Quotes & Sayings About Business Plan

Quality is the best business plan. — John Lasseter

...love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.
No, the most annoying thing about it is that he's even started to like Elmo. — Gabrielle Zevin

School programs the schooled to type a CV. Life inspires the unschooled to type a business plan. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

People come in with business plans and, I mean I know that no one is going to meet everything they say in a business plan but you got to have something to, to guide towards. — Arthur Rock

No business plan survives first contact with customers. — Derek Sivers

If there's any business that instructs you in the strong hand of fate, it's show business. You can plan and plan, but it's what happens to you that really determines what your career will be like. — Sam Waterston

" I was rather discouraged when I discovered that Paul and Hotch had no marketing survey, no business plan, no budget, no organized strategy for the introduction of the sauce. When asked about this lack of preparation, the haphazard nature of their business, Paul said, 'Me in this business is just part of life's great folly. Stay loose, men, keep 'em off balance.'" — Paul Newman

a deep love and passion for your business is having a plan. A plan is critical. Without this roadmap, you are apt to get lost. — Dennise Cardona

My dear young lady,' said the professor ... 'there is one plan which no one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying.'
'What's that?' said Susan.
'We might all try minding our own business ... — C.S. Lewis

The 9-9-9 plan would resuscitate this economy because it replaces the outdated tax code that allows politicians to pick winners and losers, and to provide favors in the form of tax breaks, special exemptions and loopholes. It simplifies the code dramatically: 9% business flat tax, 9% personal flat tax, 9% sales tax. — Herman Cain

Entrepreneurs don't write a 100-page business plan and execute it one time; they're always experimenting and adapting based on what they learn. — Thomas Friedman

I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered. — Val Kilmer

Going public is not a business plan. — Henry Kravis

As a serial investor who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, I know that the business plans coming out of incubators tend to be vetted and more thoroughly validated. The incubator's input into your business plan will make you look far more polished and experienced - even if you have never run a business before. — Jay Samit

Today, if someone showed me a five-year plan, I'd toss out the pages detailing Years Three, Four and Five as pure fantasy Anyone who thinks he or she can evaluate business conditions five years from now, flunks. — Mark McCormack

I went to art school in Chicago for a year at Columbia College. I had this whole master plan of getting into sustainable development and green architecture and construction, so I wanted to go to business school and then get my masters in construction and development. — Nico Tortorella

Customer Romance does not just happen; neither is it dependent on just providing product or service for customers, nor is it a puzzling set of practices. Rather, it occurs as a result of a deliberate, thoughtful plan of action. Companies that are known to provide the best customer experiences have philosophies that guide them to take actions their competitors do not even dream of. — J. N. HALM

My tombstone would someday read I died keeled over at my computer writing a screenplay or a business plan. — Gabriel Campisi

A woman can plan. A woman thinks she needs a man for nothing in this world but soon realizes she is wrong. The same way every black- owned business has to acquire goods from a white distributor, women have to do business with men, be it professional or personal, to achieve too many of our goals. — Eric Jerome Dickey

We must limit the running to and fro which most men practise, rambling about houses, theatres, and marketplaces. They mind other men's business, and always seem as though they themselves had something to do. If you ask one of them as he comes out of his own door, "Whither are you going?" he will answer, "By Hercules, I do not know: but I shall see some people and do something." They wander purposelessly seeking for something to do, and do, not what they have made up their minds to do, but what has casually fallen in their way. They move uselessly and without any plan, just like ants crawling over bushes, which creep up to the top and then down to the bottom again without gaining anything. Many men spend their lives in exactly the same fashion, which one may call a state of restless indolence. — Seneca.

