Skill Stacking

It's extremely tough to be on the top of your field.

By definition, only 1 in 1,000 people get to the top 0.1%.

The odds that an athlete will become the next LeBron James, that an entrepreneur will become the next Elon Musk or that an executive will become the next Sheryl Sandberg are so slim you could assume that's not gonna be you.

Sorry if I broke the spell…

But there's hope, and that hope is called "skill stacking".

"Venn diagramming" your way to success

Say you're a financial planner. A very good one.

And you want to be unreasonably successful.

One way to do it is to become a top 0.1% financial planner. Very tough – again, 1 in 1,000.

(I don't even know what a top 0.1% financial planner looks like, but let's just roll with it.)

Another one is to "skill stack". To add other skills on top of financial planning that are complementary to it.

A common path is to develop the "CFO Skill Stack"...

People don't usually become CFOs because they're the best financial planners, but because they combine it with other skills like:

• People management

• Investors relations

• Business strategy

• Equity and debt raising

• Influence and persuasion

• Risk management

• Tax law

• Etc.

Sounds more promising, doesn't it?

There's only one problem with that… It's still insanely competitive.

That's because this specific skill stack is LEGIBLE.

Every ambitious financial analyst/planner can see the CFO job on top, and everyone can reasonably guess what core skills are needed.

So, everyone's trying to get those skills and competing for the job.

There must be a better way…

Building an "illegible" skill stack

What other combinations of skills on top of being a great financial planner might be valuable?

Let me run through a hypothetical scenario…

Suppose this financial planner starts specializing in e-commerce companies.

Financial planning is critical for e-commerce because of complicated inventory management and cash flow cycles. It's also specific enough that e-commerce companies don't want financial planners that don't understand e-commerce very well.

With just these two skills, you're now employable forever.

Now, add on top of that a deep understanding of the fashion industry…

Fashion is even more complicated than the average e-commerce company – there are launches every season, old inventory is hard to sell, and there are many discounts and special sales dates.

Now, apparel e-commerce companies are salivating to work with you.

Now, let's add a few more skills to the stack.

Say you learn the ins and outs of running paid ads online.

Now you can have an active role in helping the company GROW.

What other skills might be relevant for this e-commerce financial planner? I can think of a few:

• Data science, to integrate the information systems and get more real-time data in a structured way.

• Pricing, so you can help the company expand its margins

• Marketing channels, so you can advise the company on how to grow sales

• Logistics, so you can help the company cut costs without affecting delivery

• Sales, so you can sell your services to e-commerce fashion brands at a premium

Notice three things:

1. Almost no financial planner in the world has this unique combination of skills

2. The more of these you add to your skill set, the more valuable (even indispensable) you are for this specific type of company

3. You can use this skill set to become a CFO, but also a consultant. You can even start your own financial planning business and you'll have endless clients.

There's also very low competition for this skill stack.

Unlike the "generic" CFO skill stack, almost no financial planner knows of this career path. And after a certain point in their career, they couldn't catch up with you anyway.

The 10% Rule

The reason why this is powerful is because of the 10% Rule.

See, to become a CFO with the "generic" skill stack, you really do need to be 1 in 1,000.

But with an illegible skill stack (which doesn't have to be related to fashion e-commerce, by the way, it can be anything), you only need to be in the top 10% of each skill.

If you're a top 10% financial planner, with top 10% knowledge of e-commerce and fashion, and a top 10% understanding of online paid ads, you have basically no competition.

And the magical thing is that getting to the top 10% of a skill isn't just 10X easier than getting to the top 0.1%...

… It's 1000X easier.

I know of a personal trainer who knows a little bit about business. As far as I know, he's not a top 1% trainer… He's also not a business whiz…

He's just a top 10% trainer who reads the Wall Street Journal.

And yet, his schedule is PACKED with high-level executives and entrepreneurs who pay top dollar to work with him. He has no competition.

The trick is to find a skill stack that:

• Is easy for you to get to the top 10% in each thing (e.g. because you're interested in those things).

• Is uncorrelated (i.e.: it's unique, it's not a generic stack that every professional in your area pursues).

• Is valuable to a unique set of customers/clients.

That way, you can easily go to the top of your industry (because you've created your own niche) and have no competition (because no one else has the skill stack that you have).

Keep working smarter.