Go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are, and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing results you seek.

Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no.

You don't become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to become indispensable is to be different. That's because if you're the same, so are plenty of other people.

Solving problems—actually solving them, not just claiming you do—solving perceived, urgent problems, is a surefire way to get the world to beat a path to your door.

Stop trying to find the formula that will instantly make your idea into a winner. Instead of being scientists, the best marketers are artists. They realize that whatever is being sold is being purchased, because it creates an emotional want, not because it fills a simple need.

Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn't do it for money.

If you hesitate to map out your future, to make a big plan or to set a goal, you've just gone ahead and mapped your future anyway.