Book Review 21 Pieces of Wisdom from
Made in America by Sam Walton

Made in America by Sam Walton was an interesting read for me because I knew absolutely nothing about the founder of Wal-Mart before I picked it up. From the beginning of the book, it is apparent how unique Sam Walton is then anyone he grew up with. His character that went into the building of Wal-Mart is still reflected today. It is crazy seeing all the dots connect from what he did 40+ years ago to how it applies in today’s world. A lot of people don’t care for Wal-Mart social impact and thats ok. However, don’t let it prevent you from keeping an open mind and learning business principles from one of the most successful business people in United States history.

1. Passion to Compete — At the beginning of the book, Sam Walton describes how he has always had a strong passion to compete. He attributes the successes that he has had throughout life to this passion. It pulled him through the ups and downs that he went through throughout the years and help him to reach very high levels of success. Athletes come to mind when I think of having a strong passion to compete. They reach new levels of performance every year. Do you wake up everyday ready to take it to your competition?

2. Saving Customers a Dollar — Sam Walton’s policy from the beginning was how he could save customers money on each of their purchases. He grew up in a time where there were many small retailers with high markups and limited hours. The market was ripe for disruption. If you look at Walmart today and how they do business you won’t have to look for long to see how Sam’s values impact. How can you save customers a dollar on your product or service versus the competition?

3. Flexing Your Ego in Public is a No No — Sam absolutely hated the personal media attention that he received when Walmart went public. They attempted to portray him as this crazy old codger because he drove an old pickup and brought his dog with him everywhere. He believed that your energy should be spent on taking care of your customers and team. Not focusing on what the outside world thinks. This makes sense. First, if you flex your ego publicly when something bad happens it can be more embarrassing then if you stayed humble. Second, what is the point of attempting to influence other people’s opinion? They will always only have part of the picture and will have no idea how to see things from your point of view. Could you be spending more time working on your business then on social media telling everyone?

4. People Meeting One Common Goal — Throughout Made in America, Sam continually brings up the craziness that took place at Walmart when he was CEO. He did all sorts of crazy pump up sessions to get employees worked into a frenzy. It was easy for him to do this because he was bought into his teams as much as they were in Walmart. Multiple times Sam reinstates that one of his biggest pet peeves was making sure his team members were taken care of. He absolutely despised managers that didn’t respect and treat team members well. Sam understood that Walmart isn’t the best paying job on the planet for entry level workers but he wanted them to feel like they were a part of something bigger. I respect that. That was one reason why I chose to study Industrial Organizational Psychology. It doesn’t take much to notice that there is a large percentage of the workforce that is unsatisfied with there work. What I will never understand is why companies don’t invest more resources into solving this problem Employees who have higher job satisfaction have a higher retention rate plus will be willing to put in more sweat for a place that supports them. Sam had this one right.

5. Sam’s Ability to Lead — From the time Sam Walton was in high school he took every leadership role that was available to him. This caused him to get a hard time from classmates and friends. A trend that I am seeing in several autobiographies is to run out of fucks to give in regards to what others think. I believe the stat is that 10% of people you meet will hate you no matter what you do. Accepting these leadership roles really set himself up for success at Ben Franklin and Walmart. Taking the lead allowed him to gain the experience and mental fortitude to transition into a successful business owner. Are you seeing the dots connecting yet?

6. Learn Something From Everyone — No matter who somebody is or what they do they are better at something then you. You can learn something from there experiences that will help you along the way. Who have you dismissed lately that could teach you something? How can you learn something from the next person? Sam believed that everyone had knowledge or experience to offer. This kept him on top of his game for a very long time. He learned things from entry level employees to his competition like K-Mart and Price Club. This guy’s willingness to learn is unbelievable and unmatched. He got caught all the time with his voice recorder in competitors stores trying to out if they knew something that he didn’t. He was worth over a billion dollars when he got caught multiple times! What could you do to learn more?

7. Starting From the Bottom — Sam Walton started his franchisee career at a Ben Franklin store. He was very successful by trying out all kinds of crazy tactics. He had the first ice cream machine in a retail store and would cut out Ben Franklin as the middle man as often as he could. He was so successful they wouldn’t renew his lease after 5 years because the buildings landlord wanted to take over the store. This was a huge learning experience for Sam. He built many relationships during this time that would allow him to grow Walmart at an exponential rate later in life. The greediness of the landlord was the best case scenario for Sam. It allowed him the opportunity to strike out on his own, use his own suppliers, and do things the way he wanted to do them. How has a past misfortune been a blessing in disguise? Are you going through something right now that is a perceived misfortune? It could be the break you have been looking for.

