Seth Godin Quotes

To escape the curse of commoditization, a company has to be a game-changer, and that requires employees who are proactive, inventive and zealous.

The essential element of successful strategy is that it derives its success from the differences between competitors with a consequent difference in their behavior.

Even if someone is already in your market space, ask yourself whether you can approach it from a different angle and thereby secure your own customer base.

As a player, you want to win everything.

The best mental effort in the game of business is concentrated on the major problem of securing the consumer's dollar before the other fellow gets it.

My advice for an entrepreneur just starting out is to differentiate yourself. Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?

Every day were saying, 'How can we keep this customer happy?' How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will.

I like to think that when an athlete wears Armani, it makes him or her feel confident, and as we all know, confidence is fundamental to winning in any competition.

In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables - like the discount warehouses of Costco.

Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition. It's not a matter of being better at what you do - it's a matter of being different at what you do.

If you can just learn to think about the market first, you will have a big leg up on most people starting startups.

At a time when all the other builders were selling homes with basements but without carports, we would sell homes without basements and with carports. This allowed us to provide a more appealing product at a lower price. In other words, we felt we would be giving customers greater value.

I knew we needed a weapon to break through to the US market, and it had to be something different, something that nobody else was making.

One thing I always think about in making a market, and it again is something I have learned from Sam [Palmisano] as well, he always says, "Be first and be lonely."

The men can go away, the executives can go away, but what is really though in this society are the players who has been handed down the feel of winning, of being the absolute best, which isn't equal to any other team.

Someday, you need to build a business that's difficult to replicate. This is an important part of a good idea.

Innovation keeps me ahead of my competition. It means that my foes must adapt to me, not the other way around.

It is well worth remembering that the customer is the most important factor in any business. If you don't think so, try getting along without him for a while.

I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important? And another part of me answered, just because it is.

Benchmark your performance against your best competitors. Think how you can beat them next time.

If I am not playing at one hundred percent, it is going to be very difficult for me to win.

We use technology to make it cheaper, better, and faster for the client. And then if you have the most flow, you can win. Now, having said that, Silicon Valley wants to take on this business. They think they see an opening.

I love to win. I'm very competitive in most games, but I think also the beauty of the game. There was something about it, the pieces, the shapes, something about them coordinating together and trying to get the other guy.

When asked, -How is that you pick better moves than your opponents?, I responded: I'm very glad you asked me that, because, as it happens, there is a very simple answer. I think up my own moves, and I make my opponent think up his

How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.