As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion. — Yuval Noah Harari

If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you're too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, i.e. they don't actually quite know they want it. That's what innovation's about. With Plan A, we didn't wait for the consumers to tell us. — Stuart Rose

The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneurship - is you realize one day that you can't really work anyone else. You have to start your won thing. It almost doesn't matter what the thing is. We had six different business plan changes, and then the last one was PayPal.
If that one didn't work out, if we still had the money and the people, obviously we would not have given up. We would have iterated on the business model and done something else. I don't think there was ever clarity as to who we were until we knew it was working. By then, we'd figured out our PR pitch and told everyone what we do and who we are. But between the founding and the actual PayPal, it was just like this tug-of-war where it was like, "We're trying this, this week." Every week you go to investors and say, "We're doing this, exactly this. We're really focused. We're going to be huge." The next week you're like, "That was a lie. — Jessica Livingston

You don't need a business plan. You don't need to have an MBA. All you need is a great idea. Anything is possible and you can accomplish it. — Ron Conway

What you need is one black dress I call Plan B. It doesn't have to be fabulous, it just looks good, covers up the problems and is neutral enough for dinner, business, a date, a funeral. You don't overwear it, you don't overwash it, because the Plan B is - gold. — Salma Hayek

History in the making is a very uncertain thing. It might be better to wait till the South American republic has got through withits twenty-fifth revolution before reading much about it. When it is over, some one whose business it is, will be sure to give you in a digested form all that it concerns you to know, and save you trouble, confusion, and time. If you will follow this plan, you will be surprised to find how new and fresh your interest in what you read will become. — Anna Brackett

There was no business plan, no model. It was just guts. — Peter Chernin

I made it real clear to the business community - if your plan for innovation is to trick people, is to fool them, is not to tell them the truth about the price, then you're right: I'm going to be right in the way. — Elizabeth Warren

Desperation is the perfume of the young actor. It's so satisfying to have gotten rid of it. If you keep smelling it, it can drive you crazy. In this business a lot of people go nuts, go eccentric, even end up dead from it. Not my plan. — Uma Thurman

In this business, I don't know how you can have a plan or how you can orchestrate anything. But I've been lucky with my choices. I'm very strong-willed, so I've been able to stick with it. I'm lucky there. — January Jones

If you just work on stuff that you like and you're passionate about, you don't have to have a master plan with how things will play out. — Mark Zuckerberg

I don't think it's a good idea to plan to sell a company. — Elon Musk

The transition to a low-carbon economy will be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. This plan sets out a route-map for the UK's transition from here to 2020 ... every business, every community will need to be involved. Together we can create a more secure, more prosperous low carbon Britain and a world which is sustainable for future generations. — Ed Miliband

What is happening on the inside, is reflected on the outside. If you lack the confidence, you very well may feel pushy in selling your product or service. If you lack a clear plan on exactly how to grow your business, you're going to play it safe rather than do what it takes. If you feel desperate, your prospect no doubt will feel your push. If you're unclear about your exact target market, then implementing focused marketing will be nearly impossible because you don't know where your target market hangs out, their preferences, and even what and where they buy. The more you nurture your inner entrepreneur, the more it affects the outcomes of your business. — Lisa A. Mininni

I didn't plan to be this dysfunctional at 27, but dysfunctionality has a way of creeping up on you. One second, you're 22, wrapping up your undergraduate degree from a top business school, and then suddenly, you're sitting alone in your car at 27, wondering how five years slipped trough your fingers without so much as a blink. — R.S. Grey

I plan to go to university - but for sure, acting is what I want to do. It's a hard business, but I believe in my heart that I'll be doing it for a very long time. — Natasha Calis

We don't have much in the way of a business strategy. Like no business plan. Which I say to torment all my friends who are VCs or MBAs. That's always entertaining. The deal is, it's a mixture of luck and persistence. — Craig Newmark

When something doesn't go exactly to plan, money is tight or a business is struggling - see it as a challenge rather than a failure. Look outside the box and try and find a solution - you'll be surprised how many great opportunities and possibilities arise when things look bad. You've just got to open your mind and not be afraid of sticking your neck out! — Richard Branson

