Liquidity Matterstm
N.R. Gordon & Company offers a broad range of value-added,
peer-to-peer, financial advisory and strategy consulting services. Representing
not only the client, but the client's point of view, N.R. Gordon & Company differentiates
itself from other advisors.
Quips and Quotes
Measured language more often wins the day
The battles are not
the war, and vice versa.
A goal is a dream with
a deadline (Napoleon Hill)
Having the will to win
is not enough. Everyone has that. What matters is having the will to prepare to
win. (Bobby Knight)
A good plan violently
executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. (George
S. Patton)
Simplicity is the
ultimate sophistication. (Leonardo DaVinci)
Luck is the residue of
design. (Branch Rickey)
Identify the problem
before you go about solving it.
You cannot delegate
planning to a planner. (G. Steiner)
If it’s
counter-intuitive, it’s probably because you don’t have enough experience to
know any better.
The best strategies
are overturned by great opportunities.
When you get to the
fork in the road, take it! (Berra)
Don’t forget to fly
the plane. (Known as
“the first rule of aviation,” it should be the first rule of business.)
When you are up to
your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remember your original mission was
to drain the swamp. (Note: You
have no idea how often this quip is searched!)
The big difference
between entrepreneurial starters, vs. entrepreneurial finishers is the ability
of the latter to decide what not to do. (Victor Cheng)
Context matters.
A hot dog just doesn’t
taste the same without a ball game in front of it.
(Charles Brown)
A nickel is a lot of
money when you don’t have one. (Ben Rose’s grandmother)
Cash flow never lies.
When they say it’s not
about the money, it’s about the money.
“Net income” is an
accounting fiction.
The bigger the engine, the bigger the potential for you to do
something foolish with it. (Peter
Nielsen)
I always say I’ll take
a smaller piece of something big, than a larger piece of something small.
(James J. Flanagan III)
No one thing ever sunk
a boat. Usually it’s what you do trying to fix the first thing that causes the
real problem.
Generalizations don’t
mean a damn, including this one! (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
Conclusions can be
inconclusive.
Do what you can, with
what you have, where you are. (T. Roosevelt)
When you’re at the end
of your rope, tie a knot and hang on!
If you find yourself
in a hole, stop digging. (Will Rogers)
100% of the shots not
taken don't go in. (Gretzsky).
Action overcomes fear.
The more I practice,
the luckier I get. (Attributed
to a number of professional golfers, including Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and
Lee Trevino)
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of
enthusiasm. (Churchill)
Failure defeats
losers, failure inspires winners. (Robert T. Kiyosaki)
We will either find a
way or make one. (Hannibal)
Assemble your advisors
early.
A person is born with
a liking for profit. (Xun Zi)
It's what you do that
determines how you feel.
We are what we
repeatedly do. (Aristotle)
All writing depends on the generosity of the reader. (Alberto Manguel)
An object’s worth ultimately has to do with telling stories. (Boston Phoenix, quoting Josh Glenn)
If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on public relations. (Bill Gates)
Your banker doesn't
understand your competitor's business, either.
Nothing is without
precedent. (Robert Geurdon)
The past will teach
you the future.
Reading is one thing; doing is something else. (Winthrop Fisher)
Every champion has a
coach.
You can’t build a
reputation on what you’re going to do. (Henry Ford)
What you need is not
determined by what you can afford.
You can't always get
what you want. (Rolling Stones)
Greed kills.
Terms are more
important than price.
Life is a negotiation.
You cannot reason with
the unreasonable.
The pendulum stops in
the middle when the clock breaks.
Business is a
combination of war and sport. (Andre Maurois)
How you play the game
pretty much determines whether you win or lose.
How you fight is how
you are.
All relationships are
adversarial.
A roadmap isn’t any
good if you don’t know where you are. (Brian Day-Lewis)
The difference between
fantasy and vision is execution.
Nobody believes
simulations other than the guy who did it. (Stefan Siegel)
The best way to
predict the future is to invent it.
A compass never points exactly north.
You cannot tell which
way the train went by looking at the track.
The easy way is always
mined.
Trust triggers
transactions.
