Don’t Forget This:
1 of the most important lessons I learned as an athlete Go Bearcats that applies to Marketing?
👉 You can’t win the game unless you know the rules better than anyone else playing it.
Not just your playbook.
Not just the scoreboard.
I’m talking about the invisible stuff: The constraints, the biases, the little cracks you can slip through if you study hard enough.
And no 1 embodied this more than Kobe Bryant.
Most players?
They watched film. Ran drills. Memorized plays.
Kobe?
He read the NBA referee handbook.
Yes, The actual book the refs use to make calls.
Why?
Because he wanted to understand:
– Where refs stand during different plays
– What angles they can and CAN’T see
– How they interpret things like contact, traveling, and fouls
Level up your marketing game
Zero BS. Just fun, unfiltered, industry insights with the game-changers behind some of the coolest companies from around the globe.
No spam. Unsubscribe any time.
By doing this, he identified something brilliant: “Dead zones”. Spots on the floor where refs had limited visibility.
Kobe would use those zones to his advantage. He’d: Hold defenders longer than allowed Sneak in extra steps without getting called for traveling Draw contact he KNEW would look like a foul from the ref’s vantage point.
That’s not cheating. That’s elite-level understanding of the game. He didn’t break the rules. He BENT them. He found the edge. And, danced on it.
Now let’s bring that to Marketing. Most Marketers play the obvious game.
They write posts. Run ads. Launch emails. Make content. But, they don’t study HOW the game is being officiated.
They don’t:
– Study the LinkedIn algorithm
– Understand email spam filters
– Know what meta tags actually influence ranking
– Read the Facebook ad policies
Test and DOCUMENT FOR FUTURE what actually gets engagement and what dies in the feed.
So, they get frustrated when the “play” doesn’t work.
But the best Marketers? They know the rulebook inside and out.
– They know the first 3 seconds of a video decide everything
– They know how to warm up an email list to boost deliverability
– They know how TikTok’s sounds, watch time, and comments impact reach
– They know how to use trending formats without looking like a try-hard brand
– They know how to work WITH the algorithm, not against it
MEME OF THE WEEK:
