Business Quotes - Page 142

A successful business maximizes the present value of future earnings. The first requirement, therefore, of business success is sustainable profits. One-time winnings, in business as in casinos, are disappointing. We expect more from our investments than that.

I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business-oh how true.

He was one of those quite rare adults who communicate with small children fairly well and who love them all impartially--not in a sugary way but in a businesslike fashion that may sometimes entail a hug, in the same way that closing a big business deal may call for a handshake.

It is fairly clear that many of the arguments against proposition testing are really arguments against propositions themselves.

A campaign, like a brand, is not just a number of bits put together - a claim here, a pack shot there, a reason why somewhere else. If we try to produce it by the atomistic approach, we will end up with a sort of Identikit brand. It will be a perfect description of the structure of the brand, as the Identikit can describe the contours of the face. But it won't be the same thing. The brand will never come to life.

The only leverage the manufacturer can apply to the retailer is his relationship with the consumer. And the main element in profit growth is going to have to lie in making his brand more valuable to the retailer, through its being more valuable to the consumer. And that means his brand must be unique, it must have no adequate direct substitutes - because it is in this, after all, that value lies.

Advertising tends to be most effective in jogging finally into action those people who are well-enough disposed towards a product, but have not yet got around to buying it.

There are really very few economies of scale in centralising or standardising advertising.

If there are questions that are unanswered by research, they will be answered by a strategy division, a data-mining group or someone else within the organization. We need to be more effective at collaborating with these groups.

Observing and understanding the social media phenomenon is one thing-leveraging this trend for advertising purposes is quite another. While most companies recognize the value of social media advertising opportunities, not many have figured out how to execute these kinds of campaigns and the unique risks they entail because of the potential that a viral marketing effort can backfire and actually harm a brand.

Most people define greatness through wealth and popularity and position in the corner office. But what I call everyday greatness comes from character and contribution.

This nation's 23 million small businesses need a budget that reflects their value to the economy.

He who thinks his place below him, will certainly be below his place.

Football is not merely a small business, it's also a bad one. Anyone who spends any time inside football soon discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business.

I've always treated the music business as a business.

We're focused on doing one thing incredibly well. If you look at other companies, all of these companies are doing a lot of different things but we're still, as we grow, doing exactly one thing.

I represent the small businesses, the women, and the families working so hard to rebuild our communities.

Decide, before you start, that you're going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you're reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn't to persuade you to change, it's to help you choose what to change.

Once you have permission to talk to someone, finding new products or services for them is a smart way to grow.

Some people read business books looking for confirmation. I read them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap, easy and ineffective. Restlessness and the scientific method, on the other hand, create a culture of testing and inquiry that can't help but push you forward.

It's not about you, it's about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it... pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action-that's the main reason it's a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more.

One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that.

We have little choice but to move beyond quality and seek remarkable, connected, and new. Remarkable, as you've already figured out, demands initiative.

...treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.

If you're going to invest a valuable asset (like time), go ahead and make it productive. Use a postit or two, or some index cards or a highlighter. Not to write down stuff so you can forget it later, but to create marching orders. It's simple: if three weeks go by and you haven't taken action on what you've written down, you wasted your time.