I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I did that in college. I did it when I carried my papers. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them, I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them. Before long, I probably knew more students than anybody in the university, and they recognized me and considered me their friend.

Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself.

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.

Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more.

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.