Sam Walton Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Sam Walton.
Famous Quotes By Sam Walton
I learned this early on in the variety business: You've got to give folks responsibility, you've got to trust them, and then you've got to check on them. — Sam Walton
I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart. — Sam Walton
Every time Wal-Mart 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. — Sam Walton
Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. — Sam Walton
You can't just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change. — Sam Walton
The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference. — Sam Walton
The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say. — Sam Walton
If everybody is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction. — Sam Walton
I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself. — Sam Walton
You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient. — Sam Walton
I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part. — Sam Walton
If I had to single out one element in my life that has made a difference for me, it would be a passion to compete. — Sam Walton
The small stores were just destined to disappear, at least in the numbers they once existed, because the whole thing is driven by the customers, who are free to choose where to shop. — Sam Walton
A computer can tell you down to the dime what you've sold, but it can never tell you how much you could have sold. — Sam Walton
We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us. cause they are. — Sam Walton
There are only four things in life that matter. The first is happiness and I'll sell you the other three for a dollar. — Sam Walton
Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable. — Sam Walton
All that hullabaloo about somebody's net worth is just stupid, and it's made my life a lot more complex and difficult. — Sam Walton
I learned early on that one of the secrets of campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them. — Sam Walton
One thing my and mother and dad shared completely was their approach to money - they just didn't spend it. — Sam Walton
Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. — Sam Walton
For my whole career in retail, I have stuck by one guiding principle. It's a simple one, and I have repeated it over and over and over in this book until I'm sure you're sick to death of it. But I'm going to say it again anyway: the secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. — Sam Walton
I learned a lesson which has stuck with me all through the years: you can learn from everybody. I didn't just learn from reading every retail publication I could get my hands on, I probably learned the most from studying what John Dunham was doing across the street — Sam Walton
If one of our customers comes into the store without a smile, I'll give them one of mine. — Sam Walton
There is only one boss. The customer ... — Sam Walton
Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor. — Sam Walton
Individuals don't win in business, teams do. — Sam Walton
The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers. — Sam Walton
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. — Sam Walton
High expectations are the key to everything. — Sam Walton
Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living. — Sam Walton
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. — Sam Walton
Watson, Sr., was running IBM, he decided they would never have more than four layers from the chairman of the board to the lowest level in the company. That may have been one of the greatest single reasons why IBM was successful. — Sam Walton
There's a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of. — Sam Walton
He proved that people can be motivated. The mountain is there, but somebody else has already climbed it. — Sam Walton
The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers. — Sam Walton
The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. — Sam Walton
Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community. — Sam Walton
We used to get in some terrific fights. You have to be just as tough as they are. You can't let them get by with anything because they are going to take care of themselves, and your job is to take care of the customer. I'd threaten Procter & Gamble with not carrying their merchandise, and they'd say, 'Oh, you can't get by without carrying our merchandise.' And I'd say, 'You watch me put it on a side counter, and I'll put Colgate on the endcap at a penny less, and you just watch me.' They got offended and went to Sam, and he said, 'Whatever Claude says, that's what it's going to be.' Well, now we have a real good relationship with Procter & Gamble. It's a model that everybody talks about. But let me tell you, one reason for that is that they learned to respect us. They learned that they couldn't bulldoze us like everybody else, and that when we said we were representing the customer, we were dead serious." In — Sam Walton
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. — Sam Walton
The point I'm trying to make is that we as a family have bent over backward not to take advantage of Wal-Mart, not to press our ownership position unfairly, and everybody in the company knows it. Alice — Sam Walton
I loved retail from the beginning, and I still love it today. — Sam Walton
We opened one, store number 8 in Morrilton, Arkansas, that was really a sight. We rented this old Coca-Cola bottling plant. It was all broken up into five rooms, and we bought some old fixtures from a failing Gibson's store for $3,000. We hung them by baling wire from the ceiling. We had clothes hanging in layers on conduit pipe all the way to the ceiling, and shelves wired into the walls. But this was really a small, small town, so number 8 was another experiment. We — Sam Walton
I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high. — Sam Walton
Don't get so stuck in your ways that you can't change. — Sam Walton
Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself. — Sam Walton
I had to get up everyday with my mind set on improving something. — Sam Walton
Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune. — Sam Walton
It was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. — Sam Walton
Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else. — Sam Walton
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. — Sam Walton
You can learn from everybody. — Sam Walton
Curiosity doesn't kill the cat; it kills the competition. — Sam Walton
I'd hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I'd call 'idle rich' - a group I've never had much use for. — Sam Walton
I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. — Sam Walton
You can make a positive out of most any negative if you work at it hard enough. — Sam Walton
I'd still say that visiting the stores and listening to our folks was one of the most valuable uses of my time as an executive. But really, our best ideas usually do come from the folks in the stores. Period. — Sam Walton
Lose your smile and lose your customers. — Sam Walton
I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment. — Sam Walton
Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it. — Sam Walton
There's absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary, working people can accomplish if they're given the opportunity and encouragement to do their best. — Sam Walton
Maybe I was born to be a merchant, maybe it was fate. I don't know about that. But I know this for sure: I loved retail from the very beginning. — Sam Walton
Some families sell their stocks off a little bit at a time to live high, and then - boom - somebody takes them over, and it all goes down the drain. — Sam Walton
Communicate everything you can to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them. — Sam Walton
Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who's going to have a great idea. — Sam Walton
After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency. — Sam Walton
I guess in all my years, what I heard more than anything else was: a mere town cannot support a discount store for very long. — Sam Walton
I don't subscribe much to any of these fancy investing theories, and most people seem surprised to learn that I've never done much investing in anything except Wal-Mart. I believe the folks who've done the best with Wal-Mart stock are those who have studied the company, who have understood our strengths and our management approach, and who, like me, have just decided to invest with us for the long run. We — Sam Walton
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. — Sam Walton
It is unhealthy to marinate in your own press clippings. — Sam Walton
And like most other overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making. Of — Sam Walton
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. — Sam Walton
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. — Sam Walton
In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn't pay my employees well. — Sam Walton
I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been. — Sam Walton
If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever. — Sam Walton
Take the best out of everything and adapt it to your needs. — Sam Walton
If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will. — Sam Walton
Capital isn't hard to find; intuition, yes. — Sam Walton
Rogers had been open about a year, and everything was just piled up on tables, with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. Sam asked me to kind of group the stuff by category or department, and that's when we began our department system. The thing I remember most, though, was the way we priced goods. Merchandise would come in and we would just lay it down on the floor and get out the invoice. Sam wouldn't let us hedge on a price at all. Say the list price was $1.98, but we had only paid 50 cents. Initially, I would say, 'Well, it's originally $1.98, so why don't we sell it for $1.25?' And he'd say, 'No. We paid 50 cents for it. Mark it up 30 percent, and that's it. No matter what you pay for it, if we get a great deal, pass it on to the customer.' And of course that's what we did." It — Sam Walton
Creating a huge personal fortune was never particularly a goal of mine, and the proof of that lies in the fact that even to this day most of my, and my family's, wealth remains in the form of Wal-Mart stock. I think most people in our position would have hedged their bets a long time ago and diversified into all kinds of investments. As it's happened, though, our very simplistic, very personal investment strategy has turned out far better than anyone could ever have expected. So Wal-Mart stock has made the Waltons a very wealthy family - on paper anyway. I — Sam Walton
Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. — Sam Walton
Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. — Sam Walton
As an old-time small-town merchant, I can tell you that nobody has more love for the heyday of the smalltown retailing era than I do. That's one of the reasons we chose to put our little Wal-Mart museum on the square in Bentonville. It's in the old Walton's Five and Dime building, and it tries to capture a little bit of the old dime store feel. But I can also tell you this: if we had gotten smug about our early success, and said, "Well, we're the best merchant in town," and just kept doing everything exactly the way we were doing it, somebody else would have come along and given our customers what they wanted, and we would be out of business today. — Sam Walton
Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. — Sam Walton
Expenses should never exceed one percent of our purchases. — Sam Walton
The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from the point of view of the customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience. — Sam Walton
I had confidence that as long as we did our work well and were good to our customers, there would be no limit to us. — Sam Walton