Motivational Quotes

Business

The big will get bigger; the small will get wiped out.

- Riklis, Meshulam

Best Quotes about Business

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

Iacocca, Lee

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

Collins, Nathan

Never let an inventor run a company. You can never get him to stop tinkering and bring something to market.

Little, Royal

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

Walton, Sam

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

Nevill, Dorothy

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

Geneen, Harold S.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

It's the economy, stupid.

Clinton, Bill

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

10.

The question is, then, do we try to make things easy on ourselves or do we try to make things easy on our customers, whoever they may be?

Frand, Erwin

11.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

Maurois, Andre

12.

Drive your business, let not your business drive you.

Franklin, Benjamin

13.

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

Iacocca, Lee

14.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

15.

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

Olsen, Kenneth

16.

'Whom are you?'he asked, for he had attended business college.

George Ade

17.

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

18.

Let love give way to business; give attention to business and you will be safe.

Ovid

19.

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

20.

You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.

Watson, Thomas J.

21.

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

22.

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

Hook, Harold

23.

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

Warhol, Andy

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Rothschild, Sir Nathan

27.

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

Blair, Tony

28.

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

Grove, Andrew

29.

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

Cardenas, Ruben

30.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Beaverbrook, Lord

31.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Churchill, Winston

32.

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

33.

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

34.

In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.

Mcnealy, Scott

35.

The first thing the secretary types is the boss.

36.

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.

37.

Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Bierce, Ambrose

38.

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.

39.

If you don't do it with excellence, don't do it at all! Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?

Townsend, Robert

40.

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Luce, Henry

41.

Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation.

Drucker, Peter F.

42.

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

43.

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

Kiam, Victor

44.

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.

45.

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

Field, Marshall

46.

The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

Leavitt, Theodore

47.

We are all manufacturers. Making good, making trouble, or making excuses.

Adolt, H. V.

48.

If when a businessman speaks of minority employment, or air pollution, or poverty, he speaks in the language of a certified public accountant analyzing a corporate balance sheet, who is to know that he understands the human problems behind the statistical ones? If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart. It is as simple as that -- but that isn't simple.

Lundborg, Louis B.

49.

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

Morley, John

50.

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