If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.
Interpretation
Taking initiative is crucial for the success of a business.
This quote by B. C. Forbes emphasizes the importance of being proactive in managing and running a business. It suggests that if a business owner does not actively take charge and drive their enterprise forward, they risk losing it to competitors who are more assertive and forward-thinking.
In practice
During a business seminar to inspire entrepreneurs.
How you start is important, very important, but in the end it is how you finish that counts. It is easier to be a self-starter than a self-finisher. The victor in the race is not the one who dashes off swiftest but the one who leads at the finish. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter in life's race. In America we breed many hares but not so many tortoises.
I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making.
Jealousy is an inner consciousness of one's own inferiority. It is a mental cancer.
He is a wise man who seeks by every legitimate means to make all the money he can honestly, for money can do so many worthwhile things in this world, not merely for one's self but for others. But he is an unmitigated fool who imagines for a moment that it is more important to make the money than to make it honestly. One of the advantages of possessing money is that it facilitates one's independence and mental attitude. The man head over heels in debt is more slave than independent.
Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving.
Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity's door if you ardently wish to enter.
If you develop a product that gets what the customer is trying to get done, you don't have to advertise; people will just pull it into their lives.
Not adding value is the same as taking it away.
Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a few days and you'll be thin for life.
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.
A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.
It's not about me, it's about you, the customer. And if I am effective in making what I do about you, and I can enhance you and elevate you, you will support me forever.
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