The business book

Start small, think big : Starting and growing the business. If you can dream it, you can do it

There's a gap in the market, but is there a market in the gap?

you can learn all you need to know about the competition's operation by looking in his garbage cans

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows

Be first or be better

Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket

Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get

Broaden your vision, and maintain stability while advancing forward

Nothing great is created suddenly

The role of the CEO is to enable people to excel

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken

A corporation is a living organism : it has to continue to shed its skin

Without continuous growth and progress, success has no meaning

If you believe in something, work nights and weekends - it won't feel like work

Lighting the fire : Leadership and human resources. Managers do things right, leaders do the right thing

None of us is as smart as all of us

Innovation must be invasive and perpetual : Everyone, everywhere, all of the time

Dissent adds spice, spirit, and an invigorating quality

No great manager or leader ever fell from heaven

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way

Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results

Leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do

The way forward may not be to go forward

The more a person can do, the more you can motivate them

Be an enzyme - a catalyst for change

The worst disease that afflicts executives is egotism

Emotional intelligence is the intersection of heart and head

Management is a practice where art, science, and craft meet

A camel is a horse designed by committee

The art of thinking independently, together

Making money work : Managing finances. Do no let yourself be involved in a fraudulent business

Executive officers must be free from avarice

If wealth is placed where it bears interest, it comes back to you redoubled

Borrow short, lend long

The interests of the shareholders are our own

Make the best quality of goods at the lowest cost, paying the highest wages possible

Utilize OPM - Other people's money

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom

Debt is the worst poverty

Cash is king

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked

Return on equity is a financial goal that can become an own goal

As the role of private equity has grown, so have the risks it poses

Assign costs according to the resources consumed

Working with a vision : Strategy and operations. Turn every disaster into an opportunity

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

The main thing to remember is, the main thing is the main thing

you don't need a huge company, just a computer and a part-time person

Don't get caught in the middle

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do

Synergy and other lies

The Chinese word "crisis" is composed of two characters : "danger" and "opportunity"

You can't grow long-term if you can't eat short-term

Market attractiveness, business attractiveness

Only the paranoid survive

To excel, tap into people's capacity to learn

The future of business is selling less of more

To be an optimist ...have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose

Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable

The strongest competitive forces determine the profitability of an industry

If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete

If you don't know where you are, a map won't help

Chaos brings uneasiness, but it also allows for creativity and growth

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astonish the other

There is no such thing as a minor lapse in integrity

Make it easier to do the right thing and much harder to do the wrong thing

Successful selling : Marketing management. Marketing is far too important to leave to the marketing department

Knowing the customer so well that the product fits them and sells itself

Attention, interest, desire action

Marketing myopia

The cash cow is the beating heart of the organization

Expanding away from your core has risks; diversification doubles them

If you're different, you will stand out

There is only one boss : The customer

Whitewashing, but with a green brush

People want companies to believe in something beyond maximizing profits

Everybody likes something extra for nothing

In good times people want to advertise; in bad times they have to

Make your thinking as funny as possible

E-commerce is becoming mobile commerce

Trying to predict the future is like driving with no lights looking out of the back window

Product, place, price, promotion

Delivering the goods : Production and postproduction. See how much, not how little, you can give for a dollar

Costs do not exist to be calculated. Costs exist to be reduced

If the pie's not big enough, make a bigger pie

Eliminate unnecessary steps

Every gain through the elimination of waste is gold in the mine

Machines, facilities, and people should work together to add value

Learning and innovation go hand in hand

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning

Technology is the great growling engine of change

Without big data, you are blind and deaf and in the middle of a highway

Put the product into the customer's hands - it will speak for itself

The desire to own something a little better, a little sooner than necessary

Time is money

A project without a critical path is like a ship without a rudder

Taking the best from the best.