Wednesday 28th February 2018
Morning Vibes With Dr. Jerry - the First
Hello and welcome to
#MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst-Episode 168
Title: Life Lessons
To Learn From Sam Walton - The Founder of Walmart.
One day in the early 1960s,
44-year old Sam Walton founded his first department store in Bentonville, Arkansas
a few years after being forced to let go of his first successful store for
contract problems.
Since that day, July 2nd, 1962,
Walmart has grown to be the most successful retailer in the world (now is
second to Amazon) with over ten thousand stores and more than $200 billion in
market value.
All that because of one
dedicated and hard-working man who lived by his principles and gave many
ambitious people, the inspiration to do and grow more.
I have read Walton`s
autobiography,
‘Sam Walton: Made In America’
And these are my top four take
away life lessons from that book:
1. Understand The
Value Of The Dollar
Walton never believed in a
having a flashy lifestyle and was capable of balancing the love of life with
keeping expenses at bay.
He had seen people selling
their companies for little to enjoy the rich experience, then suffer later when
it all goes down the drain.
He also believed that to
provide value to his customers he had to cut his expenses and be wise with
spending money.
So he built a philosophy that
every penny he saves, is a penny saved for his customers and created the famous
Walmart motto: Save money, Live better.
Walton dined at family
restaurants, slept two to a room when traveling with his executives and among
all of the eighteen airplanes he bought in his lifetime, none of them was brand
new.
”Every time Wal-Mart spends one
dollar foolishly, it comes right out of our customers’ pockets. Every time we
save them a dollar, that puts us one more step ahead of the competition”
– Sam Walton
2. Protect Your Success
And Learn From Every Mistake
After five years of hard work
in Arkansas, Walton eventually managed to outperform his competitors and build
the largest and most profitable variety store in the whole region.
Unfortunately, he lost
everything over a contract mistake. His landlord got greedy and wanted to give
Walton’s store to his son, so he refused to renew his lease at any price.
To be honest, the man did offer
Walton a fair price in exchange of his franchise name and inventory but this
wasn’t what Walton wanted, and he had to leave behind all the success he’d just
built and go.
But because of his positive
mindset, Walton blamed nobody but himself for that mistake and vowed to learn
from that mistake and spend double the time reading any future lease.
He also realized his family
needed someone with law experience who can also hold their best interest so, he
encouraged his oldest son, Rob, to become a lawyer.
3. Learn Everything
You Can About Your Business
Be desperate to learn
everything about business and hang around those who know better than you.
Wal-Mart stores have dominated
the retail industry for years but did you know who made Walton interested in
such business? His barber.
The first rules Walton ever
learned about retail work came from his barber and his brothers who had later
grown their variety store into a sixty-store chain.
Walton also spent most of his
Sundays at his Manager`s house learning the business and talking about
retailing.
Even when he later left
JCPenney and moved to Arkansas, he had to find someone experienced to learn
from so he spent his lunch breaks at his competitor`s store and copied his best
practices.
“Commit to your business.
Believe in it more than anybody else.” – Sam
Walton
4. Be Competitive
The best word to describe
Walton is competitive.
He got that from his mother who
taught him to take life seriously and try to be the best at everything he did.
He worked as a lifeguard,
waited tables in exchange for meals and stopped getting allowance as soon as
high school began.
He also made a considerable sum
of money during college despite living through the most prolonged, and most
prevalent depression of the 20th century.
Walton was so competitive that
he played baseball, football, and basketball all at the same time and won the
state championship in two different sports.
Not mentioning climbing up the
Boy Scout ranks at a very young age and being elected president of the Town’s
Bible Class.
This intense experience helped
Walton set his mindset towards achievements and success and understanding the
importance of teamwork.
He realized that publicly
exercising his ego wasn’t the right way to build a strong business, so he
invested much in attracting the best, most talented, and most loyal people to
his team.
Summarizing therefore, the 4
Life Lessons to learn from Sam Walton's life are
1. Your Customer comes first - give him quality service and earn the
rewards a hundred fold
2. When entering into a contract, read every fine print; never
assume anything, never take anything for granted
3. Learn all you can about the Business you want to venture into
even before you venture into it and keep learning while working it
4. To attract talented and loyal people to your Team, learn to
manage your ego. Be neither too soft nor too hard, just a middle course will do
the magic.
Until I come your way
again, this is #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst
Keep it coming!!!
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