Samuel Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) was an American entrepreneur and business icon best known as the founder of retail giants Walmart and Sam’s Club. Walton was raised during the Great Depression and developed a keen sense of delivering value, work ethic, and efficiency. He got his start in retail at JCPenney in 1940 and ran his first store in Newport, Arkansas in 1945, and eventually opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962.
The work itself was simple to describe and hard to copy. Out of the Army in 1945, Walton borrowed $20,000 from his father-in-law, added his own savings, and bought a Ben Franklin franchise store in Newport, Arkansas. When his landlord would not renew the lease in 1950, he moved to Bentonville and started again, and on July 2, 1962, after a dozen years of variety stores, he opened the first Walmart in Rogers. From then on he ran on a loop that rarely changed: fly out to the stores, walk a competitor’s aisles with a notebook, ask his own associates what customers were asking for, and carry it all home to the Saturday morning meeting in Bentonville, where the week’s numbers and ideas were put on the table for everyone. He kept to the routine through 1990, the year the variety-store business he had started became the largest retailer in the world.
The core of Walton’s business philosophy was providing customers with high value at the lowest possible cost, known today as “Everyday Low Prices.” By keeping costs down and prices low, Walton understood that Walmart would attract a massive customer base and deliver profits through sheer sales volume rather than reliance on high margins. This strategy forced other retailers to lower their prices to compete with Walmart, thus further benefiting the consumer. To achieve greater efficiency, Walmart has pioneered innovative supply chain and inventory management, use of distribution centers, and data analytics.
Walton had an immense impact on not only the retail industry, but on business and leadership philosophy as a whole. His business practices showed the power of a truly customer-centric approach. He also strove to foster camaraderie within his operations and placed a high value on employee satisfaction and sense of ownership and input in the company. Walton helped pioneer the “Open Door” policy encouraging frequent and positive communication between management and the front-line employees.
With thousands of locations across the United States and globally, Walmart grew to become the largest corporation in the world by revenue and also the largest private employer in the world. The Walton family has moved in and out of the top spot for richest family’s in America. Time Magazine ranked Walton as one of the most influential people of the 20th Century in 1998. Through the Walton Family Foundation (founded in 1987), the family has donated substantial sums to various philanthropic causes such as healthcare, education, environmental conservation, and community development.
Core Ideas
- Earn the low price first. Fight for the savings inside your own costs, since every foolish dollar comes out of the customer’s pocket.
- Listen and look everywhere. The next good idea may be sitting on a competitor’s shelf or in the head of your newest associate.
- Decide, then act. Argue it out on Friday if you must; by Saturday morning it should be happening in the stores.
- Swim upstream. When the whole trade runs one way, at least look the other way, and hear out the mavericks while you are at it.
- Share credit and success. Appreciation costs little, a stake in the profits makes partners, and people who feel valued keep surprising you.
Sam Walton Quotes
“Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who’s going to have a great idea.”
“What we guard against around here is people saying, ‘Let’s think about it.’ We make a decision. Then we act on it.”
— Made in America (1992)
“Every time Walmart spends one dollar foolishly, it comes right out of our customers’ pockets. Every time we save them a dollar, that puts us one more step ahead of the competition—which is where we always plan to be.”
— Made in America (1992)
“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.”
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”
“If American business is going to prevail, and be competitive, we’re going to have to get accustomed to the idea that business conditions change, and that survivors have to adapt to those changing conditions. Business is a competitive endeavor, and job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.”
“And like most other overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making.”
— Made in America (1992)
“I always favored the mavericks who challenged my rules. I may have fought them all the way, but I respected them, and, in the end, I listened to them a lot more closely than I did the pack who always agreed with everything I said.”
“Keeping so many people motivated to do the best job possible involves a lot of the different programs and approaches we’ve developed at Walmart over the years, but none of them would work at all without one simple thing that puts it all together: appreciation. All of us like praise.”
Sam Walton Books
“Sam Walton: Made In America” – by Sam Walton. His own story, written with John Huey and finished the year he died: the rules, the mistakes, and the numbers, told in his own plain voice.
“In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart, the World’s Most Powerful Retailer” – by Bob Ortega. A reporter’s account of the rise, fair to the founder and frank about the growing pains.
“The 10 Rules of Sam Walton” – by Michael Bergdahl. A former Walmart executive boils Walton’s ten working rules down into a short field manual.
“The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World’s Largest Company” – by Don Soderquist. Walton’s longtime second-in-command on the culture that let the machine grow so large.
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