Al Ries Quotes

Don’t be in a rush to get big. Be in a rush to have a great product.

A branding program should be designed to differentiate your cow from all the other cattle on the range. Even if all the cattle on the range look pretty much alike.

The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.

The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.

Strategy and timing are the Himalayas of marketing. Everything else is the Catskills.

A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.

Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence.

A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

The essence of positioning is sacrifice. You must be willing to give up something in order to establish that unique position.

Marketing is not selling. Marketing is building a brand in the mind of the prospect.

Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste.

A successful branding program is based on the concept of singularity. It creates in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no product on the market quite like your product.

What's your brand? If you can't answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand's in trouble.

THE LAW OF THE CONTRACTION: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.

What should a brand leader advertise?Brand leadership, of course. Leadership is the single most important motivating factor in consumer behavior.

If we do not know who the customer is, we do not know what quality is.

If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect's mind. A word that nobody else owns.

To get into the consumer's mind, you have to sacrifice. You have to reduce the essence of your brand to a single thought or attribute. An attribute that nobody else already owns in your category.

Zero invites imagination, but small numbers invite questions about whether large numbers will ever materialize.

Innovation is a bottoms-up, decentralized, and unpredictable thing, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be managed.

Everyone is interested in what‘s new. Few people are interested in what‘s better.

As you consider building your own minimum viable product, let this simple rule suffice: remove any feature, process, or effort that does not contribute directly to the learning you seek.

The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.

The lean startup method is not about cost, it is about speed.

Reading is good, action is better.

A laser is a weak source of energy. A laser takes [only] a few watts of energy and focuses them in a coherent stream of light. But with a laser, you can drill a hole in a diamond or wipe out cancer.

Leadership requires creating conditions that enable employees to do the kinds of experimentation that entrepreneurship requires.

The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospects mind.

Positioning is how you differentiate yourself in the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.

The best way to make news is to announce a new category, not a new product.

Meritocracy is a good thing. Whenever possibly, people should be judged based on their work and results, not superficial qualities.

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown.

Today, communication itself is the problem. We have become the world's first overcommunicated society. Each year we send more and receive less.

I believe for the first time in history, entrepreneurship is now a viable career.

Branding is simply a more efficient way to sell things.

Advertising is the way great brands get to be great brands.

Sustainable growth is characterized by one simple rule: New customers come from the actions of past customers.

We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want.

A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision.

The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.

Your brand's power lies in dominance. It is better to have 50% of one market, instead of 10% of five markets.

Most companies are busy making their products worse, not better. Updating is almost always a disaster.

Marketing is what a company is in business to do. Marketing is a company's ultimate objective.

New Customers come from the action of past customers

Changing the direction of a large company is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It takes a mile before anything happens. And if it was a wrong turn, getting back on course takes even longer.

If you cannot fail, you cannot learn.

Using the Lean Startup approach, companies can create order not chaos by providing tools to test a vision continuously.

If you don't know who your customer is, you don't know what quality is.

Most phenomenal startup teams create businesses that ultimately fail. Why? They built something that nobody wanted.