Business Ideas
Solo Business – Quotes “Right on the Money” – Part 4
They have traveled the same road and can keep you out of danger.
These business ideas are not my thoughts (although I wish I had the keen insight that these business savvy people express) but rather the ideas of others that are targeted to helping you in your online business.
No, most of these quotes are not specific to Internet solo business.
Some were made way before the Internet was born.
But don’t discount their appropriateness just because some were spoken in times long ago.
These business thoughts can help you to understand some of the timeless wisdom that other entrepreneurs have shared to help you in this day and age.
Every solo business owner knows (or should know) the needs of his business better than any other individual.
The key, then, to being a smart business owner is to be able to analyze what is going on in your business and correct any deficiencies quickly.
If there was ever a more appropriate quote for a business owner than “the buck stops here” I don’t know what it would be. As a solo business owner, you have the ultimate, final, and only say regarding what happens in your business.
I am going to share some very appropriate business quotations with you that I think will be meaningful and directly related to your business.
You can do with these what you like … ignore them, gloss over them, or take them to heart and add dollars to your business bottom line!
You would do well to ponder each thought and spend some time thinking about how you might apply the principle involved to your own current business situation.
Here we go:
1. “Vision: Top management’s heroic guess about the future, easily printed on mugs, T-shirts, posters, and calendar cards.” Anonymous, in Fortune, 1995.
2. “Grand business plans are all very well, but nothing beats dipping your toe in the water.” Karan Bilimoria, founder of Cobra in Sunday Times, 2000.
3. “At Berkshire, our carefully-crafted acquisition strategy is simply to wait for the phone to ring. Happily, it sometimes does so, usually because a manager who sold to us earlier has recommended to a friend that he think about following suit.” Warren Buffett, financier in Berkshire Hathaway 1999 Annual Report, 2000.
4. “I believe that you have to understand the economics of a business before you have a strategy, and you have to understand your strategy before you have a structure. If you get these in the wrong order, you will probably fail.” Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computer Corporation, 1998.
5. “Swing for hits, not home runs.” Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computer Corporation, 1996.
6. “Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions. It deals with the future of present decisions.” Peter Drucker, management consultant and author in Managing the Turbulent Times, 1980.
7. “I buy when other people are selling.” J. Paul Getty, oil industry mogul, in International Herald Tribune, 1961.
8. “The secret isn’t in counting the beans, it’s growing more beans.” Roberto Goizueta, CEO of Coca-Cola, in Fortune, 1995.
9. “Brains are becoming the core of organizations – other activities can be contracted out.” Charles Handy, British author in Interview, 1994
10. “There is only one winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.” Philip Kotler, marketing manager in The Events & Awards Managers of Asia and Hamlin-Iturralde Corporation, 1999.
11. “Differentiation is a distancing designed to reduce the price sensitivity of the offering.” Shiv S. Mathur, British writer in Creating Value, 1997.
12. “Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet ’em on your way down.” Wilson Mizner, hotelier in The Legendary Mizners, 1953.
13. “The essence of strategy is not the structure of a company’s products and markets, but the dynamics of its behavior.” Tom Peters, management consultant in Liberation Management, 1982.
14. “Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of values.” Michael Porter, strategist in the Harvard Business Review, 1996.
15. “Successful companies move quickly in and out of products, markets, and sometimes even entire businesses.” George Stalk, author in the Harvard Business Review, 1992.
16. “Strategies that succeed are organic. They evolve. They wrap themselves around problems, challenges, and opportunities, make progress and move on.” Robert H. Waterman, Jr. author in The Frontiers of Excellence, 1994.
17. “Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.” Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor in Meditations, 2nd Century A.D.
18. “A man without a smiling face must not open a store.” Anonymous, Chinese proverb.
19. “People do not buy much from a man who fails to command their respect.” William Wrigley, founder of Wrigley Company in The Lowdown on Salesmanship, 1929.
20. “A man’s success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.” Gerald Stanley Lee, author in Crowds, 1913.
Stand by for more great small business advice …
To your online business success,
Steve Browne
www.SteveBrowneDirect.com