15

How I’ve skilled up

Experience is the best teacher. You try something, you see how people respond, you learn, you try again. So on and so forth.

But there are accelerants. The best way to get better, faster, is to identify very specific, high-impact skills and figure out what the most skilled people in those domains are doing.

As a marketer, I quickly identified 3 areas where, if I could skill up quickly, I could make a massive difference. Those areas, and the “accelerants” I used to develop were:

• Advertising (copywriting) - I read the book Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz. A little dated but an absolute game changer when it comes to the psychology of the information you should put in front of people based on the prospect’s state of awareness, the market’s sophistication, and mass desire satisfied by the product.
• Landing page design - Eddie Schleyner’s course “Transformational Landing Pages” was exceptional.
• Non-Fiction Writing - Having written well over 150k words between all my courses and blog posts, I felt like a strong writer. But “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser made me stronger. It is a must-read for any writer. 20 pages in and you start seeing your writing (and the writing of others) differently.

We’re getting close to the end of the course now. The story is almost over.