Tidbits

I tend to save various quotes and pearls of wisdom that I come across on a many-page running document that I can pull up and read when I need some inspiration. Some can find their way into a blog post and others are so well said that they need nothing more – none are mine but they all can relate to our licensing world… so here are a few to start those wheels turning…

• No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or get rich in business by being a conformist.
  - J. Paul Getty

• Have more than one good idea handy.

• Remember, you can’t SELL anything to anyone; however you need to be there when people are ready to buy.

• Nice people can still have a competitive mindset.

• Markets and profits have changed with the new retailer driven market. Getting an item into Target used to be a very lucrative proposition; you could earn thousands of dollars over a period of several years. Now, you will often make only hundreds because they have beat the wholesale prices down and cranked their profit percentages up, and the only person left making decent money is the last one selling it.

• While the calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1.5 tons.
  - Popular Mechanics article, 1949

• You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
  - Henry Ford
  

• Most artists exhibiting at trade shows do not make back the cost of exhibiting.

• Small business is uniquely different from big business in just about every way - they are two entirely different animals. But there is an incessant parade of articles, books, papers, and research of giant businesses with the intent of showing us small business people what we can look like if we grow up and become a giant.  Most of us don't want to be a giant.

• Inspiration usually comes during the work, rather than before it."
  - Madeleine L'Engle, American writer

• 10 years ago I thought “I can’t wait to sign up to something… so they can tell me what to do, and give me bus, and give me a tour so I can sing” and finally realized… that doesn’t happen. They’re waiting for you to say “this is what I’m going to do and this is how I’m going to do it.”
  - musician Jason Mraz

• Ten percent of all the photos ever taken were taken in the last 12 months.

• You have ten seconds to get someone’s attention – don’t waste it by asking them what they need – tell them instead.

• “I’m looking for someone to fill that hole in the market.”
    - Simon Cowell about the X Factor

• Each year over 30,000 people graduate from art schools in just the U.S.

• And of course that old Wayne Gretsky standby – so overused but so true:
  “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

Any thoughts or have any to add? Let's hear 'em...