Motivational Quotes

Business

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.

Best Quotes about Business

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.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

I work in a strange business, and trust is a word that's not even in the vocabulary.

Basinger, Kim

Among the worries of today's business executives is the large number of unemployed still on the payroll.

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.

Kiam, Victor

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

John Cleese

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

Smith, Adam

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

Every business is built on friendship.

Penney, J. C. (James Cash)

10.

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

Branson, Richard

11.

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

12.

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

Malek, Fred

13.

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

Ogilvy, David

14.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

Galvin, Robert

15.

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.

16.

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

17.

Business is like war in one respect. If its grand strategy is correct, any number of tactical errors can be made and yet the enterprise proves successful.

Woods, General Robert E.

18.

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.

19.

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.

20.

The first thing the secretary types is the boss.

21.

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

22.

Few great men could pass personal.

Goodman, Paul

23.

A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something.

Coffin, Harold

24.

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

Iacocca, Lee

25.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

26.

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

27.

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

Onassis, Aristotle

28.

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

Forbes, B. C.

29.

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

Iacocca, Lee

30.

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

Grove, Andrew

31.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

Blanchard, Ken

32.

Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.

Perot, H. Ross

33.

A vacation should be just long enough that you're boss misses you, and not long enough for him to discover how well he can get along without you.

34.

Business is like a wheelbarrow--it stands still until someone pushes it.

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Olsen, Kenneth

39.

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

40.

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

Cardenas, Ruben

41.

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

Khrushchev, Nikita

42.

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

43.

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

Nevill, Dorothy

44.

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

Barzan, Gerald

45.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

46.

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

Jacobs, Randall

47.

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

Mcnealy, Scott

48.

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

Rothschild, Sir Nathan

49.

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

50.

The morality of compromise' sounds contradictory.Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat.Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

Handy, Charles