WALTON Sam

For several years in a row Helena Walton, her three sons and a daughter top the list of the wealthiest families of America. Their fortune is estimated at $ 45-50 billion. At least half of them earned, who died six years ago, the head of the family - Sam Walton, who, according to magazine Forbes, took 11 th place in the list of richest Americans in U.S. history. The secret of this resounding success is simple: to destroy tens of thousands of small merchants and their shops on site to erect a three thousand supermarkets.
. At the beginning of the century American town somewhere in oklahomschine not very different from those that we used to see in the cinema
. The central street - there is a bank, town hall, police station, hospital, a saloon with a theater, school, library, post office, church, fire unit and, finally, the largest city store. From this street branching many alleys that housed the house of local residents and dozens of tiny shops. In one of these Oklahoma towns, Kingfisher, in 1918 and was born Sam Walton. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Uoltonov exactly the same small town in Missouri. Almost the only difference between Kingfisher was that the stadium, which often ran Sam, and the Scout House, where he learned the basics of public speaking, is not located in the center, but on the outskirts of town.

. In fact, Walton does not like to remember his childhood marred by constant squabbling parents hated each other
. His detailed biography usually begin with 1940, when he graduated from the University of Missouri, where he earned a bachelor's degree from the business and went into a trading company J. C. Penney. There, Sam did not like it, neither wages nor the team - and very soon he moved to the trading company Claremore. There was a little brighter, although the wage he especially did not win. But met future wife-Helen Robson, in which he married in 1943, with - top of vulgarity! - Day of St.. Valentine. But for love. And yet because of money: the father of Helena well settled in this life, which at that time it was impossible to say the 25-year-old Sam.
. Marriage has already promised to escalate into something more, but then Sam called in the army: the U.S. finally decided to fulfill his duty as allies and opened a second front
. True, . from feeding lice in the trenches and moving fraternization with Soviet soldiers on the Elbe the fate of Sam spared: he was diagnosed with either heart failure, . whether cardiac arrhythmia, . whether both immediately and when the enlistment office has learned, . that Walton has some experience in the trade, . his, . not hesitate, . appointed intendant (in our opinion, ensign, assistant warden) air unit,
. It was here, in the army, Sam Walton, and finally decided that the trade - his fate.
. After his demobilization took advanced (with the father of Helena) Family Council, . which Sam put the question squarely before the test: either his daughter will languish wife lives on bread and water sales agent, . or a loving father to help the young find their feet,
. Dad was very fond of his daughter, so in his choice could be no doubt: Sam Walton opened a loan of $ 20 thousand

The money is Sam and Helena opened in Newport, Arkansas, a small shop with a proud sign of Ben Franklin. Only experts know that it does not name the U.S. president, whose portrait adorns the $ 100 banknote, and the brand of the same name franchises. In five years, Sam has turned up shop in the most profitable store network Ben Franklin, so the owner of the trademark and really decided that it's not about who manages the shop, and in its name. Once he refused to renew the contract with Walton and myself got down to business. His mistake, he realized quickly: as soon as he learned how well things went at the new uoltonovskogo store.

.
. It was a little shop in Bentonville, all in the same Arkansas, called the Five & Ten Cents ( "Five and ten cents"), which you can not decipher
. (Now in this building, museum Wal Mart Stores, which houses goods half a century ago. Among them, a big thermometer, which one customer returned Walton, claiming that it "shows the wrong time". Reconstructed the situation of the first cabinet Walton: a wooden table, chair, telephone with the number "96".)

. During the next ten years, Sam has opened nine shops in Arkansas and Missouri, has studied the theory of trade and in practice worked somewhat independently invented the principles of management magazine
. By 1962, when Sam opened his first supermarket, its trade credit in general has already been formed.

Remembers Helena Walton, Sam always struggled in two great passions. One - to scattered on the outskirts of the city shop like Mom & Pop ( "Mom and Dad", where the mother - an accountant and a salesman, and my father - the director and loader). Another - to the location in the heart of the city supermarkets. It has often been at the center and studied their work. "Wherever we were, - recalls Helena - if our path was caught shop, we stopped and Sam saw it, and then went inside". This passion for the study of foreign shops stayed with him for life.

