Many people consider Sam Walton to be the unchallenged retail-trading king of the late twentieth century.
Starting with one small American store in 1945, Walton went on to create the largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart, with over 1,700 stores in 1992 with sales of nearly $50 billion.
In the same year, before his death, Sam Walton wrote a book called ‘Made in America’ explaining exactly how he achieved his success.
Using a conversational style of writing, the book allows us to, really, tap in his spirit and mindset – and the lessons and experiences – that in 45 years turned this humble man into a world-renowned billionaire.
What I Found Impressive!
Sam Walton stayed up-to-date with the retail industry by studying his competition endlessly for over 4 decades, making all kinds of personal sacrifices in order to do so.
As a married man with four children, for example, Walton would combine his family holidays or camping trips with visiting retail stores whilst on the journey, and close to their chosen location.
Typically, store-owners would see Walton carrying a legal pad or a tape recorder, analysing their stores, engaging them in conversation, and keeping a record of all the things that he wanted to remember.
He was so dedicated to improving his retail business and learning from others that Walton travelled all over the world to see what foreign merchants were doing in the retail industry so that he could improve his stores in America.
And for years, he made the choice to drown himself in personal debt – at times having to borrow from one bank in order to pay another – to allow his business to grow.
Serving as a good example of productivity principles championed by leading time-management experts such as David Allen and Stephen Covey, Walton would meet with his mangers and associate every Saturday morning, demonstrating the tremendous importance of weekly planning and reflection when setting out to achieve ones goals.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that during his time, Walton’s business partners felt that he was at least 10 years ahead of the retail industry.
In light of Walton’s commitment to business, reading this book naturally caused me to ask myself questions such as:
- How effectively do you study and learn from your competition, give yourself a score between 0 and 10?
- How can you improve your study of your competition incrementally to increase your score by a point?
- What have you learnt from others whom carry out your business in another part of the world?
- Are you willing to immerse yourself in personal debt to grow your business?
- What do you think will happen in relation to your business in the next 10 years?
- What one thing are you doing today to positioning yourself and prepare for the possible changes in your business in the next 10 years?
- Do you see yourself being passionate about your business for the next 45 years?
- How can you make your weekly planning about your business more effective?
- What will others say about you in terms of your business if you were to pass away today?
- What would you want others to say about you in terms of your business if you were to pass away today?
What I Did Not Like About the Book!
Even though I found many of the things that Walton achieved to be extremely impressive, I did not find his life story to be very inspirational for the following reasons:
He got into retail because he was just looking for a real job.
Unlike other billionaires who were once poor like Opera Winfrey, Howard Schultz, and Do Won Chang, Walton did not have to overcome any great adversity or severe disadvantage in his youth or adulthood to become a great retail merchant.
Moreover, the way that Walton addresses issues concerning social inequality and the abuse of corporate social responsibility by large companies such as Wal-Mart lacked depth, or any real consideration of the fundamental causes of these problems.
There was no discussion; for instance, of the powerful influence that corporations disproportionately have on democratic governments, and in turn, their power to affect the spending habits, lifestyles, and choices of retail consumers – as addressed in the book ‘The Fine Print.’
Within the final chapter, Walton’s reflects on his life and achievements and gives them an economical, social, political, and spiritual perspective, yet I was still yearning for him to provide me with a deeper exploration of his spiritual consciousness – in line with the James Allen’s, Neville Goddard’s, and Susan Jeffers’ of the world perhaps.
The result was that I felt a sense of meaninglessness about his life even though it appears that he certainly achieved his purpose and left a strong legacy for others to follow.
To conclude, I would rate this book a five out of ten (5/10), as I think it is must read for anyone who is interested in business and investing, but of no particular importance to those individuals who are not.