Quotes & Sayings About Business And Customers

Coordination' occurred with astonishing speed, even in sectors of life not directly targeted by specific laws, as Germans willingly placed themselves under the sway of Nazi rule, a phenomenon that became known as Selbtsgleichschaltung, or 'self-coordination.' Change came to Germany so quickly and across such a wide front that German citizens who left the country for business or travel returned to find everything around them altered, as if they were characters in a horror movie who come back to find that people who once were their friends, clients, patients, and customers have become different in ways hard to discern. — Erik Larson

...relentlessly pursue your best method of getting customers, and not the stuff you naturally gravitate to. — Dan Norris

Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it's none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business. — Yvon Chouinard

Soul can't exist unless you have active, meaningful dialogue with stakeholders: employees, customers, the community, suppliers, and investors. When you launch a business, your job as the entrepreneur is to say, 'Here's a value proposition that I believe in. Here's where I'm coming from. This is my point of view.' At first, it's a monologue. Gradually it becomes a dialogue and then a real conversation. Like breaking in a baseball glove. You can't will a baseball glove to be broken in; you have to use it. Well, you have to use a new business, too. You have to break it in. If you move on to the next thing too quickly, it will never develop its soul. Look what happens when a new restaurant opens. Everyone rushes in to see it, and it's invariably awkward because it hasn't yet developed soul. That takes time to emerge, and you have to work at it constantly. — Anonymous

Malls in the late forties and early fifties were risky. Suburban customers still believed in making major purchases in the central business districts of cities and towns, where they expected to find the greatest selection of merchandise and the most competitive prices. After the tax laws of 1954, this changed. Shopping mall developers were among the biggest beneficiaries of accelerated depreciation, and they most often located projects where the older strips met the new interchanges of major projects. With the new tax write-offs, over 98 percent of malls made money for their investors. — Dolores Hayden

If you take the approach of "earning" your customers' business every day and treating them well, they're less likely to try someone else. — Marilyn Suttle

Objections #4 and #5 ("I can wait" / "it's too difficult") are best addressed via Education-Based Selling. Often, your prospects haven't fully realized they have a problem, particularly in the case of Absence Blindness (discussed later). If the business doesn't realize it's losing $10 million in the first place, it's difficult to convince them that you can help. The best way to get around this is to focus your early sales efforts on making your customers smarter by teaching them what you know about their business, then helping them Visualize what their involvement would look like if they decide to proceed. — Josh Kaufman

Companies that grow for the sake of growth or that expand into areas outside their core business strategy often stumble. On the other hand, companies that build scale for the benefit of their customers and shareholders more often succeed over time. — Jamie Dimon

People who sell advertising are called "account executives." People who sell customers work in "business development." People who sell companies are "investment bankers." And people who sell themselves are called "politicians." ========== — Anonymous

One plus one makes two but two monologues do not make a dialogue. Of all the traits, characteristics, attributes and habits of today's customers, the one that has serious consequences for businesses is this - today's customer does not want to be just spoken to. She wants to be engaged in a dialogue. Today's consumer expects to be part of the conversation about the product and/or service on offer. Today's customer does not want to be fed with advertisements. Collaboration is what excites today's customer. — J. N. HALM

Major brands don't know what to do with happy customers. They make it hard for customers to say thanks and way too often companies don't celebrate and embrace customers' positive gestures. — Paul Walker

I have to admit that business-type thoughts do sneak into my head: I hope our customers pay us, I hope this stuff is decent, I hope we get it done on time. The little additions and subtractions that one has to do. Take sales, take costs and try to get that big positive number at the bottom. — Bill Gates

Our focus is our customers' success. At the end of the day, if your customers are successful, they will also be satisfied. But satisfaction is not success. In today's business environment, and certainly in tomorrow's, mistaking one for the other can be fatal. — Rob Bernshteyn

Smartphone makers sought deeper ties with retail buyers by adding ring tones, games, Web browsers, and other applications to their phones. Carriers, however, wanted this business to themselves. If they couldn't sell applications within their "walled gardens," carriers worried they would be reduced to mere utilities or "dumb pipes" carrying data and voice traffic. Nokia learned the hard way just how ferociously carriers could defend their turf. In the late 1990s the Finnish phone maker launched Club Nokia, a Web-based portal that allowed customers to buy and download — Jacquie McNish

In my 35 years in business I have always trusted my emotions. I have always believed that by touching emotion you get the best people to work with you, the best clients to inspire you, the best partners and most devoted customers. — Kevin Roberts

