EPISODE 48 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: SHINY TOOL SYNDROME

I cannot tell you how many times I've been asked what the best scheduling tool is or what is the best email marketing software? Nine times out of 10, the people in their businesses asking these questions already have a tool in place, but aren't using them to their full capability or they're not using them at all.

                                    I'm not going to lie. I'm actually guilty of this too. You would all cry to learn how much my agency spends each month on subscriptions to marketing tools. I'm talking thousands. And I do the same thing and everyone else seems to. I look at my reports for expenses each month and go, "Damn, I really should start using that tool properly. When I have time next month, I will." And before you know it, another 12 months has gone by, and then it goes another $1,200 for that one particular tool down the drain.

                                    And then you discover a new tool that promises to be bigger and better than the existing tool you're using. You get this burst of excitement, cancel the old tool, but keep it going so you could migrate the data and use it for maybe a week. Then you get busy with the day-to-day running of your business. And it becomes another tool that doesn't get used. The thing is, sometimes there are circumstances where you're making life hard using the wrong tools.

                                    Give you some examples that have popped up recently. We have this client and she's crushing it, total boss, kicking goals. We're running her campaigns out of a premium paid MailChimp account. Now MailChimp is pretty basic on the free plan, but over the past two years, they've really leveled up in terms of automations. They're also the most commonly used email tool. So they can integrate with basically every other tool you might need or use, which is an absolute plus.

                                    This client has her heart set on Active Campaign though. Now you're looking at about $120 a month, Active Campaign. And it's something that I've used myself for 12 plus months. I'm resistant to her switching over though, because she can't answer this fundamental question that we should all be asking when switching tools or signing up for something. And that is, "What does this tool do that my current one doesn't?" If the answer is, "Nothing," Or you can't answer it, stick with your current tool.

                                    The next thing to look at is, "Why do I want to be able to use this feature my current tool doesn't have?" Because you might actually just have shiny tools syndrome. We should use this in dating because it's equally as relevant. Don't make yourself busy with new features for the sake of busy-ness or because some guru told you that this is what you should be doing.

                                    Now, I'll give you an example from my own business. I currently use Asana for project management. Over the last 12 months, my team and client list has grown a lot. The work we are taking on is getting a lot more complicated and Asana is becoming a bit of a bottleneck. I identified the key pain points, things like no chat feature, no ability to sign people to the same task, viewing project issues when sub tasks are created and the list goes on.

                                    Asana has served me incredibly well over the past four years and myself and my team use it every single day. So this isn't a tool I've signed up for and then never actively used. Going away to do a ton of research, I found ClickUp. And I'm excited to start the migration over to this new tool. There was a lot of weighing up whether or not this would be a good move for the business, as we already had our systems and processes in place in Asana. I know there is going to be a bit of a clunky transition period with the potential for some balls to be dropped with our client work. And that scares the shit out of me. But there is a situation where you've got to pause for a second in order to move forward.

                                    The same can be said for our use of Dropbox. We use Google Docs day in, day out. So why the frig are we not using Google Drive? Again, I've identified bottlenecks and found something that will fix the issues that have been occurring. And on both of these counts, with the storage and project management tool have been things I've seen as issues for the past 12 months. This is not a quick snap decision to jump from one tool we never use to another that we'll never use. These are crucial in the business and the day-to-day.

                                    So I guess in summary, my point is it really isn't about the tool. It's about how you use it. Just pick something for your social scheduling, emails and project management, or even your website and start using it. If you don't use it, you don't need it. If you use it and it works, awesome. If you use it for a while and realize the bottlenecks are occurring, find another solution. But at least at this point, you'll be informed on what you do and don't need and what you will, and won't use.