A person who is nice
to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
Never give up. Never
give up. Never give up. (attributed to Winston Churchill in various forms)
Never bet against the
master.
Never interrupt your
enemy when he is making a mistake. (Napoleon
Bonaparte)
Never make the same
mistake twice.
Never sit with someone
you know.
Never negotiate with
your future boss.
Never invest in
anything that eats.
If you're riding ahead
of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
(Will Rogers)
The further backward
you can look, the farther forward you can see. (Churchill)
Don't look back -
something might be gaining on you. (Satchel Paige)
Never look back unless
you are planning to go that way. (Thoreau)
Progress is never made
by going backwards.
You can't improve what
you can't measure.
Not everything
important can be measured, and not everything that can be measured is
important. (Einstein)
To measure is to know. (Lord Kelvin)
The only true wisdom
is in knowing you know nothing. (Socrates)
Our freedom lies in
the questions we ask – and how we pursue them – but not in the answers awaiting
us. (Steven Strogatz)
You cannot sustain
“cute.”
You cannot control the
wind.
Sailing is about
working with the wind and not against it.
What you did yesterday
won't work tomorrow.
Imitation is suicide. (Emerson)
Satisfaction is death.
Classics are classics
for a reason.
Do not expect great
returns doing what has already been done.
Do tomorrow what
everyone else will be doing the day after tomorrow.
The time to repair the
roof is when the sun is shining. (John
F. Kennedy)
Why procrastinate
today when you can procrastinate tomorrow?
Why procrastinate
tomorrow when you can procrastinate today?
Do what you gotta, so you can do what you wanna. (Charles Joseph Savage, Jr.)
A spider never gets
caught in its own web.
When applying for a
job at UPS, don't send your resume via FedEx.
Liquidity matters.
Investors need a way
out.
Milestones matter.
You must plan for an
exit.
A grain of sand isn’t
a beach, but it is the beginning of a beach.
Big companies are
small companies that succeeded. (Robert Townsend)
When a team outgrows
individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a
reality. (Joseph Paterno)
Most startups fail.
If you want to
succeed, spend time talking to those who have failed.
If at first the idea
is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. (Einstein)
Long-term is just a
series of short terms strung together.
Long-term sales growth
= current sales + market growth + change in market share. It’s no more complicated that that.
Demand commitment.
Trust the process.
The process is not the
purpose.
You cannot make it
rain by washing your car.
You cannot
revolutionize anything quietly.
If you don’t have a
competitive advantage, don’t compete (Jack Welch)
If the enemy is within
range, so are you.
Market share is a zero
sum game.
Is your competitor out
to lunch or eating your lunch?
Wal-Mart will not
expand to accommodate your invention.
Your competitor has a
soon-to-be-released secret product, also.
The secret
of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are
undecided. (Casey Stengel)
There are no born
leaders. Convert the ordinary person to your right (or, depending on your
political views, to your left).
Hierarchy is a mutual
contract between leaders and subordinates.
Leadership is not
about titles, positions or flowcharts. (John
Maxwell)
Balance what you need
done with what your people want to do. (Dharmesh Shah)
If you put fences
around people, you get sheep.
All companies claim to
be customer focused.
The five most
effective words in business, love and friendship are “what can I do for you?”
The customer is almost
always wrong. (Success is convincing
the customer that he’s wrong without losing him.)
If I had asked people
what they wanted, they would have said, “a faster horse.” (attributed to Henry Ford)
Nothing costs nothing;
everything costs something! (Even nothing costs something!)
The cost of paper
clips doesn’t matter unless you manufacture paper clips.
Most of us get by just
by saving other people’s paper clips.
Lowering your cost of
capital can be a better choice than increasing earnings.
Leasing almost never
makes sense.
You can do up to four
things on the corners of your desk.
(Warning: Do not infer that you can do up to eight things on the corners
of your octagonal desk!)
There's an 80/20 rule
for everything. (Or perhaps there’s an
80/20 rule for 80% of everything.)
20% of your time
should solve 80% of the problem.
The key forces
affecting your business can be described in twenty-five words or less.
Who will reimburse you
for your inefficiencies?
Why does a pizza come
faster than the police?
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