Being a constant learner is just part of who I am. For example, this week I am on a staycation. Since I like to stay busy I’ve mixed in learning with my writing sessions. This week I’ve spent a fair amount of time learning front-end programming. I’m not at the point I can program as a profession. But, the things I am learning will add up over time and are helpful in my day job as a Senior Product executive.
That’s exactly how I picked up many of the skills I use in my work and my business. For example, learning how to write impactful business plans didn’t come from college or on the job training. I learned that skill by reading lots of business plans when I ran a top SBA lender and then working for years to craft my art.
If you are looking for new skills to learn, to stay relevant in our rapidly changing professional environment, LinkedIn just released their 2025 Skills on the Rise.
For those of you that have been concerned about artificial intelligence stealing your job, there is good news. While Artificial intelligence (AI), or more specifically AI-literacy, is on the top of the list, 12 of the 15 skills are soft skills.
I’m not really surprised by that fact. I’ve been saying for some time that professionals should double down on mastering human skills that technology won’t/can’t replace anytime soon.
On top of soft skills, here are two other skills I’d focus on upskilling.
Go-to-Market Skills on the List
Not only are there more soft skills than technology skills on the list, there are two that I’ve been talking to you about for some time now - Go-to-Market Strategy (#12) and Growth Strategy (#14).
Go-to-Market (GTM) skills are important because they help businesses ensure successful product launches. Your GTM strategy is the only thing that helps your product stand out from the competition and there is no lack of that these days.
Growth Strategy focuses on expanding a business in a sustainable way.
GTM is how you take a product to market. Growth is how you continue growing after you have product-market-fit.
The importance of these skills is exactly why I pushed to create a dedicated GTM team at my work. Today that people is ten professionals strong and the value they bring to our organization has been instrumental.
If you are looking to upskill your GTM and Growth Strategy skillset, here are a few resources for you to consider:
- My own book, Go-to-Market Made Easy: Your Roadmap to Customer Acquisition.
- Stripe:
- Stripe's resources provide comprehensive guides on GTM strategies, particularly for startups.
- Asana:
- Asana offers practical guides and templates for building GTM strategies.
- Highspot:
- Highspot's blog gives very detailed information about how to create a GTM strategy.
- Coursera:
- Coursera provides articles that help to define what GTM strategy is, and how to create one.
- GTM Alliance:
- This site has a lot of information on different GTM strategies, and how to implement them.
Other Skills on the List
Here’s the rest of the list, in order and including the two I have already covered.
- AI Literacy - Note the use of Literacy. You don’t need to be an AI Engineer to reap the value of AI. But, you should have basic knowledge of it and be experimenting with how it works into your professional workflows.
- Conflict Mitigation - You don’t have to be a people leader to express a Conflict Mitigation skill. Much of moving up in the professional world is managing relationships and that includes when they go South, because they inevitably will.
- Adaptability - I like this at #3. I’d even consider it #2. The business world changes rapidly. As do things at companies. At my company, if you aren’t able to adapt to change you won’t make it, because things can change weekly.
- Process Optimization - Getting more down with less people is the name of the game right now. Companies are focusing on being lean, i.e. Revenue per Employee.
- Innovative Thinking - Coming up with unique approaches to business is one of the skills that has gotten me promoted to Senior Director. Practice keeping an eye on things in the business world and your industry then get used to thinking through how you could creatively solve those problems.
- Public Speaking - one of my co-workers, Jaime Lopez, wanted to know why this wasn’t hire on the list. Reflecting back on the order, I can see what he means. I would move it, and Innovative Thinking, above Process Optimization. The value being a good public speaker brings to your professional life is unmeasurable.
- Solution-Based Selling - Much of the business world is moving away from Sales-led Growth to Product-led Growth. Still, Sales is a highly sought after skill, especially when its solution-based.
- Customer Engagement & Support - Boy does this one need to be higher. It feels like customer service is practically dead. I would rebrand this one as Customer Success. Finding ways to align your business’s success with that of the customer is the path forward.
- Stakeholder Management - Few professionals can operate in solitude. It takes a team. Knowing how to manage internal and external stakeholders is critical.
- Large Language Model (LLM) Development & Application - I don’t think you need to know how to develop LLMs. But, you need to understand them and how they work and be experimenting with using them in your daily work life.
- Budget & Resource Management - I recently had a Finance partner do a deep dive on budgeting and capital allocation for my team. It isn’t my team’s job to build budgets, that’s me and my leader’s jobs. But, understanding how finances at our company are intertwined is a skill I think everyone should have.
- Go-to-Market Strategy - This belongs in the top five, easily. A poor GTM strategy, or a lack of one, is a leading cause of products failing.
- Regulatory Compliance - You should expect a less regulatory environment from the current administration. But, that doesn’t mean its ok to ignore the importance of staying up-to-date with current regulations.
- Growth Strategy - Same as GTM, this belongs in the top five. I’ve seen company after company fail before their growth put a strain on cashflow and it wasn’t sustainable.
- Risk Assessment - Succeeding in business is all about taking risks and mitigating those risks as best you can. I’ve worked in two industries where risk is ever present. Finance, via lending, which is pure risk, and building products, which has inherent risks as well.
Don’t get overwhelmed by this list. My advice would be to pick one or two and focus on adding or improving them in your professional toolbelt.
What’s missing from your perspective? What would you remove? Put a note in the comments, I’m genuinely curious.
If you are looking for affordable courses on these topics, I recommend looking in two places. First LinkedIn Learning has a lot of free courses. I’ve taken courses there on APIs, programming, and soft skills.
What didn’t make my GTM/Growth resource list above is Hubspot. They have a solid online academy that will teach you all about inbound marketing practices. I’ve used that resource before. Also, take a look at Udemy. I’ve been hosting courses of my mine there for almost a decade. You can often get top courses for as low as $10.
Finally, bookmark my courses page. I’m in the middle of filming the accompanying course to go with my latest book, Go-to-Market Made Easy.