Marketing is the process of creating customers, and customers are the lifeblood of your business. — Timi Nadela

Having the ability to be brutally honest with yourself is the greatest challenge you face when creating a business model. Too often we oversell ourselves on the quality of the idea, service, or product. We don't provide an honest assessment of how we fit in the market, why customers will buy from us, and at what price. — Mark Cuban

SDN is a major shift in the networking industry. At Juniper, we think the impact of SDN will be much broader than others have suggested. It will redefine networking and create new winners and losers. We're embracing SDN with clearly defined principles, a four-step roadmap to help customers adopt SDN within their business, and the networking industry's first comprehensive software-centric business model. We're incredibly excited about the value that SDN will deliver to our customers and are committed to leading the industry through this transition. — Bob Muglia

Those who deal with customers on a regular basis should be circumspect whenever they open their "traps." It is better not to say anything at all than to say, and later, pay! — J. N. HALM

Raising the minimum wage allows business people to stop thinking about workers simply as costs to be cut and allows you to start thinking about workers as customers to be cultivated. — Nick Hanauer

Customers expect richer experiences when they come into contact with our brands and richer experiences come from having rich dialogue. Businesses that refuse to become more open to rich dialogues with their customers will be punished badly. Businesses that are keen on only feeding customers with information without opening channels for customer feedback will soon find themselves left behind. Survival in these times calls for rich dialogue for richer experiences. — J. N. HALM

To prosper soundly in business, you must satisfy not only your customers, but you must lay yourself out to satisfy also the men who make your product and the men who sell it. — Harry Bassett

No matter how much we tweet, blog and post, nothing in business is as powerful as actual face time with prospective business partners and customers. — Jay Samit

Why do customers (and that includes you and me) find it so difficult to recall more than a couple of occasions when they felt that they were treated exceptionally by the salespeople who dealt with them? — Chris Murray

Every small business has to become a publisher - a publisher of marketing messages and customer resources, and a publisher of stories. — Jim Blasingame

Innovation happens at the intersection of people, process, technology, customers, and business ecosystem. — Pearl Zhu

The ultimate profit from all of my businesses is to be happy and to make all of the customers happy. — Debasish Mridha

For example, suppose you are seeking a job as a retail manager. You might bring added value by being fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Being trilingual may not be part of the job description but can be a valuable asset when working with diverse employees and customers who speak Spanish and French. This Value-Added message may tip the scale in your favor. Possibly you are seeking a job as a fifth grade teacher. If you are an expert in computers and computer programming, these skills may not be part of the job description but might be perceived as having high value to an academic institution. If you are an expert electrician, but you are also highly skilled in sales, this added value of contributing to new business development efforts might be the differentiator, the added skill that will help you land a job quickly in tough markets. — Jay A. Block

Sabanci has many years of experience in the tire reinforcement industry, and we are committed to the success of this business through an advanced technology relationship with KoSa and a strong commitment to our customers. — Guler Sabanci

There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you're good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward. — Jeff Bezos

The need to engage businesses and decision makers with customers can only increase in importance, and as it does, the market research industry must recognise that engagement is a facet of what we do. — Alex Johnston

Loyalty is dead, the experts proclaim, and the statistics seem to bear them out. On average, U.S. corporations now lose half their customers in five years, half their employees in four, and half their investors in less than one. We seem to face a future in which the only business relationships will be opportunistic transactions between virtual strangers. — Fred Reichheld

Customers, like spouses, can be at your beck and call if you give them what they need, when they need it and how they need it. Massage their ego and you have them by the heart. — J. N. HALM

No matter what a person's job is, they should be encouraged to have opinions about the business, industry, customers and partners, — Eric Schmidt

While stores continue to be a very important part of our business, there is no mistaking the fact that the customers' shopping preference, measured by both traffic and sales, continues to move to a virtual experience. — Richard Hayne

RULE #1
Market your business to the customer YOU WANT.
Most beauty businesses try to be everything to everyone. It's exhausting and expensive promoting yourself to everyone. Most people simply give up.
Focus on the customers you really want. What is your passion, what do you excel in? Who is your ideal customer? What would you ideally like to do every day in your business?
Focus on what you want to do and the clients you want, and market directly to them and only them. — Jana Elston

Anything a customer can do for themselves is where service stops and relevance begins. — Jim Blasingame

