Marketing Magic for Court Reporters

Author's note: This article has the original text and illustrations from late 1991. Obviously, some things have changed since then (for example, I'm sure you'd be using 3-1/2" diskettes or CDs instead of 5-1/4" diskettes), but the basic concepts herein should all still be valid.

Just because you're busy all of the time doesn't mean that you can't make any more money! This article outlines how you can make more money from the transcripts you are producing; increase customer loyalty; attract new clients; and make your job more fun and challenging. While written predominantly for freelance reporters and agency owners, official reporters should be able to get some good ideas here as well.

What is this magic formula? Marketing! Understanding the basic principles of marketing can do wonders for your business. Let's look at the principles and how to apply them:

Broaden Your Offerings

Most court reporters offer only the services that attorneys have asked them for. The flaw in this approach is that the attorneys don't know what court reporters can provide, so they don't ask. In general, court reporters are more computerized than attorneys, and have a better grasp of today's technology. The attorneys don't ask for anything beyond a copy of the transcript because they don't know they can get anything else.

Your first step should be to check what your CAT system can do. Can it make keyword indexes? ASCII copies of transcripts? Special diskettes formatted for Amicus, CAT-Links, Depo-Disk, Discovery ZX, Microtext or Summation [footnote]? Litigation support diskettes for Macintosh computers? Fax fast-turnaround transcripts to the attorney? Can it do real-time translation? Can you dump notes from your steno machine back to the office by phone during breaks in the deposition?

Once you understand what the CAT system has to offer, look at what else you or your office have to offer. Are you the only ones with a local phone number in your area? Do you offer a courier service?

Price Your Services Carefully

In many markets, price depends on cost. You will charge for a service or product based on what it costs you to make or provide. In the court reporting market, price is based on what the market will bear. ASCII diskettes are a wonderful example. For most computerized reporters with PC-compatible systems, the cost is a 35 cent diskette and a few minutes of your time. Prices, on the other hand, vary widely. Some deposition firms give them away as promotional items, or hide the cost in the deposition fees. Others charge flat fees - anything from $5 to $50 per diskette. Still other firms charge by the page; a practice that began when reporters with proprietary hardware in their CAT systems had to send the transcript off to the CAT company to convert.

If other reporters in your area offer a particular service, look at what they're charging and set your price accordingly. Don't automatically set your price lower! If you offer good service, you don't have to be the cheapest in town. In fact, many people view the cheapest company with suspicion ("What's wrong with them? Why are they so cheap?"). Remember that if you can charge a little bit more, that little bit is pure profit! It goes right into your pocket (and Uncle Sam's).

If you are offering something nobody else offers, talk to some attorneys and see what they would be willing to pay for it. You may be surprised. My attorney charges me $4.00 per page to fax me a contract rather than mailing it. I wonder what he would pay you to fax him an important transcript or excerpt? When you are the only reporter offering a service, attorneys can't go down the street to get it cheaper. Just make sure you don't set your price so high that they decide they don't want the service at all.

Tell Your Clients What You Have To Offer

You can offer every service known to man, but if your clients don't know about it, you won't sell any. Get the word out on the street! A simple one-page brochure that folds up to coat-pocket size is not very expensive. You can spend anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand dollars to have the layout done, and print them for about 25 cents each.

Make sure to explain each item you put on the brochure. If it says "Real Time," many attorneys won't realize what it means. Tell them the benefit of having real time. If your brochure says "Instant translation on-screen allows you t o depose deaf witnesses," or "Real-time translation can provide a finished transcript 30 minutes after the deposition finishes," the attorney will understand.

Don't list fees in the brochure. Every time you change your rates, the brochure will become obsolete and you'll have to throw away a stack of them. If you want to hand out a rate sheet, print it up separately and insert it in the brochure.

Make an order form where the attorney can check off what they want and sign at the bottom. This is not only helpful in billing disputes, but acts as a marketing tool as well. If the attorney is checking off the turnaround time on the transcript, you just might hear him say "I didn't know you did CAT-Links. I'll take one." That's extra money in your pocket.

Focus On What The Other Guy Can't Do

If you have the only firm in town that offers a conference room, make sure there's a picture of it in the brochure. The brochure should list everything you offer, but focus on making you unique. Don't spend half of the brochure talking about offering Discovery ZX if every deposition reporter in town offers it.

An attractive brochure that ends up on the bulletin board in a law office, or on a lawyer's desk, is worth more than a business card that gets filed, or an ad in last month's law magazin e that gets thrown away.

If you have a specialty that nobody else advertises, play it up in the brochure. If you do board meetings in real time, set up a photograph with earnings charts in the background (don't use a real company!) and a clear shot of the steno machine and the real-time screen. If you specialize in petrochemical litigation, use exhibits and some charts and pictures in the background to take a picture that looks like a petrochemical deposition.

Business Cards

Many reporters try to get the message across on their business cards, and end up with something like this:

Let's be realistic. There is only so much you can put on a 3-1/2" by 2" business card. You can get it so cluttered that your client will have a hard time even finding your name. A business card should be clean, simple and elegant in its design. Don't hesitate to put some professional credits after your name - you worked hard for those initials! If you have too many, though, consider cutting back. CSR is probably the only one an attorney will recognize, anyway.

This card is try ing to address two different audiences at the same time: your attorney clients, and court reporters that might send you referrals. Business cards are cheap. Consider having two sets made up. For attorneys, a simple card describing a few of the services you provide. If you have a specialty, work it in. Don't list half a dozen different diskette formats; just say "litigation support." The attorney couldn't care less what CAT system you use, and has probably never heard of it, anyway. Leave it out!

For other reporters from whom you are soliciting referral business, focus the other direction. List your credentials. Many reporters only send referrals to other reporters that hold a Certificate of Merit (CM). Here is where it's important to show what CAT system(s) you use. Other reporters will want to see if you're compatible with them, and if you have a state-of-the-art system that can provide litigation support. Make your location prominent. They won't be looking for you by name, they'll be looking for someone in your area. Put the city or state you cover in a prominent location.

Another good place to pick up referral business is the "Reporter Listings" in the back of this magazine. They are organized by state, and provide a handy reference. Many of the larger state associations have listings like this in their magazines as well.

Incentives To New Clients

Inertia i s not just a law of physics - it's a law of human nature as well. People tend to stay with what they know. If you want to encourage attorneys to change to using your services rather than someone else's, you need to give them some incentive to do so.Incentives aren't necessarily monetary. The cost of a transcript is passed through to their client, anyway, so a discount on their first transcript probably won't get them that excited. Instead, combine the marketing principles of informing clients of your services and providing incentives.

Send the attorneys a letter stating that their first deposition using your firm includes a free ASCII diskette, or free keyword indexing, or free overnight delivery by courier, or 50% off on a videotape. This not only encourages them to give you a try, but reminds them that the service is available.

It is not necessary to continue to give anything away. Use the "freebie" as a hook to get the client to give you a try. If you provide good service, that should be all you need to do to keep them. Make sure, however, that the attorney understands clearly that the "freebie" is a one-shot deal. If they expect it the second time, you'll have trouble.

Package Your Services

You take pride in the appearance of your transcript (If you don't, why are you reading this?). You probably have your firm name and phone number on every page so that an attorney reading the transcript will know who produced it. Make sure you carry that through into whatever other services you offer, whether they be diskettes, videotapes, keyword indexes or whatever.

If you offer litigation support diskettes (and you had better!), have floppy diskette sleeves and labels printed for you. They are a lot cheaper than you might think. Custom printed diskette sleeves are about 4 cents each (that's $40 for 1,000!), and labels aren't much more. Every time the client looks at that diskette, they will be reminded of what you offer, and impressed with your professionalism.

The diskette label may get cluttered because there needs to be a lot of information about the diskette format. The sleeve, on the other hand, should be very simple. Your firm name, logo, and phone number is plenty.

Putting It All Together

Marketing does not have to be a big cash drain on the firm. You can put together some very nice materials without using four-color printing and go ld leaf imprint. Good marketing in the court reporting profession really consists of sticking with these principles:

• Make sure everyone knows what services you can provide
• Keep your name in front of the clients
• Keep your pricing competitive

Again, "competitive" doesn't mean "cheap." A lot of people buy Cadillacs because they are top quality automobiles, and a lot of attorneys will work with a full-service court reporter even if that reporter isn't the cheapest in town.

FOOTNOTE FROM PAGE 1

* These are names of software packages used by attorneys for litigation support, and they are all trademarks of their respective holders