Top 70 Small Business Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: Know your product better than anyone. Know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.”

— Dave Thomas

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Business Quotes, Opportunity Quotes, Financial Success Quotes, Making Money Quotes

2. “Luck is the dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”

— Ray Kroc

Also featured in: Motivational Quotes, Hard Work Quotes, Action Quotes, Prosperity Quotes, Inspirational Business Quotes

3. “There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

— Sam Walton

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Business Quotes, Inspirational Business Quotes, Satisfaction Quotes, Quotes About Work

4. “Treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”

— Stephen R. Covey

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Business Quotes, Empowerment Quotes

5. “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.”

— Scott Belsky

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Business Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Success, Motivational Work Quotes, Impact Quotes

6. “A business is simply an idea to make other people’s lives better.”

— Richard Branson

Also featured in: Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, Prosperity Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Business Quotes

7. “There is only one boss. The customer.”

— Sam Walton

Also featured in: Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Work, Service Quotes, Making Money Quotes

8. “Never take your eyes off the cash flow because it’s the life blood of business.”

— Richard Branson

Also featured in: Strategy Quotes, Inspirational Business Quotes, Quotes About Money

9. “If you want a solid future, you need to create it. You can take charge of your future only when you take control of your income source. You need your own business.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

Also featured in: Hustle Quotes, Financial Success Quotes, Professional Growth Quotes, Making Money Quotes

10. “Learn to sell. In business you’re always selling: to your prospects, investors and employees. To be the best salesperson put yourself in the shoes of the person to whom you’re selling. Don’t sell your product. Solve their problems.”

— Mark Cuban

Also featured in: Sales Motivational Quotes, Making Money Quotes

11. “There has never been a better time in the history of time than right now to start a business.”

— Gary Vaynerchuk

Also featured in: Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, New Beginnings Quotes, Financial Success Quotes

12. “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”

— Madam C. J. Walker

Also featured in: Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes, Hard Work Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Women, Hustle Quotes, Opportunity Quotes

13. “One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Work, Service Quotes

14. “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.”

— Mark Cuban

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Business Quotes, Work Hard Quotes

15. “Starting your own business is like riding a roller coaster. There are highs and lows and every turn you take is another twist. The lows are really low, but the highs can be really high. You have to be strong, keep your stomach tight, and ride along with the roller coaster that you started.”

— Lindsay Manseau

Also featured in: Startup Quotes, Inspirational Business Quotes, Challenges Quotes

16. “To launch a business means successfully solving problems. Solving problems means listening.”

— Richard Branson

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Business Quotes, Problem-Solving Quotes, Encouraging Quotes

17. “A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.”

— Richard Branson

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Creativity Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Business Quotes

18. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.”

— Brian Tracy

Also featured in: Inspirational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Business Quotes, Service Quotes, Helping Quotes

19. “You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything.”

— Beth Comstock

Also featured in: Motivational Quotes for Work, Sales Motivational Quotes, Storytelling Quotes, Marketing Quotes

20. “Doing more with less, is a crucial principle to learn; especially if you’re going to be in business in this rapidly changing world.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

Also featured in: Making Money Quotes

21. “Sales fixes everything.”

— Guy Kawasaki

Also featured in: Sales Motivational Quotes, Making Money Quotes

22. “Activity equals results. If you want to increase your success, increase your activity.”

— Brian Tracy

Also featured in: Prosperity Quotes, Friday Quotes for Work, Coaching Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes

23. “True passion attracts. If you have passion in your business, the right people will be attracted to your team.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

Also featured in: Passion Quotes

24. “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.”

— Sam Walton

Also featured in: Business Quotes, Service Quotes, Excellence Quotes, Positive Work Quotes

25. “What helps people, helps business.”

— Leo Burnett

Also featured in: Common Sense Quotes, Marketing Quotes

26. “People buy from people they trust and they trust people they like.”

— Garrison Wynn

Also featured in: Common Sense Quotes, Reputation Quotes, Personal Branding Quotes, Quotes About Trust

27. “We’re all working together; that’s the secret.”

