At Sapience we love learning from other companies and entrepreneurs. Listening to a number of podcasts (especially Founders and Acquired) on Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos led us to a great business book classic: “Made in America”, the autobiography of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart. The fact that Jeff Bezos basically seems to be obsessed by this thirty year old book, made us curious. And indeed the insights Sam Walton shares are still completely valid today and completely in line with the values of Sapience.
- Be client obsessed. To put it in Sam Walton’s words: “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.” Walton was known to visit stores several times a week, sometimes even multiple stores in a single day. Walton believed strongly in the value of these visits, considering them essential for understanding the needs of both customers and employees. His firsthand observations and interactions with people in the stores helped shape many of Walmart's strategies and decisions. We also strongly believe in thoroughly understanding the customers’ needs and expectations and working backwards from that to offer something that is beyond their expectations. At Sapience we are proud that our Customer Delight score stands at 9,3/10.
- Appreciate your employees. To put it in Sam Walton’s words: “If you want the people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you’re taking care of the people in the stores.” At Walmart, respect for the employees is so ingrained, they call the employees “Walmart associates”. Walton regrets not putting enough focus on his employees in the beginning of Walmart, but as of 1971, he started a profit-sharing plan for all the associates.
- Constant learning through experimentation. To put it in Sam Walton’s words: “Go in and check our competition. Check everyone who is our competition. And don’t look for the bad. Look for the good. If you get one good idea, that’s one more than you went into the store with, and we must try to incorporate it into our company.” Sam took those ideas to Walmart and simply tested them. He was not afraid of making mistakes: if an idea didn’t work he killed it, but he didn’t regret trying it. By trying thousands of ideas and keeping the ones that worked best, and making sure those ideas spread across all Walmarts, he made Walmart grow to be the biggest retailer in the world.
Beyond these 3 core lessons, the book brims with insights that are interesting for entrepreneurs and business people. What we also found captivating is that a lot of these insights are shared with other great business icons, such as Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison etc.:
- Focus: Walton dedicated himself only to Walmart and its main objective: beating everyone else’s prices.
- Raise the bar: “High expectations are the key to everything,” says Walton.
- Read & Learn: Walton was obsessed by reading and learning. He read every book on retailing and visited his competitors and talked to their employees, even recording everything they said, sometimes until he was thrown out of the store.
- Think long term: Walton was in it for the long haul. He could do that because he was passionate about what he was doing.
- Be Cost-obsessed: Walton's obsession with thriftiness, in personal life and in Walmart's growth, kept expenses minimal allowing re-investment of money in Walmart.
- Copy good ideas: Walton was shameless about copying from competitors and keeping what worked.
And many, many more.
We consider this gem of a book, written in a very accessible, no-nonsense language, to be a must-read, which will reward you with new valuable lessons and pieces of wisdom each time you re-read this business classic.
