10 Inspiring Quotes for Small Business from Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin is a successful entrepreneur, author, and noted convention speaker. Mr. Fishkin began his career by building websites for customers in the late 1990s. That led to an interest in usability and search engine optimization. He began participating in conferences, speaking on panels, and started his own small business, which eventually became Moz—the venture funded, growing company he runs today.

He is the author of The Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization (a free resource available on his website) and co-author of The Art of SEO. But the bulk of his time today is spent managing and growing Moz.

Because he has had so many opportunities to speak, and has written regularly on his blog, Rand Fishkin has said a lot to inspire small business owners—from advice on how to optimize your website for search engines to various subjects related to starting and running a small business. Here’s just a sample of what we find inspirational:

“Don’t conflate revenue with success, especially not long term. Many of the best things we’ve done have cost or lost money in the short run, but built a better brand over the years because of it.”

“Tell a story. Make it true. Make it compelling. And make it relevant.”

“A friend in college used to regularly tell me to ‘Never date the pretty girl who knows she’s pretty.’ Extrapolated out to the professional world, I’ve found this to be excellent advice. Those who think very highly of themselves tend to make for poor employees, partners, service providers, friends, spouses, etc.”

“A hard thing is done by figuring out how to start.”

“Aligning yourself with people who share your values and your prioritization of those values far outweighs aligning yourself with people who share your vision for a particular product, roadmap, or financial goal.”

“Better marketing often trumps a better product. Invest in both.”

“Nothing worth having comes easy. Relationships (of all kinds) take work. Customers take work. Building a team takes work. If it’s easy, it’s often not worth having and almost never a competitive advantage.”

“There is no black magic to successfully attracting customers via the web.”

“Best way to sell something: don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect, and turst of those who might buy.”

“The trend of design toward simplicity and accessibility in software happened for a reason—simple sells, simple’s usable and simple scales.”

—Rand Fishkin, Founder and CEO of Moz.com