Book Summary: "Made in America" - Sam Walton about Walmart
Dear friends,In JC’s Newsletter, I share the articles, documentaries, and books I enjoyed the most in the last week, with some comments on how we relate to them at Alan. I do not endorse all the articles I share, they are up for debate. I’m doing it because a) I love reading, it is the way that I get most of my ideas, b) I’m already sharing those ideas with my team, and c) I would love to get your perspective on those. If you are not subscribed yet, it's right here! If you like it, please share it on social networks! Today I want to share some insights from Sam Walton’s book “Made in America”. He speaks about his journey of transforming a small-town grocer into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. Walton writes about building a successful business model, about reporting, about values and how they help in building successful businesses and about managing a public company. I highly recommend to purchase this book if you are interested to dig deeper into his lessons for entrepreneurship. 🔎 Some topics we will cover this week:
Business modelCustomer obsession
➡️ Totally applies to us! How do we exceed expectations of our customers all the time?
Lower pricesLarger profit thanks to lower prices
➡️ How much does being low margin increase our sales productivity? When does it become worth it to reduce prices? That is why reducing cost to serve is important. Being scrappy to afford low prices➡️ On the importance of saving every dollar to translate it into competitiveness for your customers. We should apply this mindset while investing in efficiency and team.
Negotiate with vendors
➡️ How to negotiate with vendors! Go direct! Verticalize!
➡️ On the importance of controlling everything in your journey. Going direct is what we are doing with Alan. It is hard, but it is how you build the largest companies on earth. Both for customers and suppliers. Stay Lean
➡️ How to get more efficient, leaner and still a lot more delightful! Values for success
Be passionate
Learn all the time, steal from Competition
➡️ Take notes of everything! Be curious.
➡️ A good way to think about competition, but understand their why and your own why. Always think about the good ideas we can steal from the competition! ➡️ When we have great intuitions, we should build fast. Learn & build from the field
➡️ Talk more to people on the field: customer service, sales, … Eat What You Cook
➡️ How can we do this? Have PMs and engineers sell their products to customers? Have sales doing the care when they oversell? Building the Partnership with your team
➡️ Very important insight on how to lead the team.
➡️ I like the emphasis on direct communication as we do. Trust, responsibility, appreciation
Reporting & how to challenge it
➡️ Weekly Reporting can push people to think deeply about what makes them successful.
➡️ Going very deep in the numbers. Managing a Public CompanyDon’t spend too much time on what analysts/others say
➡️ We heard so many similar things about Alan & our culture.
➡️ People will always believe we won’t succeed. We just have to prove them wrong.
➡️ Focus on building the best business, and it will pay off. It’s already over! Please share JC’s Newsletter with your friends, and subscribe 👇 Let’s talk about this together on LinkedIn or on Twitter. Have a good week! |
Key phrases
Older messages
Culture & Hiring
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
💡 JC's Newsletter #167 - 2023-04-17
Product org to enable creation
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
💡 JC's Newsletter #166 - 2023-04-11
Product & Growth: learnings from Duolingo & others!
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
💡 JC's Newsletter #165 - 2023-04-03
Negotiation, mindset, connecting & learning from people
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
💡 JC's Newsletter #164- 2023-03-28
New products, competition & habits
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
💡 JC's Newsletter #163- 2023-03-21
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