Right after college, I spent two long and brutal years slaving the pits of the Los Angeles entertainment industry. I discovered a lot in my time in Los Angeles. I found that my 100-hour workweeks were not cut. I found that too much sun is as bad as it is not enough (and that while rain doesn’t cause cancer, it does cause big, messy accidents on I-10). I found out that In ‘n Out Burger makes the best cheeseburger. all over the world (and that “animal style” is both messy and delicious).

But the most important thing I discovered was my “Learned Incompetence Theory.”

You see, my senior year in Los Angeles I had a boss named “Bob.” (The name changed because “Bob” was a cool guy and I’d rather not make him feel bad).

“Bob” was a quiet gay Jewish boy from New York City who spent most of his work day surfing the web for pornography. Not to mention that “Bob” was not good at his job. He could chat and treat like it was nobody’s business and he taught me so much about how to deal with people.

The problem was that “Bob” couldn’t do anything * except * chat and negotiate.

* Answering the phone? Uh uh.

* Send a fax? Better if he didn’t try. Toner is expensive, after all.

* Reply to an email, lick a stamp, or figure out how to set up voicemail on your brand new cell phone (lost your last one on a trip to France)? Yes, uhh. It’s not going to happen.

Now what struck me about “Bob’s” utter incompetence, as in a kindergarten, was that sometime, on the way to landing his nice, comfortable quarter-million-a-year concert, he * must * have learned to do these things.

You see, in the entertainment industry, there is a pretty strict ladder to climb. You start very low as someone’s helper. You spend a couple of years looking for coffee, doing mindless administrative things, and trying to show that you have “initiative.” And then if you’re lucky and tenacious, you move up, get your own assistant, spend all your time chatting on the phone and browsing porn, and so the circle of Hollywood life continues.

So once, “Bob” knew how to use a copier.

Once upon a time, “Bob” knew how to put someone on hold, take another call, and then go back to the first person without accidentally calling the fire department.

Once upon a time, “Bob” was competent.

Until he learned that if he wanted to get ahead, he would have to * learn * to become * incompetent. *

You see, in Hollywood (and, from what I’ve seen, in all of corporate America) if you know how to do something right, you will inevitably be forced to do it over and over and over again. In fact, if you’re too good at something (fixing the copier. Getting coffee. Preventing wars), you tend to tie yourself to that one thing, while the less competent people around you get promoted.

So what do ambitious people like “Bob” do?

Consciously or not, they * learn to be incompetent. *

They put all their energy into developing some basic, useful, salable skills, and let everything else fall off and atrophy until the people above them have absolutely no choice but to promote them.

“Bob keeps spoiling the copier and we fear that if he keeps getting close to it, it will explode,” they say. “We better get him out of there and give him that corner office.

Good theory, but what does this have to do with marketing?

Just this one. In my everyday life I meet many new entrepreneurs and business owners, refugees from the corporate lifestyle, who have not realized the fact that while the learned incompetence theory will help you get ahead in corporate America , it is absolutely deadly when you are alone.

When you are trapped in the “ivory tower”, you can forget how to do all kinds of things, knowing full well that the infrastructure of that great company will take care of you.

But in the real world, if you decide to forget how the copier works, copies are not made.

If you decide to forget how to answer the phone, there is no one there to save you.

And if you decide to become incompetent in marketing … well, very soon you won’t have any kind of business.