PHIL KOTLER

Quotes

• “Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customer become better off. The marketer’s watchwords are quality, service, and value.”
• “Marketing management is the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.”
• “Your company does not belong in any market where it can’t be the best along some valued attribute.”
• “Every company should work hard to obsolete its product line…before competitors do.”
• “Every business is a service business. You are not a chemical company. You are a chemical services business.”
• “Within five years, if you’re in the same business you are in now, you’re going to be out of business.”
• “Urging protectionism to save your business is a sure way to lose it.”
• “The Research and Development department — not the sales department- – should be held accountable for a product’s success.”
• “Companies need fewer bosses and more self-managers.”
• “Cost is of no importance in setting the price. It only helps you to know whether you should be making the product.”
• “It is no longer enough to satisfy your customers. You must delight them.”
• “Who should ultimately design the product? The customer, of course.”
• “I don’t care what happened to your profits. Have you improved your share of the customer’s mind and heart this year?”
• “You should never go to battle before you’ve won the war on paper.”
• “I would rather improve my business every day than depend on a breakthrough every year.”
• “Today you have to run faster to stay in the same place.”
• “The future isn’t ahead of us. It has already happened.”
• “Companies pay too much attention to the cost of doing something. They should worry more about the cost of not doing it.”
• “It’s more important to do what is strategically right than what is immediately profitable.”
• “Most companies cannot resist throwing good money after bad.”
• “I think it is harder to be a market leader than a market challenger.”
• “The major cause of company failure is company success.”
• “It is easier to make money in a mature industry than a high-tech industry.”
• “Calling a market “mature” is evidence of incompetence.”
• “If you can differentiate a dead chicken, you can differentiate anything.”
• “There is no such thing as a commodity. It is simply a product waiting to be differentiated.”
• “The only way to serve your company’s interest is to serve your customer’s interest.”
• “Don’t buy market share. Figure out how to earn it.”
• “The good news is that Marketing takes an hour to learn. The bad news is that it takes a lifetime to master.”
• “The hardest job is to tell a customer that your competitor has the better product.”
• “You don’t sell to distributors. You sell through them and with them.”
• “You don’t sell through price. You sell the price.”
• “Low paid salesmen are expensive. High paid salesmen are cheap.”
• “Good quality is cheap; cheap goods are costly.”
• “If you spend too little on advertising, you are spending too much.”
• “The aim of selling is to satisfy a customer need; the aim of marketing is to figure out his need.”
• “Marketing is the ability to hit the mark.”
• “The aim of marketing is to reduce the need for selling.”
• “Marketing is the homework that we do before we have a product.”
• “Hard sell marketing is a contradiction.”
• “If every department only does its own job well, the company will fail.”
• “All customers are important but some are more important than others.”
• “If it takes three years to develop the product, it won’t be the right product.”
• “If you aim for the average, you will lose.”
• “Markets always change faster than marketing.”
• “The sales department isn’t the whole company, but the whole company better be the sales department.”
• “Marketing thinking is shifting from trying to maximize the company’s profit from each transaction to maximize the long-run profit from each relationship.”
• “Marketing’s future lies in database marketing where we know enough about each customer to make relevant and customized offers to each.”
• “The three F’s of service marketing – be fast, flexible, and friendly.”
• “Commodities are simply products waiting for a redefinition.”
• “Every company needs two marketing departments, one that has mastered the tactics of getting rid of today’s products and the other that has mastered the strategy of imagining tomorrow’s products.”
• “Be a cause, not just a business. Have a higher mission.”
• “Marketing is the creative use of truth.”
• “If the marketer does a good job of identifying consumer needs, developing appropriate products, and pricing, distributing, and promoting them effectively, these goods will sell very easily.”
• “Good companies will meet needs; great companies will create markets.”
• “The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.”
• “There is only one winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.”
• “Competitive advantage is a company’s ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors cannot or will not match.”
• “Our job is to wake up the consumers. If we become predictable, that’s not waking them up.”
• “If markets are to be segmented and cultivated, they must meet certain requirements. Segments must be Measurable, Substantial, Accessible, Differentiable, and Actionable.”
• “It has become increasingly important for marketing professionals to speak the language of the CFO. A financial background allows marketers to better quantify the anticipated impact of any campaign, which in turn aids in greater buy-in.”
• “Good customers are an asset which, when well managed and served, will return a handsome lifetime income stream for the company.”
• “Integrated marketing communications are a way to examine the entire marketing process from the point of view of the receiver.”
• “Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make.”
• “The key to branding, especially for smaller firms, is to focus on a limited number of issue areas and develop superb expertise in those areas.”
• “Too often, business leaders confuse high current growth with high long term performance. They may take unwise risks in their effort to maximize short run profits.”
• “Chaos is relished by those looking for opportunities.”
• “With the advent of the internet, customers are able to compare prices easily and this has raised the importance of pricing among the 4Ps. That being said, branding is still crucial. Customers will not necessarily go for the cheapest brand. However, they are more than likely to buy their preferred brand from the retailer offering the lowest price.”
• “Too much of today’s marketing is 1P marketing. Companies mainly concentrate on promotion and sales and disregard product, price and place (distribution). This results in ineffective marketing.”
• “We are living in a world that is no longer facing a shortage of goods, but a shortage of customers.”
• “Marketers influence demand by making the product appropriate, attractive, affordable, and easily available to target consumers.”
• “Today’s smart marketers don’t sell products; they sell benefit packages.”