March 5, 2019 | Sarah Danks

Words of Wisdom for All Aspects of Business

As marketers we’re daily bombarded with information. On how to do our jobs better, on how to reach our target audience, on how to create better work/life balance, on how to tell a story…

…we deal in the dissemination of content, after all, so how can we not expect to consume it at a massive rate? In my stumblings and ramblings across this vast Internet of Things I’ve run across awesome quotes by really smart people. Smarter than I’ll ever have a hope to be. So I save them. Just in case I need to re-read them.

I actually have a Text pad (or whatever they’re called on a Mac) full of just marketing quotes that have hit a chord with me, or that I want to find easily to be able to reference when needed.

Stands to reason that I’d share said collection at some point, since these are definitely words of wisdom. Take from them what you want, but I find them inspirational and advice to heed if you’re in any kind of marketing role.

Marketing

“Make your marketing so useful people would pay for it.” – Jay Baer

“Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so.” – Bryan Eisenberg

“If you’re a good marketing person, you have to be a little crazy.”
– Jim Metcalf

“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” – Tom Fishburne

“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.” – Beth Comstock

Creativity

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein

“New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look.” – Nate Silver

“To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” – George Kneller

“Creativity about life, in all aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

– Peter Drucker

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin Land

“Inspiration doesn’t respond to meeting requests. You can’t schedule greatness.” – Jay Baer

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” – Zig Ziglar

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.” – William Golding

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Content

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” – Benjamin Franklin

“If your content isn’t driving conversation, you’re doing it wrong.” – Dan Roth

“Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life.” – Avinash Kaushik

“My goal is to spark something within the reader and allow it to initiate an idea they then can grow.” – Warren Whitlock

“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.”
– Andrew Davis

“If you aren’t having fun creating content, you’re doing it wrong.” – Ann Handley

“When you understand what makes your customers get up in the morning and lie awake at night, then you know what they need in the moment.” – Jason Miller

“Actually talk to your customers. Use the language that they use. Talk about the things they talk about. Never feed salad to a lion.” – Jay Acunzo

“Great marketers have immense empathy for their audience. They can put themselves in their shoes, live their lives, feel what they feel, go where they go, and respond how they’d respond. That empathy comes out in content that resonates with your audience.” – Rand Fishkin

Sales

“Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.” – Seth Godin

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

“People don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves.”
– User Onboarding

“You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything.” – Beth Comstock

“Today it’s important to be present, be relevant and add value.” – Nick Besbeas

“Great Execution is the Ultimate Differentiator.” – Margaret Molloy

“If you get bored with social media, it’s because you are trying to get more value than you create.” – Fast Company

Storytelling

“If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.” – Jay Baer

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin

“The stories that spread today empower us and give us belief in our own heroic potential.” – Jonah Sachs

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
– Native American proverb

“Speak to your audience in their language about what’s in their heart.” – Jonathan Lister

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

“If you don’t have anything interesting to say as a brand, you’re just a product.” – Spencer Baim

“Good content isn’t about good storytelling. It’s about telling a true story well.” – Ann Handley

Branding

“A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir.” – Lisa Gansky
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook

“Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.” – Jonah Sachs

“Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.” – Seth Godin

“Determine who you are and what your brand is, and what you’re not. The rest of it is just a lot of noise.” – Geoffrey Zakarian

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin

“The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.” – Simon Mainwaring

“If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”
– Zig Ziglar

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

Failure

“If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative.” – Woody Allen

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” – Tony Robbins

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“If you don’t have room to fail, you don’t have room to grow. – Jonathan Mildenhall

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

“If you’re looking for the next big thing, and you’re looking where everyone else is, you’re looking in the wrong place.” – Mark Cuban

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

“Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

“Do or do not; there is no try.” – Yoda

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand

The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing. — Seth Godin

Inspiration

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.” – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

“Bring the best of your authentic self to every opportunity.” – John Jantsch

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”― Eleanor Roosevelt

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” –Zig Ziglar

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
– C.S. Lewis

“You don’t have to be big. You have to be remarkable.” – Joe Pulizzi

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Dr. Wayne Dyer

Don’t try too hard to fit in; you were born to stand out. — @marshacollier

Leading

“Influence is providing attention and value to others.” – Laura Fitton

“Successful people make the most of the best and the best of the worst.” — Steve Keating

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” – Shakespeare

“Listening is a human element. Caring is a human essential.” – @lollydaskal

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” — Winston Churchill

“Leadership is not just what happens when you’re there, it’s what happens when you’re not.”
– Ken Blanchard

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” – Dolly Parton

“There’s a limit to how many steps you’ll be able to take today. Make sure they’re all in the right direction.” — Jeff Sheehan

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” — Napoleon Hill

“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” — J.K. Rowling

“The old mantra of “be everywhere” will quickly be replaced with “be where it matters to our business.”” — Mike Stelzner

Confidence

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
– Francis of Assisi

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” – Augusten Burroughs

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs

“Don’t do it because it’s your job, do it because you can.” – Seth Godin

“Don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” – Franz Kafka

“Don’t settle: Don’t finish crappy books. If you don’t like the menu, leave the restaurant. If you’re not on the right path, get off it.” – Chris Brogan

Analytics

“Never bring an opinion to a data fight.” – Andy Crestodina

“War is ninety percent information.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“If there’s one takeaway it’s just that it’s okay to do small wins. Small wins are good, they will compound. If you’re doing it right the end result will be massive.” – Kevin Li

“Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.” – Geoffrey Moore

“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” – Aaron Levenstein

“Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their gut. They will be either lucky or wrong.” – Suhail Doshi

“In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a ‘failed experiment.’ Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.”
– Adam Savage

“Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine” – Peter Sondergaard

“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.” – Carly Fiorina

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Never let ads write checks your website can’t cash.” – Avinash Kaushik

When Inspiration Hits, Grab It!

Notice how not all these quotes are directly related to marketing? That’s because, for whatever it’s worth, who we are as people creeps into our business, whether we like it or not. It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo entrepreneur or a worker-bee for a big-box company; attitude, work ethic, confidence, how you react to situations…

…these all come into play to mold how you represent the service being offered.

There have been times I’m dealing with an issue at work, and I run across a quote dealing with being confident, or maybe how to spark creativity, and I grab it and paste it into my marketing quotes document, knowing that I want to save it.

Inspiration doesn’t come with the words you expect to see; rather it’s the words you don’t know you have to read that’ll make the biggest impact. And somewhere, someone has more experience than you do, and their words can make an impact.

If you want to better yourself as a marketer, you’d be smart to apply their words of wisdom to your own experience.