Rose Blumkin Quotes
108 Rose Blumkin Quotes
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[At the age of 95 when her grandsons overruled her on a carpet purchase and quitting.] I was the boss. They never told me nothing.
Rose Blumkin
[On sitting at home alone at 95, before starting Mrs B’s Warehouse.] Awful lonely, not to do nothing. I go nuts.
Rose Blumkin
[On setting up Mrs B’s Warehouse.] I’ll give it to them.
Rose Blumkin
Mr Buffett, we’re going to put our competitors through a meat grinder.
Rose Blumkin
I never lied. I never cheated. I never promised I couldn’t do. That brought me luck.
Rose Blumkin
I don’t like rich society people. Rich people are rude to you when you’re poor; I don’t forget that.
Rose Blumkin
[On waking up in the middle of the night and seeing her mother was mixing bread.] I said, ‘Ma, it breaks my heart how hard you work. Wait ‘til I grow up; I’ll find a job and I’ll go to America. And I’ll bring you over. I’ll go to a big town and find a job. You’ll be my princess.
Rose Blumkin
[On crossing the Russia/Chinese border when she was stopped by a soldier on the border at the age of 20 when WWI broke out and told him.] I’m buying leather for the army. ‘When I’ll come back, I’ll give you a big bottle of vodka.’ So he let my through.
Rose Blumkin
[On leaving Russia probably saving her life due to her being a Jew.] Hitler killed 1,900 on a Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah. They dig their own graves, and [the Nazis] put on kerosene and buried them. They killed everybody. The whole town.
Rose Blumkin
[On moving to the bigger town of Omaha.] I couldn’t talk English. I was a dummy. I knew I had to go somewhere that was bigger so I could communicate.
Rose Blumkin
[On being able to bring out her mother to America four years after arriving there and keeping her childhood promise to her mother.] I brought over my mother, my father, with the seven kids. I sent ‘em to school. They lived with me because I had a big house. And when they got married, I put ‘em in business. And my mother was the queen of America.
Rose Blumkin
[On setting up a her furniture store ‘Nebraska Furniture Mart’ in the basement of a pawnshop across the street from her husband’s clothing shop in 1937 and travelling to Chicago to get wholesale furniture.] I’m from Omaha. I’m starting up a business. I don’t have any money. But you can trust me. I’ll pay you. [On how she remember their response.] ‘Talking with you , we’ll trust you with anything.’
Rose Blumkin
[On opening her store on the 7th of February 1937.] I put in one ad and I had customers right away.
Rose Blumkin
[On what she told her children when they came home from school when their house was suddenly totally empty.] Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll buy you better beds. We’ll have another kitchen table. But I owe this person money and that’s what’s most important.
Rose Blumkin
Up to 1942, nobody would sell me nothing – the leading lines. I wasn’t good enough for them. And the banks never loan me a penny. So I was so smart, I outsmarted the bankers. Anything the manufacturers didn’t sell me, I went to different towns.
Rose Blumkin
[On the Korean War bringing furniture sales to a standstill.] I went to Marshall Field in Chicago. I tell them I need 3,000 yards of carpet for an apartment building – I got, actually an apartment building. I buy it from Marshall Field for $3 a yard; I sell it for $3.95 a yard. There lawyers from Mohawk take me into court, suing me for unfair trade – they’re selling for $7.95. Three lawyers and me with my English. I go to the judge and say, ‘Judge, I sell everything 10 percent above cost, what’s wrong? I don’t rob my customers? ‘ He throws out the case. The next day, he comes in and buys $1,400 worth.
Rose Blumkin
I can’t pay my bills and I worried to death. I’ve got a store full of furniture, but I can’t eat it. Nothing’s moving. I don’t know what to do.
Rose Blumkin
I got tired of the kids’ bossing me. So I thought, ‘I’ll sell it and he’ll [Warren Buffett] be the boss.’ He didn’t bother me.
Rose Blumkin
[At the age of 91.] I come home to eat and sleep, and that’s about it. I can’t wait until it gets daylight so I can get back to the business.
Rose Blumkin
[On being given an honorary doctorate in commercial science by New York, University, the first woman ever to receive so in the league of many commercial greats.] That doesn’t mean nothing.
Rose Blumkin
[On speeding around in her electric cart ‘The Rose B’ at the age of 96.] Like a Russian Cossack.
Rose Blumkin
[On loving her work.] To me, it’s the biggest punishment when I’m home.
