calls. But he really is, he does belong to our Operations Manager for our Sarasota facility, which is in the office as our corporate office. So, we’re just thrilled when she comes in. Every now and then what you don’t see is our customer service manager has two little girls. They’re miniature dachshunds.
JW: Oh my goodness.
MM: With their security sweaters, and they’re our security guard dogs. So, we…but they think they do only office and believe it or not Sirius is afraid of Clover and Dublin.
JW: That’s cute.
MM: We don’t have them listed under our executive team, cause they don’t come in that often anymore. But Sirius is always a pleasure. But every now and then I do post their pictures on our social media, cause they’re just so darn cute.
JW: That’s wonderful. You know pets become a good friend of ours, we’re mutually acquainted to. One of my dearest friends in Nebraska is Ron Carson, you know of course, Ron Carson.
MM: I know him very well.
JW: Ron’s actually been a big user of Copytalk through his entire team. And he has several comfort animals that he brings with him to the office, and they actually have a day of the year that you can bring your pet to work. You guys do that as well?
MM: No, we just let them come whenever they want.
JW: I love it.
MM: Of course, we have to make sure that Clover and Dublin aren’t there, because they don’t like any competition.
JW: Oh.
MM: Those little girls are not sharing. But, no they can bring the dogs. They usually ask and Robert, our customer service manager, you know gives them the yay or the nay, I’m fine with it. We just don’t want 52 dogs running around.
JW: No, understood. Let’s go back just a little bit further for me. Give me a little bit of background on whose brainchild was Copytalk, how did it get started back in 2001. You said, you weren’t there at that time, you’ve been there about 8 years I believe. How did they get the idea for this brainchild?
MM: Well, it’s interesting. We are privately owned. Our owners are basically serial entrepreneurs. They’re very, very fascinating gentlemen. But the history goes that they started Copytalk really for medical transcription, believe it or not. Back in the day. And organically it wound up growing into the financial services world. Just organically. Wasn’t intentional. I don’t recall. And they tried to be in the Philippines. They tried to be in India, I think at one point. I’ll tell you a funny story. From what I understand they even thought about maybe using prisoners at one point because they thought what else have they got to do. It never went that route. So. But it was a thought that gets a chuckle out of everybody. But between the language barriers and the regulatory issues they decided years ago to bring all our transcriptionists in house out of the U.S and our brick and mortar facilities. For those of your audience that may know what the Finra Testing Center may look like, they come into the facility. They have lockers. They put all their personal belongings in the locker. The offices are controlled and monitored for security and privacy protocols. They go to their computer, their space. They log in, and they have no way of knowing who you are or what company you are unless you’re saying that through the dictation. And then with the system just identifies who that dictation belongs to and will send it back according to email, you know the way you set up coming back to your encryptions.
JW: Right.
MM: Email or within a CRM or now within a workstation or dashboard. So, that’s kind of how it blossomed, and because the regulatory industry of financial services became such a huge part of what they were doing they very quickly figured out it didn’t pay to be in the medical transcription industry anymore. This was filling a niche in the market that really didn’t have anything. I mean it was way before, really the Siris or the Alexas or the Cortanas of the world were really being utilized. Or even out there. It was probably just a thought in some IT development room somewhere within those companies. But, and that’s really how it blossomed. And the interesting point is because the way we do what we do, it really became a barrier to entry. Cost prohibitive to recapture our model for other firms. Because of the way that we do it. And I get, and seriously because of my background, and because I understand the world of regulatory issues. I still hold, at least until the end of the year a Finra 24 license. So I have oversight connections with the Finra regulatory bodies. Which is very interesting because I take that very seriously, and with 30 years in that industry with zero dings on my license. Not only as an advisor, but as a principle. I’m very proud of that. So it shows that I take that very, very seriously. We’re not perfect, Jimmy, you know, but we have a process and protocols that if somethings not right, we make it right. Or, you know, we need more training. Or that person may not just be the right fit. You know and they have to move on to something else. But we do take what we do with a genuine amount of pride. But that kind of how that whole situation started. And then at one point I guess they have to, you know, the markets in 08 and 09 really started to impact the industry. The owners went to a venture capitalist company and they said what do we need to do. You know, to move forward with Copytalk. And they said, well, you need a CEO here. You need somebody that’s gonna kinda sit at the helm and create and share and lead the vision or brand, you know, what Copytalk is. Who they are and what they do. And low and behold it was the last thing in the world I was thinking of at the time to be quite frank. Me? Head of a technology company, are you crazy? I’m a Franklin Planner girl. But again, because I have such a love for the financial services industry and the respect for what this, the professionals in this industry do. For the people that they engage with. I looked at it from a different angle. I looked at it that in my career this could be the next big step for me to impact hundreds of thousands of advisors across the United States, UK and Canada. Cause that’s pretty much the markets we…and a little bit in Australia. So I looked at it through that lens, Jimmy, and that impassioned me to say wow, if I can have, if I can really lead this firm into, you know, the next evolution, what’s the greatest thing? Because my finger has always been on the pulse of what this industry needs and how they can benefit, be more efficient, more effective, remain compliant, because compliance absolutely loves us. And make it easier for their lives, because listen I had my scraped knees and elbows as an advisor growing up in that industry. I know the demands of what our clients want. And that never goes away. If anything it gets greater and greater and greater. So, I, you know, when I see these regulatory issues get back, and I hear all the moans and groans, I sit back and I smile, not because it really helps our business. Which I love, but because it’s really no different than what was always expected of us. So, you just have to change the lens in which you vision us through and change your attitude towards it and it’s really not that difficult. If I can do it, anybody can do it.
