175 Great Quotes on Business, Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Sales

Great
Quotes
On Business, Entrepreneurship,
Marketing and Sales

1999 - 2010 © CXO Advisory Group

“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


“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


Contact Information:

Stephen Davis
Interim COO/VP Sales & Marketing |
Business Consultant | Sales Channel and
Business Development Expert | Author &
Speaker

“Partnering With Clients to Drive
Sustainable Profitable Growth”

Phone: (508) 528-7571
Email: sdavis@cxoadvisorygroup.com
Websit www.cxoadvisorygroup.com
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/stephendavis
Twitter: twitter.com/stephendaviscxo

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