Memorable Quotes

"The Customer Comes Second: Put Your People First and Watch 'em Kick Butt."

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."

"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."

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

"Employees will only complain or make suggestions three times on the average without a response. After that they conclude that if they don't keep quiet they will be thought to be troublemakers or that management doesn't care."

"But I like to think that a lot of managers and executives trying to solve problems miss the forest for the trees by forgetting to look at their people -- not at how much more they can get from their people or how they can more effectively manage their people. I think they need to look a little more closely at what it's like for their people to come to work there every day."

"Best Efforts will not substitute for knowledge."

""You put together the best team that you can with the players you've got, and replace those who aren't good enough."

"The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expecting a different result."

"Dream more than others think practical…Expect more than others think possible."

"You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That's the mark of a true professional. Professionalism has nothing to do with getting paid for your services."

"Slowness to change usually means fear of the new."

"At IBM everybody sells! Every employee has been trained to think that the customer comes first -- everybody from the CEO, to the people in finance, to the receptionists, to those who work in manufacturing."

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability."

"Over 70% of people leave their jobs because of the way they are led."

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

"It's customers that made Dell great in the first place, and if we're smart enough and quick enough to listen to customer needs, we'll succeed."

"Our Policy: Rule 1 - The customer is always right! Rule 2 - If the customer is ever wrong, reread rule 1."

"Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you."

"This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back."

"If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours."

"For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We're in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base."

"Customers don't expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong."

"Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business."

"The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer."

"In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want."

"Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction…you must improve."

"Even if you have the empathy and the passion and you address the customer's problem, you haven't really given good customer service in total. You haven't done that until you have eliminated the problem that caused her to call in the first place."

"As we go forward, I hope we're going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work."

"The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential."

"Technology is always evolving, and companies…can't be afraid to take advantage of change."

"Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late."

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic."

"One of the key implementation issues that must be addressed is how to overcome a corporate culture that is lacking or even negative toward risk management.""

"There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment - and you start to decline."

"It's through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we've always mapped our path at Dell. There's always an opportunity to make a difference."

"A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation."

"The contour of the land is an aid to an army; sizing up opponents to determine victory, assessing dangers and distances, is the proper course of action for military leaders. Those who do battle knowing these will win, those who do battle without knowing these will lose."

"Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes…but no plans."

"Measure twice, cut once."