When I was in my first startup in 2002, I was trying to convince my boss Milan, the VP of engineering, to let me go to India and set up our offshore development team. I was 25 and had never worked outside the North America. Milan asked me if I’d ever failed at anything before. I said “sure, I’ve failed at exams, at getting some promotions, at getting into grad school etc” but he didn’t react and I felt like I didn’t answer his question correctly.

When I tell people I work for HubSpot many of them, particularly in the marketing and tech world, nod their head indicating they know all about HubSpot and Inbound marketing.  Many have even read Inbound Marketing, the best-seller by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.

So ask a few questions on the topic and you'll likely hear "Oh sure, it's basically SEO" or "Yes, I know all about content marketing and driving conversions with landing pages, marketing automation etc."  

I too thought this way but in the last few months I've come to realize that all this is just the mechanics of Inbound Marketing and misses the most important concept on why this methodology works.  And understanding the why is essential to doing marketing and, perhaps even, business right.

When I applied to grad school I remember several applications asking questions like "recount a time you set a goal and struggled to achieve it" or some other flavor of goal-setting story.  I found these hard to answer because I hadn't really set many goals in my life, which may indicate why my accomplishments to date had been modest.  I suppose I just did things because they felt like they'd be fun or cool.  I thought most kids grew up the same way and wanted to believe that the goal oriented ones were from another planet.  Nevertheless, I envied those who set goals and I resolved to become more so - but never really did even years after graduation. 

Recently a colleague made a thinly veiled accusation that I was biased about an analysis I was working on and was "spinning the data."  The allegation hurt deeply because I have never consciously cooked any data to match an outcome I wanted and I sincerely believed I was working towards the truth.  I went through much of the day distraught at this attack on my credibility but a series of discussions afterwards at home helped me learn three important lessons that included some surprising conclusions.

As a former consultant at the Boston Consulting Group I saw first hand when, from my viewpoint, our team delivered value to the client and when we did not.  Across six cases over two years I witnessed the clichéd excesses of management consulting as well as the benefits.  Here are some  suggestions on when not to hire consultants and when to do so; hopefully useful since such teams cost about $150,000 - $200,000 per week.