Sometimes I peek in on discussions people are having about marketing strategies. Conversations on Twitter, Facebook and forums.

Unique Article Wizard or Article Marketing Automation? SENuke or Evo2? Market Samurai or…

I see a lot of debate about which tool is the best. Which one people should buy. Testing, diagnosing, discussing. Too much debate and discussion about tools and not enough shipping.

It’s a mix of uncertainty, fear and resistance.

UNCERTAINTY / FEAR

You’re afraid to make the wrong decision (about which tool to use, which link to build, which market to enter, which article to post).

Why so scared? Why so indecisive?

Making a mistake is part of the learning process.

Choosing the wrong “thing” doesn’t matter. If you do, you’ll just cancel it and try the other “thing.” You won’t be in any worse position than you’re in now – in fact, I’d venture to say you’re in a better position because you learned something about what you don’t want, what doesn’t work for you.

RESISTANCE

And oftentimes, the tool itself is entirely unnecessary.

Ever thought about which article spinner you should use? But haven’t even submitted an original piece to Ezine Articles yet? Start with the basics (in this case, an original article submitted elsewhere) before you worry about the more advanced stuff.

What’s more, you don’t even NEED some tools – like an article spinner. I’m not saying to throw yours away, but that’s a tool that can certainly come later in your business. You don’t need an article spinner if, for instance, you haven’t yet exhausted link building opportunities that require original content.

But what this kind of tool debate, arguing, indecision is mostly about is resistance. You don’t want to do the real work. If you’re “researching” tools, learning new ones, deciding what’s better, you can pretend you’re working.

But unless you’re producing new content, new links, you’ve accomplished nothing.

Folks are shocked sometimes when they hear a successful marketer who doesn’t know about or use a certain popular tool, or who says they track their backlinks in Excel (or some other hopelessly old-fashioned way), for example. They think that successful person would be even more successful if they checked out this tool and used it, and often “helpfully” suggest it to him (“You should really try Article Obliterator X!”).

Ed Dale wrote in “Pen And Paper”:

It’s interesting, the more successful you become, the more simplicity becomes important.

Too often, tools get in the way.

It’s not about the tool, it’s about what’s between your ears.

See, sometimes the most successful people are successful in part because they don’t know about, research, debate, endlessly compare, learn and switch out tools.

They’re too busy shipping to care.