Random Quotes - Head for the Hills

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

T.S. Eliot

Random Quotes - Inaction Breeds Fear

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

Dale Carnegie

Random Quote: Choose Your Friends Carefully

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe you too can become great.”

~

Mark Twain

Random Quote - Happiness

I frequently cite C.C. Tung's mantra of “SAY + LOOK + DO = Reputation”. I think understanding and implementing this short saying is the best building block for any business looking to improve.

This morning I saw another quote not from a businessman, but one of the greatest influencers of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi. This quote takes C.C. Tung's business focused statement and puts a personal spin on it:

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

Great stuff.

Random Quote - The Power of Commitment

Until one is committed there is hestiancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid dreams: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that otherwise would never have occurred. A whole stream of events issue forth from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and mutual assistance, which no one could have dreamt would have come his way. 'What ever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

W. H. Murray.

Random Quote - The Ultimate Equation

"The business equation is simple: Profit equals revenues minus cost. Or maybe it is slightly more complicated: Long term profit equals revenue from continuously happy customer relationships minus cost."

Tom Peters, Thriving On Chaos

Don't Try To Please Everyone

In week 30 I talked about the fact that not all customers are created equal; in fact, there are many types of customers you probably don't want! I saw a great quote today which captures this much better than I did.

"I cannot give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody."

--Herbert B. Swope, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Random Quote - Fresh Thinking

"The only way to change the world is to imagine it different to the way it is today. Apply too much of the wisdom and knowledge that got us here, and you end up right where you started. Take a fresh look from a new perspective and get a new result."

J. Allard - Microsoft, founding team for Xbox, Zune and famous internal Internet memo.

Random Quote - Service

There are no such things as service industries. There are only industries whose service components are greater or less than those of other industries. Everybody is in service.

Theodore Levitt, Production Line Approach to Service, HBR

Random Quote - What is Your Advertising Objective?

Famous author Jim Rohn once said about advertising:

"You can feed your ego or feed your family!"

Keep that one in mind when you develop your next ad program. :-)

Random Quote - Priceless

Authors Diana LaSalle and Terry Britton observe in their book Priceless: “…when someone is asked why he uses whitening toothpaste, he might say to have whiter teeth. If probed further to find out why this is important, the consumer may say it makes him look better, a typical feature/benefit response. When asked again, he might finally reveal that looking better gives him greater confidence and self esteem. You can’t really put a price on feeling better about yourself can you? So these then are the priceless attributes of the product.”

Random Quote

There are three kinds of companies: those that make things happen; those that watch things happen; and those who wonder what’s happened. – Anonymous