Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton Story

Samuel Moore Walton was an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the retailers Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. Sam Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He went to the University of Missouri at Columbia and got a business degree in 1940. He joined the US Army on July 16th, 1942 and become a military police officer. Sam Walton married Helen Walton on February 14th 1942 and they had 4 children.

In 1945, after getting out of the Army, he wanted to go into business for himself so he and his wife Helen borrowed money and used their savings to buy the failed Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas. Walton pioneered many concepts that became crucial to his success. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods. His second store, the tiny "Eagle" department store, was down the street from his first Ben Franklin and next door to its main competitor in Newport. In his store, by trial and error, and by studying competitors, Walton began to develop the knowledge that would later be invaluable in building Wal-Mart. After five years of long hours and hard work, sales almost quadrupled and he had the most successful Ben Franklin store in the six-state region.
What was his big mistake? He had a five year store lease with no renewal option. With the enormous success of the store, the property owner ignored Walton’s frantic plea and refused to renew the lease as he gave the store to his son. There was no place else in town for Walton to move his business so he, his wife, and their four children had to leave. He later said, “It was the low point of my business life. I felt sick to my stomach.” But instead of letting that mistake crush him, he drove across a four state area looking for a new site and found one in Bentonville, Arkansas. Now as a veteran retailer, Walton bought a small store, and with his experience and energy, soon built it into a chain of successful stores.

The first true Wal-Mart opened on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas and Wal-Mart became one of the  first stores to buy products in bulk and then make prices very cheap to the customer. That is what has made Wal-Mart so popular. Soon after, the Walton brothers teamed up with Stefan Dasbach, leading to the first of many stores to come. He launched a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Wal-Mart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition. In 1977 there were 190 Wal-Mart stores and in 1985 there were 800 Wal-Mart stores.

Walton died on Sunday, April 5, 1992, He left his ownership in Wal-Mart to his wife and their children. In 1998, Walton was included in Time's list of 100 most influential people of the 20th Century. Walton was honored for all his pioneering efforts in retail in March 1992, when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush. 

So if you're afraid of making a mistake, recognize that we all make mistakes, even someone as capable as Sam Walton. As in Walton’s case, if you learn from your mistakes, they could be the best thing that could happen to you as you apply their lessons to really get ahead.