from Wes Kao 🏛 | by Wes Kao 🏛

The best marketers aren't only good at marketing. They have expertise in adjacent disciplines too. Under the hood, they're also good at sales. Or product. Or design. Or copywriting. To level up in marketing, study these non-marketing topics:

1. Copywriting Strengthen your copy and you’ll strengthen your execution. You might have brilliant ideas but if you can’t express them… No one cares. • Sounding corporate vs human • When to break grammar rules • Writing to persuade • Visual layout of text

2. Fiction writing This is different from copywriting. Writing fiction teaches you how to get people to FEEL something. It teaches restraint & economy of words. • Believability • Motivations • Show, not tell • Visual imagery • Word choice

3. Sales You can’t nurture leads & build awareness forever. Eventually, you have to sell something. The closer you are to bringing in revenue, the more influence you have in an org. • How people make decisions • Aggrandizing the pain and upside • Focusing on "butts in seats"

4. Negotiation Studying negotiation will sharpen your messaging, pricing & value creation. You’ll start to see negotiations happening all around you. • Power dynamics • Alternatives • Incentives • Giving concessions • Win-win mindset

5. Psychology Many brands leverage influence & persuasion while respecting the intelligence of their customer. Once you master the concepts below, you can mix, match, and stack them. • FOMO • Incepting ideas • Loss aversion • Unconscious bias • Psychographics

6. Business analysis It’s not only about numbers. It’s about your ability to think clearly and interpret information. • How to read data • Levers to pull • Pattern matches vs pattern breaks • Questions to ask to validate hypotheses

7. Marketing Anyone who directly or indirectly interacts with customers does marketing. You might as well get better at it. • Customer acquisition • Storytelling • Positioning/messaging • Marketing funnels • Brand vs performance marketing

8. Product You can’t market a product if you don’t understand what it’s for and who it’s for. These concepts touch both marketing & product: • User experience • Jobs to be done • Effort vs upside • Identifying the right offer • Customer development

9. People management You should learn how to manage people–even if you don’t manage anyone. Study these to improve your human interactions: • Managing up • Power dynamics • Giving feedback • Influencing w/o authority

10. Production Many operators are show runners–they produce campaigns, programs, events, etc. When you think like a producer, you become accountable for making things happen. • Timelines & budgets • Project management • Tight execution

11. Design Design will influence whatever you create. It’s the most visceral way to send a signal about who your product is for. • Information hierarchy • Branding and UX basics • Reducing cognitive load • Using design to signal who this is for • Semiotics & heuristics

While you're here... If you want to level up in any of these areas, @MavenHQ is now offering one-day workshops. These 2-3 hour workshops focus on a targeted scope within product, leadership, business analysis, and more. Check out upcoming workshops: