Want to move up the corporate ladder? Planning your own startup? Hoping to avoid layoffs and outsourcing?

Then you need a crash course in business skills. Engineers are smart but usually lack the background and aptitude for business or management. The bad news is, the very skills that make you a good engineer also make you a poor businessperson. The good news is, that's fixable. If you're a technical professional ready for the next step upward, you need our half-day course on Business 101 for Engineers.

1Behold the Power of Marketing: Marketing trumps engineering, every time. Hire good marketing people because they'll contribute more to success than elegant engineering.

2Don't Drink the Kool-Aid: Don't get too excited about your own technology, because your customers won't. Focus on the what, not the how, and be ready to make some painful tradeoffs accordingly.

3Test-Drive Your Elevator Pitch: Can you explain your product in 15 seconds? If not, there's probably a major flaw in your product, not just your delivery.

4Communication Skills Are Key: Speaking, writing, and sharing information effectively is more important than technical skill — any technical skill. Your success with VCs, customers, and coworkers will depend on it.

5Nobody Cares: Keep this in mind as you craft your marketing message. Nobody cares about you, period. Nobody's looking for your product, so you need to convince them differently.

6Every Product Is a Service: Focus on the customer's total experience, including ordering, shipping, tech support, delivery, payment, setup, configuration — all of it.

7Patents Should Be an Afterthought: Patents won't sell your product, they'll only stymie a competitor, and maybe not even that. Your customers don't care either way. Get the basics right and postpone the legal details.

8Inertia Is a Powerful Force: Customers (and even other engineers) are surprisingly resistant to change, so don't expect anyone to jump at your better mousetrap. Religious conversions hardly ever happen.

9Do You Have a Product or a Feature? A cool new way of doing things isn't enough. Your new product idea might better be realized as a new feature in someone else's product.

10Learn Geography and Languages: Do you know the difference between Taiwan and Thailand? Between a Scottish accent and an Irish one? It's a global market out there. Don't enter it unprepared.