— Sam Walton

Also featured in: Friday Quotes for Work, Collaboration Quotes, Quotes About Work, Tuesday Work Quotes

28. “Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.”

— Gary W. Keller

Also featured in: Strategy Quotes, Professional Growth Quotes, Goal Setting Quotes

29. “Look after the customer and the business will take care of itself.”

— Ray Kroc

Also featured in: Service Quotes, Friday Quotes for Work, Sales Motivational Quotes

30. “If you believe your product or service can fulfill a true need, it’s your moral obligation to sell it.”

— Zig Ziglar

Also featured in: Sales Motivational Quotes, Making Money Quotes, Marketing Quotes

31. “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.”

— Ray Kroc

Also featured in: Friday Quotes for Work, Financial Success Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes

32. “To succeed in sales, simply talk to lots of people every day. And here’s what’s exciting: There are lots of people!”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Hustle Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes, Making Money Quotes

33. “Network marketing is the big wave of the future. It’s taking the place of franchising, which now requires too much capital for the average person.”

— Jim Rohn

Also featured in: Sales Motivational Quotes, Making Money Quotes, Marketing Quotes

34. “Systems run the business and people run the systems.”

— Michael E. Gerber

35. “For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.”

— Zig Ziglar

Also featured in: Financial Success Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes

36. “Activity equals results. If you want to increase your success, increase your activity. Increase contact with customers. The more people you contact, the higher your sales will be because of the law of probabilities.”

— Brian Tracy

Also featured in: Friday Quotes for Work, Sales Motivational Quotes, Making Money Quotes

37. “The biggest mistake you could ever make is to think you work for anyone but yourself.”

— Brian Tracy

Also featured in: Financial Success Quotes, Personal Branding Quotes, Mistake Quotes

38. “Build your own business team. Survival in business requires a synergy of skills.”

— Richard Branson

Also featured in: Strategy Quotes, Quotes About Skills

39. “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.”

— Peter F. Drucker

Also featured in: Strategy Quotes, Friday Quotes for Work

40. “Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.”

— Sam Walton

Also featured in: Service Quotes, Fulfillment Quotes, Satisfaction Quotes, Expectations Quotes

41. “The way to get ahead is to start now. If you start now, you will know a lot next year that you don’t know now and that you would not have known next year if you had waited.”

— William Feather

Also featured in: New Beginnings Quotes, Lifelong Learning Quotes, Time Management Quotes, Progress Quotes

42. “Sell the benefit, not your company or the product. People buy results, not features.”

— Jay Abraham

Also featured in: Strategy Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes, Marketing Quotes

43. “Big doors swing on little hinges.”

— W. Clement Stone

Also featured in: Growth Quotes

44. “People imitate their leader. Lead by example.”

— Barbara Corcoran

Also featured in: Friday Quotes for Work

45. “The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.”

— Roy H. Williams

Also featured in: Service Quotes, Friday Quotes for Work, Satisfaction Quotes, Expectations Quotes

46. “It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have. Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.”

— Gary Vaynerchuk

Also featured in: Reputation Quotes, Marketing Quotes, Personal Branding Quotes

47. “Help young people. Help small guys. Because small guys will be big. Young people will have the seeds you bury in their minds, and when they grow up, they will change the world.”

— Jack Ma

Also featured in: Encouraging Quotes for Students, Inspirational Quotes for Students, Quotes About Kids

48. “If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.”

— Sam Walton

Also featured in: Service Quotes, Common Sense Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes

49. “It’s not in the dreaming, it’s in the doing.”

— Mark Cuban

Also featured in: Friday Quotes for Work, Boldness Quotes, Financial Success Quotes, Monday Morning Quotes

50. “Consistency breeds familiarity, familiarity breeds confidence, and confidence breeds sales.”

— Jay Conrad Levinson

Also featured in: Financial Success Quotes, Sales Motivational Quotes