The Wisdom Of...

Sam Walton

1919 -1 992

Sam’s Rules For Building a Business

1. COMMIT to your business.
2. SHARE your profits with your associates
and treat them as partners.
3. MOTIVATE your partners.
4. COMMUNICATE everything you possibly
can to your partners.
5. APPRECIATE everything your associates
do for the business.
6. CELEBRATE your success.
7. LISTEN to everyone in your company.
8. EXCEED your customers’ expectations.
9. CONTROL your expenses better than your
competition.
10. SWIM upstream.

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

Individuals don’t win. Teams do.

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.

Why do I drive a pickup truck? What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?

We’re not ashamed of having money, but I don’t believe a big showy lifestyle is appropriate for everyone.

We had to keep expenses to a minimum. That is where it started. Our money was made by controlling expenses.

Had we been capitalized we would never have tried the small-town America stores.

The big lesson that we learned was that there was much, much more out there than we ever dreamed of.

If you take care of the people in the stores, they will take care of the customers in the same manner.

Desire and a willingness to work make up for a lack of experience.
Folks who stand all day on their feet get exhausted and frustrated too and need someone to share it with who is in a position to find a solution.

The bigger Wal-Mart gets, the more essential it is that we think small.
Put the customer first, communicate, keep your ear to the ground, push responsibility and authority down, force ideas to bubble up, stay lean and fight bureaucracy, and always give something back.

We’re all working together; that’s the secret.

I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished; we’ve just begun.

Recommended Readings:
The Wal-Mart Way, 1990
Sam Walton, Made in America: My Story, 1992

Recommended Resources:
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.