‘Business is business. Want a friend? Get a dog.’ This is only one of the eight great business quotes which Michael Twelftree lives his life by. Discover the other seven and find out their significance in this snippet of an interview between Dale Beaumont and Michael. Co-founder of Two Hands Wines, an Adelaide based company which today exports over 15,000 cases of wine per year.
Is there a significant quote or saying which you live your life by?
There are many quotes that I live by. Some are from close friends and family and others I have made myself. These are a few of my favourites:
- ‘Bulls and bears make money, pigs make shit.’ This quote is from our east coast USA importer’s father, Hal Sanders. It inspires me to play the game hard and seriously, or take my bat and ball and go home. I loved this saying so much that I named our Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon blend ‘The Bull and the Bear’ after it.
- ‘Hello costs you nothing.’ At the age of nine I was in the car with my father as we were driving out of a car park, and he spent a considerable amount of time talking with the car park attendant as we paid for our ticket. When we drove off I asked him why he’d spent so much time talking with the attendant, and he said, ‘Hello costs you nothing’. This shows the value of building rapport and how you can do it just by communicating with someone.
- ‘Business is business. Want a friend? Get a dog.’ I love this quote from my business partner, Richard Mintz. He is very good at making the tough decisions in our business and believes that tough decisions are needed if you want to succeed. In other words ‘This is business, it is not personal’.
- ‘Profit is not a dirty word.’ This one is from me. I love Australia so much, the climate, the culture, but I will never understand why people here tend to associate money with evil. You hear so many people criticise businesspeople for their supposed corruptness and their underhanded dealings just to make a buck or two. This is a gross generalisation and something that people need to get over if they want to succeed in life.
- ‘Good things happen to good people.‘ This is a quote that I hold dear to me. My friend Anthony Ingerson once said it to me and it made so much sense. It taught me that in order to have success you must be good to those around you.
- ‘Your first loss is your best loss.‘ I think this is an important quote in business and again it comes from Hal Sanders. It means that you are not going to win every time and it is important to set yourself up for losses and take them with dignity when they do come. Also, it’s best to make a loss when you are first starting out, which is quite common, but make sure you bounce back from it and don’t accept it as a failure and give up.
- ‘Leave something in it for the next guy.‘ My father taught me that you will be more likely to succeed in business if you leave some margin in the deal for the next guy. When you think about others, you find that your contribution to them always comes back to you in the end anyway.
- ‘Dance or get off the dance floor.‘ This one is also mine. What this represents to me is that if you are going to be in the field of action you had better start working. I would rather someone take action and make a decision, than stand around and think about it.
For more of this interview and business quotes check out “Secrets of Male Entrepreneurs Exposed!“
