Vita's Tip in 10: An Easy Tool to Increase Your Productivity

Hello, hello friend! In today’s episode, I bring you a nifty little productivity tool that my marketing coordinator and I have been using for the last couple of months.  

It’s an artificial intelligence based app called Otter. O T T E R. It is a dictation app at its core, and it differs from other dictation apps in one major way. And this big difference is why we have been so excited about utilizing it, and even more excited that it has been living up to its promise. And now I’m super excited I can share it with you!  

So dictation apps or tools, as small recording devices, computer programs, or various apps on our phones, are nothing new. They've been around for a long time, and you’ve probably used them before. 

I’ve enjoyed using them in my business as well, except for one major flaw: they simply record or transcribe your stream of consciousness without any kind of grammatical breaks, punctuation, paragraph delineations, or any other way of breaking up the text into manageable, readable and understandable chunks.  All dictation apps that we have encountered would simply transcribe everything that you say as one big, endless run-on sentence.  

This is what makes Otter different. What Otter does, is solve that major pain point using AI predictive technology. It gives you paragraph breaks, it gives you commas and periods, which makes the text a lot more readable and user friendly. 

And now, you might be saying to yourself, “Vita, why the heck are we even talking about a dictation app?”  “why should I care? And what can it do for me?” 

I am going to tell you!  And give real-life, boots on the ground examples. 

My marketing coordinator Stephanie and I use this dictation app to record these very podcast episodes. 

Our workflow goes like this: I come up with a topic and a concept, which as you know is always rooted in the everyday reality of our window treatment business- because you can't make this stuff up even if you wanted to! And then I dictate it so that Stephanie can transcribe it, editing and polishing it as a script for recording. 

Before Otter, we have been using a dictation app. I would record a message, and then she would manually transcribe that message and then use the transcription to make the actual podcast script.  

As you can imagine, this would take a lot of time even for a 10-minute episode.  So she has been on a quest to find a dictation app that had transcription features that included punctuation. But everything that she found and tried had that same big downfall of producing one big run-on sentence, or the app would be a paid service, and many of them can be quite expensive. 

And so through her persistence and refusing to believe that a unicorn doesn't exist, Stephanie finally found Otter. Now her process of transcribing, and then editing the episodes, is reduced by two thirds. 

So if in the past, it would take her let's say roughly three hours, now it takes her about one hour. That is a huge amount of time savings. Two hours back, every week – that’s eight hours per month! 

Okay, so you may be saying, “Vita, I don't record podcast episodes! Why would I need to have a dictation app with transcription?”  

No problem, here are a few other examples to get your creative juices going.  

Let me ask you this question:  

Do you have an email newsletter, a newsletter that you use as a marketing tool to keep in touch and nurture relationships with your existing client base? If your answer is yes, yay for you! If your answer is no, then using the transcription app may be one of the ways to make this marketing initiative possible.  

If you answered yes, and it was a sort of disgruntled yes, because you don't love doing it, or it takes a lot of time, then a transcription app may be of help to you as well. And that is because for most of us, writing anything takes a lot longer than speaking our mind.  

So you can use Otter to dictate a topic for a newsletter while you are driving, or while walking, as I'm doing right now. Use it while you are waiting for your kid at a sports practice, or a dance rehearsal. You don't need as much of a concentrated pocket of time to speak your mind as you usually do when writing at a computer.  

Not only can this app save you time, because it is faster than writing, it can also save you time because you can be doing another simultaneous activity while dictating. So, writing your newsletter campaigns can become a lot faster, a lot more efficient, a lot easier, and a lot more enjoyable for you.  

What else can you use a transcription app for? Let me ask you this question. Do you have your processes written down into a standard operating procedures document? My guess would be that you're saying I've been wanting to do it. I know that I have to do it. Luann has been telling me for the last seven years on her other podcast that I should be doing. It's on my list of things to do. But it is so far down on that list that I really don't know when I will ever get to it. 

Here comes another epic save by Otter. You can dictate what a certain system is, or a certain process, and you don't have to type, or focus on grammar and sentence structure, you can speak freely into this app. All while driving, walking, waiting, or sitting around in your backyard. 

And then, if you're lucky like me to have an amazing marketing coordinator, they can edit and add the finishing touches to the document. Or, you can hire someone from Upwork or Fiverr or Elance to clean it up. Or if you didn't want to do that, you can then find the time to do it yourself. And chances are that the whole effort will be cut by two thirds of the time, just like in our experience.  

Another example.  You can dictate a response to a certain email message, then your assistant can send it out, or heck even you can send it out, but you wouldn't have to spend the time typing it up!  

Another example.  You have a tough situation and you can’t figure out the best course of action.  What if you try dictating your thoughts about a problematic situation, and use your phone and Otter as that proverbial rubber ducky that I talked about waaaay back in episode 21? When all you actually need is a sort of silent sounding board to bounce off your own ideas and thoughts. Then reading through that text, maybe even just talking it out, it may give you additional thoughts and ideas and aha moments. 

These are just a few examples to get your creative juices going. And I know that there are so many more ways in which you can use a dictation app. 

So I invite you to have your own brainstorming meeting for how a good dictation app can work for your business, and save you a ton of time. And oh by the way, even though Otter does have a paid version that is more professional, elevated, and robust, as all apps usually do, we have been using a free version. It gives us 300 minutes of recording time per month and has so far been more than sufficient for us. And I'm willing to bet that it may be sufficient for you as well in the beginning.  

And if you are looking for more tips just like this;  if you’re looking for more ways to enhance your productivity and workflows;  if you are looking for ALL the systems to run your business like a well-oiled machine – you have two ways of working with me personally. One is through LuAnn University, my Systems Driven Operations class. And the second is a two-day intensive in my newly renovated studio where I hand over all of my systems for you to use and put to work immediately in your business. I want you to check out both tools, because they are different and equally applicable depending where you are in your business and how fast you want to achieve your goal.  

So there you have it, my friend. Today’s tip is one of those easy peasy, quick tools that you can start implementing right now.  I really encourage and invite you to do just that. And until then, I will be working on my next episodes, using Otter to work smarter, not harder!  See you next Thursday!