1. Walton's life was not easy, though, and his academics were met with equal challenges at home. Growing up during the Great Depression meant that his family was always looking for ways to save money and Walton's parents required him to tend to matters at home as much as those at school. Part of his daily routine involved milking cows and delivering milk, along with newspapers, to people in the neighborhood.
2. With his degree, Sam Walton joined the management team of JCPenny in Des Moines, Iowa, only three days after graduation - this might have helped in his later career, perhaps?
3. Sam Walton wanted to focus on providing a wide range of goods at discounted prices to the consumer and keep his stores open longer than his competitors, even during the Christmas season. His lower-priced strategies allowed him to drive up sales and negotiate lower prices on purchases with his wholesalers. A combination of his location and price strategies made him a top seller in the chain in the six-state region of the franchise market.
4. He continued to open new stores and offered the managers to become involved in the business from an investment perspective
5. Walton remained dedicated to keeping Wal-Mart involved in local activities by allowing charities to hold bake sales on his property as well as providing scholarships to high school graduates from local schools.
6. He appears to have been a very enterprising guy, right from his school and college days
7. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods at low prices. His store also stayed open later than most other stores, especially during the Christmas season. He also pioneered the practice of discount merchandising by buying wholesale goods from the lowest priced supplier. This allowed him to pass on savings to his customers, which drove up his sales volume. Higher volumes allowed him to negotiate even lower purchase prices with the wholesaler on subsequent purchases.
8. Walton offered managers the opportunity to become limited partners if they would invest in the store they oversaw and then invest a maximum of $1,000 in new outlets as they opened. This motivated the managers to always try to maximize profits and improve their managerial skills.
9. Share your profits with all your associates - “Treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It’s the single best thing we ever did.”
10. Motivate your partners - “Money and ownership alone are not enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.”
11. Exceed your customers’ expectations - “If you do, they will come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses - apologies. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed‘. They are still up there, and they have made all the difference.”
12. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business - “A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we are really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They are absolutely free - and worth a fortune.”
13. Control your expenses better than your competition - “This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation’s largest retailer - we ranked number one in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales."
14. Swim upstream - “Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything else was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.”
Sources
http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/sam-walton/
Highlights
* With his degree, Sam Walton joined the management team of JCPenny in Des Moines, Iowa, only three days after graduation - this might have helped in his later career, perhaps?
* He continued to open new stores and offered the managers to become involved in the business from an investment perspective
* Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods at low prices.
* His store also stayed open later than most other stores, especially during the Christmas season. He also pioneered the practice of discount merchandising by buying wholesale goods from the lowest priced supplier.
* Walton offered managers the opportunity to become limited partners if they would invest in the store they oversaw and then invest a maximum of $1,000 in new outlets as they opened. This motivated the managers to always try to maximize profits and improve their managerial skills.
* Swim upstream - “Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything else was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.”
==JOINING THE RIGHT COMPANY EARLY IN CAREER==
==OFFERING COLLEAGUES TO BECOME MORE INVOLVED IN THE COMPANY FROM A FINANCIAL AND OWNERSHIP PERSPECTIVE==
==MAKING SURE CUSTOMERS ARE EXTREMELY SATISFIED WITH WHAT YOU OFFER==
==DOING IMPORTANT THINGS THAT COMPETITORS DO NOT DO OUT OF HABIT OR CUSTOM==
==CONTRARIAN THINKING==
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