Sam Walton Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by 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
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We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us. cause they are.
~Sam Walton
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The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers.
~Sam Walton
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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
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I got into retailing because I wanted a real job.
~Sam Walton
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Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.
~Sam Walton
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Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.
~Sam Walton
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The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.
~Sam Walton
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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
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All of us profit from being corrected - if we're corrected in a positive way.
~Sam Walton
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I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.
~Sam Walton
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Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.
~Sam Walton
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I've never been one to dwell on reverses.
~Sam Walton
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One person seeking glory doesn't accomplish very much.
~Sam Walton
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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
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In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn't pay my employees well.
~Sam Walton
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I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.
~Sam Walton
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Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
~Sam Walton
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What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?
~Sam Walton
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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
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Give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people.
~Sam Walton
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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
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I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America.
~Sam Walton
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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
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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
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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
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I don't know what would have happened to Wal-Mart if we had laid low and never stirred up the competition. My guess is that we would have remained a strictly regional operator.
~Sam Walton
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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
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High expectations are the key to everything.
~Sam Walton
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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
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Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.
~Sam Walton
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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.
~Sam Walton
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Capital isn't scarce; vision is.
~Sam Walton
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Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.
~Sam Walton
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Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up.
~Sam Walton
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We're all working together; that's the secret.
~Sam Walton
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