yo walmart

[abhinav joshi]

"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."

Growing Up

Sam Walton's career in retail began in 1940 when he become a sales
trainee in Des Moines, Iowa at a J.C. Penney store. Despite his
enthusiasm to serve the customers, Walton was not a model employee.
His desire to make his customers happy was so great that he often let
other responsibilities like paperwork and keeping the books fall by
the wayside. He was almost fired by his boss who told him that he was
not cut out for a career in retail. Walton kept his job, however,
because of his ability as a great salesman.

In 1942, Walton was drafted into the United States army. He worked in
the communications division of the Army Intelligence Corps and
remained on home soil throughout the Second World War. When he left
the army three years later, Walton was married, had a child, and
decided to start his own business to support his new family. With the
$5,000 that he had saved along with a $20,000 loan from his wife's
father, he purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport,
Arkansas. Walton was 27 years old.

Starting The Business

By putting in many hours at the store and implementing a pricing
strategy far below what his competitors were charging, Walton's new
business took off. By 1950 he had the top performing Ben Franklin
store in the area. Walton's landlord, seeing his success, decided that
he wanted Walton to sell the store to his son. When Walton refused,
the landlord decided not to renew Walton's lease and he was forced to
shut down.

Walton's 10 commandments for business success were:

1) Commit to your business.

2) Share your profits with your associates and treat them like your
partners.

3) Energize your colleagues.

4) Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners.

5) Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

6) Celebrate your success.

7) Listen to everyone in your company.

8) Exceed your customers' expectations.

9) Control your expenses better than your competition.

10) Blaze your own path.

Determined as ever to succeed in his venture, Walton looked for other
rural Arkansas towns for a new place to set up shop. He came across a
small village called Bentonville and opened the Walton's Five and Dime
in 1950. He made sure to get a 99-year lease this time on the
property. The two local competitors in Bentonville did not want to
discount their prices and Walton's business began to flourish.

Realizing he had a recipe for success, Walton began looking for other
areas of expansion. He borrowed money and used the profits from his
first stores to acquire more. By 1960, he owned 15 stores but he was
not getting the kind of return on investment that he thought he would
be making. He then made the decision to follow a heavy price cutting
strategy and hope to get much higher volume to turn a larger profit.
This was not a new idea. The problem at the time was that most
discount stores were small,located in urban areas, and focused on
specialty items. Walton's plan was to change the way retailing was
done across the country.

Building An Empire

Walton's revolutionary plan was to have large superstores in rural
towns that discounted a wide variety of products. His initial approach
was to Ben Franklin. They turned him down as they did not like the
idea of operating with lower margins. Without a large company behind
him, Walton opted to go it alone. In 1962, he mortgaged his home and
borrowed against everything he owned to open his first Wal-Mart in
Rogers, Arkansas, a neighboring town of Bentonville.

Excited about the prospects of getting discounts and selection that
were previously only obtainable in the cities, rural customers came
out in droves to his store. The success of his first store allowed him
to expand and by 1969 he had 18 Wal-Marts in Arkansas and Missouri.

Funded solely through debt and reinvested profits, Walton decided that
in 1970 he would take the company public. The IPO raised $5 million
and Walton retained 61 percent of the company. The money was used to
settle the company's debts and fuel further expansion. By 1980, 276
Wal-Marts were operating.

An integral component of Wal-Mart's success was its leveraging of new
technologies to improve efficiencies and save costs. Walton knew that
the key to success in a low margin business was to rigidly control his
costs. Wal-Mart was, for example, one of the first major retailers to
use electronic scanners at the registers which tied to an inventory
control system so they could know immediately which items were selling
well and needed to be re-ordered.

The success of his Wal-Mart stores led Sam to another idea - Sam's
Wholesale Clubs. These would be discount stores that sold to small
business owners in bulk. The idea was another big hit for Walton and
by 1985 he was considered by Forbes magazine to be the richest man in
America with an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion.

Similar to Ray Kroc, Sam Walton did not invent retailing, he simply
changed the business model and way of doing business to make it a much
more profitable venture.

Evan is an entrepreneur and international speaker. At the age of 19,
he became an owner and Chief Operating Officer in Redasoft, a
biotechnology software company. The company quickly grew to over 300
organizations as clients, including NASA and Johnson & Johnson, in 30
countries. He started Evan Carmichael & Associates with the goal to
give entrepreneurs the motivation to follow their passion and the
strategies they need to succeed. Evan has delivered over 100 keynote
presentations to entrepreneurs in North America, Europe, and Asia. He
has been interviewed by newspapers, radio stations, and television
stations including CHUM FM, CityTV, Global TV, OMNI TV, Enterprise,
and the Toronto Sun. Evan's website, http://www.evancarmichael.com is
the world's #1 website for small business motivation and strategies.