Do you ever get those days when everything’s green on your dashboards.
Traffic’s up. MQLs on target. Meetings booked. Campaigns running like clockwork.
But something feels off?
It can often be subtle. But you hear it from your stakeholders internally who don’t quite share your passion on the numbers. You also get a sense in how clients talk about you (or don’t). You sense it in the hesitation you hear from prospects when a proposal doesn’t cut through or decisions keep getting delayed.
The dashboards are happy. But something isn’t clicking.
I’ve seen this tension more than a few times over the years.
Metrics are so incredibly important and they tell us what’s happening.
But, gut instinct is telling us something else.
And the best marketers I know, no matter their seniority, don’t ignore that instinct, they interrogate it. They ask:
“Why does this look good on paper, but…”
“What’s really happening behind the numbers?”
“Are we optimising performance at the cost of distinctiveness?”
A Harvard Business Review article I read that’s prompted this reflection, said it well: good decisions need both data and intuition. But in our rush to prove impact, to chase growth, to automate everything with AI, are we leaving any room for the voice that says: this just doesn’t feel right?
Dashboards can measure so much. But only instinct can sense resonance.
Have you ever had that gut-level moment where the numbers were green, but something still felt off?
If so, how did you know it was time to look deeper?