Good Information

[Hooper]

Sam's Rules For Building A Business

People often ask, "What is Wal-Mart's secret to success?"

In response to this ever-present question, in his 1992 book Made in America, Sam Walton compiled a list of ten key factors that unlock the mystery.

These factors are known as "Sam's Rules for Building a Business."

Rule 1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. 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. 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.

Rule 2
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. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your Associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.

Rule 3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day-by-day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Rule 4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your Associates to know what's going on, they'll know you don't really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your Associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule 5
Appreciate everything your Associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free - and worth a fortune.

Rule 6
Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm - always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"

Rule 7
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your Associates are trying to tell you.

Rule 8
Exceed your customers' expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. 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.

Rule 9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer - we ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different 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.

Rule 10
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.

[Almighty Colin]

I read that book when it came out.

Still in the bookshelves somewhere.

[Vick]

Great concepts -

and Wal-Mal is a hugely successful company (I am one of the few who won't shop Wal-Mal - I just don't like the "feel" of their stores)

But at entry level (and many other positions) Wally Mart is one of the lowest paying employers anywhere so I don't know if that really qualifies as sharing your profits with all your Associates, and treating them as partners - well maybe it does

Playboy had an interesting article on the reality of Wally-Mart a few months back - lots of small town virtues and ethics tied into the company

Truthfully you can't argue with their success, but the reality might not be the same as the vision laid out here

and also that doesn't make them bad ideals, I think they're great ideals and a solid foundation to build and enterprise upon - but they are just that - ideals

Guess you sort of have to read a little into it

[gregtx]

good points Vick.. but remember that book was written years ago when Sam was alive.. and his vibrance was felt throughout the stores.. hell I was 18 yrs old.. and making 6 bucks an hour at samsclub.. when min wage was $3.35/hour... plus I got paid holidays, time and a half on sundas, profit sharing.. stock options.. as a part time employee.. there were a few people who had been there for 10 plus years..and had well over a million in stock options..

then.. when his death was announced.. things changed drastically.. when the text book team took over... things changed.. and many of sams philosophies.. were talked about but rarely executed...... but hey.. you cannot deny they still seem to grow extensively.. but I wonder what they would be like if Sam were still alive???

[Peaches]

Originally posted by Vick@Feb 5 2004, 06:09 PM
But at entry level (and many other positions) Wally Mart is one of the lowest paying employers anywhere

Not here in the hills. In fact, they actually pay more than any other store for entry positions. It will be interesting to see what happens when Lowe's opens next door and needs 170 employees.....