Motivational Quotes

Business

It is not the employer who pays wages -- he only handles the money. It is the product who pays the wages.

- Ford, Henry

Best Quotes about Business

People will go right on preferring to do business with friends.

Anything that you do to increase job security automatically does work for you. It makes your employees a closer part of the unit.

Smith, Roger

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you.

Knudsen, William

Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he's hired to do.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Warren Buffett

Forty for you, sixty for me And equal partners we will be

Barzan, Gerald

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

Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation.

Drucker, Peter F.

A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often has no opportunity to exercise judgment.

Firestone, Harvey S.

10.

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

Wang, An

11.

I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right.

Blair, Tony

12.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Ross, Steven J.

13.

If you have lower than a ten percent turnover, there is a problem. And if you have higher than, say 20%, there is a problem.

Mcgovern, William

14.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

15.

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

16.

For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.

Baudelaire, Charles

17.

A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.

Herzen, Alexander

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.

Field, Marshall

21.

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

22.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

23.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

Oscar Wilde

24.

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

25.

I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.

Sydney Biddle Barrows

26.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

Buffett, Warren

27.

Treat employees like partners, and they act like partners.

Allen, Fred A.

28.

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

Ford, Henry

29.

People want economy and they'll pay almost any price to get it.

Iacocca, Lee

30.

A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something.

Coffin, Harold

31.

A man's success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.

Lee, Gerald Stanley

32.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

You can hype a questionable product for a little while, but you'll never build an enduring business.

Kiam, Victor

37.

The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without and to depart.

Morley, John

38.

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

39.

Few great men could pass personal.

Goodman, Paul

40.

You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to.

Olsen, Kenneth

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

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

Plautus, Titus Maccius

44.

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

45.

The very best financial presentation is one that's well thought out and anticipates any questions... answering them in advance.

Collins, Nathan

46.

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.

Chandler, Raymond

47.

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

48.

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

Cathcart, Jim

49.

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

Dahlberg, Edward

50.

I buy when other people are selling.

Getty, J. Paul