Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.
If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.
Top people have very clear goals. They know who they are and they know what they want. They write it down and they make plans for its accomplishment.
Goal-setting is powerful because it provides focus. It shapes our dreams. It gives us the ability to hone in on the exact actions we need to perform to achieve everything we desire in life.
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two and only two functions: Marketing and Innovation. Marketing and Innovation produce results. All the rest are costs.
The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths so strong that it makes the system’s weaknesses irrelevant.
Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change. A company that stands still will soon be forgotten. Trying to provoke positive change is a principle we’ve embedded across the Virgin family for more than four decades.
Everything is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period.
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Strategy is not a lengthy action plan. It is the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances.
Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.
There are only two sources of competitive advantage: the ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition and the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition.
In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.
Work smart. Get things done. No nonsense. Move fast.
Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.