Sam Walton Essay, Research Paper

There were several characteristics of Sam Walton that enabled him to be successful in his life and business dealings. Sam Walton could do anything he put his mind to. This can be witnessed in his ability to transform a small town store into a 25 billion-dollar industry at the time of his death. Walton did not want to be poor, and this helped to push him when the going got tough because he knew what the possible outcome would be. For example, when Walton first started producing more Wal-marts, he was in great debt. In fact the only way he could get out was to make more stores and continue to set lower prices than the competition. Walton grew up into a poor environment as a child, so he knew what it was like to be at the short end of the stick. Perhaps his difficult childhood gave him something to strive towards later on in his life. Walton learned several things from others as well. For instance, he learned to economize from his job at J.C. Penney. And while he was developing his first general store, Walton saw what the competition was doing wrong, and did the complete opposite, such as selling more quantity in order to make a bigger profit in the long run. It can probably be stated that Sam Walton would not have been as successful if his devoted wife had not been there along his side. Always there for him, Mrs. Walton was able to keep the entire family together during the hard and difficult times. While Sam was out doing the dirty work trying to make something of his business, Mrs. Walton was playing the role of mother and father back at home.

Sam Walton had to create and develop his business in a very difficult environment. Competition was all around, and most people saw Walton?s store as a dead-end flop when it first began. Before the founding of Wal-mart, all of the businesses were the same, trying to set prices in hopes of large gains from not so large quantities. Walton saw what was going on and took advantage of what he saw. Thinking in terms of volume, Walton even went so far as to go straight to the wholesalers at early hours of the morning in order to get the product at its cheapest price. No one would have thought that Walton would have become successful through his unseen techniques at the time. However as Sam Walton began to build more and more stores, people?s ideas and opinions of him began to change. ?Maybe he is doing something right,? they began to say. Eventually Walton and his business grew to compete with stores such as K-mart and Sears. Walton saw these two large companies as major adversaries, but still believed in himself and his idea of Wal-mart. So several years and several hundred stores later, Sam Walton was finally able to make Wal-mart the nation?s largest retailer in 1991. Walton saw this as a great achievement. Just to show his appreciation, he held special pep-rallies with his employees all across the nation. His plan was to excite the workers and make them feel like their attitude and determination were important to the overall idea of Wal-mart, and they really were. Without the help of the thousands and thousands of dedicated employees, Same Walton?s dream of Wal-mart would not be what it is today.

I was overly impressed and fascinated with the biography of Sam Walton. Amazed at how a man who grew up in poverty could make such a large impact on an entire nation. You could have asked me about Sam Walton prior to my viewing of the video and I probably would have said that he was a rich tycoon that got lucky. But after viewing the tape, I have acquired the knowledge and understanding of what Sam had to struggle and go through to get to where he was. The sacrifices and choices he had to make along the way were inspiring. I now understand exactly why Sam Walton deserves all due respect for his great accomplishment. It can definitely be declared that Sam Walton was an entrepreneur in business. He was not only able to use his talent and search out and take advantage of new business opportunities, but Walton was also able to develop new ways of doing things, ways that had never been thought of before. By using his own imagination, aggressiveness, and hard work, Sam Walton gave birth to a booming industry and reaped the benefits that would follow, not just in terms of wealth, but emotional gain as well.