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Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

Sam Walton

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Sam Walton
Age: 74 †
Born: 1918
Born: March 29
Died: 1992
Died: April 5
Businessman
Businessperson
Economist
Entrepreneur
Kingfisher
Oklahoma
Samuel Moore Walton
Way
Upstream
Conventional
Ignore
Swim
Wisdom

More quotes by Sam Walton

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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
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Curiosity doesn't kill the cat it kills the competition.
Sam Walton
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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
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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
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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
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I've always been driven to buck the system.
Sam Walton
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Do it. Try it. Fix it.
Sam Walton
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The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want
Sam Walton
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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
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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
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I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself.
Sam Walton
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If one of our customers comes into the store without a smile, I'll give them one of mine.
Sam Walton
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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
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Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.
Sam Walton
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Somehow over the years people have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was...just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. But...it was an outgrowth of everything we'd been doing since [1945]...And like most overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making.
Sam Walton
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Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.
Sam Walton
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Some families sell their stocks off a little bit at a time to live high, and then - boom - somebody takes them over, and it all goes down the drain.
Sam Walton
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Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself.
Sam Walton
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Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.
Sam Walton
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Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.
Sam Walton