The Oakland chapter's "bondsman" is a handsome middle-aged woman with platinum-blond hair named Dorothy Connors. She has a pine-paneled office, drives a white Cadillac and treats the Angels gently, like wayward children. "These boys are the backbone of the bail-bond business," she says. "Ordinary customers come and go, but just like clockwork, the Angels come down to my office each week to make their payments. They really pay the overhead. — Hunter S. Thompson

Customers want to make informed decisions based on useful information, valuable engagements and brand affinity. — Dane Brookes

You will always make the most profit from 20% of your goods and services. These goods and services will be purchased by the top 20% of your clients or customers. This principle doesn't fail, and you can extrapolate that throughout all areas of your business and profit-making, and you will find the same. — Ellis Howell

If we take care of the customers and associates and grow the business, Wall Street will be pleased. — Lee Scott

Small-business customers are very conservative and very cheap. We don't have to explain ourselves for the most part. — Paul Graham

Uncontainable is a love story. Kip and Sharon's love for each other, their precious family, their business journey of joy and, most of all, their pure and uncontainable love for their employees and their families is clear and happy proof that the future of business is building love cultures. Oh, and when you have love on the inside customers shower uncontainable love back at ya from the outside. Love on brother! — Roy Spence

Wal-Mart is so large, its reach so great, that it has created an ecosystem in which its suppliers and competitors, and their suppliers and competitors, and their customers, all operate. Wal-Mart sets the metabolism, it sets the rules, of that ecosystem. Wal-Mart has inexorably changed our expectations as shoppers - and the Wal-Mart effect also extends to consumers who never shop at Wal-Mart. Likewise, Wal-Mart has reshaped the companies that supply it - and it has also reset the pace and the competitive landscape even for companies that try to do business outside the Wal-Mart ecosystem. — Charles Fishman

If you're going to harness the power of digital marketing to drive your online business to dizzying new heights, you need a thorough understanding of your market, how your customers are using digital technology, and how your business can best utilize that same technology to build enduring and mutually rewarding relationships with them. — Damien Ryan

IT - especially with its role so greatly enlarged by the arrival of the Internet - has changed not only how we work and conduct business, but also how we (and our customers) play, how we consume, and how we educate our next generations. And yet the IT phenomenon, so evident in the expenditures of every organization, has not yet achieved management attention equal to other areas, such as finance, marketing, operations, and human resources. In far too many companies, IT remains a black box that business managers rarely try to see inside. When business managers do engage in IT discussions, often they bring little expertise to bear. Few feel apologetic about their IT inadequacies. But the time is coming when "I'm not an IT person" will be no more adequate as a manager's defense in the aftermath of a major corporate problem than Jeff Skilling's now notorious "I'm not an accountant" - that CEOs effort to explain his failure to foresee or prevent Enron's spectacular implosion. — Robert D. Austin

You can bring tremendous value to your business, your customers, and yourself by becoming proficient at bringing in new business. — Mike Weinberg

I think a much better use of time and resources is to really focus on your existing users or customers and figure out what changes can you make in the Web site, the service, the product, whatever, to get them to come back more often to generate that repeat business and once you kind of figure out that formula, then when you get new customers the whole thing just kind of grows exponentially. — Tony Hsieh

QUESTIONS FOR YOU What business are you in? Are you selling coffee or lifestyle? Renting rooms online or giving people the opportunity to connect and experience a city in new ways? Or ... ? What do your customers want from you? Would they like a product or support? Gym membership or improved health and wellness? How do your customers want to feel? Connected, informed, reassured, special, excited, happy, fulfilled, and on and on. Have you asked — Bernadette Jiwa

He or she must be successful in economic terms, but always within an ethical framework. Whether his or her constituency is a corporation and its shareholders or the customers in a small and privately held business, his or her first responsibility is to serve that constituency. — Lee R. Raymond

The Internet means everything to everybody and it's growing by the day. You can't survive as a business, especially a small business, without having some form of good Internet presence; whether you're a shop or it's a showcase or just a way to talk to your customers. — Theo Paphitis

Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships. — Ross Perot

In a very real sense, there are only two roles in organisations: customers and suppliers. Everybody functions simultaneously in both roles, whether inside or outside the organisation the essence of good business, therefore, is the quality of the relationship between customer and supplier. — Stephen Covey

Learning how to interact with customers is something that anyone starting any business must master. It's an amazing opportunity to be able to learn the ropes at an established company and then employ your expertise at your own company. — Marc Benioff

