Exchange ideas frequently.
No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.
The disciplined are free.
Salesmanship is limitless. Our very living is selling. We are all salespeople.
The Golden Rule finds no limit of application in business.
The men who have furnished me with my greatest inspiration have not been men of wealth, but men of deeds.
Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.
There is no failure except failure to serve one’s purpose.
I’ve been making deals all my life.
We do not hire a man’s history, we hire the man.
We know everything about our clients – if they like their dressing gowns heated, what colour flowers they like, if their chef works left-handed – we know everything and we incorporate it into our work for them.
I always kind of see how I want things to be better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are or the level of service that we’re providing for people or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.
[On his first job in the mailroom of William Morris a casting agency] It was the first time in the my life that I thought ‘I can do that.’
The union organizers are asking us to sit still while it sells our men the jobs that have always been free.
Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.
Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.
Selling is our No. 1 job. Never get away from selling a lot of merchandise personally. The more you sell the more you learn.
The worst of times often create the best opportunities to make good deals.
The golden rule for every businessman is this: Put yourself in your customer’s place.
As far as competition is concerned, that must continue. But we must learn what competition really is. It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers.
