Motivational Quotes

Business

I am the world's worst salesman, therefore, I must make it easy for people to buy.

- Woolworth, F. W.

Best Quotes about Business

If you don't drive your business you will be driven out of business.

Forbes, B. C.

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

I don't want to do business with those who don't make a profit, because they can't give the best service.

Bristol, Lee

HereÆs my theory about meetings and life; the three things you canÆt fake are erections, competence and creativity. ThatÆs why meetings become toxic they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes. One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say,'Mmmmmm. Interesting.'If pressed, theyÆll add,'IÆll have to get back to you on that.'Then they donÆt say anything else.

Douglas Coupland

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

It is surprising, in the welter of questions that one gets at (AGMs), how few actually relate to the performance of the company, or the decisions taken by the board in particular areas.

Harvey-Jones, John

The commercial class has always mistrusted verbal brilliancy and wit, deeming such qualities, perhaps with some justice, frivolous and unprofitable.

Nevill, Dorothy

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

Revson, Charles

You generally hear that what a man doesn't know doesn't hurt him, but in business what a man doesn't know does hurt.

Lewis, E. St. Elmo

10.

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

Rothschild, Sir Nathan

11.

The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife.

Ogilvy, David

12.

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

13.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

Young, Owen D.

14.

It's better to take over and build upon an existing business than to start a new one.

Geneen, Harold S.

15.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out -- either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

Ogilvy, David

16.

Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can't solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise.

Townsend, Robert

17.

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.

Cooley, Mason

18.

The City's reluctance to take a stand on an issue like the British Gas pay row makes a mockery of corporate governance and shareholders' ability to influence annual general meetings.Institutions should be obliged to make public how they vote at such events.They should be obliged to provide customers with a record of how they vote on every kind of issue.

Donovan, Patrick

19.

More business is lost every year through neglect than through any other cause.

Cathcart, Jim

20.

Get the best people and train them well.

Merrill, Charles

21.

It is much more difficult to measure non-performance than performance. Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non-performance can almost always be explained away.

Geneen, Harold S.

22.

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

Mitchell Caplan

23.

Location, location, location.

Dillard, William

24.

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

25.

If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!

Bernbach, William

26.

The novice in advertising frequently gives the public credit, for too much intelligence.

27.

Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.

28.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

29.

Few great men could pass personal.

Goodman, Paul

30.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

Buffett, Warren

31.

Drive your business, let not your business drive you.

Franklin, Benjamin

32.

In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.

Geneen, Harold S.

33.

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

Gilbey, Walter

34.

Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity.

Dickens, Charles

35.

When the product is right, you don't have to be a great marketer.

Iacocca, Lee

36.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Beaverbrook, Lord

37.

The happiest time in a man's life is when he is in the red hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it.

Billings, Josh

38.

You never really hear the truth from your subordinates until after 10 in the evening.

Jurgen Schrempp

39.

Don't forget until too late that the business of life is not business, but living.

Forbes, B. C.

40.

Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.

Grove, Andrew

41.

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

Walton, Sam

42.

If you train people properly, they won't be able to tell a drill from the real thing. If anything, the real thing will be easier.

Marcinko, Richard

43.

Far too many executives have become more concerned with the four P's -- pay, perks, power and prestige -- rather than making profits for shareholders.

Pickens, T. Boone

44.

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

Dahlberg, Edward

45.

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

Onassis, Aristotle

46.

Work is our business; it's success is God s.

Proverb, German

47.

What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.

Dewolf, Nicholas

48.

Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.

Aldus Manutius

49.

Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation.

Drucker, Peter F.

50.

If you did not look after today's business then you might as well forget about tomorrow.

Mophatlane, Isaac