175 Great Quotes on Business, Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Sales

1999 - 2010 © CXO Advisory Group

Quotes On Business, Entrepreneurship,

Marketing and Sales

Great


“Our plan is to invent some sort of doohickey that everyone wants to

buy.”

A “visionary” in a Dilbert cartoon strip


“Innovation is not about saying yes to everything.

It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”

Steve Jobs

Co-Founder, Apple


The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all!"

Richard Branson


“Why join the Navy when you can be a pirate.”

Steve Jobs

Co-Founder, Apple


“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that.

Word of mouth is very powerful.”

Jeff Bezos

Founder & CEO, Amazon


“I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I

can step over.”

Warren Buffett


“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”

Zig Ziglar


“One finds limits by pushing them.”

Herbert Simon


“If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.”

Charles Kettering


“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only

the paranoid survive.”

Andrew Grove


“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn

reputation by trying to do hard things well.”

Jeff Bezos


“We built this company from the customer back, not from the

company out.”

Lou Gerstner, IBM

(who traveled over 1,000,000 miles

to visit customers during his nine years as CEO)


“The best vision is insight.”

Malcolm S. Forbes


“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana


“What we are trying to do in marketing is not

to change minds, but to take advantage of the perceptions

that are already there.”

Ries and Trout

Bottom-Up Marketing


“Anything worth having is worth going for - all the way.”

“J.R. Ewing” (Larry Hagman),

From Dallas


“The key to evangelism is a great product. It is easy, almost

unavoidable, to catalyze evangelism for a great product. It is hard, almost impossible, to catalyze evangelism

for crap.”

Guy Kawasaki


“When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you

you're nuts.”

Larry Ellison,

Co-founder & CEO, Oracle


“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.”

Mae West


“Rather than seeing the world as it is, those in charge would rather see it

as they want it to be.”

Jack Trout

The Power of Simplicity


“Learn to speak from the customer's view.”

Ranjan Acharya


“The more alike two products are, the more important their differences

become.”

Regis McKenna


“It has been a founding principle of our company to listen to the end-

users, the consumers, and not just guess what they want.”

Montgomery Kersten

VitalSigns Software


“Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones of

genius.”

Elbert Hubbard


“What can a sales person say to somebody to get them to buy a

product that they already use every day if they don’t like it? Nothing.”

Larry Ellison

CEO, Oracle


“Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of

everything it does.”

Peter Drucker

Harvard Business Review

September-October 1992


“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit

them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Steve Jobs


“In the future, it will become increasingly obvious that

your competitors are just as clueless as you are.”

Scott Adams

The Dilbert Future

Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century


“You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to

them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.”

Steve Jobs


“Talk to unhappy customers.”

Linda Sanford, Senior Vice President, IBM


“Complexity is not be admired. It is to be avoided.”

Jack Trout

The Power of Simplicity


“The secret is to make the time to immerse yourself in the people

you’re marketing to. To live them, breathe with them and

study them from every angle.”

Lisa Fortini-Campbell, Ph.D.

Hitting the Sweet Spot


“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your

mistakes.”

Antishenes, 500 BC


“It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”

Yogi Berra


“Most products are still created in a vacuum, driven by what is technically feasible rather than what is needed

by customers.”

Kristin Zhivago

Marketing Technology


“Paying attention to simple little things that most men neglect makes

a few men rich.”

Henry Ford


“You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Yogi Berra


“It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.”

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

Al Ries and Jack Trout


“If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.”

Charles Kettering


“Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.”

Tony Hsieh

Co-founder, Zappos


“If we wait for the moment when everything,

absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”

Ivan Turgenev


“If the other guy is getting better, then you’d better be getting better faster than the other guy is getting better... or you’re getting worse.”

Tom Peters


“The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the

prospect’s mind.”




“Simplification is one of the most difficult things to do.”

Jonathan Ive

vice-president of industrial design at Apple

Designer of iPod and iMac


“Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”

Robert H. Schuller


“Dividing meager resources across a host of medium term operational

goals creates mediocrity on a broad scale.”

Hamel and Prahalad

Harvard Business Review, 1993


“We watch our competitors, learn from them, see what they are doing for customers and copy those

things as much as we can.”

Jeff Bezos



“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the

formula for failure–which is, “Try to please everybody.”

Herbert Bayard Swope


“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words;

people, product and profits. Unless you've got a good team, you can't do

much with the other two.”

Lee Iacocca


“Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as

far.”

