Bruce Halle quotes: the late billionaire founder of Discount Tire talks about business, customers, referrals, morals, and more.
“This is America, the land of opportunity.”
“Go forth into this land and make your dreams come true.”
“Tell the truth at all times to build solid relationships. Your word has to be your bond. Complete honesty in little things is not a little thing at all.”
“Do what you love, love what you do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”
“Keep your ideals close to your heart.”
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. There is no magic formula for being a success. It takes hard work. Hard work is not a bad thing. Sure, natural talent can make a big difference. But show me a natural .300 hitter in MLB, and I’ll show you someone who bangs the ball until their hands bleed trying to keep that stroke honed. Ask any surgeon about how much sleep they got for the eight to 10 years it took them to get through medical school, internship, and residency. Ask any concert pianist how much practice it takes to perform a 40-minute piano concerto from memory. All these gigs take more than magic hands. It takes iron determination and lots of hard, hard work. The harder you work, the luckier you’ll get.”
“There’s nothing wrong with stealing a good idea.”
“Everyone has an unbreakable contract to pay forward to the next customer, the next employee, and the next generation.”
“Negative thoughts are a waste of time.”
“Honesty, ethics, integrity, values, morals – all mean the same thing. In my estimation, you can interchange them, because they all convey the single attribute that determines whether a person or an organization can be trusted.”
“Be grateful. Gratitude should be a continuous attitude. It’s very disheartening to see a decline in the use of ‘thank you’ by so many. When I hold doors open for people, I seldom hear a thank you. When I go shopping and buy something, I’m usually the one saying, ‘Thank you for serving me!'”
“There are really just five simple lessons to life: be honest, work hard, have fun, be grateful, and pay it forward.”
“When you have the opportunity to do something kind or helpful for someone who doesn’t expect it, take it! It’s even better when the recipient doesn’t know who is responsible. We all have enough time and resources to lend a hand. You might even make someone’s day.”
“Find something to like in everyone.”
“It’s sometimes better to be lucky than smart, because you’re never that smart.”
“My high school academic record would make you think I wasn’t smart enough. I have those records and, once in a while when I really feel like punishing myself, I look at them. It’s terrible.”
“I learned hard work from my father who struggled through the Depression to support our family. His work ethic has always served as an inspiration to me and I believe that my success is rooted in his outstanding example.”
“I think of myself as an ordinary guy who goes to work every day and has been lucky enough to live as long as I have, and I have been blessed to have beautiful people around me. People sometimes say, ‘Gee, how did you do what you do? How did you build the company?'”
“Initially, when I was starting the company, I was 30 years old. I was married. We had two children. I was just trying to make a living, you know, trying to buy bread and milk and pay the rent. That’s all. I started that way.”
“I started with only six tires.”
“You do the things that anybody did when they started a business. You sweep the floors. You wash the windows. You clean the bathrooms. You talk to all the customers. You create some advertising programs. You pay the rent and try and make it work, and little by little, all the pieces kind of come together.”
“We gave away geraniums, watermelons – anything for some goodwill.”
“When you get somebody else’s store, you are getting their reputation, too.”
“We’ve been successful all these years without outside counsel. So why do we need it? Let me put it another way. Years ago when we were a much younger company, and had 10 or 15 stores, no capital, and were on the brink of being in business or not, no outside people were running in to advise me and help me. But after you get big and successful, they all want to.”
“Be fair, be truthful, work hard, be there on time, and help people.”
“Success comes from focusing on what each person owes to his family, to future employees, and to the next customer coming in the door.”
“If they would have kept their mouths shut and not talked about it, I probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. But they were sending people up to me and people would come in the store and I would take good care of them, give them a good deal and they would tell other people. And that’s kind of how we grew.”
“Be prepared to work hard, probably over a long period, to build momentum. Create a team of people that will take care of each other and work together to take care of the customer. Do whatever you can to turn a transaction into a relationship. Worry about the customer first and the spreadsheet last. And don’t forget to have fun.”
“We keep trying to take our message somewhere it hasn’t been, and make it clearer for everybody. We’re working on that constantly.”
“The NASCAR sponsorships are great for us because NASCAR has fans, both men and women, all over the country where we have stores. When we have a race car outside the store, everybody stops to look at it. Parents put the kids in it and take pictures. It’s a great attraction, and we think the marketing cost is reasonable.”
“Treat others the way you would want to be treated.”
“Our country gains strength when forces join.”
“Stick with what you do best.”
“Everybody wants a deal.”
“What can I do for you today?”
Next, success lessons from KFC founder, Harland Sanders.
