Sam Walton : Made In America

Rating:
Summary: Wal-Mart Bringing the World Closer Together
Review: Sam Walton chronicles the meteoric success of the retail behemoth and provides a detailed look at the unique business philosophy which made him and his namesakes among the richest people in the world.

Walton recounts how he concieved and implemented all the things we love about Wal_Mart/SAMS - the beaming elderly people who stand by the shopping carts and "welcome" you, the ubiquitous blue vests that adorn the multitudes of happy employees, the inspiring and cutting edge blue/red color scheme, the groundbreaking RFID initiative which will enable them to sell us plastic flora and Great Value hot links even cheaper, the $5 flannel shirts made in Chile, the $29 DVD player made by those energetic little toddlers in the sweatshops of China, the 25 gallon can of fruit cocktail, the humongous parking lot, and generally the company's magical ability to completely strip your town of everything that once made it special, and of course, the fact that the founder always drove a pick-up truck (that one always brings a tear to my eye). As he foretells, these glorious things will soon be available to every man, woman and child in every country on every planet in the universe. As he predicts, soon will come the day when the entire human race is wearing that glorious blue vest and congregating at the McDonald's or Auntie Mae's up front during our 2 minute break periods.

From the desperate illegal workers who are forced to work long hours and not allowed to leave, to the beautiful little children of South America and Asia who toil to provide Americans with their $1 photo frames and $5 musical keyboards, to the customers who walk the aisles waiting for their $19.99 oil change to be finished, Wal Mart is bringing the world closer together.



Rating:
Summary: A truly insightful story!
Review: "Made in America" by Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, chronicled his journey from his humble beginning in rural Arkansas to creating the first Wal-Mart and subsequently a successful empire. Sam wrote about working for JC Penney and that was how he knew he wanted to be in retailing. He also wrote about the challenges and competition that he faced and how he overcame those to create such successful stores nationwide. Throughout his book, Sam talked about his working philosophy such as using associates as partners, treating the customers right, encouraging creative ideas and also thinking ahead.

I truly enjoy this book as I have always been fascinated with Wal-Mart. Even though I thought that I know a lot about Wal-Mart but this book reveals to me there are tons of things I am not aware of. Sam touched on things such as how the name "Wal-Mart" came about, how they started having people greeters at the entrances of every stores, how he dealt with competition from Kmart, and others which I feel are quite insightful. Sam also showed true entrepreneur spirit by his willingness to take risks, having a great vision, thinking ahead, tons and tons of hard work and not afraid of failings. Even if you are not interested in Wal-Mart or retailing in general, I still think this is a great book to read as there are definitely tons of valuable learnings. Detroit Free Press, I thought summarizes this book really well by saying that, "Here is an extraordinary success story about a man whose empire was built not with smoke and mirrors, but with good old-fashioned elbow grease."

Rating:
Summary: Got a little dull after a while.
Review: The book certainly made me more sympathetic to Mr. Walton, and made me admire the incredible hard work that he put into his business. I like Wal-Mart and think its success is deserved. But a lot of the book's chapters were just laundry lists of "Then we opened store #140... then our revenues topped $10 billion.... then I fired this guy and replaced him with that guy...". There were some fun anecdotes about successes and failures that Wal-Mart had along the way (like the exploding watermelons and donkey piss!) -- but not enough of them. Walton doesn't share much personal stuff, either -- and frankly I wonder what kind of family life he had, considering his unbelievable workaholism and stinginess. Anyway, for the last third of the book I was just skimming.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!
Review: I have been interested for a while about the life of the man behind the Wal-Mart empire. And the man who would've been the richest man in the world had he been alive today. This book was an enjoyable first hand account written by the man Sam Walton himself in his own words. With some comments from some of the key people in his life. I felt that I kind of got to know Mr. Walton personally as I read this book. He also, of course, has some great insight on how to build and run a successful business. I highly recommend this book, whether you want to learn more about Mr. Walton himself or just Wal-Mart. Also has some great black & white as well as color pictures included in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Good book with great clarification
Review: Prior to reading "Made In America", I was led to believe that Wal-Mart was an "Evil Empire". Although I shop there from time to time, I try my best to avoid it and shop elsewhere. Sam made it clear that it is not Wal-Mart's intent to put others out of business. He believes that Wal Mart made other businesses more competitive. Those who couldn't do this folded. This, I agree. If you notice, other stores such as Zellers, and the Bay their staff is much friendlier and helpful. Before Wal-mart, customer no-service was expected. Aside from this, the book was well written and talked about Sam's upbringing and how he made this empire from humble beginings. He consistently reiterated his philosophy of giving the customer what he wants and made it clear that Wal-mart does not take its success for granted.

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Summary: Hillarious propaganda
Review: This is so stupid. Wal mart was "Made in america" by sam walton and now everything in wal mart says "Made in china." Wal amrt pays its emplotyees next to nothing and breaks strikes and prevents union formations. These pigs and this dead guy are so stupid that they think they can get away with breaking every labor law on the books and get away with it.

DONT GO TO WAL MART ANF BUY AMERICAN.
JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!