Motivational Quotes

Business

Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards--and living up to them--is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it.

- Seth Godin

Best Quotes about Business

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

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

Aldus Manutius

There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.

Jacobs, Randall

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

Drucker, Peter F.

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece.

Erhard, Ludwig

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

Kroc, Ray

What's good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.

Wilson, Charles E.

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

Only as long as a company can produce a desired, worthwhile, and needed product or service, and can command the public, will it receive the public dollar and succeed

Carlson, Curtis

10.

Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can't be done, except by liars.

Baruch, Bernard M.

11.

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

12.

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

Nevill, Dorothy

13.

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.

14.

We're going to see a lot more young people entering entrepreneurial ventures.

Malek, Fred

15.

Corporations cannot commit treason, or be outlawed or excommunicated, for they have no souls.

Coke, Sir Edward

16.

Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.

Baruch, Bernard M.

17.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

18.

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

Ogilvy, David

19.

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

20.

Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses.

Henderson, Bruce

21.

Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name.

Thomas, Dylan

22.

Leisure for people of business, and business for people of leisure would cure many problems.

23.

Designing your product for monetization first, and people second will probably leave you with neither.

Tara Hunt

24.

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

Knudsen, William

25.

I buy when other people are selling.

Getty, J. Paul

26.

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

Collins, Nathan

27.

Women do not win formula one races, because they simply are not strong enough to resist the G-forces.In the boardroom, it is different.I believe women are better able to marshal their thoughts than men and because they are less egotistical they make fewer assumptions.

Foulston, Nicola

28.

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

Gilbey, Walter

29.

It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job.

Dunn, Paul H.

30.

If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.

Kettering, Charles F.

31.

Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation.

Drucker, Peter F.

32.

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

Grove, Andrew

33.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

Lippmann, Walter

34.

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.

Hawken, Paul

35.

Drive your business, let not your business drive you.

Franklin, Benjamin

36.

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Jefferson, Thomas

37.

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

38.

If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

Branson, Richard

39.

Executives are like joggers. If you stop a jogger, he goes on running on the spot. If you drag an executive away from his business, he goes on running on the spot, pawing the ground, talking business. He never stops hurtling onwards, making decisions and executing them.

Baudrillard, Jean

40.

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

Iacocca, Lee

41.

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

42.

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

43.

If we decide to take this level of business creating ability nationwide, we'll all be plucking chickens for a living.

Perot, H. Ross

44.

In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success.

Scrutton, T. L.

45.

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

Rothschild, Sir Nathan

46.

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

John Cleese

47.

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

48.

When two friends have a common bank account, one sings and the other weeps.

Proverb

49.

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

Wang, An

50.

If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!

Bernbach, William