Theodore Levitt Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Theodore Levitt

  People, Deep Thought, Want

  137 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Change, Creativity, Thinking

  113 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Photography, Memories, Film

  71 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  People, Want, Holes

  78 Copy quote

• The purpose of a business is to get and keep a customer. Without customers, no amount of engineering wizardry, clever financing, or operations expertise can keep a company going.

  Theodore Levitt

  Clever, Engineering, Purpose

  Theodore Levitt (1986). “Marketing Imagination: New, Expanded Edition”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

  72 Copy quote

• Experience comes from what we have done. Wisdom comes from what we have done badly.

  Theodore Levitt

  Done

  Mortimer Levitt, Theodore Levitt (1998). “Thinking About Management”, p.94, Simon and Schuster

  76 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Ideas, Useless, Action

  Theodore Levitt (1974). “Marketing for business growth”, McGraw-Hill Companies

  72 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Purpose, True Purpose, Customers

  69 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Skills, Patents, Needs

  Theodore Levitt (2008). “Marketing Myopia”, p.71, Harvard Business Press

  43 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Business, Organization, People

  Mortimer Levitt, Theodore Levitt (1998). “Thinking About Management”, p.64, Simon and Schuster

  52 Copy quote

• Sustained success is largely a matter of focusing regularly on the right things and making a lot of uncelebrated little improvements every day.

  Theodore Levitt

  Littles, Matter, Improvement

  Mortimer Levitt, Theodore Levitt (1998). “Thinking About Management”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

  31 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Museums, Pieces, Products

  27 Copy quote

• 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 that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariable does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs.

  Theodore Levitt

  Views, People, Effort

  48 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Order, Organization, Innovation

  45 Copy quote

• All organizations are hierarchical. At each level people serve under those above them. An organization is therefore a structured institution. If it is not structured, it is a mob. Mobs do not get things done, they destroy things.

  Theodore Levitt

  Organization, People, Done

  Theodore Levitt (1974). “Marketing for business growth”, McGraw-Hill Companies

  57 Copy quote

• 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.

  Theodore Levitt

  Creativity, Ideas, Creating

  42 Copy quote

• 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. Others that are thought of as seasoned growth industries have actually stopped growing. In every case, the reason growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management.

  Theodore Levitt

  Growth, Marketing, Shadow

  Theodore Levitt (2008). “Marketing Myopia”, p.1, Harvard Business Press

  45 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Imagination, Progress, Make Things Happen

  Theodore Levitt (1986). “Marketing Imagination: New, Expanded Edition”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

  13 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Water, Digging, Want

  23 Copy quote

• 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 progress.

  Theodore Levitt

  Change, Creativity, Ideas

  48 Copy quote

• A powerful new idea can kick around unused in a company for years, not because its merits are not recognized, but because nobody has assumed the responsibility for converting it from words into action.

  Theodore Levitt

  Powerful, Business, Responsibility

  Theodore Levitt (1974). “Marketing for business growth”, McGraw-Hill Companies

  18 Copy quote

• Anything in excess is a poison.

  Theodore Levitt

  Poison, Excess

  17 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Differences, People, Focus

  12 Copy quote

• Ideas are useless unless used.

  Theodore Levitt

  Creativity, Ideas, Innovation

  Theodore Levitt (1974). “Marketing for business growth”, McGraw-Hill Companies

  9 Copy quote

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

  Theodore Levitt

  Holes, Customers, Bits

  24 Copy quote

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