John Caudwell

“Really good customer service will deliver sales. You are training salesmen to give the best possible advice and then to achieve the sale. People actually like you to ask for a sale because it shows you value their business.”

“In any business opportunity, you'd be looking, probably, primarily at the risk and return. Some business can be very risky with a low return; what you want is the lowest risk with the biggest return.”

“'Titania' is the best yacht currently afloat of its kind and size. There is very little, if anything, that anybody would go wanting for on 'Titania.'”

“There are lots of brownfield sites in Stoke, but they are not suitable for building executive homes. It needs to be surrounded by fields. It needs to be on greenbelt land. That's what executives want.”

“My father was unwell when I was 11, had a stroke at 14 and died when I was 18. My mother going to work at seven in the morning and coming back to look after him and me and my brother left its mark on me.”

“I do like a healthy dose of adrenalin, but my character is more rounded. I am not timid; I like excitement.”

“I always felt, right from a youngster, that it was my destiny to be a success. It sounds a little bit egotistical, but I felt I had a calling to do something.”

“In the early days, I had everything to prove. A very working class lad with a burning ambition. A very crude way of measuring success is how much you are worth.”

“I do not put my tastes as incredibly expensive, but they are incredibly expensive for an average man.”

“E-mails are the cancer of modern business.”

“Sometimes your worst competitors are the ones which are dying because they do stupid things.”

“I was bullied at school for my red hair; today I still come out fighting hard. I give as good as I get. In business, it's about finding solutions, not being rolled over.”

“It's important to show children love, affection and balance and invest time in their moral upbringing.”

“If I died tomorrow, I would regret growing so wealthy and still running the business when there are so many more people I could have helped.”

“I realised I've got quite a talent for coming up with ideas for design. I've got so many ideas about fashion.”

“I saw that e-mail was insidiously invading Phones 4u, so I banned it immediately.”

“When my back's to the wall, I want to fight.”

“Taxes aren't the way to go. They'd strangle the economy; you wouldn't create the wealth. And nothing squanders money as well as a government. What we need is to encourage rich people to give.”

“Those of us who have yet to find philanthropy may find there is a far greater reward from it than from wealth creation.”

“If you throw money around like confetti, it just becomes shallow and meaningless.”