Sam Walton Quotes

He proved that people can be motivated. The mountain is there, but somebody else has already climbed it.

The job of senior management is to cultivate an environment where store managers can learn from the market and from each other.

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.

I've never been one to dwell on reverses.

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.

Communicate everything you can to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.

I've always been driven to buck the system.

Expenses should never exceed one percent of our purchases.

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

You can't just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.

The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.

Individuals don't win in business, teams do.

In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn't pay my employees well.

It is unhealthy to marinate in your own press clippings.

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.

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

I've owned about 18 airplanes over the years, and I've never bought one of them new.

There's a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.

What we guard against around here is people saying, 'Let's think about it.' We make a decision. Then we act on it.

Don't get so stuck in your ways that you can't change.

Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who's going to have a great idea.

Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

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.

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.

One person seeking glory doesn't accomplish very much.

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.

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

You can make a positive out of most any negative if you work at it hard enough.

Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.

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.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

We're all working together; that's the secret.

Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor.

One thing my and mother and dad shared completely was their approach to money - they just didn't spend it.

Curiosity doesn't kill the cat; it kills the competition.

High expectations is the key to everything.

And like most other overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making. Of

The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say.

I got into retailing because I wanted a real job.

Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.

I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America.

Do it. Try it. Fix it.

I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.

The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers.

I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself.

To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.

What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?

We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us. cause they are.

It's just paper - all I own is a pickup truck and a little Wal-Mart stock.

You can learn from everybody.

If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them - not that they are working for you.

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.

I had to get up everyday with my mind set on improving something.

I loved retail from the beginning, and I still love it today.

If everybody is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.

The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers.

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.

There are only four things in life that matter. The first is happiness and I'll sell you the other three for a dollar.

Capital isn't hard to find; intuition, yes.

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.

Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.

Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up.

Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.

Take the best out of everything and adapt it to your needs.

Most everything I've done I've copied from somebody else.

Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.

I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high.

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.

Lose your smile and lose your customers.

High expectations are the key to everything.

Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more.

All of us profit from being corrected - if we're corrected in a positive way.

Give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people.

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune.

Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.

There is only one boss. The customer ...

All that hullabaloo about somebody's net worth is just stupid, and it's made my life a lot more complex and difficult.

If one of our customers comes into the store without a smile, I'll give them one of mine.

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.

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.

Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself.

Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.