Drucker on Marketing: Lessons from the World's Most Influential Business Thinker

Chapter 17Timing Isn’t Everything; It’s the Only Thing

Although attributed to Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, UCLA Bruins coach Red Sanders said the now famed, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”¹ Apologies to both. I’ve appropriated the quote and changed “winning” to “timing.” With good reason. Timing is extremely important. William Shakespeare emphasized this almost 500 years ago. He had Brutus utter words in his play Julius Caesar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”² As events would later prove, Brutus may have been correct about the tide’s existence, but he must have missed it. However, Drucker would have agreed completely that such a tide existed ...