8. Improve Something but Don’t Be Afraid to be Wrong — How many days have you woken up this week bound and determined to improve something? I can remember the feeling when there was a specific goal I was working towards. There is nothing like it. You want to run out of bed every morning and don’t want to think about anything else. How many days in the last week have you woken up bound and determined to improve? Many people are absolutely terrified to be wrong about something. If they are found to be wrong, they make up an excuse instead of finding something they can learn from their mistake. The lesson here is to be bound and determined to take action on something. It is better then sitting around and waiting.

9. Buy It Low, Stack It High, Sell It Cheap — Sam had been confined to how much he could buy at Ben Franklin but once Walmart launched look out! Walmart was an absolute mess in every store but Sam was proud of what they were accomplishing. He would come up with new ways all the time to try to get more people to come to the stores. Do I agree this is the best way to launch a business now? Not exactly if selling for the cheapest price and lowest margins is the best policy. However, there marketing campaigns were second to none in that time. They hid steeply discounted merchandise in the store for the customers to find, had the worlds largest detergent display, and refused to let their prices be beat. Sam did mention that the hiding of the merchandise was a bad idea in hindsight because of the mass chaos that ensued. Edit: I was in a Menards yesterday and noticed they had applied this tactic. The build these monstrous stores and stack the merchandise to the ceiling at a deeply discounted rate. Interesting to see somebody applying Walton’s strategy today.

10. Managers Owning a Piece of Their Store — Sam like the strategy of selling managers a part of the stores the ran. It instilled a sense of being there own business owner. This pushed them to do the best the could with what they had. Instead of it being only a job they believed they were a part of something bigger. Do you see a pattern yet? Sam was very open to suggestions from managers as well as entry level employers. His policy was try it out and see what happens. This allowed Walmart to continually innovate as they grew. Each manager was also allowed to seek out out their own items giving each store a special touch. The only requirement was is that they had to know what their best selling item was every week and have the numbers to back it up.

11. Running Ads for the Same Price as Everyone Else is a Waste — Great insight here. I have seen ads on Google, in newspapers, and other places for items that are priced exactly the same as everyone else. What is the point? Are you trying to let everyone know that you have the exact same price? If you do have the same price how can you be different in your advertising techniques to attract customers?

12. Don’t Be Afraid to Swim Upstream — When Sam looked at going public he had no idea what he was doing. Sam and Walmart were bashed by papers and stock brokers. He did things his own way and followed his instinct. Remember that no matter what the experts say they can still be wrong.

13. Raising a Family with a Sense of Togetherness and Spending Time with Kids — For all the work he did Sam was always good about spending time with family. He took his kids with him on his plane when he visited his different stores around the US. He truly believed in being the best Dad that he could. He admits he wasn’t perfect but he did his best to raise his kids in a relaxed, loving environment. This speaks a lot about the importance of family life in anyone’s life. Sam was very innovative in how he spent time with his kids by bringing them with when he traveled or making sure he was there at home as often as he could be. The stores seem to have always came first but it was never by an overwhelming margin.

14. It Must Be Human Nature That When Somebody Homegrown Gets On Something the Folks Around Them Are the Last to Recognize It — The people where Sam grew up believed that it was all smoke and mirrors. They were the last ones to realize how hard he was working to grow Walmart to what it is today. Even some of his family members didn’t fully believe what he was doing was real. It seemed to rub him a bit the wrong way but he used it as encouragement. I can relate to this. No matter what it is that I work on there seems to be a family member or old friend that only sees smoke and mirrors. I have one old friend that tends to think that I am unreliable but in reality I am focused on something other than my social life at that point in time. It gets under my skin a bit but if it is human nature for this type of behavior than how can I be offended?

15. Crazy Investor Meetings — Walmart’s first investor meetings were farily boring from what I understand but that soon changed. They really wanted people to be there so they started throwing crazy picnics. After a few years they had to take beer away because of the ridiculousness some investors caused. At this point in time, it was unheard of for people to actually go to the investor meetings. The fact that Walmart was having these crazy parties with tubing and grilling made them the talk of Wall Street. Even Sam Waltons investor meetings set a different precedent then anyone was used to then. Everyone thought he was crazy but there is no arguing that he was effective. How can you mix up something that is normally mundane and make it extraordinary?

16. Customers and Associates over Stock — This is where Sam Walton earned a lot of respect from me. He would never do anything to sacrifice his relationship with Walmart’s customers or disrespect Walmart’s associates. There are a lot of people who the end justify the means. I don’t live by that. I don’t want to sacrifice my beliefs or values on the road to success. If I am going to be successful it is going to be on my terms. Are you willing to do the same?

