Your opinions are subjective, based on various forms of input, i.e. physical, emotional, intellectual, etc. Sometimes, after many years of creating marketing strategies and executing marketing plans, you feel you’ve attained the rank of expert, and believe that you know best based on your opinions. That’s when you may start to get into trouble, and actually reduce your value to your company or clients.
Opinions are not necessarily wisdom. Experience is great, but it is only one data source when making a judgment. You must go beyond opinion and gather new objective data for every situation in which you find yourself. Why? Because only dead things are static and unchanging, and whatever market you are in is very much alive, especially today.
I realize this may seem like a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but how many times have you seen a colleague just “phone it in”, instead of do the heavy lifting of gathering all the appropriate information before plotting a course of action?
It is the truly wise person who uses his/her experienced-based opinions, in combination with new, objective data, to make business judgments. If you short cut the judgment process, you could end up short cutting your career.