Harvey Mackay Quotes

It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice. You don't know who your top customers will be five years from now or where you will be in 10 years. You may have a fancy title, but you will always need help from the people around you.

A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.

You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.

Ideas without action are worthless.

Life doesn't come with an instruction manual for success, so Darren Hardy has written one for you. The Compound Effect shows you how small, smart choices add up to transform your life.

If you believe, as I do, that your employees truly are your most valuable asset, you will do whatever you can to help them do their jobs as well as possible.

You don't need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation, and watch your results improve.

A dream is always a bargain no matter what you pay for it

The annals of business are filled with stories of companies that thought they had it made and could milk their enterprises without having to bother about improving their products or services. It's amazing how fast they found their markets disappearing.

Exploring how you could make a bad situation worse can sometimes tell you what not to do.

Most business problems can be solved if you can teach yourself to look beyond the dollar sign.

Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding.

Direct your energy toward achieving a goal, and tackle the problems with an emphasis on edging closer to a successful result.

One mistake will never kill you. The same mistake over and over again will.

When you kill a little time, you may be murdering opportunity.

You can't be passionate when you feel like it. You have to be passionate about your job, product or cause all the time. There's no off switch on a tiger.

The sale begins when the customer says yes.

It's the oldest, corniest piece of advice in the world but it still works. The strongest networks are built on friendship. Be a friend not only to the people in your network, but to the people who matter the most to the people in your network.

If you wish others to believe in you, you must first convince them that you believe in them.

The life of a startup is full of ups and downs, an emotional roller coaster ride that you can't quite imagine if you've spent your whole career in a corporation.

Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.

Pessimism doesn't grow your business or even maintain the status quo. The pessimists on your staff make the job harder for everyone around them. They make difficulties out of opportunities.

Happiness can be thought, taught and caught... but not bought.

As you schedule individual tasks, give yourself a cushion. Mark the due date a few days ahead of the actual deadline so you have time to deal with changes or last-minute emergencies.

Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and you will accomplish your object.

When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It's all a matter of perspective.

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and yours may be in the hands of the receptionist.

Southwest Airlines is successful because the company understands it's a customer service company. It also happens to be an airline.

Don't confuse visibility with credibility.

Ego stops you from getting things done and getting people to work with you. That's why I firmly believe that ego and success are not compatible.

Don't fall in love with your wit. Your cleverly turned phrase may not, as you hope, show off how much gray matter you have, especially if the phrase is at someone else's expense.

Deadlines aren't bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it.

"You learn when you listen. You earn when you listen - not just money, but respect.

Being rich isn't about money. Being rich is a state of mind. Some of us, no matter how much money we have, will never be free enough to take time to stop and eat the heart of the watermelon. And some of us will be rich without ever being more than a paycheck ahead of the game.

A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves.

One of the most difficult things in life for any individual or business is to accept and adopt change.

Expect to make some mistakes when you try new and different approaches. Sometimes colossal failures lead to spectacular successes.

Failure is not falling down but staying down.

Just because an employee does things differently doesn't mean he or she won't do the job right or as well. If you establish expectations of the goal and the standards to follow, then methodology shouldn't be an issue.

It's way easier to stay in the comfort zone, especially when things are going good than to go out on a limb and take some risks. My philosophy is exactly the opposite: Sometimes it's risky not to take a risk.

Ethical decisions ensure that everyone's best interests are protected. When in doubt, don't.

The first successful salesperson was not a man, it was Eve.

Look in the mirror every day and say, I am in charge. You might not have control over every phase of your life, but you have more control than you realize, and you are responsible for your own happiness and success.

Many people may listen, but few people actually hear.

Many, perhaps most, people who lose their jobs are mistaken about the reason for which they lost their jobs. Some will say that they're failures, others that their boss had it in for them, and others yet that they were sure their career ended because of a stupid faux pas they made at the company picnic.

No one ever went broke by saying no too often.

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.

No company has a permanent consumer franchise. No one has the only game in town. The never-ending cycle of destruction and change inherent in a capitalist economy always provides new opportunities for those with determination, goals and concentration.