Very interesting of how his brain worked while growing and scaling Walmart. Very hard working inspiration. Side note, Believe it or not, this is 100% written by myself. I read the book and wrote this down.. Cool right? No Ai, all human!
Austin Pray
Summary of Sam Walton Made in America and some key points to take away from it.
- This book is about the most successful business man in the United States and how he accomplished Wal-Mart's Success.
Value of hard work.
Blatantly copying the good idea of others.
The Great Depression work Values and how his parents made it through, including himself as he had to work.
Customers first and helping people afford things.
Competition only made his business stronger. Learn how.
Celebrate success and learn from the failures. Knowing when.
Employees into associates and finally valuing them.
Giving back to the community.
- Examples that I can remember:
Sam Walton grew up in the Great Depression and had to learn the value of hard work while helping out his parents and seeing his dad and mom work their asses off.
He would travel around to different countries to measure aisle length, observe successful traits like saving money on shelving, and checkouts at front only, learning to appreciate the employees and customers, and even observing cheers that brought good team bonding.
Sam Walton always wanted to invest in the associates children's education so that they could be successful managers of Walmart after graduating.
Value of Hard Work
- Always learn how to Make Extra Money
Excuses will always keep you from your success. Just go out and do something and work hard at it. Sam Walton talks about getting his first job at eight years old and working his ass off.
You are riddled with how you can avoid this on social media and get rich quick schemes all the time in sponsored posts. This is why I am telling you the hard truth and telling you how it is.
Even if someone gets rich with a pyramid scheme or can travel and work, they are guaranteed working their ass off and always learning themselves.
If your responsible enough with a million dollars, you will be respected enough as well.
- Do your Research
Play close attention to competition and always be above the curve. Don't be scared of change.
For me, I actually get more nervous if something doesn't change, because I am always expecting something to and am prepared with options one two and three. Be prepared for all outcomes and learn from every part.
- Putting in the Effort
The Sooner you identify what it takes to start a business, work as a self-employer, and fail at a younger age. The more you will be prepared for when you are older and it is harder to snap back from failure.
Have I mentioned I have failed almost 3 Restaurants just starting out my career, joined pyramid schemes myself, and even get fat & dumped.
I thrive on humbleness and not being scared of your roots is actually a way more exciting journey than saying I started a social media platform one day and bam, billionaire.
Failing actually makes me know I am destined to be an entrepreneur while it can bore others and mainly scare most.
Blatantly Copy
- Sales Tactics
Having cashiers only up front and minimal amounts. This is great with saving money by employing less throughout the store. Also, saving money on using metal shelves to keep prices competitive and displaying discounted goods was a huge part of Wal-Mart's success.
Wal-Mart's stores goals back in 1955 were 6% profit margins. Everything listed above were all someone else's idea made better by Sam Walton.
Purchasing power and buying in bulk was also a huge role in successful competitive prices.
- Wal-Mart Cheer
This activity visibility boosted worker morale. He stole this from a store in 1975.
Some presidents watched this first hand and probably observed a wonderful team bonding when accomplished.
I have personally witnessed this when I worked at a Hotel and it actually works well with getting everyone on the same page and excited to do excellent at every pre shift meeting.
- Observing Competition
Phil, a manager next to a K-mart started to run display shelving "role back" discounts that was a huge success. The huge displays grabbed peoples attention. Price Matching strategy made it always impossible for other companies to even compete and were known to be the most affordable brand out there.
Observing Competition for me is very helpful, because it simply identifies the validity of the product and I can just tweak it up to make it better. This is how I stay successful in all my industries.
Observing Competition also makes its easier to stay relevant in the fast changing market.
Understand what others are doing quick to learn how you can adopt it yourself. For example how Wal-Mart didn't follow the Amazon trend until it was too late. Whoops.
Customers, Employees, and Community.
- Customer Satisfaction
Free Ice Cream, 24/7 Hours Open, Affordable, Free Parking, Known to even recommend other stores if the customer was not satisfied at there's.
Honestly, these are all memorable and is why you can find me occasionally buying something from Wal-Mart.
Also, I like the Recommending other stores because it makes them seem not selfish for all the business and I have experienced this when not satisfied myself.
- Employees
Eventually after a trip to England in 1971 he came back and started the "associate" program which was a philosophical approach of starting a partnership with the staff and even offered stock options and cash back bonuses to them as a benefit of working there.
Cha-ching. I think that employee benefits is huge with employing these days because there is so much competition and a bit saturated. I remember the most about past employees benefits than I do my salary.
- Community
Sam Walton has awarded 70 college scholarships per year (when this book was written) for employees children. He also says that Wal-Mart saves the community 10 percent and gives communities jobs and a lot of them.
Building a good relationship with the community is huge with brick and mortar businesses because it's not like you can just pack up and move that easy if you make a bad impact somewhere.
Regulars at any business is such a huge dent with the overall business that they should be your target to continue their business with you.
Lets have a discussion on this topic as this concept is really helpful with life, business and feeling confident. DM on @talktoanerd or Email me over on my business website Weezle.com (I did that for a backlink ha).