Sam Walton built America’s vast chain of Wal-Mart stores on the philosophies of excellence in the workplace, customer services, and always having the lowest prices. Walton, affectionately known to his staff as ‘Mr. Sam’, was a true entrepreneur. He established Wal-Mart in 1962 at the age of 44. He died in 1992, having seen his company become America’s biggest retailer.

Walton believed that each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they held for their community. Today, Wal-Mart’s Community Outreach Programmes underwrite college scholarships, raise funds for local children’s hospitals, provide money and manpower for fund raisers, and help educate the public about recycling and saving the environment. Wal-Mart even helps American towns and cities build up their local industries by providing industrial development grants.

What was Sam Walton’s secret to success?

Rule 1: Commit to your business

“Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion i brought to my work. I don’t know if you’re born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you will be out there every day trying to it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around you will catch the passion from you - like a fever.”

Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates

“Treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It’s the single best thing we ever did.”

Rule 3: Motivate your partners

“Money and ownership alone are not enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.”

Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners

“The more they know, the more they will understand. The more they understand, the more they will care. Once they care, there is no stopping them. If you don’t trust your associates to know what is going on, they will know you don’t really consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of information your competitors.”

Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business

“A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we are really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They are absolutely free - and worth a fortune.”

Rule 6: Celebrate your successes

“Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm - always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody sing with you. Don’t do a hula on Wall Street. It’s been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. “Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?”

Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company

“Figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines - the ones who actually talk to the customer - are the only ones who really know what is going on out there. You did better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.”

Rule 8: Exceed your customers’ expectations

“If you do, they will come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses - apologies. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed‘. They are still up there, and they have made all the difference.”

Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition

“This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For 25 years running - long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation’s largest retailer - we ranked number one in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you are too difficult.”

Rule 10: Swim upstream

“Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there is a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you are headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything else was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.”

Read my popular post, The 10 Steps How to Become a Millionaire.

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Colonel Harland Sanders

More than 2 billion “finger lickin’ good” chicken dinners are served every year in over 80 countries around the world. It all began when an entrepreneur in his sixties, living on social security, had faith in his idea. Born 9 September 1890, Harland Sanders learned how to cook when he was six. His father had just died, his mother was forced to work, and it fell to Harland to put meals on the table. He started working at 12, first on a farm, then as a streetcar conductor, a 16 year-old soldier in Cuba, and a railroad fireman. He studied law by correspondence, sold insurance and tyres, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, and ran gas stations.

When he was 40, Sanders began cooking for hungry travelers at his gas station in Corbin, Kentucky, serving their meals at the dining table in his own living quarters. Soon people came just for the food and he opened a 142-seat restaurant across the road. Over the nine years, he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique that is still used today. His fame grew. He was made a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 for his contribution to the State’s cuisine. But when a new interstate highway bypassed Corbin in the early 1950s, Colonel Sanders was forced to sell up. After paying off his depts, he was reduced to living on his $105 social security cheques.

But the Colonel had a vision: confident of his fried chicken formula, he started franchising his recipe in 1952. The 65 year-old drove across America, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners. If they liked what they tasted, he did a handshake agreement that he would be paid a nickel for each chicken they cooked and sold. By 1964 the sprightly Colonel had more than 600 franchised outlets in the US and Canada, and sold his interest for $2 million to a group of investors. He stayed on as public spokesman and by 1976 he was ranked the world’s second most recognizable celebrity.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation went public in 1966. In 1971 it was acquired by Heublein, Inc. for $285 million, which in turn was acquired by tobacco giant RJ Reynolds. The Colonel still travelled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC empire he founded until his death at the age of 90 in 1980. In October 1986 PepsiCo, Inc. acquired KFC for $840 million.

Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss came to fame when he decided to sell clothing and supplies to prospectors in the Californian Gold Rush. He headed west to San Francisco in 1850 with a load of “dry goods”. He soon sold out of pants, and with business booming decided to make work trousers out of the canvas he’d brought to sell for tents and covered wagons. Canvas, he figured, could survive the rough conditions of the California Rockies. His first pants were cut from sailcloth, but while they wore superbly they abraded his customer’s skin.

And that is when opportunity knocked. Strauss switched to a tough blue yarn cross-woven with white called denim, softer and more comfortable than canvas but almost as tough. He then nailed copper rivets at the seam junctions to guarantee they wouldn’t come apart under stress.

While most prospectors went home empty-handed, Levi Strauss had struck gold. His blue jeans soon traveled all over America and on to Europe. By the turn of the century, Levi Strauss was the largest producer of branded clothing in the world. First worn by working men and cowboys, American culture took Levi’s to its heart in the 1950s and 1960s.

Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker

They proved how the power of a great idea could change an entrepreneur’s fortunes. They started off manufacturing some rather unusual pieces of machinery in Baltimore. Machines that put caps on milk bottles were one line; currency cutters for the US Mint were another. Then they made history. In 1916, they invented the world’s first portable electric hand drill. Black and Decker revolutionized life for builders and home handymen, Their finest achievement came on the Apollo 15 space mission: a Black and Decker Drill dug out the first samples from the surface of the moon.

King C. Gillette

King C. Gillette was born in 1855 in Chicago, and named after a prominent judge who was a family friend. The young man became a traveling salesman. In 1891 he went to work for William Painter, the man who had invented the cork-lined bottle cap. Painter suggested that Gillette should invent “something that once used is thrown away, so the customer comes back for more.” Inspired, young Gillette looked for an opportunity.

In those days, most American men went to barbers for a shave. Long, “cut-throat” razors were used which lasted indefinitely and were stropped on leather straps to keep their cutting edges sharp. Gillette, who spent a lot of time travelling and shaving on swaying trains, concluded that all he had to do was perfect the cutting edge of a razor in a smaller, safer form. By 1899 he had designed a compact razor blade holder with disposable blades. He found a partner, engineer William Nickerson, who perfected a blade from ribbon steel.

In 1903 the Gillette razor was launched. (Nickerson decline publicity because he felt that his name was inappropriate for a safety razor!) They charged $5 for the ‘handle’ and $1.20 for twenty blades. It sold so well they reduced the number of blades in a pack to 12 and sold them for $1, effectively increasing their profit margin by 40%.

Most of this profit went into advertising. Gillette’s face appeared on the packaging and in the ads which he wrote himself. In 1903 he had sold 51 razors and 168 blades. By 1917, he was selling 120 million blades a year. By 1920s, Gillette had perfected its mass marketing technique: the “handles” were basically sold at cost, thus encouraging every man to shave himself daily, and the company lived off the sales and profits of its famous blue blades.

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This is the second part of 10 Steps How to Become a Millionaire. If you miss the first part, you can always read it here.

5. Learn and Keep on Improving

The road to becoming a millionaire is not a race, it is not a sprint, it is a marathon. You will need time to make yourself and transform yourself into a millionaire. It is not like one day you wake up and you have $1 million in your bank account. The process of becoming a millionaire is a continuous process. Therefore, if you want to achieve this goal, you will need to constantly learn and improve yourself all the time.

Nothing can beat continuous improvement. If there is one thing that can bring you unlimited wealth, it is the power of constant and never ending improvement. The moment you stop to learn, you stop to grow. Learning is so much important in your life, it is only through constant learning, you will keep yourself better everyday. If you want to be a millionaire today, then learn and read about what other millionaires do. Follow their footstep and you will be the same just like them.

6. Set a Clear and Specific Financial Goal

You must have a clear and specific financial goal if you want to be a millionaire today. Just like every other goal, you must have one. If you are not clear about how to set goals, how goal setting can help you in your road to success, read my Goal Setting and you will be clear about it.

Do you know how much you want to earn? Do you know how much your net worth is going to be in 3 years time? If you don’t know all this, stop and think for them right now! If you don’t know how much you are going to make, you will never make it, because you don’t even know the amount. Many people say that their goal is to become rich, to make a lot of money. This is not specific enough.

For some people, $1,000 for them is a lot, while for others, $1,000 is very little. Therefore, how much is ‘a lot’ for you? You need to have an exact value for your mind. When your goals are not clear, you are sending blurry message to your mind. All those blurry messages are going to make you confuse, your mind will be having a hard time to come out with a clear strategy and plan on how to achieve it.

7. Track Your Incomes and Expenses

This is what most people will never do, and this is why they are not a millionaire. You need to be serious in dealing with money if you want to become a millionaire today. Learn how to track your incomes and expenses. Just spend around 10 to 15 minutes to do this everyday. It does not matter how you track your incomes and expenses, you can jot them down in a note pad, in your diary, or even into your mobile phone. The key here is the habit. Again, it is your habit that will affect your life.

Did you actually know that most people spend 30 minutes a month into managing their wealth? This is a good thing, but they spent it the wrong way. Most people spend 30 minutes each month paying bills. Yes, most people will manage their incomes and expenses, only when the time they pay the bills. If you want to be rich, you must start from your habit of managing money. If you cannot manage your wealth, you cannot be rich.

Like I said above, you need to learn to do this. No matter how much you are earning and no matter how much your expenses are, it is the habit that you need to master. Even if your earning is very low, you have to track them. By doing so, you are sending the message to the universe that you know to manage wealth and you are ready to receive more. Therefore, start doing this from now on. Learn how to manage wealth, and you will become a millionaire eventually.

