Products and Tools – And Knowing the Difference

There are two ways that any service or item can be described:  as a product or a tool.

Products have features! and upgrades! and widgets! and lots! of! exclamation! points!   They are frequently cool widgets! and features! – so many that it can seem overwhelming.

Tools just work.  You don’t need to know the feature list of a tool;  you just use the damn thing.  It works.

The first is used to sell things.

The second is used by the people who use things.

Know whom you’re talking to, and which of the two they’re most interested in hearing about.

Practical example:  If This Then That.  As a product, it has an impressive list of channels that you can connect together.  As a tool, it has shareable recipes.

(Yes, this strongly parallels the difference between rote mastery and understanding mastery.)