James Sinegal Quotes

It doesn't do much good to have a quality image, whether it's with the facility or whether it's with the merchandise, if you don't have real quality people taking care of your customers.

We've always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco.

When employees are happy, they are your very best ambassadors.

You could raise the price of, say, a bottle of ketchup to $1.03 instead of $1, and no one would know. Raising prices just 3% per product would add 50% to your pretax income. Why not do it? It's like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.

I think the biggest single thing that causes difficulty in the business world is the short-term view. We become obsessed with it. But it forces bad decisions.

Our attitude is that if you hire good people and pay them a fair wage, then good things will happen for the company.

Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company.

It is improper for one person to take credit when it takes so many people to build a successful organization. When you try to be top dong, you don't create loyalty. It you can't give credit (and take blame), you will drown in you inability to inspire.

You just can't get too focused on worrying about what's going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

You destroy the initiative of the working people if they don't feel they have a fighting chance to be a part of the American Dream.

If you're going to say to all the people that you're working with, 'We want you to treat the customers honestly; don't lie and don't cheat,' it is somewhat hypocritical if you're not following the same rules.

If we take care of the business and keep our eye on the goal line, the stock price will take care of itself.

Driving stock up from one day to the next is not what we are about. We are about building a good company and performing for the long term. I know everyone says that, that sounds trite when I repeat it that way, but that is and has always been our attitude about our business. If we do the right things, the stock price will take care of itself, and our shareholders will be rewarded.

Paying good wages is not in opposition to good productivity.

If you've got to work for the rest of your life, you'd better do something you'll enjoy.

You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

You take an educated gamble. If you don't occasionally make a mistake, you're not doing your job.

Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company. The message is that all brilliance emanates from the top; that the worker on the floor of the store or the factory is insignificant.

You don't have a very motivated working class, it starts to affect the dynamics of the economy. If workers are disenchanted and disenfranchised, productivity losses will go along with that.

Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business.

It doesn't do Costco any good if nobody can afford to buy anything.

There was a proposal in California that would keep out Wal-Mart but allow Costco. You opposed it. Are you nuts? That's true: I always oppose these kinds of things. Competition makes us better. Some of our best stores have a Sam's Club next door.

Our attitude has always been that if you hire good people and provide good wages and good jobs and more than that - if you provide careers - that good things will happen to your company. I think we can say that that has been proved by the quality of people that we have and how they have built our organization.

I think that most of the people running companies today are motivated and pay is a small portion of the motivation.

I say at our management conferences that the amount Wal-Mart grows in just one year is the equivalent of Costco's size.

It's like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.

In the final analysis, you get what you pay for.

When you hire good people, and you provide good jobs and good wages and a career, good things are going to happen.

Technology helps us become more efficient and productive but our business still has a lot of art as opposed to strictly science.

If somehow a proclamation were made that C.E.O.'s could only make a maximum of $300,000 a year, you would not have any shortage of very qualified men and women seeking the jobs.