Sam Walton famous quotes

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

#Leadership #Praise #Sincere

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

#Four #Matter #Firsts

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

#Inspirational #Song #Fun

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

#Succeed #World #This World

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

#Motivational #Leadership #Educational

High expectations are the key to everything.
-- Sam Walton

#Inspirational #Leadership #Basketball

Individuals don't win in business, teams do.
-- Sam Walton

#Business #Team #Winning

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

#Exercise #Psychology #Way

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

#Passion #Differences #Elements

The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want
-- Sam Walton

#Successful #Giving #Secret

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

#Opposites #Way #Chance

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

#Two #Differences #Important

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

#Swim #Way #Conventional Wisdom

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

#Empowering #Risk #Information

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

#Ideas #America #Trying

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

#Celebrate

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

#Successful #Greed #Employment

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

#Attitude #Love You #Passion

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

#Inspirational #Business #Work

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

#Educational #Causes #Folks

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

#Inspirational

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.
-- Sam Walton

#Ideas #Innovation #Clerks

Capital isn't scarce; vision is.
-- Sam Walton

#Success #Encouragement #Business

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

#Business #Goal #Legendary

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

#Song #Silly #Costumes

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

#Gratitude #Negative #Enough

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

#Encouraging #Succeed

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

#Boss

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

#Believe #Commit

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

#Business #People #Leader

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

#Giving #Culture #Stores

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

#Passion #Thinking #Needs

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

#Greatness #Ideas #Looks

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

#Inspirational #Care #Stopping

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

#Success #Thinking #May

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

#Competition #Advantage #Expenses

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

#Motivation #Bucks #Driven

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

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

#Cat #Competition #Curiosity

I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high.
-- Sam Walton

#Believe #Goal #I Believe

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

#Successful #People #Want

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

#Expectations #Giving #Littles

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

#Way #Management #Treats

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

#Senior #Teamwork #Jobs

Lose your smile and lose your customers.
-- Sam Walton

#Your Smile

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

#Mind #Everyday #Mind Set

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

#Needs

I learned a lesson which has stuck with me all through the years: you can learn from everybody. I didn't just learn from reading every retail publication I could get my hands on, I probably learned the most from studying what John Dunham was doing across the street
-- Sam Walton

#Reading #Learning #Hands

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

#Littles #Paper #Financial

After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency.
-- Sam Walton

#Real #Swimming #Secret

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

#Encouragement #Opportunity #People

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

#Opportunity #Ideas #Listening

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

#College #Names #People

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

#Jobs #Long #Lasts

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

#Keys #Ideas #Listening

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

#Stupid #Made #Difficult

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

#Business

I guess in all my years, what I heard more than anything else was: a mere town cannot support a discount store for very long.
-- Sam Walton

#Inspirational #Years #Long

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

#America #Towns #Small Town

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

#Successful #Thinking #Views

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

#Goal #Competition #Enough

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

#Next #Guessing #Tricks

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

#Work #Secret #Together

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.
-- Sam Walton

#Success #Creativity #Unique

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

#Business #Educational #Commitment

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

#Opportunity #Done