Quotes from Michael Gerber

Everywhere you turn, there are lists and statistics. Any business, any sport, any hobby - we will try to categorize who is the best at some component of that endeavor. It's part human nature and part technology, since we have been conditioned to have access to answers and trivial problems at our fingertips.

Your target market and their demographics realistically need to be in alignment with your own beliefs and morals, or you may have trouble reaching out to them - or keep them once others have entered the market.

Empirical and observational data along with a healthy dash of intuition often have to be combined as business owners begin to look outward, not inward, at what solutions they can provide to their customers.

A true entrepreneurial enterprise begins with a big idea - a unique way to solve a customer's problem. Your customer, after all, is the only justification for creating a company in the first place. Without a big, transformational idea, you can't produce a great result for your customer.

The entrepreneur rarely thinks in terms of what he or she wants, but dreams about results - always results and nothing but results - that can solve someone else's problem or contribute to making someone else's life better.

The greatest business people I've met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.

For decades, I've spoken of McDonald's as one of the premier examples of how to build a company, scale it, and ultimately sell it.

The number of businesses that fold due to bad partnerships is staggering. In some cases, they are charlatans, in others inept business people, and others find themselves unable to scale with any growth.

If there is one thing that offers challenges to small companies as they start to grow and expand, it is the hiring process... every single area. The issues that can arise run the full spectrum, from 'finding good help' to that ubiquitous catch-all 'training' and everything in between.

Certainly, the human race can be fickle, and times do change, but overall, the barriers to bringing a product to market - and understanding what 'the market' wants - have remained unchanged.

'Product life' is measured in months, not years, and as soon as you introduce a 'product,' understand that others in your business are going to reverse engineer it to duplicate the results after they circumnavigate the patents, the trademarks, and the intellectual property.

Most people view coffee and lunch as personal time, not deal-making time. Unless the person you're meeting understands that this is a working lunch, then they may not even think that this is a serious business conversation.

The Big Dream of any entrepreneur really has very little to do with the entrepreneur. If you truly love repairing automobiles, chances are, you'll be a lousy business owner. Likewise, if you are fascinated by debits and credits, the dream of building an accounting firm with you at the helm is probably best left unfulfilled.

McDonalds. Apple. Starbucks. They were all small businesses, owned by entrepreneurs and people with vision.

I'm not here to tell you what your average needs to be, but it would seem to me that one way to protect yourself, as an entrepreneur, from the dreaded average is to understand what that looks like in your industry, your business, and your personal life and take the steps to be above average.

If you expect to grow your business, you need to be plotting out your schedules days in advance. Until you get that most basic of steps orchestrated, you can never get to the critical steps that I outline in any one of dozens of books.

Unlike what most people think, entrepreneurs are not special people who know how to do special things that others don't. Entrepreneurs can be made, because we're all born with the potential - that special human quality - to create.

Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives.

A true business opportunity is the that an entrepreneur invents to grow him or herself. Not to work in, but to work on.

If opening your own business is the dream, then it must start with a Dream - not only to understand what it is that you want to do, but also, how you are going to build something better than the same chaotic environment you just left.

Entrepreneurship requires an unvanquished spirit of curiosity, an openness to learning, a letting go of OldCo so you're free to create NewCo.

You did not disturb Hemingway before noon on Monday through Friday – he was in his office, writing the books that made the lifestyle possible.

Understand this - as a new company, if you don't know how to get interested prospects into your company, then you don't have a company. At the same time, if you, as a owner, have to drive every lead into your business, then you need a real lead generation strategy.

It is one thing to seek out new ways to grow your company and new potential streams of income from new services or products, but it is quite another to take on responsibilities that are far from your primary job as Entrepreneur.