Sam Walton : Made in America My Story

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The famous Walmart profit-sharing plan was only put in place in 1971, after Sam got the “associates” idea on a trip to England. However,Sam thought it was one of the best decisions he ever made. Shared ownership. Early Walmart store managers always owned a small percentage of their stores. So the more successful the store became, the more they personally benefitted. LS Robson; “He influenced me a great deal. He was a great salesman, one of the most persuasive individuals I have ever met. And I am sure his success as a trader and a businessman, his knowledge of finance and the law, and his philosophy had a big effect on me. My competitive nature was such that i saw his success and admired it . I didn’t envy it. I admired it. I said to myself: maybe I will be as successful as he is someday.” p.7 Basically every highly successful entrepreneur says they worked very very hard. This is not a guarantee that you will be successful, rather it’s the bare minimum. For example, Elon Musk often tells young ambitious people to “work twice as hard as others.” Musk often works 80-100 hours every week. Bianco, Anthony (2006). The Bully of Bentonville: how the high cost of Wal-Mart's everyday low prices is hurting America. New York: Currency/Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51356-9.

Finances: He also worked to make his own money throughout school, starting with a newspaper route and later having multiple jobs. Walton, Sam (2012). Sam Walton: Made in America. Random House Publishing Group. p.18. ISBN 978-0-345-53844-4. Take action first and a lot of things will fall into place. We always think about preparing ourselves perfectly for a situation before we take any action on it however if you look at Sam Walton's story he usually learned by taking action.

What are good quotes from Sam Walton: Made in America?

It’s true that I was 45 when we opened our first Wal-Mart in 1962, but the store was totally an outgrowth of everything we’d been doing since Newport — another case of me being unable to leave well enough along, another experiment. And like most other overnight successes, it was about 20 years in the making. Management Style Playing on Strengths Ann Walton Kroenke". Forbes. Archived from the original on July 27, 2019 . Retrieved October 31, 2019. Landrum, Gene N. (2004). Entrepreneurial Genius: The Power of Passion. Brendan Kelly Publishing. p.120. ISBN 1895997232 . Retrieved December 30, 2012. Self-service stores. In the past, a store employee would find the items you want and bring them to you. Sam heard about the first self-service stores and rode an overnight bus to see them firsthand. Then he opened the 3rd self service store in the USA.

Motivate your partners — money is not enough → high goals, encourage competition, keep score, make bets, switch jobs, don’t become predictable Realizing that the company had become too big, Sam hired trained professionals to develop the management and infrastructure of his business. He considers that time, between 1968 and 1976, the most important phase of the development of Walmart. Going public Understood the value of a dollar, grew up during the depression. Continued to be frugal through all his years. Made sure all his businesses also understood the value of a dollar. From an early age he worked multiple jobs, never stopped moving. He has an urge to win, to win at everything. Walton, Sam (2012). Sam Walton: Made in America. Random House Publishing Group. p.15. ISBN 978-0-345-53844-4. a b c d "Sam Walton". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 2012. Archived from the original on October 21, 2013 . Retrieved March 30, 2012.

Ortega, Bob. "In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 9, 2005 . Retrieved February 7, 2007.

After Walmart became successful, Sam Walton was named the world’s richest person by Forbes magazine. Reporters came to see him and they were fascinated to discover Sam still lived a basically normal life in his small town. Four-thirty wouldn't be all that unusual a time for me to get started down at the office. That early morning time is tremendously valuable: it's uninterrupted time when I think and plan and sort things out." I also started selling magazine subscriptions, probably as young as seven or eight years old, and I had paper routes from the seventh grade all the way through college. I raised and sold rabbits and pigeons too, nothing really unusual for country boys of that era. After that, he moved to the city of Claremore, where he met Helen, his wife. They got married a year later, on Valentine's Day. Sam really had only one goal for all of his stores: to make each and every single customer as happy as possibly can be.Sam built Walmart by copying. He didn't just merely copy someone else's design, he took the best from everyone, and everything. He found what worked and doubled-down. If you’re more of a skeptic about Sam Walton and his business philosophy, the summary will rather confirm your hunch – I think it’s fairly critic of the man (although not neglecting to highlight his good sides). Sam Walton: Made In America sheds a much more positive light on him. Now when it comes to wall-mart, there's no two ways about it: I'm cheap. I think it's a real statement that wall- mart never bought a jet until after we were approaching 40 million dollars in sales and expanded as far away as California and Maine, and even then they had to practically tie me up and hold me down to do it. On the road, we sleep two to a room, although as I've gotten older I have finally started staying in my own room." Walton recounts carefully studying his competitors, looking for the pros and cons in their business practices and then improving upon winning tactics, such as consistently keeping prices as low as possible, minimizing infrastructure costs, and ensuring customer satisfaction. Walton also believed in sharing profits with associates through salaries, bonuses, and other incentives. In fact, his mission to create a certain kind of work culture is one of the book’s main topics. Walton believed the customer must be taken care of, first and foremost. In his view, treating associates well translated into treating customers well. He believed true profit lay in the repeat business of loyal customers, and so the customer became his number one priority. A humble and earnest man, Walton considered material possessions like fancy cars, big houses, and other excesses to be distractions from serving the customer well. Be passionate about learning, Sam Walton learned so much from people around him, his co-workers and from all his competition and it was one of the key elements of his success.