Will Rogers


“20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do

than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow line. Sail away from the safe

harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream Discover”

Mark Twain


“In Confusion there is Profit.”

“Lt. Nicholas Holden” (Tony Curtis),

From “Operation Petticoat”, (1959)


“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

Dan Quayle


“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a

damn fool about it.”

W. C. Fields


“If I had to live my life again, I would make the same mistakes

ONLY SOONER.”

Tallulah Bankhead


“There’s nothing wrong with market research as long as you remember

that marketing is a game of the future. Most market research is a

report on the past.”

Ries and Trout

Bottom-Up Marketing


“Customers buy on price because they can’t find extraordinary quality,

convenience, service and value.”

Warren Greshes

Supercharged Selling


“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Thomas A. Edison


“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted,

and the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

John Wanamaker


“I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it.

It's the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you

crazy”

Lee Iacocca


“9 out of 10 products are introduced to fill a void in the company’s product line, not to fill a void in the market.”

Ries and Trout


“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of

success.”

Bo Bennett


“When you’re up against a clearly superior product, you can forget

about marketing. You cannot win a war with vastly inferior weapons.”

Ries & Trout


“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and

experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”

Harold S. Geneen


“Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.”

Warren Buffett


“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”

Kenneth Olsen, president of Digital Equipment Corp,

1977


“You have to pretend you're 100 percent sure. You have to take

action; you can't hesitate or hedge your bets. Anything less will

condemn your efforts to failure.”

Andy Grove


“Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one

coming.”

Richard Branson


“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit

them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

Steve Jobs


“All things being equal, people will do business with a friend; all things being unequal, people will still do

business with a friend.”

Mark Mccormack


“Your most unhappy customer is your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates

Co-founder, Microsoft


“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam.”

Winston Churchill


“You need to keep your head down, and build a great product before you

raise money.”

Dina Kaplan,

Co-founder, BLIP.TV


“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very

beginning.”

Bill Gates


“Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person

who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it that

makes a difference.”

Nolan Bushnell


“Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person

who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who

makes a difference.”

Nolan Bushnell,

Founder, Atari, Androbot, Chuck E. Cheeses


“Our company has, indeed, stumbled onto some of its new products. But

never forget that you can only stumble if you’re moving.”

Richard P. Carlton

3M Corporation, 1950


“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere.”

Ronald Reagan


“Having a partner definitely allows you to take more risks.”

Arianna Huffington

Co-founder, The Huffington Post


“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

Wayne Gretzky


“Nothing is ever gained by winning an argument and losing a customer.”

C.F. Norton


“Make mistakes faster.”

Andrew Grove

Co-founder, Intel


“You cannot design better products by staying in the office.”

Tom Kelley

The Art of Innovation


“People don’t ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather

have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.”

Robert Keith Leavitt


“A child of five would understand this.

Send someone to fetch a child of five.”

Groucho Marx


“You cannot innovate by copying.”

Larry Ellison


I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from

behind a desk.

Lou Gerstner, IBM

(who traveled over 1,000,000 miles

to visit customers during his nine years as CEO)


“Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.”

Seth Godin


“It is not a disgrace to fail. Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.”

Charles Kettering


“You can have brilliant ideas but if you can’t get them across, your ideas

won’t get you anywhere.”

Lee Iacocca


“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, then you’ve

launched too late .”

Reid Hoffman

Founder, LinkedIn


“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next

week.”

General George S. Patton


“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first

overcome.”

Samuel Johnson


“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of

comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.


I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It's done on gut

feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the

consumer.

Richard Branson


“It had always made sense to me to build a business based on

what people really wanted, rather than guess what we thought they

might want.”

Michael Dell


“Few things are harder to put up with than a good example.”

Mark Twain


“Before you build a better mousetrap, it helps to know if there are any mice

out there.”

Mort Zuckerman


“Things may come to those who wait, but only things left by those who

hustle.”

Abraham Lincoln


“Nothing endures but change.”

Herectilus


“The best decision is the right decision. The next best decision is

the wrong decision. The worst decision is no decision.”

Scott McNealy


“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment

where excellence is expected.”

Steve Jobs


“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please

everybody.”

Bill Cosby


“Build momentum by accumulating small successes.”

Unknown


“Never trust anyone you don’t understand.”

Jack Trout


“I am convinced that if the rate of change inside an organization is less than the rate of change outside, the

end is in sight.”

Jack Welch


“Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or

you will find customers buying from them, not you.”

Mark Cuban,

Co-founder, HDNET


“Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women.

Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.”

Brian Tracy


“We will either find a way or make one.”

Hannibal


“If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you

nowhere.”

Henry Kissinger


“Nothing focuses the mind better than the constant sight of a

competitor who wants to wipe you off the map.”

Wayne Calloway


“Whatever made you successful in the past won’t in the future.”

Lew Platt, CEO

Hewlett-Packard


“You cannot sell a man who isn’t listening; word of mouth is the best

medium of all; and dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will

irrelevant brilliance.”

Bill Bernbach

DDB Advertising

(1911-1982)


“Marketing begins before the product is launched.”

Seth Godin


“You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all

the time.”

Charles Kettering


“Implement solutions, not features.”

John Geleynse, Apple


“Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether

you like it or not.”

Seth Godin


“If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the

fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to

set a timetable and act.”

Lee Iacocca


“You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people,

once unfooled, talk about the experience.”

Seth Godin


“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You

can't keep it, but you can send it. Once you've lost it, you can never

get it back.”

Harvey Mackay


“t's always too soon to quit.”

Norman Vincent Peale


“The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees

danger in every opportunity.”

Winston Churchill


“There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less.

We will be the second.”

Jeff Bezos


“Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit

there.”

Will Rogers


“Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully.

Proceed positively. Pursue persistently.”

William A. Ward


“Don't let the mistakes and disappointments of the past control

and direct your future.”

Zig Ziglar


“If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”

Tony Robbins


“Please all, and you will please none.”

Aesop


“Stay committed to your decisions; but stay flexible in your approach.”

Tony Robbins


“Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked

down by the traffic from both sides.”

Margaret Thatcher


“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a

courageous decision.”

Peter Drucker


“One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment... if it

doesn't turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt


“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”

Winston Churchill


“A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.”

Seth Godin


“Good marketers measure.”

Seth Godin


“If you want to succeed, you’ve got to be okay to just lose

control.”

Alexis Ohanian

Co-founder, REDDIT


“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have

coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.”

George Patton


“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”

Henry Ford


“Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility,

and utility is success.”

Thomas A. Edison


“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

Thomas A. Edison


“You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities

are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.”

Gary Ryan Blair


“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

Steve Jobs


“Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions.”




“Having the best product means nothing if the people won’t

buy it.”

Donald A. Norman

The Invisible Computer


“All lasting business is built on friendship.”

Alfred A. Montapert


“The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks.”

Rupert Murdoch


“Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making

money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.”

Steve Jobs


“If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you

probably don’t have a business.”

Guy Kawasaki


“A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin.

Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is

transformation.”

Andy Grove


“Our reputation is more important than the last hundred million dollars.”

Rupert Murdoch


“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.”

Coco Chanel


“If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising

then they wouldn't have to advertise them.”

Will Rogers


“Have a vision. Be demanding.”

Colin Powell


“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems

is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence

that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of

leadership.”

Colin Powell


“The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an

organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the

fulfillment of its destiny.”

Colin Powell


“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”

Colin Powell


“Goals must never be from your ego, but problems that cry for a solution.”

Robert H. Schuller


“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought

progress.”

Charles Kettering


“When you can't solve the problem, manage it.”

Robert H. Schuller


“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making

the same one a second time.”

George Bernard Shaw


“Don’t find fault, find a remedy; Anybody can complain.”

Henry Ford


“Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was

willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something

new.”

Thomas J. Watson


“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of

persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”

Napoleon Hill


“Good design is good business.”

Thomas J. Watson


“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your

fear of failure.”

Bill Cosby


“In business, when things aren't working it's time to mix it up.”

Donald Trump


“If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.”

Bill Gates


“What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to

each new twist of fate.”

Donald Trump


“Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a

while.”

Jack Welch


“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that.

Word of mouth is very powerful.”

Jeff Bezos


“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the

hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the

customer experience a little bit better.”

Jeff Bezos



“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates


“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop

improving.”

David Ogilvy


“One fails forward toward success.”

Charles Kettering


“When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you

you're nuts.”

Larry Ellison


“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

Warren Buffett


“Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.”

Zig Ziglar


“We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a

difference.”

Steve Ballmer


“And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race,

because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.”

Andrew Carnegie


“The way to succeed is to double your error rate.”

Thomas J. Watson


Stephen Davis Interim COO/VP Sales & Marketing |

Business Consultant | Sales Channel and

Business Development Expert | Author &

Speaker

Contact Information:

“Partnering With Clients to Drive

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