The Year in Quotes

Christmas Thoughts 2010

View more presentations from Valeria Maltoni.

Last year, I compiled a series of quotes to highlight aspects of business that need more focus, even in the face of great change. They still ring true a year later. However, I believe the conversation is greater than just change -- it needs to shift to having a purpose and creating meaning.

My own year can be summed up in a succinct thought: the biggest opportunity for social is to convert a buyer (one time) into a customer (repeat business), and move an employee/recruit from resource to a collaborator and co-creator of meaning and purpose with customers.

Taking just one slice of the conversation, content, you can see that clearly you are producing to shift from a lower gear, that of consideration and purchase, to a higher one, that of service and product experience that develop into repeat consideration. Essentially organizing a journey from buyer to customer.

More clearly, as my friend Peter Tunjic said, a failure to understand that the business is really about turning buyers into customers. When thinking about commercial, it's about the second sale. And yes, there is money in that. And there is money in referrals from social customers.

We'll get into this conversation when you're back from Christmas and New Year's celebrations.

What about yours? Is there a quote or two that summarizes your year or that has given you food for thought for the coming year?

 

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Comments

[Taylor Davidson]

"We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves." – Pico Iyer

Fitting for my own year, personally and professionally.

Always love your quote presentations; thank you, as always.

[John Spence]

A wonderful post Valeria -- I enjoyed it a great deal -- hope you have a splendid holiday and that 2011 is your best year ever!

[Kevin Ertell]

Great quotes, Valeria. Here are a few of my favorites:

"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." *Chinese Proverb

"Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most." - Clement Mok

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." - French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence." - Frederick Douglass

[Christa M. Miller]

"When 'community' is the agenda in the community, friendship itself becomes utilitarian."

I've been turning that one over for some time. It came from a friend rather than a marketer... so while a marketer might naturally say that of course a brand community is utilitarian, our customers might be mourning the loss of true communities in ways we don't realize (and perhaps should be more sensitive to).

[Tony Faustino]

Quote #1: "You are what you publish." - David Meerman Scott from the New Rules of Marketing & PR

When I made the commitment to start my personal marketing blog, this quote has been my guiding light.

Quote #2: "History is full of instances where victory instead of defeat would have resulted by battling only a little longer. Many need to be reminded of this. Any weakling can surrender; any coward can give up. To succeed, we must have the will to succeed, we must have stamina, determination, backbone, perserverance, self-reliance, faith. Let us grit our teeth and heroically resolve to keep on keeping on. Triumph is often nearest when defeat seems inescapable." -- B.C. Forbes

This quote literally sums up a 2010 of addressing both personal and professional challenges. And, because "I resolved to keep on keeping on," 2010 is going to finish on a high note in both camps.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you all for sharing your favorite quotes and why you like them. I thought of another one: "may you live in interesting times". That, we do.