Tilman J. Fertitta Quotes

Know the business; you need to know the business side of things.

When I first came into baseball, people didn't want to hear that a team was a business. But it is. And the better the business is run, the healthier the team on the field is going to be.

I couldn't sell water in a desert. I have no business acumen. I can tell you why you have no business acumen, and I can tell you why your project may or may not work, but I have no ability to make money.

For resourceful tech founders, finding capital is rarely a problem; making the best use of it is another story. A few years slinging pepperoni pies and chicken wings - on tiny margins and with minimal investment - might not be the worst fiscal training.

No matter what business you're in, business is business, and financing and money are critical. I would have made a lot fewer mistakes if I had more schooling in that area.

The business end of business has never interested me.

Filmmaking is a business and at the bottom line people who don't make fiscally responsible decisions end up going into another line of work.

I consider a merchant someone who has a certain intuition and instinct, and - very important - knows how to run a business, knows the numbers.

Most people who get into the business are social animals by nature, but do they have the financial abilities to manage a business? A great bar owner has both.

I would've liked to have been a better businessman when I was younger. And of course, I couldn't, because it wasn't part of my atmosphere. I never lived with accountants, I never lived with lawyers.

You have to manage money. Particularly with market economies. You may have a great product, but if your bottom line goes bust, then that's it.

You've got to know business before you go to show business.

If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

I was an economics major, which I enjoyed because I had a good business sense.

What do you need to succeed in business? You need the ability to think critically and communicate, and those things you can get just as easily out of a philosophy degree.

In this business, you don't have to be an architect or an engineer or a brick layer. But you have to understand how the money flows. That you can only understand if you're on the site.

This industry is 90 percent business, 10 percent talent.

To the general public, show business may just mean the artistic part, but the dollar and cents element is the reality every performer has to face.

I was embarrassed when a businessman friend asked, 'What's the yearly budget of your talk show? What's the per-episode budget?' And I looked at him with these blank, typical-model eyes and said, 'I don't know.' I call myself a businesswoman, and I don't know that?

One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.

I'm no dummy. I have a good sense of the business end of this game.

One of the degrees I have is in business, and I was a healthcare administrator that ran a 365-bed skilled nursing facility for years and generated several million dollars a year profit for them. So I have a background in business.

I have millions of dollars, and I don't know finance. I've had some bad things happen in my career. I've got to educate myself. I sit down with my finance guy once a month and go over everything, line by line.

You know what kind of companies generally survive? Companies that make more money than they spend. I know, duh, right?

You might not be the greatest rapper or singer, but the businessman always outlasts the talent.