Liquidity Matterstm
N.R. Gordon & Company offers a broad range of value-added
financial consulting services that support and supplement the internal
resources of its client companies. 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 for!)
By losing your goal,
you have lost your way (Nietzsche)
If you find yourself
in a hole, stop digging. (Will Rogers)
Context matters.
A hot dog just doesn’t
taste the same without a ball game in front of it. (Charles Brown)
Money is good. More money is better.
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 essence of
business is risk.
The bigger the engine,
the bigger the potential for you to do something foolish with it. (Peter Nielsen)
Better to be on the
ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the
ground.
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!
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)
Success is where
preparation and opportunity meet. (Bobby
Unser)
We will either find a
way or make one. (Hannibal)
Assemble your advisors
early.
Many receive advice,
only the wise profit from it. (Harper
Lee)
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)
It’s all about communication!
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 Guerdon)
Reading is one thing; doing is something else. (Winthrop Fisher)
Every champion has a
coach.
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.
The quickest distance
between two points is rarely a straight line.
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.
Bad people sell you
bad companies. (Richard Reese, Executive
Chairman of the Board, Iron
Mountain)
A person who is nice
to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person.
Illegitimae 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 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)
The trouble with the
rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. (Tomlin)
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. (Archimedes)
Our freedom lies in
the questions we ask – and how we pursue them – but not in the answers awaiting
us. (Steven Strogatz)
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)
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.
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)
Planning is everything
. . . plans are nothing. (D.D. Eisenhower)
The best strategies
are overturned by great opportunities.
When you get to the
fork in the road, take it! (Berra)
Investors need a way
out.
Milestones matter.
You must plan for an
exit.
Big companies are
small companies that succeeded.
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.
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?
Paranoia is the most
political of mental illnesses. You need to
have enemies. (Jerrold Post)
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.
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 always
wrong. (Success is convincing the
customer that he’s wrong without losing him.)
Nothing costs nothing;
everything costs something! (Even nothing costs something!)
The cost of paper
clips doesn’t matter unless you manufacture paper clips.
Lowering your cost of
capital might be better than increasing earnings.
Leasing almost never
makes sense.
You can do up to four
things on the corners of your desk.
(Warning: This does not imply that you can do up to eight things on the
corners of an 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?
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