Sam Walton
Sam Walton
Samuel Moore "Sam" Waltonwas an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth29 March 1918
CityKingfisher, OK
CountryUnited States of America
real swimming secret
After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency.
successful giving secret
The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want
success creativity unique
I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.
information-is-power empowering risk
Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor.
encouraging succeed fronts
You can't just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.
reading learning hands
I learned a lesson which has stuck with me all through the years: you can learn from everybody. I didn't just learn from reading every retail publication I could get my hands on, I probably learned the most from studying what John Dunham was doing across the street
years opposites long
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.
years ideas people
"Somehow over the years people have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was...just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. But...it was an outgrowth of everything we'd been doing since [1945]...And like most overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making."
goal competition enough
Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.
success encouragement business
Capital isn't scarce; vision is.
business team winning
Individuals don't win in business, teams do.
focus want walmart
Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.
should expenses exceed
Expenses should never exceed one percent of our purchases.
keys expectations high-expectations
High expectations is the key to everything.