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
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)
By losing your goal, you have lost your way (Nietzsche)
Management by objectives works – if you know the objectives. (Peter Drucker)
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.
“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)
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)
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.
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)
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.
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)
The best strategies are overturned by great opportunities.
When you get to the fork in the road, take it! (Berra)
Liquidity matters.
Investors need a way out.
Milestones matter.
You must plan for an exit.
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 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 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.
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 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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