Aliko Dangote is a Nigerian businessman and the founder and investor of the Dangote Group. The Dangote Group covers food processing and cement manufacturing. He is ranked as the richest man in Africa.
Dangote has always been interested in starting a business since he was a child. He said: “I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.” Now he owns one of the largest companies in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, and Togo.
Aliko Dangote is an inspiration to entrepreneurs in African and around the world. Here are some of his quotes that will teach you to be a successful entrepreneur.
Inspiring Aliko Dangote Quotes
“I enjoy myself a lot but I derive more joy in working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secrets is hard work. It’s hard to see a youth that will go to bed by 2am and wake up by 5am. I don’t rest until I achieve something.” – Aliko Dangote
“Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems, before retiring home.” – Aliko Dangote
“When you have made it in life, you must give back to those who made you.” – Aliko Dangote
“My grandfather once told me; the soul of business is not making money but making people happy.”
– Aliko Dangot
“To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it.” – Aliko Dangote
“In whatever you do, strive to be the best at it.” – Aliko Dangote
“You could easily tell that hard work and perseverance go hand in hand with patience. We often hear people say patience is worth it, yet we don’t practice it. I did and look how well it worked out for me.” – Aliko Dangote
“Don’t kill the competition. Competition is healthy for businesses. It keeps you the entrepreneur on your toes.” – Aliko Dangote
“Motivation, backed by good planning and correct action leads to success.” – Aliko Dangote
“Endeavor to work as hard as possible to attain a new aim with each day that comes by. Don’t go to bed until you have achieved something productive.” – Aliko Dangote
“Passion is what drives me forward. Passion is what makes me go to bed at 2am and wake up at 6am.”
– Aliko Dangote
“If you don’t have ambition, you shouldn’t be alive.” – Aliko Dangote
“If I had challenges in my company, I would not hesitate to sell assets to remain afloat, to get to the better times, because it doesn’t make any sense for me to keep any assets and then suffocate the whole organization.” – Aliko Dangote
“The most dangerous thing for an entrepreneur to do is to actually go into a business that he does not understand fully.” – Aliko Dangote
“Manufacture, don’t just trade.” Aliko Dangote
“In the journey to success, tenacity of purpose is supreme.” – Aliko Dangote
“I always make sure I hire people smarter than me.”
– Aliko Dangote
“I always tried to move up the food chain. I started with cement and then moved into textiles and banking. When I was trading sugar, I added salt and flour so that then we could do pasta. And then I thought, why not make the bag for it, too? So, we started making packaging.” – Aliko Dangote
“What I always say is that money doesn’t have colour. It doesn’t matter whether you are from Africa or anywhere in the world. The colour of money is the same.” – Aliko Dangote
“I built a conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008 but it didn’t happen overnight. It took me thirty years to get to where I am today. Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work. To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big. In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.” – Aliko Dangote
“After my death, I want to be remembered as Africa’s greatest industrialist.” – Aliko Dangote
“To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big.” – Aliko Dangote
“Manufacture, don’t just trade. There is money in manufacturing even though it is capital intensive. To achieve a big breakthrough, I had to start manufacturing the same product I was trading on; which is commodities.” – Aliko Dangote
“If people look inward, they would see the opportunities for greatness.”
– Aliko Dangote
“When you import goods, you import poverty and you export jobs to other parts of the globe where such goods are produced.” – Aliko Dangote
“Exercise is better than any medicine I can take; exercise and sleep.” – Aliko Dangote
“Invest now, before it’s too late. The train is about to leave the station.” Aliko Dangote
“You must have a vision and not just a vision but you must have a plan that would make you fulfil that vision.”
– Aliko Dangote
“The real thing about wealth, what will make you enjoy it and be happy that yes you are rich, is how many lives you can touch while you are alive.” – Aliko Dangote
“Africa is the fastest-growing economic region in the world. This is the right place to invest.” Aliko Dangote