Post on 21-Oct-2014
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Influential Business Quotes for
Entrepreneurs
From Acclaimed Business Leaders
On Employees
…effective executives do not start out by looking at weaknesses. You cannot build performance on
weaknesses. You can build only on strengths. Make weaknesses
irrelevant.
Giving people self confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do because
then they will act.
The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and
do is important – and then get out of their way while they do it.
On Customers
The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer
centric company.
For something this complicated, it’s really hard to design products by focus
groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what
they want until you show it to them.
Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your
ability to deliver the right story to the others.
Our point of view is we will sell more if we help people make purchasing decisions.
A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they
don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions
without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human
experience, the better design we will have.
On Business Priorities
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed,
nothing else can be managed.
Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation. All the rest are
costs.
On Marketing
Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or
not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the
customer so well the product or service fits him and sells
itself.
Products that are remarkable get talked about.
In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being
invisible.
A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person.
You can earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organizations
assemble the tribe.
On Dealing With Change
Within five years, if you’re in the same business you are in now, you’re going to be out
of business.
Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Change, BEFORE you have to.
Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means
plunging part of the company into total confusion
for a while.
On Experimentation
We were willing to go down a bunch of dark passageways
and occasionally we find something that really works.
What’s dangerous is not to evolve.
On Learning
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process
of keeping abreast of change. And the most
pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to
work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there,
you can move mountains.
An organization’s ability to learn and translate that
learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive
advantage.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them
looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in
your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has
never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
On Initiative
The easiest thing is to react.
The second easiest is to respond.
But the hardest thing is to initiate.
I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-
successful ones is pure perseverance.
The entrepreneur always searches for change,
responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
Every interaction, every assignment, is a chance to
make a change, a chance to delight or surprise or to
touch someone.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone
else's life.
On Competition
If you don’t have a competitive advantage,
don’t compete.
Key Takeaways
• Employees, customers are #1
• People focus
• Make a difference attitude
• Necessity to adapting to change
• Continuous learning
• Be persistent
Final Thoughts
Actively manage your company’s culture based on
these mindsets, skills and core values
Never stop the learning process
About Dr. Schoultz
Dr. Schoultz has thirty five years of business development, marketing, technology, and business operations experience.
He served as VP / President of Distribution Technologies, a company he helped to found and grow to a 700 M + / year market leader.
Dr. Schoultz Ph. D. is from the University of Virginia.
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