Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who’s going to have a great idea.” 324 Hodges, Sam (April 20, 2007). "Presbyterian obit on Wal-Mart founder's widow". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on November 1, 2019 . Retrieved November 1, 2019. urn:oclc:804378867 Scandate 20091102171752 Scanner scribe3.sfdowntown.archive.org Scanningcenter sfdowntown Source

Walton had even made a bet with Glass that this would never happen. When Walton lost the bet, he was made by Glass to step out onto Wall Street dressed in a Hawaiian outfit, where he performed a hula dance accompanied by ukulele players. The author of “Sam Walton: Made in America” is Sam Walton himself, with the help of John Huey. Sam Walton was born in 1918 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and grew up during the Great Depression. After serving in World War II, Walton started his career in retail by managing a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas. Here’s how I look at it: my life has been a trade off. If I wanted to reach the goals I set for myself, I had to get at it and stay at it every day. I had to think about it all the time. And I guess what David Glass said about me is true: I had to get up every day with my mind set on improving something. Charlie Baum was right too when he said I was driven by a desire to always be on the top of the heap. But in the larger sense - the life and death sense - did I make the right choices?” p.320 Lower prices and a better shopping experience was the best way to attract customers in Sam’s mind, and he never stopped looking for ways to improve on both. Putting Small Business Out of Business? But it was relatively late, in 1962 that he introduced Walmart. In one of his usual journeys observing competitors and other retailers, he became convinced that discount stores were the future.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. Always watch out for who you give power to -and how you can take that power away in the most efficient way possible-. CONS If you’re interested in business and entrepreneurship, then you’re about to discover many helpful lessons to guide your own journey. Sam Walton’s story will be inspirational to anybody who wants to succeed in free enterprise. And to anybody willing to work hard to achieve the American Dream (or the dream in whichever country you’re in). Who was Sam Walton? 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. Walton’s early experiences in the retail industry included working for a variety of companies, including J.C. Penney and Ben Franklin Stores. In 1962, Walton founded Walmart, which would become one of the largest retailers in the world. The book covers the early years of Walmart, including the challenges the company faced as it grew rapidly.

Sam Walton Biography". 7infi.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017 . Retrieved August 10, 2017. The first true Walmart opened on July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas. [22] Called the Wal-Mart Discount City store, it was located at 719 West Walnut Street. He launched a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Walmart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition. [23] Marquard, W. H. (2007). Wal-Smart: What it really takes to profit in a Wal-Mart world. McGraw Hill Professional.

Who is the author of Sam Walton: Made in America?

A big part of the Wal-Mart culture is their Saturday morning managers meetings. In these meetings they go over sales numbers, what's working, what's not, and where people need help. 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. Harris, Art (November 17, 1985). "America's Richest Man Lives...Here?Sam Walton, Waiting in Line At the Wal-Mart With Everybody Else". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286 . Retrieved March 22, 2021.

In a way, Walmart was another experiment for Sam. Walmart indeed was ugly to start with, but the question for Walton was: would shoppers shop strictly because of the lower prices?A visionary ahead of his time, he goes on to list ten principles for building a successful business: As an autobiography, you have to keep in mind that Walton might have a tendency to embellish his own story. Indeed I think he would have come across even better if he had put some more third-party criticism. But at the time the Newport and the Ben Franklin had great potential, and I’ve always believed in goals, so I set myself one: I wanted my little Newport store to be the best, most profitable variety store in Arkansas within five years. I felt I had the talent to do it, that it could be done, and why not go for it? Set that as a goal and see if you can’t achieve it. If it doesn’t work, you’ve had fun trying.” p.28

What could have been a big loss turned into a big win because they got creative and had a bias towards action. Take action to fix problems. Today, the biggest controversies about Wal-Mart usually revolve around their associates and front line staff. Reading Sam Walton's side of the story shows both how much things have changed, and how much he loved them.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. So in 1962, Sam Walton opened his first discounter store in a town called Rogers Arkansas. That was the birth of Wal-Mart. The first Wal-Mart was a big hit immediately, with almost a million dollars in sales per year. Sam Walton recognized these stores were the future of retail and he wanted to stay ahead of the trend by opening up more and more Wal-Marts. Some of the other big retail companies resisted the discounter trend, probably because they didn’t want to give up the 45% markup they were used to charging customers. urn:lcp:samwaltonmadeina0000walt_u2x0:epub:b5885d18-19ce-41a8-b39d-247c549af933 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier samwaltonmadeina0000walt_u2x0 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8md8qv52 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0553562835