Tools matter in marketing.
For a clear example, try shooting a video with a camera from 2002. It will look like shit compared to a Sony *a7000 (*I just made that up). Now, they also don’t matter.
If you have a Sonny a7000 and don’t understand composition, angles, or storytelling, your output will also suck.
My point is that if you give someone who can think and execute well the best tools, they become superhuman.
That’s what I want for you and me.
With AI and new tools popping up every day, you and I have many opportunities to actualize our potential. This also has its dangers. Unvalidated tools steal our attention, and we lose time on tools that we use solely to use them, ultimately hindering our progress toward achieving our goals.
Not only that, but we slowly degrade our performance as we give the tools more power to change us (I.e., our thinking). I heard this quote once, and I can never forget it:
"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan
By using tools recklessly (without thinking), we can be worse off than before we had the tool.
That’s why I want to share a mental model that has helped me avoid this and use tools in a way that helps me make progress.
That mental model is Process Before Tools (PBT).
The first rule in PBT Club is that you ALWAYS look through the lens of the process before adopting any tool—a simple rule, to be honest. Whenever I come across a new tool, I refer back to my process and determine if any step can increase effectiveness or efficiency by using it.
I never adopt a tool before realizing where it fits into my process. {continue writing}
The elephant in the room is that you need a process before adopting any tool. And the sad thing is, few of us (myself included) document our processes. This leads me to define what a process is and isn’t and how to plug tools into that process.