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.

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.

The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.

To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.

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.

Communicate everything you can to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.

You can't just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.

Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more.

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune

Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself.

The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers.

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.

Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who's going to have a great idea.

Individuals don't win in business, teams do.

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.

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

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.

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.

If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them - not that they are working for you.

We're all working together; that's the secret.

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.

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

High expectations are the key to everything.

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.

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

There are only four things in life that matter. The first is happiness and I'll sell you the other three for a dollar.

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.

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

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

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.

Lose your smile and lose your customers.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

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

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.

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

Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.

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

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

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.

Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.