Question for business owners/partners

First off, I respect the business knowledge of many of the members here and I have a few questions for those who can provide insight.

 

My dear wife is a self employed contractor who does any and all types of transcription files ( they talk, she types). The majority of her work comes from a small biz owned by two equal partners and one of those partners has decided to retire at the end of this year. Becuase of my wifes stellar work ethic and quality of work delivered they have offered my wife to buy out the retiring partners' share of the buisness. My wife has a meeting with them this coming Tuesday and we are compiling a list of questions for them.

 

A few of the particulars.

 

1. They have been in business for around 10 yrs and are very well repspected in that very niche field.

2. I'm guessing they have around 10 to 20 contract workers whom they depend upon.

3. There is no office as both current partners are home based so overhead is virtually zero.

4. One of my first questions for them is what was thier average revenue for the last three years?

5. What is the retiring partners average take?

6. I'm surprised that the business has not been replaced by AI and voice recognition. I'm told that machines can't replicate emotion from voice files nor can they pick out the nuances like sarcasm, etc..

7. Age and tolerance wise, my wife just turned 50 and I'm 55.

 

I would appreciate any questions my wife should have for them when she sits down with them later this week.

 

THX

 

gutshot

1) What is their projected growth and client retention rate for the next 3 years?

2) Does the company have any debt?

3) What are their plans for growing the market?

4) What is her take home going to be? Any benefits (ex. Health coverage, etc.)

 

Best of luck to her

I was in this business for a short while, hired dozens to transcribe stuff. Hiring contractors in this biz is great, I took home 90% of the take, giving 10% to the transcriber. It is very very possible for English transcription that isn't very technical because you basically just need someone for $10/hr. If you're doing different language/medical/etc you bump employee pay but also your quote so I was at 90% again.

 

So...my question would be - how is the business growing over last few years, and where are they getting new clients? Is it referral mostly or do they do any ads? How much are they spending on those ads. I didnt find stuff like google adwords effective as all my money was eaten up by people clicking and then sending me a message about wanting to do transcription for me. If referrals stop its game over.

 

There is a lot of competition, at least 3-5 years ago or so when i did this. New companies, new technologies. I mean look at this- https://www.rev.com/transcription - $60 for an hour and 12 hour turnaround? Are you nuts! I'd charge more and take more time, now they'd eat my lunch. So unless you're very specific niche, be careful its harder to compete.

 

 

So if they have steady referrals, its niche, thats good. If you can see where you could improve the bottom line, even better. If they even have a working ad model that gives a positive ROI, thats amazing.

 

hope this helps

I assume you've already gotten a couple years worth of financials? What is the ratio of turning quotes into jobs? What has that number done over the past few years, as well as the total quote volume?

 

Are they into the court reporter game at all? That seems a little more isolated from technology imo.

Thanks for the insight everyone. We will have thier last three years of revenue tomorrow along with debts, assets, salaries, future growth plan, etc.