17. Saturate a Market by Spreading Out Then Filling In — Sam Walton’s strategy when expanding Walmart was to build a distribution facility in an area. Then go one day’s drive in every direction and built a store. He would then fill the gaps in every town in between to saturate the market. This was the opposite strategy at the time of every larger retailer. Their strategy was to move to all of the big cities first, leap frogging everyone in between. When the time came to move into the big cities and compete with the likes of Kmart, Walmart was so well known by everyone they had no problem competing. This is an interesting tactic because it isn’t one that is done regularly. It is the opposite of major companies today. They take their app or service and move it from huge city to huge city. They forget about everybody else out there that would likely use it in between. Could you use the same strategy with your product or service?

18. Pick Good People People and Give Them Maximum Authority and Responsibility — Sam believed in finding the best people in the workplace and giving them as much control as he could. This allowed him to expand quickly without having to micromanage everything. The ability to recognize talent and to keep it around as Walmart grew gave him a phenomenal team to grow with. This is a principle that is necessary for any business person to understand. You have to find great people, put them in the best opportunity to succeed, and then trust them to make the best decisions. This is why it is necessary to create a place where people would want to work and to remain employed. My friend Shaun shared this as his philosophy in team building as well and he has had a lot of success.

19. Turning a Losing Store Around by Taking the Managers to Successful Stores to Be Around Successful Managers — A store in Texas was losing a substantial amount of money due to a huge amount of shrinkage. The culture in the store was that no one cared if things got stolen and there was no on to stop them from doing so. Sam decided to take all of the managers and have them work at some of his more successful stores to learn a thing or two. The managers from the negative cashflow store came back more motivated then ever and with all of the lessons they learned turned the store around. Sam could’ve closed the store or fired everyone but he thought about things differently. He believed that people were generally good but didn’t know how to run a good, profitable store. Using that philosophy he retained a majority of the team and showed them what it was like to have pride in their work. Could this strategy be applied to social situations or other businesses? What would happen if you took people from a traditional high crime area and placed them in a low crime area to experience the culture? What if instead of firing someone when they make a mistake you partnered them with one of your best team members?

20. Stepping Back from CEO, Then Stepping Back in While Removing New CEO — Sam wanted to step back from Walmart for a while to pursue other things. He believed he made a good choice in the new CEO but it caused all kinds of things to happen. There wasn’t unity throughout the leadership team he had in place so he was forced to remove the new CEO. This caused almost 1/3 of his senior management staff to leave. Wall Street thought that Walmart was done. Sam had no such thoughts. He put a really young but talented guy in place to grow the company. He brought in outside help to his management team, which he believed gave him the most talented team in the industry by far. After a minor hiccup, Walmart rebounded and grew even faster then before. This shows the power of having the best team in place and trusting them to do the right thing. Even though everyone else thought it was a disaster, Sam saw it as an opportunity to bring in new, young talent.

21. Getting People to Buy into Things is Great Until You Want to Change Them — Sam was all about having people by into the Walmart way. Which was great, until he wanted to implement a change. Change makes people uncomfortable and once they are bought into something it’s painful to change. They will fight it and be uncomfortable with it, even if it is for their benefit. Startups are all about getting people to buy into their vision but what happens when they grow and are forced to change? This shows that their are negative consequences even when the intentions are honest and valid.

21.5 — Sam Walton’s Rules for Building a Business -

Commit — You must commit to the business whole heartedly. Otherwise when the going gets tough how are you going to make it?

Share — Share your success with others. It will make it worth it.

Motivate — Encourage everyone around you to do the best they can. Stay positive and make sure that they know you have their back through thick and thin.

Communicate — You absolutely must communicate with everyone around you. Make sure that you are all on the same page for the growth and direction of the company. It will make it easier to solve problems and make decisions.

Appreciate — Show your appreciation to your team and everyone who supports you. They don’t have to work for you or help you.

Celebrate Success and Find Humor in Failure — Make sure you celebrate with your team when you have a great success. It will make it even more rewarding. You must also learn to laugh at yourself when things go poorly. It will make it easier when you fall on your face if you can laugh at your own expense.

Listen — Listen to your customers. They will tell you what they want and what they don’t like. The secret to selling is giving your customers what they want.

Exceed — Exceed expectations by going above and beyond what anyone expects. People can work or shop anywhere. It is up to you to set the bar on where they go.

Control Expenses — Limit spending on wasteful things and control the outflow of money. The less you spend the more you will make per item you sell.

Swim Upstream — Don’t be afraid to buck trends or go against the current belief system. Everyone is right until someone proves them wrong.