How becoming 'Full Stack; made me a better marketer

The documentary covers their entire story and what’s fascinating is Dr. Dre.

He was first a rapper/MC - he mixed his own stuff and then started producing his own stuff. He learned how to record, he learned how to adjust all of the audio levels, and produce really good-sounding music. He worked with other artists, and he knew how to produce them.

He brought his CD to Jimmy who is a record executive and Jimmy asked:

“Dre, who mixed this thing, who produced this because it sounds amazing” Dr Dre replied saying it was him who did it.

Jimmy stunned, replied:

“Wait a minute you came up with the concept for the songs, you wrote the songs, all of the lyrics? You created all of the sounds in this whole song, then you produced the whole thing? Then you did the artwork, put together the entire thing, packaged it up and got it ready for sale? and you even produced the marketing angles for it?

Dr Dre: “Yeah”. And that’s when Jimmy knew that he was going to hire him.

After watching this documentary, it inspired me to be a 'full-stack' rather than a specialist. This has led to me producing better outputs by being good at a broad range of skills.

I'm always curious, trying to understand everything, which has helped build a unique, complementary and valuable skill stack. It’s important to understand the big picture and the details to know how your piece interconnects with the whole.I

Always seek to understand the whole business. Always be curious and try to understand everything. I've asked ‘why’ so many times people wanted to kill me.

Becoming a ‘Specialist’ can lead to fewer things being done. The problem with knowing one narrow thing is that you’re going to get stuck. Building a skill stack gives you an advantage because that's when you can start doing things fast.

Why do you need to be full stack?

When people only know how to do one very narrow rigid thing then they’re gonna get stuck and that’s probably the main problem with people who are just good at one thing that they can’t do anything.

Avoid being the people who only know a narrow field, don’t be “That’s not my responsibility that wasn’t in my job description” If someone ever says that, it’s a red flag.

Someone who is a full stack would never say something like that, and what they do is they seek to understand the entire business and are never satisfied. They are always curious and trying to understand everything they wanna know how support works.

• You want to know how the financial part works. 

• You want to know how the product works.

• You want to ask why so many times that people want to kill you (the 5 levels of why) - trying to understand everything.

You become very good at seeing the big picture, the details and every single thing in between. 

It’s only when you can understand the big picture and the details that you know how your peace connects with the greater whole.

These are the best people because you know if someone is good at Marketing, they’re not going to be just good at marketing they’re going to be good at:

• Sales

• Accounting and finance

• Advertising 

• Psychology

• Design/ Having an artistic flare 

• Numbers and statistics 

• Know about technology

• Email

• Copywriting 

• Landing age conversion rates 

• Tracking and attribution modelling

So on and so forth. This is what makes a good marketer. 

Being Full stack fixes this issue:

A streamlined process is crucial for efficiency. Often, work involves multiple handoffs between individuals, leading to delays and inefficiencies. 

In a typical scenario, a person conveys their requirements, another interprets and executes the task, with iterations and changes along the way. Much of this cycle is non-productive, consisting of communication and waiting for responses. This inefficiency can hamper productivity and performance.

In contrast, a full-stack person can handle the entire process independently, minimizing back-and-forth communication and delays. It's essential to recognize that communication challenges are not always the root cause of issues. 

Examples:

Full stack = being good at a range of different things. Being a specialist is important, but it has to be built on top of the foundation of general knowledge.

Google Example:

They call them T-shaped people. T-shaped people means they’ve got good broad base of knowledge -they understand how the world works and then they’re very good at something specific.

Leonardo da Vinci's example:

A full stack artist. He was an engineer, an artist, and a chemist. He wanted to learn chemistry so he could mix the pigments for his paints and get his paint right. He studied optics how the eye works and also studied light and reflections. He studied geometry, mathematics and human anatomy. All of this just so he could be an amazing painter and it worked - he was able to do things that other painters couldn’t because he had better worldly wisdom in the bank.

A Steve Jobs example:

At the heart of Jobs’ skill stack is a passion for design. He was never the best but he had developed a keen understanding of winning design principles, merging them with:

• His insight into what people want 

•  Tech Knowledge 

• Strategic thinking 

• Salesmanship - Computer science 

• Leadership 

He wasn’t the best in the world at any of the skills within his stack, but the complementary and unique nature of his stack made Apple what it is today.

Michael Jordan example:

Most NBA players have a speciality, they either good at playing defence, they might be good at shooting three-pointers, or just good at scoring points. But Michael Jordan mastered at all. He was good at everything - he could play defence, he could shoot three-pointers, he could he could score points and not just at an average level.

How Growth Marketer can be T shaped:

1. T-shaped Growth Marketers grasp a wide range of growth concepts, enabling them to:

• Approach growth strategically

• Comprehend diverse growth strategies

• Provide valuable insights to executives

• Collaborate effectively with various teams

• Adapt to changes readily

• Solve problems efficiently

1. 2. T-shaped Growth Marketers excel in a particular area (the vertical part of the T). This enables them to:

   • Contribute significantly to business growth with a focused expertise

   • Stay updated on the best practices in their field

   • Foster innovation within the growth team

   • Keep abreast of the latest trends

   • Align their work with specific OKRs

   • Address operational challenges effectively

For businesses seeking to hire such professionals, consider the following guidelines:

• Identify 4-5 areas requiring broad knowledge.

• Select 1 skill that demands deep expertise.

• Craft a job offer reflecting these requirements.

• Hire with specific OKRs in mind.

To summarise:

No matter where you look in the world, no matter what era of time you observe you notice that the people who do well are the people who are successful in this. It doesn’t matter if this is business, tech, health, sports, or musician. You want to become full stack or t-shaped because that’s when you can really start doing things fast and that’s when you can start becoming the best.

You need to become an observer. The best people are curious, always observing and maybe can’t live without knowing why. You want to find out why and want to find out why. Always Be curious and self-teach yourself and never think you’re done.