8. Debunk Your Millionaire Myths

There are a lot of myths in your beliefs that actually hold you back in achieving more wealth in your life. For example, the most common ones, a lot of people have this myth:

Money will not buy you happiness - True. However, not having money will not make you happier as well. Isn’t it better to be unhappy with money than unhappy without it?

Money isn’t everything - This is the top excuse given by poor people who are in denial. The truth is that everything is money. Without money, you cannot maximize other important values such as family, career, health, spiritual and relationships.

Rich people are materialistic, they worship money - It is the people who lack money who worship it. Who works all day, year after year in a job which they hate, just for the money? Who is wishing they had more money? Who is constantly worrying about money? Who are those who constantly sacrifice their health and family to make more money? It is those who are wealthy or those who have no money? In fact, the rich rarely work because of money. They work because of passion and a sense of personal mission. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Lucas, Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs certainly don’t work for money… they don’t need to.

Money will make you less spiritual - Again, if you are by nature a spiritual person, having money will allow you to touch more lives and help you do more of god’s work. In fact, the wealthiest people in the world are extremely spiritual. Not having to worry about money anymore allows many of the rich to focus on the more important things in life. Many truly wealth people believe they don’t own their money. They are just custodians of God’s wealth.

Money will bring you worries and problems - The majority of the problems people face in life (relationships, health, and career) are the result of the LACK of money.

Money is the root of all evil - The lack of money is the root of all evil. The number one cause of murder, cheating, stealing, lying is poverty (the lack of money).

These myths are grabbed from Adam Khoo’s Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires, you can download The 9 Millionaire Habits from my blog.

9. Create and Compounding Your Wealth

Trust me, of all the 10 steps, this is the toughest and the most challenging step to becoming a millionaire. However, in real life, most people choose this path and are trying very hard with this step. Many people thought that they can only become rich if they can earn a lot of money in their life. In fact, this is a more offensive way, saving and living a frugal life is a more defensive method.

If you apply both offensive and defensive methods, you will multiply your net worth and become rich in no time. There are actually 5 ways you can make money, I called them the Millionaire Mountains. Read my post, The Millionaire Mountains to find out the 5 ways how you can create wealth in your life.

This step involves a lot of hard work and smart work. You need to put in a lot of action before you can see the results that you want. The problem with most people is, they are lazy, they are not committed, they procrastinate, and they don’t have the millionaire mindset. Creating wealth is not as difficult as you think if you are willing to learn and take action. Learning is the first step, the knowledge works as the vehicle that brings you to your destination. While taking action is the second step, it is the fuel that will drive the vehicle to where you always wanted to go.

Many people have the limiting beliefs that saying they cannot be rich or become a millionaire. However, this is not true, you can become a millionaire even if your earning is low. How? By managing your wealth and creating more income streams in your life. As long as you do what you should be doing, money will come to you.

10. Give and You Shall Receive

One of my favorite quotes. If you want to become a millionaire, help others to become a millionaire or solve their problems, and in return, they will make you rich. This is the golden rule of life, “Do not do unto others what you do not want others do unto you”. Always remember, when you have become rich, don’t forget to help people to become rich as well. If you are willing to help and teach people, you will become even richer.

Just like if you take the elevator up to the top floor, don’t forget to send it down so that other people can take it up as well. The journey to becoming a millionaire is not an easy one, you will have to meet with a lot of people in your journey. Treat everyone nice on your way up because you will not know who you will meet on your way down. The more you give, the more you will receive.

These are the required 10 steps how to become a millionaire that you can follow if you really want to be a millionaire. Well, it is easier said than do. You have to take a lot of determination and action to make your dreams come true. Creating wealth and becoming a millionaire is not something like a sprint, it is a marathon.

Number One Reason Why Most People Fail to Become a Millionaire

Like what I have said, the road to become a millionaire is a long one, it is an on-going process, you need to spend time to develop and improve yourself, take action and move closer toward your goals. The number one reason most people fail to become a millionaire is because they give up in the half way. You need to take continuous action for a long time. It is not possible for you to become a millionaire overnight.

Even if you hit the lottery and became a millionaire overnight, your wealth will not stay long with you because you don’t have the knowledge and skills to manage it. The road to become a millionaire is the training ground for you, when you are ready, the wealth will come to you. Many people hope that they can be rich instantly, but as you know, this is not possible, there is instant riches or any free lunch in this world. If you want to be rich, you will have to pay for it, you have to sacrifice your time and energy to achieve it.

I hope this article can help in your journey to become a millionaire. Read the first part here.

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Posted on August 9th, 2008 by Shawn
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