People don't want quarter-inch drills. They want quarter-inch holes..

All organizations are hierarchical. At each level people serve under those above them. An organization is therefore a structured institution. If it i….

One should not focus on the differences between people but look for commonality and similarity..

A product is not a product unless it sells. Otherwise it is merely a museum piece..

People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want to buy a quarter-inch hole!.

Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values….

Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and….

The true purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer, not to make you money..

Though progress starts with the imagination, only work can make things happen. And work itself works best when fueled, again by the imagination..

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things..

Anything in excess is a poison..

What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting ideas to work..

An industry begins with the customer and his or her needs, not with a patent, a raw material, or a selling skill.

Customers buy 1/4 holes, not 1/4 bits..

Organizations, by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for innovation..

Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is in their implementation. Until then, they are in limbo..

Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film; they advertise memories..

Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Oth….

The fact that a consistendy highly creative person is generally irresponsible in the sense that we have used this term is in part predictable from wh….

You want to dig your well where you have the best chance of finding water with the least amount of digging.

Organizations exist to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things..