Motivational Quotes

Business

Our planning system was dynamite when we first put it in. The thinking was fresh; the form mattered little. It was idea oriented. We then hired a head of planning, and he hired two vice presidents, and then he hired a planner; and the books got thicker, and the printing more sophisticated, and the covers got harder, and the drawings got better.

- Welch, John

Best Quotes about Business

The more I know about business, the more IÆm convinced that it is conducted in homes and churches far more than in office buildings.

Laura Moncur

It doesn't matter to me if a man is from Harvard or Sing Sing. We hire the man, not his history.

Ford, Henry

The poor man who enters into a partnership with one who is rich makes a risky venture.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.

Geneen, Harold S.

Conducting your business in a socially responsible way is good business. It means that you can attract better employees and that customers will know what you stand for and like you for it.

Burns, M. Anthony

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

David M. Ogilvy

The chief business of the American people is business.

Calvin Coolidge

Drive your business, let not your business drive you.

Franklin, Benjamin

If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get paid for it, don't sell it. Do this, and you will have calm and drowsy nights, with all of the good business you have now and none of the bad. If you have time, don't wait for time.

Franklin, Benjamin

10.

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent -- for every effect a perfect cause -- and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

Show me the business man or institution not guided by sentiment and service; by the idea that he profits most who serves best and I will show you a man or an outfit that is dead or dying.

Harris, B. F.

12.

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

Walton, Sam

13.

The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.

Peters, Thomas J.

14.

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

Wang, An

15.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

Ford, Henry

16.

You don't hear things that are bad about your company unless you ask. It is easy to hear good tidings, but you have to scratch to get the bad news.

Watson, Thomas J.

17.

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.

Cooley, Mason

18.

In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope.

Revson, Charles

19.

So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a grout at last.

Franklin, Benjamin

20.

The first thing the secretary types is the boss.

21.

You don't want to get the same kind of advice from everyone on your board.

Cardenas, Ruben

22.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

Ford, Henry

23.

If each of us hires people smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs.

Ogilvy, David

24.

I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.

Rothschild, Sir Nathan

25.

We have yet to see the full impact of the open, global marketplace. By 1997 all raw materials and technology will be available everywhere in the world. The only differences between countries and markets will be skill levels, education, and the level of empowerment of the workplace.

Pritchett, Lew

26.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

Drucker, Peter F.

27.

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.

Ogilvy, David

28.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Ross, Steven J.

29.

Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

Dahlberg, Edward

30.

Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation.

Drucker, Peter F.

31.

Don't worry about your physical shortcomings. I am no Greek god. Don't get too much sleep and don 't tell anybody your troubles. Appearances count: Get a sun lamp to keep you looking as though you have just come back from somewhere expensive: maintain an elegant address even if you have to live in the attic. Never nickel when short of cash. Borrow big, but always repay promptly.

Onassis, Aristotle

32.

The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision.

Hook, Harold

33.

To business that we love we rise betime, and go to't with delight.

Shakespeare, William

34.

To succeed as a team is to hold all of the members accountable for their expertise.

Mitchell Caplan

35.

You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it.

Ceo, Harold Geneen

36.

It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by -- Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.

Mulford Jr., Ren

37.

Don't steal; thou it never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.

Bierce, Ambrose

38.

Make every decision as if you owned the whole company.

Townsend, Robert

39.

There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.

David Letterman

40.

When you are skinning your customers you should leave some skin on to grow again so that you can skin them again.

Khrushchev, Nikita

41.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism.

Geneen, Harold S.

42.

Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

Ritz, Cesar

44.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

Buffett, Warren

45.

You can't run a business without taking risks.

Drexler, Millard

46.

There's a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.

Walton, Sam

47.

Good design can't fix broken business models.