Jon Taffer Quotes

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 love cooking, but I love the business, too. It's important because a lot of chefs forget the business side and have to shut down after six months.

Bar owners tend to be social rather than operators. Most bar owners do not manage their numbers. They do not have spreadsheets or reports to manage their budget, cost, or inventory. I would say 90% of independent bar owners do not even have a budget.

When you're finished, bars are not inherently profitable. You got to work at them to make them profitable.

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

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

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.

Your first job, as an owner and an entrepreneur, has to be to understand how the business is going to actually work.

I'm running a business.

I did a business in a box called College Pro Painters. They taught you how to paint houses, how to hire and fire, how to sell, how to deal with customers. You got a one-year franchise. It was the hardest year of my life in terms of hard work. I won manager of the year. It was very successful.

I've run several of my own small businesses in my life.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs think they need money to build the business faster when they actually haven't figured out the business equation yet.

My father built a small manufacturing business. I worked alongside him and saw firsthand the challenges that business owners face.

Artists shouldn't deal with business stuff; that's not what we're trained in, and most of us aren't good at it.

… good luck and good timing are huge components of outsized success in entrepreneurial endeavors. Lots of things have to go right, and the planets have to align; that certainly happened in Amazon’s case. Our timing turned out to be very good. And so you can’t sit down to write a business plan and say you’re going to build a multibillion-dollar corporation; that’s unrealistic.

In a business, you have a vision, and you follow the vision. You have to execute. And then you have to learn how to run a good business. And I think if you look at the characteristics of any successful fashion business, it's all about that.

Opening a business is going to be hard work, no matter what choices you make. If you decide to fall on your sword and just slog through all the work as an operator instead of an owner, then you take responsibility for the entire operation and the actions of the business.

Commerce was the best job I could ever have.

The Big Dream of any entrepreneur really has very little to do with the entrepreneur. If you truly love repairing automobiles, chances are, you'll be a lousy business owner. Likewise, if you are fascinated by debits and credits, the dream of building an accounting firm with you at the helm is probably best left unfulfilled.

An entrepreneur, whether man or woman, has to be willing to take help, whether financial or technical, to grow his or her business.

Most entrepreneurs come up with a product, or they come up with an idea and they think they can be successful with it. But if they don't know the financial side of their business and understand credit and working capital and what it takes money-wise, you can't be successful. The product is just a product.

As much as you need to know your operations, if you don't understand the finance side and how to do the business, you're never going to be successful. So you might be the best operator or visionary, but if you don't understand the finance side... I'm successful because I know the finance side, but I also know operations; it's not an accident.

Business books are generally read and written by people who aren't good at business.

Learning how to keep track of inventory and cash flow and creating an income statement and a balance sheet are great skills to learn for managing existing businesses.

I want to open a restaurant, and I want to start selling properties. I want to own some stock.