Sam Walton Quotes - Page 2

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Do it. Try it. Fix it.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. 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. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

Lose your smile and lose your customers.

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

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

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

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 scarce; vision is.

I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I did that in college. I did it when I carried my papers. 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. Before long, I probably knew more students than anybody in the university, and they recognized me and considered me their friend.

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.

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.

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

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

When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.

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