The true purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer, not to make you money. — Theodore Levitt

Paying people a fair wage is a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the value of people's contributions to the business. When people are treated fairly and with respect, they will provide unparalleled levels of support and commitment inside the business, and to clients and customers. Everyone is more successful when people are paid a living wage. — Amy B. Lyman

I want you to say to me right from the start, "We are here to serve customers. We're not here for me to make a lot of money. We're not here to bet on interest rates or credit spreads. We are here to serve our customers really well over a long period of time, and that's how you build a successful business." And so I want to see that, too, you know? — Jamie Dimon

Any business that is looking for new customers needs to understand the Internet and how to market their goods or services through it. — Eric Lefkofsky

The farther right you go on the curve, the more you will encounter the clients and customers who may need what you have, but don't necessarily believe what you believe. As clients, they are the ones for whom, no matter how hard you work, it's never enough. Everything usually boils down to price with them. They are rarely loyal. They rarely give referrals and sometimes you may even wonder out loud why you still do business with them. "They just don't get it," our gut tells us. The importance of identifying this group is so that you can avoid doing business with them. — Simon Sinek

[On entering the restaurant business:] Food has the dubious advantage of being legitimate, and one's customers somehow manage to live longer without sex than food, if you call that living. — Sally Stanford

If you know what your customers want, the other aspect to know is what are your competitors doing? — Shawn Casemore

Cater to your customers' lifestyles. It will create instant rapport and a lasting sense of I belong here. — Marilyn Suttle

There are many who subscribe to the convention that service is a business cost, but our data demonstrates that superior service is an investment that can help drive business growth. Investing in quality talent, and ensuring they have the skills, training and tools that enable them to empathize and actively listen to customers are central to providing consistently excellent service experiences. — Jim Bush

The purpose of a business is to get and keep a customer. Without customers, no amount of engineering wizardry, clever financing, or operations expertise can keep a company going. — Theodore Levitt

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends. — Walt Disney

Everyone is in the business of customer satisfaction.Wh o are your customers and how are they doing? — Brian Tracy

We watch our competitors, learn from them, see the things that they were doing for customers and copy those things as much as we can. — Jeff Bezos

Like Hansel and Gretel whose trail of breadcrumbs got eaten~ your customer may lose their way once they have left your website and they may never come back.
An email marketing list helps you remind your customers of who you and your business are. — Nina Montgomery

You have to realize that the customer really is king. People who go into more established businesses probably have to be careful not to be casual about that. When you have a brand-new business, and nobody knows who you are, you know you have to work really hard for your customers. — Fred DeLuca

Get your customers involved in your business. Make them your partners and they'll never leave you. — Kevin Stirtz

People, materials, facilities, money, and time are the resources available to us for conducting our business. By applying our skills, we turn these resources into useful products and services. If we do a good job, customers pay us more for our products than the sum of our costs in producing and distributing them. This difference, our profit, represents the value we add to the resources we utilize. — David Packard

Those activities which are not concerned with numbers, but which are concerned with humans(Customers and Employees) is known as business. Numbers will ultimately increase if humans are happy who are involved in. — Rakesh Wadhwani

If you are seizing on a new business opportunity, deliberately move your customers' expectations up a few notches and consistently over-deliver on your promises - you will leave your competitors struggling to catch up. — Richard Branson

In my column series 'The Main Thing', I often talk about how Internet technology can improve the way people communicate - both within a business and between a business and its customers and partners. — Jim Barksdale

Nasty Gal Obsessed: We keep the customer at the center of everything we do. Without customers, we have nothing. Own It: Take the ball and run with it. We make smart decisions, put the business first, and do more with less. People Are Important: Reach out, make friends, build trust. No Assholes: We leave our egos at the door. We are respectful, collaborative, curious, and open-minded. Learn On: What we're building has never been built before - the future is ours to write. We get excited about growth, take intelligent risks, and learn from our mistakes. Have Fun and Keep It Weird. — Sophia Amoruso

Customers are a great way to finance a business for many reasons. First, customer financing is typically non dilutive. They want something from you other than equity in your business. Customers also help you fit your product to the market. And customers will help debug and improve the quality of the product. — Fred Wilson

Conducting your business in a socially responsible way is good business. It means that you can attract better employees and that customers will know what you stand for and like you for it — M. Anthony Burns

How many companies can say that the amount of customers who use their services second most often, and spend the second most amount of money with them, are "very negative"? — Charles Fishman

