Today's smart marketers don't sell products; they sell benefit packages. They don't sell purchase value only; they sell use value.

Many great ideas need refreshment and deeper analysis. "Freedom," for example, is a great idea but it has become a cliché.

Good customers are an asset which, when wellmanaged and served, will return a handsome lifetime income stream for the company.

The key solution is to invest in innovation and entrepreneurship within the company. Reducing waste - although probably not eliminating it - and do so at all levels of government would probably generate the capital needed. Alas, that will probably not happen because it makes too much sense.

People are more comfortable with the familiar. It takes selling a big dream that comes with excellent income possibility to get someone to leave his or her comfort zone.

I found marketing to be highly descriptive and prescriptive, without much of a foundation in deep research. I brought in economics, organization theory, mathematics, and social psychology in my first edition of Marketing Management in 1967. Today Marketing Management is in its 15th edition and remains the world's leading textbook on marketing in MBA programs. Subsequently, I wrote two more textbooks, Principles of Marketing and Marketing: an Introduction.

Thomas Edison had great visions (for lights, music players, movies, etc.) but he knew they didn't count until he could make them work. His statement that creativity is 99% perspiration makes that point. Consider how much time he spent trying to make a synthetic rubber material for tires and never stopped trying but he never succeeded.