The Open Source Marketer

Do you own a business or a job? According to Robert Kiyosaki, if your “business” doesn’t function when you’re not around, then you don’t have a business, you’ve created a job.

Creating a real business involves setting up systems with replaceable parts. As an example, if a software developer leaves your company, then you need to have a method for hiring a new one to replace them. As part of the system that’s in place to run your business, you won’t be the person to do the hiring. Your hiring manage will take care of hiring a replacement.

As Internet Entrepreneurs, we should be looking remove ourselves from every part of our business that does not add value to our bottom line. We shouldn’t be spending hours setting up a server when we can pay a professional to do it for us. We shouldn’t be setting up databases, configuring software, laying out graphics, writing copy, and on and on. We should be doing the high level stuff that we can’t outsource to others. I know this is hard to accept, but deep down you know it’s true.
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Recently I acquired a great personal assistant. She posts to my blog when I ask her too and she reminds me about important things I need to remember. The best part is she hasn’t cost me a dime, she’s available 24 hours a day, and she’s available to you too.

What I’m talking about, of course, is posting to twitter using Jott.com.

Jott is a speech to text method of getting posts on your blog using a telephone and Twitter.

Basically you sign up for a free Jott account and then connect the service to your Twitter account. Then you can call a Jott phone number, tell the system where you want your comments to go, and then you leave a voice message that gets converted to text and posted to your Twitter.

There is a verbal confirmation process that you complete to verify that the system understood your comments. But, once you approve the message it is converted and posted.

The service is extremely accurate and easy to use and since twitter can be connected up in lots of places you could effectively generate new content in hundreds of places just by making one phone call and essentially leaving a voice message.

The Jott service also offers the ability to connect to Tumblr, WordPress, Yahoo Groups, LiveJournal, Amazon, and lots of other sites which is great because it puts blogging and written social communications in your pocket.

In fact, that is how I use the service. I use my cell phone to post to Twitter and I use Jott to remind me about important events that I don’t have time to write down (like if I’m in traffic).

To use the reminder feature, I call the Jott service, tell the system I want to Jott myself, and then set a reminder date for my voice comments. The system will then send me a text message on the future reminder date. This has worked great for capturing ideas and setting reminders that I would have otherwise lost if I had waited to write them down when I had an opportunity.

There is one interesting twist to Jott that I have noticed, but not confirmed. They recently added the ability to Jott Amazon. Which means you can search amazon using their voice service and they will text message you the results. As I say, I have not confirmed this thought, but I would imagine that the returned result has their affiliate link built in so that if you do buy something from Amazon based on the returned results, they will get a commission. If they are not doing this, then they should be.

So, there you go, something to play with over the weekend. Be sure to leave me a comment and let me know how you use the Jott service.

Breaking free,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

PS. You can follow my Twitter to keep up on more great tips like this one.