Monday, January 07, 2008

Best-Ever Entrepreneurship Quotes, week 66

Here's the latest installment of your weekly series of motivational quotations, designed to get your week off to a superior start.

Today, one of Canada’s top retailers emphasizes the importance of self-knowledge and authenticity.

“After all these years, when you walk into a Canadian Tire store, it’s just different than any other retailer. It still smells like tires, because we know who we are.”
Wayne Sales, former CEO of Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. (rated Canada’s Top CEO by Canadian Business Magazine in 2005)

Although Sales no longer runs Canadian Tire, he oversaw its survival and growth in an era of retail turmoil. As he said at a 2005 address at the University of Toronto’s Rotman business school, Canadian Tire was written off by many observers when Wal-Mart came to Canada, but it responded by focusing on its strengths.

“My team and I were able to ‘see inside’ of our organization, and we recognized that we only had to do four relatively simple things to be successful: offer competitive pricing, convenient locations, friendly service, and dependable stocking.”

You have to play your game, says Sales. Because chances are you can’t play anyone else’s game as well as they do.

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