Here are some business mottos to get you through the work day.
More business is lost every year through neglect than through any other cause. – Jim Cathcart
You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it. – Harold Geneen Ceo
It’s the economy, stupid. – Bill Clinton
A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something. – Harold Coffin
Corporations cannot commit treason, or be outlawed or excommunicated, for they have no souls. – Sir Edward Coke
The very best financial presentation is one that’s well thought out and anticipates any questions… answering them in advance. – Nathan Collins
Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual. – Mason Cooley
Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics. – Edward Dahlberg
We are all manufacturers. Making good, making trouble, or making excuses. – H. V. Adolt
Anybody can cut prices, but it takes brains to produce a better article. – P. D. Armour
Frankly, I don’t want to see a rapid upturn. I want it to hold until some of these idiotic competitors go bust. – Joe Bamford
Forty for you, sixty for me And equal partners we will be – Gerald Barzan
I work in a strange business, and trust is a word that’s not even in the vocabulary. – Kim Basinger
Above all, we wish to avoid having a dissatisfied customer. We consider our customers a part of our organization, and we want them to feel free to make any criticism they see fit in regard to our merchandise or service. Sell practical, tested merchandise at reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings — and they will always come back. – L.L. Bean
Business is more exciting than any game. – Lord Beaverbrook
I’m not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money. – Geoffrey Beene
I believe Mrs. Thatcher’s emphasis on enterprise was right. – Tony Blair
Get me inside any boardroom and I’ll get any decision I want. – Alan Bond
It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties. – Oscar Wilde
What’s good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa. – Charles E. Wilson
Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions. – Woodrow T. Wilson
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. – General Robert E. Woods
I am the world’s worst salesman, therefore, I must make it easy for people to buy. – F. W. Woolworth
When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. – William Wrigley Jr.
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. – Owen D. Young
If you can run one business well, you can run any business well. – Richard Branson
I don’t want to do business with those who don’t make a profit, because they can’t give the best service. – Lee Bristol
The business that considers itself immune to the necessity for advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business. – Derby Brown
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. – M. Anthony Burns
You don’t want to get the same kind of advice from everyone on your board. – Ruben Cardenas
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. – Nicholas Dewolf
Location, location, location. – William Dillard
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. – Patrick Donovan
You can’t run a business without taking risks. – Millard Drexler
Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation. – Peter F. Drucker
Business, that’s easily defined; it’s other people’s money. – Alexandre Dumas
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. – Paul H. Dunn
A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece. – Ludwig Erhard
Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy. – Marshall Field
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. – Harvey S. Firestone
If you don’t drive your business you will be driven out of business. – B. C. Forbes
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. – Henry Ford
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. – Nicola Foulston
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? – Erwin Frand
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. – Benjamin Franklin
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. – Robert Galvin
The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism. – Harold S. Geneen
The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success: Concentration, Discrimination, Organization, Innovation and Communication – Michael E. Gerber
I buy when other people are selling. – J. Paul Getty
The employer generally gets the employees he deserves. – Walter Gilbey
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails. – Oliver Goldsmith
Few great men could pass personal. – Paul Goodman
Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite. – Andrew Grove
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. – Charles Handy
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. – B. F. Harris
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. – John Harvey-Jones
As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth. – Paul Hawken
Concentrate your strengths against your competitor’s relative weaknesses. – Bruce Henderson
The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision. – Harold Hook
When the product is right, you don’t have to be a great marketer. – Lee Iacocca
There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men. – Randall Jacobs
Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about. – Adnan Kashoggi
If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf. – Charles F. Kettering
When you are skinning your customers you should leave some skin on to grow again so that you can skin them again. – Nikita Khrushchev
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. – Victor Kiam
In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you. – William Knudsen
In business for yourself, not by yourself. – Ray Kroc
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. – Theodore Leavitt
Business today consists in persuading crowds. – Gerald Stanley Lee
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. – E. St. Elmo Lewis
Never let an inventor run a company. You can never get him to stop tinkering and bring something to market. – Royal Little
Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight. – Henry Luce
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. – Louis B. Lundborg
We’re going to see a lot more young people entering entrepreneurial ventures. – Fred Malek
Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before. – Jim Manzi
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. – Richard Marcinko
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. – William Mcgovern
In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks. – Scott Mcnealy
Get the best people and train them well. – Charles Merrill
If you did not look after today’s business then you might as well forget about tomorrow. – Isaac Mophatlane
It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by — Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics. – Ren Mulford Jr.
The commercial class has always mistrusted verbal brilliancy and wit, deeming such qualities, perhaps with some justice, frivolous and unprofitable. – Dorothy Nevill
One of the vices of the virtue of decentralization is that people don’t share ideas. – Anthony J. F. O’Reilly
The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife. – David Ogilvy
You make the best products you can, and you grow as fast as you deserve to. – Kenneth Olsen
The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. – Aristotle Onassis
To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them. – John H. Patterson
Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope. – William Penn
Far too many executives have become more concerned with the “four P’s” — pay, perks, power and prestige — rather than making profits for shareholders. – T. Boone Pickens
We have yet to see the full impact of the open, global marketplace. 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. – Lew Pritchett
Corporations are social organizations, the theater in which men and women realize or fail to realize purposeful and productive lives. – Peter Rena
In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope. – Charles Revson
The big will get bigger; the small will get wiped out. – Meshulam Riklis
You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you. – Riorio
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. – Cesar Ritz
Quality, service, cleanliness, and value. – Steven J. Ross
I’ve got to keep breathing. It’ll be my worst business mistake if I don’t. – Sir Nathan Rothschild
In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success. – T. L. Scrutton
To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to’t with delight. – William Shakespeare
Anything that you do to increase job security automatically does work for you. It makes your employees a closer part of the unit. – Roger Smith
Men who do things without being told draw the most wages. – Edwin H. Stuart
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks. – Donald Trump
The first thing the secretary types is the boss. – Source Unknown
The novice in advertising frequently gives the public credit, for too much intelligence. – Source Unknown
Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change. – An Wang
You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart. – Thomas J. Watson
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. – John Welch