By the way, all the shops Walton described the period were from the discharge Mom & Pop, although in principle he has long been able to open a large supermarket. The problem was only in where to open a store. Friends of Sam, also owners of small shops, dreaming of what was once open a supermarket in the center. But Walton decided to open it on the outskirts.
Supermarket, which opened in 1962 on the outskirts of Rogers (Arkansas), was called Waltons Five & Dime (his brother was the manager of Walton - Bad). With him and began forming the world-famous network of Wal Mart Stores, which now totals more than 3 thousand. supermarkets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, China, Puerto Rico and Germany.

And this network is growing steadily: in the past five years, the company spends on opening new stores, $ 3.4 billion. year. (The last to achieve it - to open a supermarket on the Internet, which is represented by 2.5 thousand. products, and next year will be 80 thousand) Meanwhile, the core principle remains the same. Wal Mart opens a supermarket in the sleeping areas and not in the city center. This is the first invention of Sam Walton.

The second is that each of uoltonovskih stores essentially represents everything the same Mom & Pop, but only very large. Buyer attracts not only a wide assortment and low prices, friendly atmosphere as store: an opportunity to discuss with the seller, a longtime friend, the latest gossip and between business to buy. Today, thanks to numerous public opinion polls is well known, but then, in the early 60's, to make such a conclusion was difficult to. Sam made. And in their supermarkets have tried to preserve the atmosphere of the tiny shop. He always told staff: "There is one boss-the customer. He can dismiss anyone in the company - from CEO to a porter - that just spend money elsewhere ". And he added: "The more stores are Wal Mart, the more we must avoid megalomania, preserving the atmosphere of a small shop."

And Walton himself has always set an example. He tried as much as possible to communicate with the staff of shops and demanded the same from the members of the board of directors of the company: "The best ideas come to us from the clerks and warehouse workers (among them - free parking at the store and permission to export trucks with goods directly to the vehicle),
. If you take care of employees of stores, then they, in turn, just take care of customers ". Throughout his life, Walton, as an ordinary salesman, traveled in a pickup. Once, after losing his partner David Glass is a dispute, danced on Wall Street National Hawaiian hula dance in Hawaiian grass skirt. Clients at his shop after that only increased.
And yet in the history of Walton is one thing, but a great spot to which pay attention to all his detractors (and they with him, like any wealthy man, has always been a lot). He has ruined tens of thousands of owners of small shops Mom & Pop: buyers began to visit one big Mom & Pop - his. Moreover, Walton accused that he had destroyed the foundations of America, its concept of "main street", provincial cities doomed to extinction, erasing its American supermarkets unique charm.

. In early 1990, when annual sales network of Wal Mart reached $ 50 billion, a torrent of criticism - its peak, Walton was forced to sit down at the memoirs, where he covers how to create the largest retailers in the world
. The public finally learned a big secret, having their shops on the outskirts, Walton did not even think to destroy the foundations of America. He simply built them, where cheaper land and lower taxes. In this case, we quote, "to offer low prices and preserve billions of dollars to the coffers of local residents, not to mention the creation of hundreds of jobs."


Another secret revealed - charity, which previously Walton never advertise. All my life I lived in provincial towns and driving around on them at its pickup truck, he knew their problems. In parallel with the construction of a new store his staff learned the address of local charities. After the opening of each store has established scholarships for students of local colleges and periodically organizes charity sale. In addition to schools, the money donated zoos, libraries, hospitals, theaters, churches, fire - in general, all those institutions that have traditionally been located on the main street of the city. Walton turned his attention to even the mayors of small cities. He established a prize American Hometown Leadership Award, which honors those chapters of the provincial municipalities, which are carried out in its own bailiwick long-term projects.
. Naturally, in his memoirs, Walton does not bypass the traditional recipes for this genre of prosperity
. Here, for example, as he formulated the ten commandments of universal success: "1. Be loyal to business 2. Share your profits with partners (as he called the store personnel). 3. Motivate partners. 4. Talk with your partners problems. 5. Appreciate what partners are doing. 6. Celebrate success. 7. Hear each partner. 8. Anticipate customer expectations. 9. Control costs. 10. Swim on Over ". There are also a valuable remarks: "Owners of small stores may well coexist next to Wal Mart, if you create a niche, for example, will specialize in paints, which Wal Mart are in limited quantities.
. Not surprisingly, published in 1992, Walton's autobiography "Made in America: My Story" quickly became a bestseller and provoked such a resonance, that his services to the fatherland already it was impossible not to notice
. And in March 1992, U.S. President George W. Bush presented the medal to Sam Walton of Liberty.
Shortly after Walton died. But he died with head held high. As for his critics, you can bet on the wager that they sometimes merchandised its stores. And that's enough to drop all charges.