Rose Blumkin
[On quitting when her grandsons were interfering too much in her operation of the carpeting department and she quitting.] The last couple months they took away my rights. I should not be able to buy anything. They wouldn’t pay, they told the manufacturers if the salesman talk to me, they not gonna buy from him nothing. And that made me awful mad. They [her grandsons] don’t know nothing. So one morning I got mad and I walked out of there. And Warren Buffett [who had] acted like he’s an angel – said there’s nobody like me, I don’t care how old you are, you are doing a terrific job – he stuck up for them. He never came to say he’s sorry. Never. I got fooled with him. I just thought he’s an Angel.
Rose Blumkin
I went home, cried for a couple months. Too lonely, I’m so used to being with people. And then mine daughters told me, ‘Momma, you gotta start another. Open up. Even if you lose money, you’re gonna lose your mind if you sit home always worried by what happened to you.’ [So age the age of 95 she invested $2 million of her own money and opened up Mrs. B’s Warehouse right across the street from the Nebraska Furniture Mart.]
Rose Blumkin
I wish to live two more years, and I’ll show them [her grandsons] who I am. I’ll give them hell. They told me I’m too old, too cranky. I gave my life away for my family. I made them millionaires. I was chairman of the board and they took away from me my rights… my high-class grandsons… who only know fancy things and to always take vacations. Now there are too many executives. Too many meetings, too many vacations, and all that is costing them money. I told Buffett, when I ran it, expenses were $7 million. Now they are $27 million. Now every stupe is a president, a vice president.
Rose Blumkin
I’m under a boycott. All the leading manufacturers from Nebraska Furniture Mart shouldn’t sell me nothing. They [her grandsons] told them if they’ll sell me they’re not gonna buy. They do 155 million dollar a year. I built them the biggest business in the country. So they don’t want mine competition.
Rose Blumkin
[On going into competition with Nebraska Furniture Mart at the age of 95.] They are the elephant. I am the ant.
Rose Blumkin
[On grossing $256,000 in her third month of operation without even officially opening or advertising.] I’m a fast operator. Thank God, I still got my brains, my know-how, my talent…
Rose Blumkin
[On Warren Buffett coming in to Mrs B’s just before her 98th birthday when in just two years she had already become Omaha’s third-largest carpet outlet.] He’s a real gentleman. [A few months later Mrs Blumkin sold Mrs B’s warehouse to the Nebraska Furniture Mart for $4.94 million.]
Rose Blumkin
[At the age of 100 still working 60 hours a week.] I live alone now and so that’s why I work. I hate to go home. I work to avoid the grave.
Rose Blumkin
[At the age of 100.] I come from Russia 75 years ago, started a business, never lied, never cheated, never been a big shot.
Rose Blumkin
We improve people’s lives one purchase at a time, generation after generation. Cash is king and stay away from debt.
Rose Blumkin
What every business needs is a good manager, someone with his whole heart in his work – not someone who takes three-and-a-half hours for lunch, or goes to Las Vegas or Hawaii or a bowl game.
Rose Blumkin
[On serving her customers.] Honey, what are you looking for? Whatever you want, I’ll give you a real bargain… the best deal.
Rose Blumkin
[At the age of 96.] The only way you’re successful and happy, is when you do an honest life – across 50 years, 60 years – nobody’s mad at you, and you’re feeling good. That’s what your happy life is.
Rose Blumkin
The reason [for] mine success, I was honest with the customers. I told ‘em the truth. I sold cheap. And if anything was wrong, I made it right.
Rose Blumkin
[On selling 80% of Nebraska Furniture Mart to Warren Buffett for $55 million.] They got a real deal.
Rose Blumkin
[On quitting running the carpet operation in 1989 after a blowup with her grandsons.] I got mad. I expect maybe too much.
Rose Blumkin
[On setting up Mrs B’s warehouse in competition to Nebraska Furniture Mart.] They [her grandsons] never expect I will quit and go in competition.
Rose Blumkin
[On why did she sell to Warren Buffett for a second time selling Mrs B’s Warehouse for $5 million.] I got a one-in-a-million son. It bothers him why I got mad and opened up the business. He always comes and says, ‘Mama, you work too hard. I don’t want you to work. I’ll pay anything you want, sell me the building.’ So I did. Five million dollars. And they paid cash. No credit. I love my kids.
Rose Blumkin
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