Roberto Goizueta Quotes

100 Roberto Goizueta Quotes
(Roberto C Goizueta Quotes, Roberto Crispulo Goizueta, Coke Quotes)

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Before I began work, my father had one last request. He wanted me to buy shares of stock in Coca-Cola. He said ‘You shouldn’t work for someone else, you should work for yourself. You should buy 100 shares of Coca-Cola.’ [He then lent Roberto the $8,000 he would need for the purchase. The shares were then placed in a custodial account in New York, where they remained until Roberto’s death.]
Roberto Goizueta

[On describing his three-step process of management] One, state expectations. Two, meet or exceed those expectations. Three, repeat.
Roberto Goizueta

When you start charging people for their cost of capital, all sorts of good things happen.
Roberto Goizueta

My grandfather said, ‘Spend much less than you need to live with, and always have a strong-cash position in the bank. That way you can take advantage of opportunities as they arise.’
Roberto Goizueta

No amount of savvy marketing or fancy commercials or sponsorships will do anything for you unless you have the trucks, the vending machines and the warehouses. There’s no sense in having a marketing program if you don’t have a marketing plant.
Roberto Goizueta

You cannot quantify emotion.
Roberto Goizueta

Not to take risks is the biggest risk.
Roberto Goizueta

If you think you are going to be successful running your business in the next ten years the way you did in the last ten years, you’re out of your mind. To succeed, you have to disturb the present.
Roberto Goizueta

We don’t get paid to be right. We get paid to produce results.
Roberto Goizueta

If you can’t be different, you might as well be damned.
Roberto Goizueta



[On being asked what he was looking for in a CEO.] I have simple expectations. Energy is number one. Intellectual courage is extremely important too, intellectual courage to go out and do something.
Roberto Goizueta

Think global, act global.
Roberto Goizueta

I’d rather be the head of the mouse than the tail of the lion.
Roberto Goizueta

The fish only gets hooked when he opens his mouth.
Roberto Goizueta

If your neighbors beard is on fire, make certain yours is soaking wet.
Roberto Goizueta

The quality of one’s compromises is more important than the correctness of one’s position.
Roberto Goizueta

[On how he answered a question he considered unanswerable] If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bicycle.
Roberto Goizueta

The worst waste of time for a company is to try to do well in something which we have no business doing.
Roberto Goizueta

It never does any harm to get on the good side of the wives of our main bottlers.
Roberto Goizueta

Five year plans are a waste of time. No one can predict with any accuracy what the world would look like in five years. [He wanted executives to have three-years plans and that he would hold them accountable for meeting their three-year targets]
Roberto Goizueta



The five vital financial characteristics of any business – Margins, Rate of Return, Cash-Flow Reliability and Capital Requirements.
Roberto Goizueta

Wine is a poor business because it requires huge inventory costs and because the product is not available until years after it is bottled.
Roberto Goizueta

Now operating units are charged a set percentage for the capital they use.
Roberto Goizueta

[On Pepsi buying restaurants like Pizza Hut and Taco Bell] It’s bad business to compete with your best customers.
Roberto Goizueta

The 100 Coca-Cola shares I had purchased whilst living in Cuba still sat in a New York trust account and I had never sold a share that now amounted to nearly 9 million shares worth some $600 million. Coca-Cola equity, comprises 99% of my net worth.
Roberto Goizueta

[On complaints about Sergio Zyman the marketing genius Roberto Goizueta appointed] Get Used To Sergio = GUTS.
Roberto Goizueta

There’s no sense in having a marketing program if you don’t have a marketing plant.
Roberto Goizueta

God exists in details.
Roberto Goizueta

The world is first a Coke world, then an orange world, then a lemon-lime world.
Roberto Goizueta

We don’t know how to sell products based on performance. Everything we sell, we sell based on image.
Roberto Goizueta



The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you’re down the path of inactivity.
Roberto Goizueta

[On the founding of the Emory University Business School – Now Emory Goizueta Business School] Will we have the courage and wisdom… to aspire to build a school completely distinctive in its ability to add value to our society?
Roberto Goizueta

The labels ‘international’ and ‘domestic’… no longer apply. Think global, act global.
Roberto Goizueta

[In 1996 at a Coca-Cola shareholders meeting] We have become increasingly mindful of one undeniable fact – the average human body requires at least 64 ounces of liquid every day just to survive, and our beverages account for not even 2 of those ounces. For every person on this planet consuming at least 64 ounces is not an option; but choosing where those ounces come from is.
Roberto Goizueta

[Commenting on Henry Ford’s quote ‘You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do’] We must lead by example first, then by precept.
Roberto Goizueta

[On his big, hairy, audacious goal] A Coke within arm’s reach of everyone on the planet.
Roberto Goizueta

[In 1983 to the Society of Soft Drink Technologists] We don’t always get the glamour of marketing people; we don’t always get the glory of sales people; we don’t always get the clout of financial people. But the simple facts are that you can’t market a new product until someone creates a new product; you can’t promote a new package until someone designs a new package; you can’t use an ingredient until someone finds a use for it and gets it approved; you can’t advertise good taste and quality unless someone safeguards flavour and quality; and you can’t sell a soft drink at a competitive price (and at a profit) unless someone makes sure it is produced and distributed properly and efficiently. That ‘someone’ is you – the technical professional.
Roberto Goizueta

[On the New Coke episode] Whether or not we were smart or dumb, right or wrong was and is irrelevant… The job of management is to produce results and those have been produced in spades.
Roberto Goizueta

An old boss once told me I was too much a man of action. But I like to quote the poet Antonia Machado, who said, ‘Paths are made by walking.’
Roberto Goizueta

Don’t wrap the flag of Coca-Cola around you to prevent change from taking place. It is extremely important that you show some insensitivity to your past in order to show the proper respect for the future.
Roberto Goizueta



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