God wants you to begin to strategise, plan, draw out tactics, methodologies of how your business would take over that particular sphere of business where you are — Sunday Adelaja

Say your husband wants to start a business creating topiary sculptures for clients. You think the idea is bonkers, but you admire his passion, so it seems cruel to veto it. Instead, set a tripwire. Okay, dear, let's give the topiary-sculpture business a shot, but can we agree that we won't invest more than $10,000 of our savings in it? Alternatively, you might say: Go for it, but if you don't have a paying customer within three months, let's talk seriously about Plan B. — Chip Heath

Read over your existing business plan like you read the menu at your favorite restaurant. — Darren L Johnson

SPEAKING OF COGNITIVE EASE "Let's not dismiss their business plan just because the font makes it hard to read." "We must be inclined to believe it because it has been repeated so often, but let's think it through again." "Familiarity breeds liking. This is a mere exposure effect." "I'm in a very good mood today, and my System 2 is weaker than usual. I should be extra careful. — Daniel Kahneman

Your very great pardon, Cousin," said Sphene, "but this having meetings so we can plan to have meetings business is bullshit. I want to talk about ancillaries. — Ann Leckie

My only "business plan" was to get lucky. — Val Kilmer

It is by far the best plan, therefore, to mingle leisure with business, whenever chance impediments or the state of public affairs forbid one's leading an active life: for one is never so cut off from all pursuits as to find no room left for honorable action. — Seneca.

For a business plan written when the hardware was a wire-wrapped board and the software was three demos on a graphics substrate, it was pretty close. — Chris Espinosa

Just like a script, you need to keep a business plan to yourself. — Preity Zinta

Essentials of how to do a startup do not include writing a business plan — Steve Blank

For one thing, there's an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn't matter if you have a perfect product, production plan and marketing pitch; you'll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans. — Bill Gates

Business was bound to come; light industries were already shopping for land. The quiet country farms were already going, and developments would take over ... Eventually, of course, we will have to have some sort of plan to guide future development. — Gladys Taber

The world is full of people who have dreams of playing at Carnegie Hall, of running a marathon, and of owning their own business. The difference between the people who make it across the finish line and everyone else is one simple thing: an action plan. — John Tesh

Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe - comfort. In America, we hurry - which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe. When — Mark Twain

Not having a schedule is OK if it's your PhD and you plan to spend 14 years on the thing, or if you're a programmer working on the next Duke Nukem and we'll ship when we're good and ready. But for almost any kind of real business, you just have to know how long things are going to take, because developing a product costs money. — Joel Spolsky

I wanted to be in this business, and once I got into the business I knew I enjoyed it, and I liked it, and I wanted to continue, but I never had a five year plan. — Sam Donaldson

In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination
tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination — Betty Friedan

For the last 15 years, Microsoft's master business plan seems to have been, Wait until somebody else has a hit. Then copy it. — David Pogue

Nobody has a crystal ball, and part of evolving a business plan is to say, 'I might have said we're going left, but I see the opportunity and we're going right.' — Ryan Kavanaugh

Don't get stuck on a business plan just because it was your business plan. — Ryan Kavanaugh

I think films would get a lot better if people paid leaving the cinema. There's a whole business plan of opening terrible films in hundreds of cinemas and then closing them when the word of mouth gets out. — Graham Linehan

In the past six months, our federal government has devised a dozen strategies to save America's financial markets. Each plan has been more costly, more risky, and less aligned with the principles of our country's free market economy than the last. I am disappointed to say that this latest plan puts all the rest of them to shame. — Michael Enzi

Unlearn your knowledge about what WAS working to understand what is working NOW — Roger James Hamilton

To read 'Happy Talk' is to crash a party as vivid and surreal as Felini's 8. It's the business of show business, the American dream, told by a chorus of Americans locked just outside of that dream, outside of the United States, relegated to expatriate status on the shores of Haiti. Melo paints a version of Haiti that's an interior landscape perhaps even more than an externalized place. This Haiti is a plan, a memory, a morphine-drip fueled dream out to bond its inhabitants forever. — Monica Drake

