The Franchise Prototype is also the place where all assumptions are put to the test to see how well they work before becoming operational in the business.
- Michael Gerber
Notable Quotables
The customer reaction to Dell going private has been a lot more positive than I would have ever imagined. Customers see it as – ‘You don’t have to be distracted. Now you can totally focus on your business.’ So they see it as a positive.
- Michael Dell
Taking care of your employees is extremely important and very, very visible.
- Larry Ellison
If we only have great companies, we will merely have a prosperous society, not a great one. Economic growth and power are the means, not the definition, of a great nation.
- James C. Collins
We need a great president.
- Donald Trump
If something is expensive to develop, and somebody’s not going to get paid, it won’t get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or not?
- Bill Gates
Hip-hop is a voice for voiceless poor people.
- Russell Simmons
If you believe, as I do, that your employees truly are your most valuable asset, you will do whatever you can to help them do their jobs as well as possible.
- Harvey Mackay
I don’t care about revenues.
- Jack Ma
Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.
- Napoleon Hill
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they’ve never failed to imitate them.
- Zig Ziglar
Computers already have enough power to outperform people in activities we used to think of as distinctively human. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Jeopardy!’s best-ever contestant, Ken Jennings, succumbed to IBM’s Watson in 2011. And Google’s self-driving cars are already on California roads today. Dale Earnhardt Jr. needn’t feel threatened by them, but the Guardian worries (on behalf of the millions of chauffeurs and cabbies in the world) that self-driving cars “could drive the next wave of unemployment.
- Peter Thiel
Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.
- Andrew Carnegie
All great truths are simple in final analysis, and easily understood; if they are not, they are not great truths.
- Napoleon Hill
I think if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dream big and then dream bigger.
- Howard Schultz
The typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.
- Michael Gerber
Guess Instead of Thinking.
- Napoleon Hill
The main reason I write the daily observations is because I want to know where I’m wrong. So lots of times if somebody points something out it helps me, and I want to have a diversified bet of uncorrelated bets.
- Ray Dalio
When we are harassed and reach the limit of our own strength, many of us then turn in desperation to God-There are no atheists in foxholes. But why wait till we are desperate? Why not renew our strength every day? Why wait even until Sunday? For years I have had the habit of dropping into empty churches on weekday afternoons. When I feel that I am too rushed and hurried to spare a few minutes to think about spiritual things, I say to myself: Wait a minute, Dale Carnegie, wait a minute. Why all the feverish hurry and rush, little man? You need to pause and acquire a little perspective. At such times, I frequently drop into the first church that I find open. Although I am a Protestant, I frequently, on weekday afternoons, drop into St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and remind myself that I’ll be dead in another thirty years, but that the great spiritual truths that all churches teach are eternal. I close my eyes and pray. I find that doing this calms my nerves, rests my body, clarifies my perspective, and helps me revalue my values. May I recommend this practice to you?
- Dale Carnegie
We’re living in what I like to call the ‘Thank You Economy,’ because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way – and do it authentically – are going to have a prayer of competing.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.
- Timothy Ferriss
It is definitely true that the fundamental enabling technology for electric cars is lithium-ion as a cell chemistry technology. In the absence of that, I don’t think it’s possible to make an electric car that is competitive with a gasoline car.
- Elon Musk
You can expect what you inspect.
- W. Clement Stone
There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.
- Roger Staubach
When I was a CEO, the books on management that I read weren’t very much help after the first few months on the job. They were all designed to give you directions on how not to screw up your company.
- Ben Horowitz
If failure is not an option, then neither is success.
- Seth Godin
You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.
- Dale Carnegie
You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
- Thomas J Watson
There’s nothing – I’ve bought everything I want. I don’t like yachts or anything; you know, I’m not a yacht person, and I’ve got pretty much the nicest plane I’d want to have.
- Elon Musk
3D is a way of organizing things, particularly as we’re getting much more media information on the computer, a lot more choices, a lot more navigation than we’ve ever had before.”-Bill Gates, Entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft
- Bill Gates
To a child love is spelled T-I-M-E.
- Zig Ziglar
The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes.
- Seth Godin
Victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
- Og Mandino
An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.
- Seth Godin
China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.
- Bill Gates
If you take a strong stance and have a clear opinion or statement on any subject online, you’re going to polarize people. And without that polarity, there’s no discussion. Discussion is what I want, which means that I’m fine with the consequences.
- Timothy Ferriss
[On signing up Michael Jordan in 1984 when he was just 21 years old] We could see that he was a charismatic guy who jumps over the moon and is very competitive, but nobody could have predicted what he would become to our culture.
- Phil Knight
Buoyant consumer confidence will continue to underpin retial spending and hence rental growth for shopping centres. The office market is expected to perform well on the back of tight supply being met by keen demand from companies looking for expansion opportunities.
- Lee Shau Kee
When Baby Boomers grow up and write books to explain why one or another individual is successful, they point to the power of a particular individual’s context as determined by chance. But they miss the even bigger social context for their own preferred explanations: a whole generation learned from childhood to overrate the power of chance and underrate the importance of planning. Gladwell at first appears to be making a contrarian critique of the myth of the self-made businessman, but actually his own account encapsulates the conventional view of a generation.
- Peter Thiel
Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
- Oprah Winfrey
One of the great things about Lanai is that the weather is always fabulous. Always 82 degrees and sunny. The problem is that, like California now, Lanai needs more water.
- Larry Ellison
If you don’t cut off negative information it will depress you. Step out of the natural and say, This may be impossible with men, but I know with God all things are possible.
- Joel Olsteen
We so much time putting these organizations and public figures on this massive, massive pedestal, but we have to remember they go through all the small details of live that we do. And you can make them human again and you can interact with them.
