Develop adjacent skills to become a better operator
Develop adjacent skills to become a better operatorThe best marketers might call themselves marketers... But they are secretly strong in other disciplines too.
👋 Hey, it’s Wes. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on managing up, leading teams, and standing out as a high performer. ✨ Course update: The April cohort of my executive communication & influence course is now full! I’ve opened a new cohort for May 2025. The course typically fills up quickly and will be the only opportunity to take the course this spring. If you’ve been thinking about joining, check out the course details and reserve your spot. I originally published a version of this essay in February 2020. Enjoy. Read time: 9 minutes Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Balsamiq. If your team doesn’t get it, they won’t build it. Specs get misread. Docs go ignored. Meetings drag. Balsamiq helps PMs, devs, and founders visually communicate requirements before work starts. No friction, bloated tools, or second-guessing. Try Balsamiq free for 30 days. The best marketers might call themselves marketers... But they are secretly strong in other disciplines. Over the years, I’ve been asked, “How can I become a better marketer?” My answer has changed over time. But one thing has stayed constant: only focusing on marketing is not enough. By all means, study the fundamentals and latest trends in marketing. If you ONLY do that, though, you’ll back yourself into a corner. Your box will get smaller and smaller. Instead, get good at adjacent disciplines. The adjacent disciplines will give you the je ne se quois that expands your lateral thinking. They make you a sharper, savvier, more nuanced operator. The best marketers have expertise in adjacent disciplines. Under the hood, they are a salesperson. Or a product person. Or a designer. Or all of the above (and then some). These adjacent disciplines become a marketer’s special sauce. This allows you to create work with texture. You’ll become a “marketer plus,” if you will. Btw, I say marketer here, but this applies to operators in general. If you want to level up, here’s a list of marketing-adjacent topics I recommend: 1. NegotiationNegotiation is a dance and much of it is about what’s unsaid, reading between the lines, and taps into visceral, subconscious reactions. Your customer wants you to build value and not accidentally give up power/concessions. You want that too. So learn the negotiation basics, then go deep. You’ll start to see negotiations happening everywhere. It will help you sharpen your messaging, pricing, and everything in between. Learn about this:
2. SalesYou can’t nurture leads and build brand awareness forever. Eventually, you have to sell something. Sales teaches you to keep your eyes on the prize: closing sales. This helps you stand out as a marketer and will make you more influential within your organization. The closer you are to bringing in revenue, the more central you’ll be to important company decisions. Learn about this:
3. Business analysisYou can work with data but not be analytical. You can be analytical without working with data. Shockingly, I’ve worked with financial planners and paid acquisition managers who work with numbers all day, but did weird things like add percentages or celebrate raw numbers without checking the percentages. I’m fortunate to have started my career as a business analyst at Gap Inc. I was part of a rotational program where they invested a ton into both formal training and on-the-job shadowing and mentorship. It’s made a lasting mark: The principles I learned there shaped how I think about numbers, interpreting data, and making defensible claims. You can learn these concepts on your own, too. It’s not really about numbers. It’s about your ability to think clearly and interpret information. It’s about calling BS and developing a spidey sense for when numbers seem “off” and too good to be true. Learn about this:
^ I wrote about much of the above in How to sharpen your analytical thinking—even if you’re not a numbers person. 4. Psychology, behavioral economicsStudying psychology and behavioral economics will help you better understand people, which is pure upside. When you master these concepts, you can mix and match to stack them. Learn about this:
5. CopywritingYou will go far in your life if you can write well. You might have good intentions or a brilliant idea, but if you can’t express them… No one cares. I find most people agree on high-level strategies, but things fall apart in execution. They can’t translate their strategy into customer-facing words and images that get the outcome they’re looking for. Strengthen your copywriting skills, and you’ll strengthen your execution. Learn about this:
6. Fiction writingI studied the craft of writing fiction because it made me a better marketer for non-fiction copy. This is different from copywriting to sell. The craft of fiction will teach you about how to get people to FEEL something. I have some friends who are the nicest people IRL. But when they send texts or emails, I think, “Do you hate me?? Are we even friends?” That’s because their warmth doesn’t translate in their writing. Learn about this:
7. ProductProduct and marketing are intertwined. The marketing should be built into the product itself. In other words, you can’t build a great product if you aren’t simultaneously thinking about how it will be marketed and why customers will tell their friends. And you can’t tap into the best ways to market your product if you don’t understand how the product is built, who it’s for, and what it’s for. Especially in tech, there’s an idea that product people are rigorous, sharp, and analytical. But marketers don’t get that benefit of the doubt. Many people look at marketing as a fluffier discipline. This is ironic because the field of product management was inspired by brand management marketing to begin with. My hope is marketers will one day get the recognition we deserve. I believe one way to accomplish that is to have a unified set of concepts/frameworks for talking about our ideas. This way, the outside world of non-marketers can understand our decision-making principles. The lists of sub-topics here are meant to be a start in this direction. Learn about this:
8. DesignDesign will heavily influence whatever you create. If you have great copy, but it’s paired with terrible design, no one will read the copy. They’ll be too distracted by the design. “This doesn’t look like a product someone like me would use.” “This doesn’t look legitimate.” “This looks cheap.” In the macro sense, design is the fastest and most visceral way to send a signal about who your product is for. In the micro sense, if you have poor design in your everyday Google Docs, your manager and coworkers are judging you. Don’t send documents that are poorly formatted, with different font sizes, and hard to read. It’s distracting and makes you look sloppy, which undermines that good work you do. Improving your design eye helps with both the macro and the micro. Learn about this:
9. Showrunner, producerMarketers on lean teams are showrunners who produce campaigns, events, and more. When you think like a showrunner, you think like a person who is accountable for making something happen. You own the big picture and every detail—because missing a detail could ruin everything. This ability to take complete ownership to ship a project is a valuable skill, whether you’re managing others or on a team of one. Learn about this:
Read about these topics. Practice them. Take on projects that require these skills. These marketing-adjacent topics will help you develop your sense of judgment. You’ll improve at making high quality, high velocity decisions—which will ultimately help you translate your intent into strong execution. What is it all for? All of this helps you bring your ideas to fruition, so your audience will feel the same excitement you feel about your product. Which of these disciplines is catching your eye? What concepts are you most curious to dive into? Hit reply because I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next Wednesday at 8am ET. Wes Connect with Wes
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