Virtual business services company is ahead of the curve

Contacting Edoc Service

For more information about Edoc Service, visit edocservice.com or call (513) 829-7101.

The owner of a Butler County company predicts its recent growth is a sign of things to come.

From 2009 to 2011, Jim Mullaney saw revenues rise 147 percent for Edoc Service, a Fairfield-based virtual community of business services that includes medical transcription, B2B authentic sales support and remote office management services.

The rapid revenue growth was a result of Edoc Scribe, the medical transcription side of the company’s three offshoots.

“We hit the wave that’s just beginning as the health care industry changes over to electronic medical records,” Mullaney said. “Doctors find it much easier to phone in to our digital voice server and dictate their reports and our Edoc Scribe service transcribes them into electronic medical records.”

The company’s two other divisions are Edoc Sell, a B2B sales support service, and Edoc Office, a remote office management service launched in the last year.

Mullaney founded Edoc Service in 1997 after recognizing the need in the business community for outside support in marketing and administrative tasks.

One large client took Edoc’s revenue up 96 percent from 2009 to 2010, and revenues ticked up another 25 percent last year.

The company now includes nine full-time employees and 60 contractors.

Q: What are the major goals the company is working on and how is it working to achieve them?

A: “We are going to continue to evolve in the medical transcription arena. We actually are partnering with a medical record firm presently to stay ahead of the curve.

“As far as the Edoc Sell division is concerned, we anticipate being the nation’s lead provider for sales advice and support for up-to-date sales and marketing programs. Companies are still trying to hold on to traditional marketing sales and methods, which are well behind the curve because of the transition that businesses are in. We’re staying ahead of the curve in that area.

“As far as Edoc Office, we anticipate that being a nationwide division as well.”

Q: What’s the biggest lesson the company has learned as a result of the economic downturn?

A: “What we’ve learned is that during a business downturn, it’s not a time to continue marketing and selling. It is the time to actually look at the infrastructure of a company and see what needs to be changed, so when the economy surfaces again you can surface very strong.

“When the economic tsunami hit us, we were still heavily into lead generation, where we had phone teams making business phone contacts. We were finding that was very difficult during tough economic times so we shut that down and we actually analyzed all of the hundreds of clients that we had been doing business with over the years.

“We ended up restructuring our marketing division and that’s where Edoc Sell came together, where we’re implementing an authentic sales and marketing strategy.”

Q: Where do you see the company heading in terms of growth in five years?

A: “We had originally anticipated this year, in terms of dollars, we’d probably be ending the year at around $1.3 million in sales. It now looks like we’re going to be closer to $2.25 million in sales. In terms of sales in the next three to five years, we see ourselves between $7 million and $10 million in sales.”

Q: What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in business?

A: “Everybody in this business arena has to be thinking like an entrepreneur. I don’t care if they’re working for somebody or they’re thinking about starting their own business. Nobody can afford to be thinking in terms of a job. Everybody has got to be thinking entrepreneurial in this environment. That’s the only way individuals are going to survive and I encourage people to seriously consider launching their own business, as opposed to going to work for somebody, because I think that’s the future as well.

“The thing that really drives the start up business is passion. Businesses fail generally because they run out of money, but it’s more because the owner gives up. If you are passionate enough about what it is that you want to do, that will get you through the good times and the bad times.”