Technology is something we buy to sell to the customers. Ericsson, Nokia and IBM do technology for a living, so let's give it to them because they know best. It has made the business model of Bharti very, very sustainable. — Sunil Mittal

There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here's the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don't yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.
Jeff Bezos
From 7 insightful quotes to shareholders via letter. 2017 — Malini Chaudhri

I have been saying this for some time, but customers are not interested in grand games with higher-quality graphics and sound and epic stories. Only people who do not know the video game business would advocate the release of next-generation machines when people are not interested in cutting-edge technologies. — Hiroshi Yamauchi

At Wal-Mart, it goes back to Sam Walton and the foundation and business model that we simply operate for less, or everyday low cost. We're known for operating in a very efficient way and then giving those savings to customers. — Mike Duke

To have a healthy and thriving business, there must be healthy relationships with the C.E.O.S. in the organization and I'm not referring to the Chief Executive Offficers. I am talking about the Customers, the Employees, the Owner (or stockholders), and the Suppliers. — James Hunter

After all, your company doesn't define customer experience. Customers do. Customer experience is based on how your customers perceive your organization and how well you meet their needs when they interact with, hear about, and do business with your company. — Michael Hinshaw

The most successful businesses have leaders that see the correlation between customer service and sales ... not as separate departments, but as complimentary components for growth. — Steve Maraboli

One of the people who most influenced me was Ben Shapiro, a marketing professor at the business school. He used to rant and rave and pound his fist: 'It's all about the customers!' And he was right. He was also right that, at that time, retailing was devoid of really talented people; he urged me to go in that direction. — Thomas G. Stemberg

One day, the Devil decided to go out of business. His tools, therefore, being for sale, were put on display; and Malice, Jealousy, and Pride were soon recognized by most of his prospective customers. There was one worn, tiny wedge-shaped tool bearing the highest price, however, which seemed difficult to identify. "What is that?" someone asked. "I can't quite place it." "Oh that!" Satan answered. "That is Discouragement. It is my most valuable tool. With it I can open many hearts, since so few people know that it belongs to me." — James Keller

We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up. — Ray Anderson

Miron said, "Strange that men who wrote with what seemed deep Christian faith should turn traitor so easily!" Perhaps the answer was that in their writings Daianu and Ghinda praised Christ for the gifts He gives us - peace, love, salvation. A real disciple does not seek gifts but Christ Himself, and so is ready for self-sacrifice to the end. They were not followers of Jesus, but customers; when the Communists opened a shop next door with goods at lower prices, they took their business there. — Richard Wurmbrand

As research on willpower has become a hot topic in scientific journals and newspaper articles, it has started to trickle into corporate America. Firms such as Starbucks - and the Gap, Walmart, restaurants, or any other business that relies on entry-level workers - all face a common problem: No matter how much their employees want to do a great job, many will fail because they lack self-discipline. They show up late. They snap at rude customers. They get distracted or drawn into workplace dramas. They quit for no reason. — Charles Duhigg

Startups don't fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model. — Steve Blank

DevOps shows how we optimize the IT value stream, converting business needs into capabilities and services that provide value for our customers. — Gene Kim

Nobody can tell you what to stand for, or how your values, wants and needs should intersect with those of your customers and then manifest as a business, an idea or an experience. Figuring out the destination is hard - but recognising it is more valuable than knowing exactly how you're going to get there. — Bernadette Jiwa

Doing business is all about providing a good product or service to your customers. A good businessman is he who knows that what is successful today may not be so tomorrow. Technology changes so fast, and so do people's needs and wants. That's why it would do well for a businessman to know how to adapt to change. He must constantly reinvent the business, or it won't last. — Andrew Tan

calling colleagues "customers" puts a wedge between IT and the rest of the business. — Richard Hunter

Dell will participate in tablets and all sorts of client devices. Our main business is helping our customers secure, protect their data and access it from any device they want to. — Michael Dell

The Mesh is reshaping how we go to market, who we partner with and how we invite participation and engage new customers ... If you embrace the Mesh youll discover how your business can inspire customers in a world where access trumps ownership. — Lisa Gansky

Sales is a business of relationships, and you must cultivate customers with tenderness and love, like cabbages in winter, even if the customer is an egomaniacal asshole you want to hit with a shovel. — Max Barry

Customers are human and humans can view situations in unexpected ways. — Marilyn Suttle

The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters? — Meg Whitman