- Jack Dorsey
Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. Every bit of contact. That means a lot of marketing opportunities. It does not mean investing a lot of money.
- Jay Conrad Levinson
Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?
- Michael Bloomberg
The higher the level of leadership people want to reach, the greater the sacrifices they will have to make?
- John Maxwell
Being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service. The important part is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the first time. All the smiles in the world arent going to help you if your product or service is not what the customer wants. –
- Service Profit Chain
Motivation doesn’t last, neither does shower. That why we need it everyday.
- Zig Ziglar
Thank you is probably the most important thing that a leader can say.
- David Novak
My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.
- Jack Welch
I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.
- Thomas Edison
Security has to happen at the infrastructure.
- John Chambers
In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
- Winston Churchill
The reason the social-networking phenomenon is something that I invested in early and massively – I led the Series A financing for Friendster; I founded a company called Socialnet in 1997; I founded LinkedIn; and I was part of the first round of financing in Facebook – it sounds trivial, but people matter.
- Reid Hoffman
The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.
- Warren Buffett
Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice.
- Dale Carnegie
We have built a company with a business mix and operating system that will allow us to deliver record results in any foreseeable economic climate, … We have just completed a very successful management transition and I’ve never been more confident about the company’s future.
- Jack Welch
In my experience, an effective mission statement basically answers one question: How do we intend to win in this business?
- Jack Welch
Everything important to us—the universe, the planet, the country, your company, your life, and this very moment—is singular.
- Peter Thiel
Freely chosen, discipline is absolute freedom.
- James C. Collins
Of course I’m an egoist. Where do you get if you aren’t?
- Winston Churchill
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
- Winston Churchill
We, too, need to be patient, especially when it comes to reaching new goals.
- George Foreman
A lot of churches have not moved with the times.
- Joel Olsteen
Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.
- Jerry Seinfeld
This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
- Winston Churchill
If you wake up deciding what you want to give versus what you’re going to get, you become a more successful person. In other words, if you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money.
- Russell Simmons
The student who elects to risk it all—which is nothing—to establish an online video rental service that delivers $5,000 per month in income from a small niche of Blu-ray aficionados, a two-hour-per-week side project that allows him to work full-time as an animal rights lobbyist.
- Timothy Ferriss
Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.
- James C. Collins
The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realise in some subtle way that you realise their importance, and recognise it sincerely.
- Dale Carnegie
Everybody was writing about computers and electronics, but all I really knew about was running. It’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life.
- Phil Knight
Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
- Dale Carnegie
God, I’m not going to look at what I don’t have. I’m looking unto you. I know in my weakness, you show up the strongest.
- Joel Olsteen
I was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.
- Ray Dalio
Even if you are predisposed to being overweight, you’re not predestined to be fat.
- Timothy Ferriss
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.
- Jack Welch
I failed the LSAT. Basically, if I had not failed, I’d have been a lawyer and there would be no Spanx. I think failure is nothing more than life’s way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating.
- Sara Blakely
When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.
- Bill Gates
This isn’t stealing this is standing on the shoulders of giants.
- David Novak
I recall that Harry made a trip to San Bernardino about the time we were really starting to roll, and Dick McDonald asked him what he thought the future of McDonald’s would be. Harry told him that one day this company would be bigger than F. W. Woolworth. Dick really did a double take at that. He told me later, ‘I thought you had a genuine nut on your hands, Ray.’ But Harry knew exactly where he wanted to go, and he knew how to get there.
- Ray Kroc
The steel business is a local business. We do believe in the U.S. economy and would like to have a strong, balanced presence here.
- Alexei Mordashov
Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
- Winston Churchill
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Keep something in front of you Studies tell us that we move toward what we consistently see. You should keep something in front of you, even if it’s symbolic, to remind you of what you are believing for.
- Joel Olsteen
If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances, and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers.
- Bill Gates
The subject of this book is managing oneself for effectiveness.
- Peter Drucker
Starbucks is committed to evolving and enhancing our customer experience with innovative and wholesome food offerings.
- Howard Schultz
The son has not caught me in bed for 50 years.
- Thomas Jefferson
On the Internet you get continuous innovation, so every year the streams are a little better.
- Reed Hastings
If God says I’m highly favored, then I will not talk myself out of it. I believe I’m highly favored. If God says the impossible can happen, then I believe the impossible will happen.
- Joel Olsteen
Great investments may look crazy but really may not be.
- Peter Thiel
We got so much better so quickly it was hard to believe. We totally stood Kmart off in those small towns of ours. Almost from the beginning, they weren’t very successful at taking our customers away in Jeff City and Poplar Bluff. Once Kmart arrived, we worked even harder at pleasing our customers, and they stayed loyal. This gave us a great surge of confidence in ourselves. But at that time our sales were 5 percent of Kmart’s. (through competition) Wal-Mart has lowered the gross margin in retailing from around 35 percent in the early 60s to only 22 percent today.
- Sam Walton
I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.
- Joel Olsteen
If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return – if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.
- Dale Carnegie
The single reason for a salesperson’s existence is to get the Buyer’s commitment. Just how poor are salespeople at their jobs? In a study of professional sales people (those who sell full time), 50% failed to ask for the buyer’s commitment to buy.
- Jerry Vass
Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in an organization, it’s the person who’s challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must have confidence in her beliefs.Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It’s nice to get paid. It’s essential to believe.
- Seth Godin
I learned that people don’t buy anything from unknown stores.
- Tadashi Yanai
A certificate of live birth is not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination as a birth certificate.
- Donald Trump
I found [retail] to be interesting, challenging, and fun.
- Michael Balmuth
Establish a core value that drives the business and helps promote it in perpetuity.
- Ben Horowitz
