The “Second-Order Thinking” Mental Model for Marketers | Corey Haines (Swipewell, Savvycal, Baremetrics)
Marketing Powerups
The Side Projects, Second Order Benefits
"There's a lot more like you get a lot more luck that way too. Just doing stuff and always telling people about it," he says. "Building public is kind of the biggest manifestation of this, I think."
If you’re trying to solve a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, you can just try jamming pieces together. That could take you days or weeks. But, if you approach it with a framework or mental model (like starting off with the edges), you can increase your chances of success sooner rather than later.
That’s true for marketing too.
Marketing mental models and frameworks give you the shortcut to success.
That’s where Corey Haines comes in. He’s the Co-Founder of SwipeWell and has consulted and worked with dozens of startups, including SavvyCal, Riverside.fm, and Baremetrics.
And he’s a huge fan of mental models for marketers. He’s even created a whole course about it!
Today, we’ll dig into one of his favorite mental models, Second Order Thinking, which will help you create more bulletproof Marketing plans… like New from the movie The Matrix.
In this Marketing Powerups episode, you’ll learn:
- What is the Second Order Thinking mental model
- Three ways marketers can apply second-order thinking to their weekly and quarterly planning
- How Corey applied the second order thinking to SwipeWell’s embed feature
- Why starting more side projects can help accelerate your marketing career
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🎉 About Corey Haines
Corey Haines is the founder of the Swipe Files community and SwipeWell app. Previously, Corey was the Head of Growth at Baremetrics and is the current Marketing Lead at SavvyCal. He’s consulted with dozens of startups on marketing and growth, including SavvyCal, Evercast, Riverside.fm, Holloway, Beamer, and Timetastic.
🕰️ Timestamps and transcript
- 01:45 - How the Second-Order Thinking Model could have helped Baremetrics release a better freemium plan
- 05:58 - What is the “Second-Order Thinking” mental model for marketers?
- 11:42 - How Corey applied the Second-Order Thinking Mental model to SwipeWell
- 18:56 - What are practical ways marketers can start using the Second-Order Thinking mental model in their day-to-day work?
- 24:05 - Side projects helped accelerate Corey’s marketing career
- 26:30 - Doing more projects increases your luck surface area
- 28:20 - One piece of advice Corey would give his younger self: Do more stuff outside of marketing
- 30:50 - The importance of building a “personal moat”
💪 The sponsor
I want to thank the sponsor of this episode, 42/Agency.
When you're in scale-up mode, and you have KPIs to hit... the pressure is on to deliver demos and signups.
And it's a lot to handle: demand gen, email sequences, revenue ops, and more! That’s where 42/Agency, founded by my friend Kamil Rextin, can help you.
They’re a strategic partner that’s helped B2B SaaS companies like ProfitWell, Teamwork, Sprout Social and Hubdoc build a predictable revenue engine.
If you’re looking for performance experts and creatives to solve your marketing problems at a fraction of the cost of in-house, look no further.
Go to https://www.42agency.com/ to talk to a strategist to learn how you can build a high-efficiency revenue engine now.
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