From Stay-At-Home Mom to CEO

Barbara Telle

TASK Transcription Services, Inc.

Barbara Telle started a medical and legal transcription company in the corner of her bedroom with “one doctor, a rented computer and a Sony walkman”. She had a two-year old and an eight-month old baby at home, and her family relied on her husband’s commission sales to get by. When asked why she started company, Barbara answers: “I wanted to insure that I would always be able to take my kids to Burger King, and be able to keep them in diapers.”

By offering quality services and consistent, copy-edited transcriptions, Barbara slowly expanded her business from the bedroom into the living room and the family room, and then later into the garage. Over time, Barbara couldn’t handle the volume herself and needed to hire typists to help out. “Because I was a mom at home with young kids, I figured other moms would like to stay home with their kids as well, but also need to provide money for their families.” Her company now employs over 50 independent contractor typists “from almost every state, including Hawaii” and has 5 administrative staff in the town where it all started – Concord, California.

When Barbara recounts the story of how her business began, her voice is tinged with disbelief and she’s quick to credit happenstance. “So much happened that I had not even thought about, I hadn’t planned to be the president and CEO a company, and I hadn’t set my sights that high”. So after she home-schooled her children through high school and sent them off to college, Barabara decided to look for someone to help her do some of the foundational things for her company that she had never had time to do before: “I thought, ‘I need help’ and I Googled ‘Business Mentoring’ and up popped MicroMentor”.

MicroMentor paired Barbara with Jeffrey Daughtery who is a partner at a business consulting firm. Although Jeffrey’s firm specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, he has experience working with business start-ups and he has weathered insight into the common problems small businesses face. According to Barbara, Jeffrey helped her to “think like a CEO”. With her mentor’s assistance, Barbara went back over her business plan and analyzed the company’s sustainability and its potential for expansion. “Jeffrey helped me to look at my business from a financial perspective and he really helped us to get the accounting part of our business on target.” After working with her mentor for a little over 3 months, Barbara now feels that the foundational areas of her business are much more under control, and she has the confidence that her company can operate on an even playing field with its competitors.

From the outside, Barbara makes the transition from being a stay-at-home mom to a CEO look easy, but she swears that: “I never even thought of myself of an entrepreneur, and it was my mentor that assured me that I am one.”