Everything Arthur Blank said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Blank: NFL anthem protests address social injustice, not military disrespect
“And I will tell you, there are 1750 players in the NFL, and I will tell you, these players have great respect for the military, and so it's not about the military to them. It's just that becomes an opportunity, a platform for them to speak about their concerns…”
Blank: NFL players should stand respectfully for national anthem
“Having said that, I mean, I think that players should stand, and should stand respectfully for the national anthem.”
Blank: Staying at Home Depot under Bob Nardelli would have been miserable
“And I was sure happy I wasn't there during the six years that he was there. Ah, so, ah. That, that, that would have been the worst time in my life.”
Blank: Home Depot concept arose by defining an uncompetitive retail model
“Bernie had said, well, you know, if we were ever to leapfrog our own business, Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, what kind of home improvement center store could we not compete against? And so we said we could never compete against the big warehouse, no fril…”
Blank: Early competitors believed Home Depot's business model would fail
“Every competitor came into our stores and visited us and said, I mean, these, I can't use bad words here because this is like kind of a live radio thing, but these, ah, whatever you want to call us, they're crazy. The stores are much too big. Prices are much t…”
Blank: Home Depot avoided planograms so every new store improved
“Really, at HD, we had a five year plan, we had a one year budget, we had all of that, but we focused on every single store, and our plan was that each store had to be better than the last store we opened up. So we didn't have any plantograms. We didn't have an…”
Blank: Handy Dan was the most successful US home improvement chain
“Well, that company, Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, was, and we operated kind of a traditional model, 40,000 square feet, 40% gross margin, 40 associates on the floor and it was by far the most successful chain of Home Improvement Center. Stores in the cou…”
Blank: Home Depot raised from 144 investors backing the founders
“The investors who invested in our company, it was a 144 of them really what they were buying into was just Myself and Bernie.”
Blank: Nobody showed up to The Home Depot's 1979 grand opening
“So we had this grand opening, and nobody came.”
Blank: Young executives overworking will become strangers to their families
“Too many young executives, men or women, they, their attitude is that we gotta work now, work hard, and, you know, put my career in, on fifth gear, and go, go, go, and so when you return home in 10 years, you're not gonna recognize your kids, and your spouse i…”
Blank: Mother took over family pharmaceutical business with no business background
“When he passed away, my mother was only 37 at the time, and without any business background she went in and started to run the business.”
Blank: Handy Dan and drugstore division were Daylin's only profitable units
“We were the only part of the company that was making any money, and they had a small home improvement center company in California called Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers. They were also making a little bit of money, but the rest of the company's all losing …”
Blank: Bernie Marcus was a father figure, brother, and rabbi
“Bernie is he's 14 years my senior, and he's probably, you know, a combination of brother and a father figure, having lost my dad and a rabbi.”
Blank: Home Depot founders spent 75% of early time on store floor
“I probably spent 75% of my time, as did Bernie, as did really most of our associates, on the floor of the store, finding out from customers what is it they like, what didn't like, and we kept changing the mix, adding things, taking things off, changing prices,…”
Blank: The Atlanta Falcons never had back-to-back winning seasons before 2001
“Commissioner Tagliabue, at the closing when I bought the team, he said, you realize the team you just bought has never had back-to-back winning seasons, and I said, Paul, you know, Paul's the smartest guy in the room, not because he told you, it's because he r…”