The business model piece is we're always talking about competing more effectively. If you're starting a company or career you don't want to compete. You want to create a monopoly. We want to invest in a company that has a good plan to create a monopoly. — Peter Thiel

If you keep looking at your business wishes as delusional dreams you will end up running just another one of them. If you get inspired by your business wishes then plan to find a way and people to make it happen, you will end up mastering a second to none organization. — Sameh Elsayed

If your business plan depends on suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain. — Hugh MacLeod

Don't worry about me. I plan to continue to be in show business. I have already been booked to be in a production of 'The Sunshine Boys' with Jay Leno. — David Letterman

God would never give you a burning desire for something without giving you the skills to achieve it! That would be setting you up to fail, and God isn't in that business. God-given visions are designed to point you in the direction of God's purpose for your life. Once you've accepted this and have aligned your goals with God's plan for your life, a synergy between you and God is created, and in the world of prayer, this becomes extremely powerful! — Robert Bakke

I have important business to get to. I plan to sulk all afternoon, followed, perhaps, by an evening of Byronic brooding and a nighttime of dissipation. — Cassandra Clare

If you're a teenager in Palo Alto launching an app, you know from the outset how you plan to finance your business. — Natalie Massenet

I think we didn't know what we were doing. I think the hallmark of a really good entrepreneur is that you're not really going to build one specific company. The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneur- ship - is you realize one day that you can't really work for anyone else. You have to start your own thing. It almost doesn't matter what that thing is. We had six different business plan changes, and then the last one was PayPal. — Max Levchin

As president, I would promote a Fair and Flat Tax plan, known as the 'EZ Tax.' My tax plan would be the largest tax cut in American history, reforming individual, business, and worker taxes. — Rand Paul

Putting in place the most ambitious and daring objective isn't enough, it should be backed with an intricate plan and executed like hell, this is what i call the superiority framework, from proximity the dots might seem random and chaotic but from a strategist view these dots are so beautifully interconnected forming greatness in an absolute form — Ahmed Elkadi

Don't wallow in brainstorming. Time spent fiddling with a business plan or filling up whiteboards with ideas is time that you could spend actually launching your business and seeing if the idea floats. Launching gives you real, solid feedback, instead of the imaginary 'what if' scenarios dreamed up in a conference room. — Naveen Jain

The man took my passport and asked me the purpose of my visit, I wrote in my daybook, 'To mourn,' and then, 'To try to live,' he gave me a look and asked if I would consider that business or pleasure, I wrote, 'Neither.' 'For how long do you plan to mourn and try to live?' I wrote, 'For the rest of my life. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait - put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features. — Derek Sivers

One: Make Congress and the White House obey the same Obamacare rules you do. Two: Obama let business off for a year; we want workers to be let off for a year too. That's the GOP plan. What part don't you like? — David Gelernter

Start a business plan for yourself, not for anyone else. — Alexa Von Tobel

Glamour's my thing. The glamour is what got me into this business in the first place. I lived in a fantasy world in order to survive. Now that I'm here, I plan to work it. That means playing the part
long, tight dresses, slick! Unless you rise to the occasion, Hollywood doesn't really exist. — Theresa Randle

The best lessons I've been taught is that you should definitely have a plan. Try to imagine yourself six months in advance, and always save your money. Because there are always going to be unintended expenses that are going to come up. Surprises always happen. — K. Guillory

Our sense of "open" is that the authority to make decisions about that gets distributed based on merit and understanding and participation and leadership, not solely on employment or a title or a business plan. Technical colleagues will define "open" as "open standards," "interoperable" - you can find it, search it, cut and paste it, view source, mix and match - all those things that we associate with text on the Web, that you can continue to do that with audio and video and whatever's next. — Mitchell Baker

