Samuel Moore Walton was an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam’s Club. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world’s largest corporation by revenue as well as the biggest private employer in the world. For a period of time, Walton was the richest man in America. This Sam Walton quotes will motivate you.
Best Sam Walton Quotes
- “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
- “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, Sam Walton quotes on leadership
- “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
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“To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.” ~ Sam Walton
- “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Individuals don’t win in business, teams do.” ~ 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, Sam Walton quotes on associates
- “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
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“The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself.” ~ 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
- “We’re all working together; that’s the secret.” ~ 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 -
“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
- “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
- “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
- “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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“If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them – not that they are working for you.” ~ Sam Walton
- “If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.” ~ Sam Walton
- “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.” ~ Sam Walton
- “If one of our customers comes into the store without a smile, I’ll give them one of mine.” ~ Sam Walton
- “The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say. It’s terribly important for everyone to get involved. Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.” ~ Sam Walton
- “I had to get up every day with my mindset on improving something.” ~ Sam Walton
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“Lose your smile and lose your customers.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Do it. Try it. Fix it.” ~ Sam Walton
- “…You can make a positive out of most any negative if you work at it hard enough.” ~ 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
- “Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Don’t get so stuck in your ways that you can’t change.” ~ Sam Walton
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“You can learn from everybody.” ~ 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
- “Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.” ~ 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
- “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
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“Most everything I’ve done I’ve copied from somebody else.” ~ 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, Sam Walton quotes on employees
- “Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.” ~ Sam Walton
- “I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.” ~ 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
- “Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.” ~ Sam Walton
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“When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.” ~ 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
- “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 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.” ~ Sam Walton
- “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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“I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Take the best out of everything and adapt it to your needs.” ~ Sam Walton
- “High expectations is the key to everything.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Expenses should never exceed one percent of our purchases.” ~ 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
- “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
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“There is only one boss. The customer.” ~ 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
- “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
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“Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.” ~ 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
- “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
- “I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.” ~ Sam Walton
- “Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.” ~ Sam Walton