JW: Well now, I don’t know about that. That’s a very humble statement on her part. I do want to say this before we conclude our interview that the entire team, during this time of pandemic for example, Copytalk like the rest of us had to take care of their people first. And so we started working remotely from home. I’m sure you had several of your team working remotely from home because I got a call from the person, the account executive assigned to our account. And he called and he said, hey I just want you to know we’re running a little bit of a queue behind because hey here’s what we’re doing. And I said to him, I said, look, I’ve got no worries. There’s none of my clients knocking down my door going hey I didn’t get your letter this week, but I got it a week late. As long as they get the information is my point. And I thought that was a wonderful service that he scheduled me out of all the clients he’s responsible for and he said hey, let me explain what we’re doing. I didn’t have to call him. He called me. And as a user of a service, folks, isn’t that really what we want? We want someone that’s in our corner. Not that we have a resource in a closet to go get, I want them standing in the corner, where they can see hey, here’s what’s coming we just need to let you know about it. And they did that. So kudos to the executive that takes care of us. And his name escapes me, but he’s a great guy. He’s always so very friendly. I do want to ask you this, though. At the end of the day, if you weren’t in the Copytalk business of being CEO, what would you be doing Maree?
MM: Wow, that’s a very thought provoking question. What I would love to be doing is probably sipping a nice margarita on a yacht in the Mediterranean somewhere.
JW: Oh! Very nice.
MM: But that might be what I might be doing if we weren’t doing this, but as a career path I would say that, you know, we sometimes opportunities cross our paths and we’re like huh, what, that’s not me. That’s not what I want to do. But my one little nugget to your audience is I, you know, at least for me I have to say that even though there were times, you know, I made some changes in my career path that I thought I made a big mistake. You just have to change your attitude about it again and look at the glass being full. Half full instead of half empty, if you will. I have to say I am very, very proud and honored and humbled to have been able to be part of this company, and the people that we have on board and as well as humbled with the people that we serve. Because they’re, all of you are very, very valuable to us. Every single one. And we hope, what we could do is do the best that we can and hope that it shows. So I think that even though sipping some margaritas on a yacht in the Mediterranean sounds wonderful I’m really very enthusiastic and passionate about the future of Copytalk and the growth of Copytalk. And all the things that we can deliver to enhance our clients lives and their professions. So for that I am very grateful.
JW: Wonderful.
MM: And the margarita is just gonna have to wait.
JW: Well, that’s the good news about it, the longer they wait the better they taste, or so I understand. Hey, that is awesome I will leave this comment with our listeners, which by the way you said Australia is part of your market. We have as our third largest country for our subscribers, for some reason is Australia. And we’re thankful for those people. That’s fantastic, so one thing I want to say to our listeners is the reason why we use this service is mainly because it makes my life much simpler, much easier, more effective, more efficient. And at the end of the day that’s what we all want out of life. That’s how you live your life by design. So I chose to use others that have much more talent than me to live my life in the way I wish and let others focus on some of this minutia, some of the details. And of course to keep our offices compliant with what our regulators require. We have stolen the statement that’s kind of the tagline used by Copytalk in our office and you’ll see it in our work rooms and things, not in public view, but it says on there if it’s not documented it didn’t happen. And so we drive that into all of our people. Everything we have to document actually goes through our Copytalk system one way or the other. Maree, it has been a true honor to have you today, I know you’re a very busy professional. Thank you so much for your time today. Let’s tell our listeners, though, what Maree has graciously offered. You want a week free, that’s seven days free service of their basic service of Copytalk. You can get the app, download it. It’s free. You get seven days of use free, just to see if you like the service. If you’ll just enter the code, JIMMY. JIMMY in the code, they’ll have it set up in just a few days, on their system. You will get a week free, and I assure you, if it doesn’t change your life in those seven days, somethings wrong. We utilize this service, tremendously as I’ve said, and I want all of our listeners to have that efficiency available to them at a very, very cost effective investment. Maree, thank you so much for your time today at Copytalk. It has truly been our pleasure, I hope you have the best of success going forward. And tell my sales executive he rocks. Would you do that?
MM: I most certainly will. I’ll tell our whole team, and just for your listeners, if I may add to garner that week free. It would be www.copytalk.com/jimmy. That will be the page that will bring you to that code to get a week free. It’s unlimited use during that week. So, have at it. Have fun. We’ll assign an account exec if you need a tutorial to help you through it and I hope you all enjoy it. And please feel free to reach out to me anytime, and Jimmy I’m so humbled to be part of this podcast with you and very gracious that you’re a long time client of ours. So thank you very much.
JW: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard it. You can go to www.copytalk.com/jimmy and receive seven days unlimited use, I’m talking 24/7, a great idea comes to your mind as you wake up in the middle of the night, it’s 2 am. Pick up your phone, hit the app, I do it all the time. Put that down so you don’t forget it. It becomes part of your insta-brain. And it is a fantastic service. Thank you for joining us today. I want to leave you with this challenge this week. Our world continues to be disrupted by COVID-19. There are always other people that have it far worse than we, go out look around, take your eyes off yourselves. Look around, take your eyes and place them on those in need. Reach out and let’s help our fellow man during this disruption. The kindness and goodness that you spread today will plant the seeds for a better tomorrow. Thank you for joining us, and live a life by design. This is Jimmy Williams, my favorite guest this week, Maree Moscati, thank you so much for joining us, and everyone out there listening. Go out, live your life by design.
