Sam Walton quotes

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

 

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

 

We let folks know we’re interested in them and that they’re vital to us. cause they are.
-Sam Walton

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.
-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

 

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

 

All of us profit from being corrected – if we’re corrected in a positive way.
-Sam Walton

 

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

 

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

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

 

If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.
What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?
-Sam Walton

 

I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company. Most of us don’t invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.
-Sam Walton

 

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they’ve been.
Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up.
-Sam Walton

 

Most of us don’t invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.
-Sam Walton

 

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.
I’ve never been one to dwell on reverses.
-Sam Walton

 

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
-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.
In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn’t pay my employees well
-Sam Walton

 

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

 

Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.
One person seeking glory doesn’t accomplish very much.
I got into retailing because I wanted a real job.
-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

 

 

Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Dont 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

 

 

I still can’t believe it was news that I get my hair cut at the barbershop. Where else would I get it cut? Why do I drive a pickup truck? What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?
-Sam Walton

 

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. 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

 

Do it. Try it. Fix it.
-Sam Walton

 

It’s just paper – all I own is a pickup truck and a little Wal-Mart stock.
-Sam Walton

 

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

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

 

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

 

 

Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat; it kills the competition.
-Sam Walton

 

I’ve always been driven to buck the system.
-Sam Walton

 

There is only one boss. The customer…
-Sam Walton

 

There’s a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.
-Sam Walton

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

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.
-Sam Walton

 

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

 

Most everything I’ve done I’ve copied from somebody else.
-Sam Walton

 

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

 

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

 

Capital isn’t hard to find; intuition, yes.
-Sam Walton

 

You can learn from everybody.
-Sam Walton

 

It is unhealthy to marinate in your own press clippings.
-Sam Walton

 

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

 

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

 

We’re all working together; that’s the secret. And we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone, not just in America, but we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better lifestyle, a better life for all. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished ; we’ve just begun.
-Sam Walton

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