You make the plans - otherwise you will die thinking it is not possible to plan to have time for work, for exercise, for sleep, for relaxation, for recreation, for eating, for entertainment, for love, for family, for spirituality, for friends, for personal reflection, for personal development, for business, for charity all in one life! — Archibald Marwizi

If you have time to write a business plan, you have time to prove the model. Just sayin. — Richie Norton

China's economy became more complex. By now there is a large number of small- and medium-sized companies that work quite differently from big, state-owned enterprises. They don't follow any long-term business plan and don't rent office space for years to come. They start out and need an office right away, for a week, a month or half a year, and they want to be among other entrepreneurs like themselves. — Zhang Xin

Well, I see myself in the same business but a lot more successful and doing more movies maybe behind the camera. I plan to do some growing in this industry and take it as far as I can. — Matthew McGrory

Everything I do and everything Pixar does is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period. — John Lasseter

If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there'd be millions of no-brained, harebrained, and otherwise dubiously brained individuals quitting their day jobs and hanging out their own shingles. Nobody would be left to round out the workforce and execute the business plan. — Bill Rancic

When we started NFL Films, there were no focus groups, there were no demographic studies, there were no surveys. Every decision that we made, we made with our hearts, not with our heads. And, in the very beginning, we really didn't even have a business plan. — Steve Sabol

Move away from the mid-set that the fulfillment of the organization's mission, vision, and strategic plan is only the work of leaders. — Sue Tetzlaff

In cooking - as in business and war - hope for the best but plan for the worst. — Timothy Ferriss

I know I can't plan in this business, but I'm going to keep going as long as I keep getting close ... So far, I feel lucky and infinitely grateful for the successes that I've had. I'm just going to keep working hard, and whatever happens, happens. — Aaron Lazar

Although Herbert Hoover in many ways prefigured him, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who first tried to create an explicit corporate state in America with his National Recovery Administration (NRA). With its fascist-style Blue Eagle emblem, the NRA coordinated big business and labor in a central plan, and outlawed competition. The NRA even employed vigilante groups to spy on smaller businesses and report if they violated the plan. Just as in Mussolini's Italy, the beneficiaries of the U.S. corporate state were - in addition to the government itself - established economic interest groups. NRA cheerleaders included the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bar Association, the United Mine Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and - above all - Gerard Swope of General Electric, who helped draft the NRA act. Only — Ludwig Von Mises

With the permanent elimination of this tax, farmers and business owners will have the sense of security they need to plan for the financial future of their business or farm and their family. — Doc Hastings

No idea for a new growth business ever comes fully shaped. When it emerges, it's half-baked, and it then goes through a process of becoming fully shaped. I've developed tests that I'm hoping can help entrepreneurs manage that shaping process, so that the business plan that comes out the other end has a very high probability of success. — Clayton Christensen

I always knew I wanted to start my own line. Nights and weekends, I would work on my business plan. — Chris Benz

Without a plan, even the most brilliant business can get lost. You need to have goals, create milestones and have a strategy in place to set yourself up for success. — Yogi Berra

We receive God's Will only in fragments; tiny fragments; one to each new now. It is our business to take them and piece them together, to fashion them into the design that is His and has been His from all eternity. What that design is we shall see only at our last moment. It will be perfect as God wills it to be perfect only if we live His Will in the now, the only fragment that is ours, the only fragment of God's plan that is allowed in our hands, the only fragment of Christ's life in us and our life in Christ that can be lived. But it is only by "gathering up these fragments, lest they be lost" that we can really live and attain life's only success - sainthood. — M. Raymond

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan. — Thomas Jefferson

The only thing I would say is, I think there's a lot of future value in Blackberry, but without experienced people who have run this type of business, and without a strategic plan, it would be really challenging. — John Sculley

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business. — Benjamin Franklin

Persons who reach the higher rungs in business management, selling, engineering, religious work, writing, acting & in every other pursuit get there by following conscientiously & continuously a plan for self-development & growth. — David J. Schwartz