 Article
1: What You Can Learn From "The Sam Walton Way"
In this article, Michael Bergdahl discusses Sam
Walton's 10 self-professed rules for success, which Walton credited
for Wal-Mart’s unbelievable success and its growth from a
single store to a 7000+ store global enterprise. Within Mr. Sam’s
10 rules, you’ll find his secret to success is for the most
part, just good old fashioned commonsense, and can be categorized
as one part strategy, one part people, one part risk taking and
one part tactical execution. It is for this reason that almost any
one of us can adapt and use “The Sam Walton Way” in
our business and personal lives to achieve greater success. By using
Golden Rule values, working hard and by staying focused on a few
simple rules Sam Walton became the world’s richest man, and
his company became the world’s largest!
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2: Wal-Mart is a Company Obsessed With Lowering Costs - is Yours?
In this article, Michael Bergdahl describes the obsession of
Wal-Mart’s leaders to lower costs. Everyday in every area
of its operations Wal-Mart’s army of 2 million employees actively
look for cost saving opportunities. The focus on expense reduction
is so intense that culturally, “being cheap is actually chic”
at Wal-Mart! The challenge for others is to focus themselves and
their organizations with the same fanatical focus on controlling
and reducing costs. There is no faster way to drop big-time profit
dollars to the bottom line then by eliminating waste, controlling
expenses and cutting costs. Whoever said, “You can’t
save your way to prosperity” never met the leaders at Wal-Mart!
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3: Lose Customers – Here are 10 Proven Ways
In this article,
Michael Bergdahl explains 10 ways organizations lose their customers.
As hard as we all work to gain new customers, all of those efforts
can be thwarted in a moment, by any one on our staff members who
mistreats or abuses, or otherwise makes customers unhappy. None
of us must ever forget that the customer is the boss and can fire
our organization simply by deciding to spend their money elsewhere.
Customer attrition happens but you don’t want your own customer
service people to be the culprits! Review these 10 ways to lose
a customer with everyone on your team who comes in contact with
your most valued asset!
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4: Picking Wal-Mart’s POCKETS
In this article, Michael Bergdahl discusses how Retailers, Non-Retailers,
Manufacturers and Suppliers can improve their ability to compete
by “Picking Wal-Mart's POCKETS.” POCKETS is an acronym
that stands for: P = Price, O = Operations, C = Culture K = Key
Item Promotion/Product, E = Expense Control, T = Talent and S =
Service. These are the seven key result areas of the Wal-Mart strategy.
These are also the seven strategic areas around which competitors
need to focus their businesses in order to compete effectively.
In my book, my speeches, and in this article I use the P.O.C.K.E.T.S.
acronym as a framework to discuss the inside strategies and tactics
used by Sam Walton and Wal-Mart that makes competition with them
so difficult. This article summarizes Wal-Mart’s seven strategies,
and in doing so provides others with ideas to help them improve
their competitive business strategy by “Picking Wal-Mart’s
POCKETS.”
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5: Questions & Answers about Sam Walton and Wal-Mart
In this article, Michael Bergdahl answers questions about Sam
Walton and Wal-Mart’s strategies and tactics. Wal-Mart is
a mysterious company to outsiders who are trying to compete with
its best practices. Even the company’s own suppliers are daunted
by the challenges of working with the world’s largest company.
Wal-Mart is different than the image portrayed of it in the news
media. As a former Wal-Mart insider, Bergdahl provides answers to
questions asked of him by the news media around the world as he
travels internationally to speak at conferences. This article asks
the tough questions and Bergdahl answers them.
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6: Book Review, “What I Learned from Sam Walton”
In this book review, Nick Wreden, Brand Futurist,
reviews Michael Bergdahl’s book, What I learned from Sam Walton.
Wreden states that although this book never mentions “positioning,”
“brand vision” or any other of the immeasurable wastes
of good ink, What I’ve Learned from Sam Walton is actually
one of the best branding books I’ve read. It clearly spells
out how companies can achieve operational excellence, upgrade their
workforce and unify an organization around customer requirements,
even in brutal competitive arenas. It reads well, with a nice balance
between soft anecdotes and hard advice. If you believe brand success
depends on “lockstep tactical execution” instead of
pontification, get this book. A book cover photo to go with this
article is available for download at the link below.
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7: Book Review, “The 10 Rules of Sam Walton”
In this book review, J.F. Knapp III, a former
Wal-Mart Supercenter Store Manager, who knew Sam Walton personally,
reviews Michael Bergdahl’s book, “The 10 Rules of Sam
Walton.” Knapp states that he was privileged to be a part
of the “last generation” to know, and be a disciple
of, Sam Walton. The Ten Rules of Sam Walton, transcends the limits
of a traditional book about lessons in business (which this is)
and makes it book about life, and about successful living! This
is one of those books you should own. Don't borrow it. Add it to
your personal library! It should be read, and regularly re-read
by... everyone! A book cover photo to go with this article is available
for download at the link below.
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8: Great Service Trumps Low Prices
In this article Bergdahl dispels the myth that grocers can't
compete and thrive in a big box discount world! But the fact is
that in the USA many regional grocery chains have gone out of business
since Wal-Mart entered the grocery business. Today Wal-Mart is the
world’s largest company, and the world’s largest grocer.
In markets around the world, where Wal-Mart has opened stores, there
are grocers who are not just surviving in its shadow, but they are
thriving. In my estimation customer service is one of the most important
common denominators of those grocers who are competing successfully.
The common thread these companies have discovered is that to achieve
great customer service requires staffing great people, training
them properly, empowering them to serve, and retraining them periodically.
It also helps to have a company culture that values service over
everything else. If you do everything in your power to make shopping
at your grocery store as easy and enjoyable as possible for your
customers, you will find you can compete with discounters! Remember
to avoid the temptation to compete on price, and never forget, “great
service trumps low price competition!”
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9: AntidisestablishmentWalMartarianism© (Short Version - 1900
words)
('First published in the University of Oxford's Retail Digest,
Autumn 2008')
Short Version: In this article Bergdahl discusses
“The battle for the heart’s and mind’s of Wal-Mart’s
two million employees.” “Antidisestablishmentwalmartarianism”
is a term coined by Michael Bergdahl, a 26 year HR Professional,
who defines it as, “the opposition by Wal-Mart’s leaders
to the unionization of its non-union workforce anywhere in the world!”
In this article Bergdahl describes the ongoing battle between union
organizers and Wal-Mart’s leaders, and why after decades of
effort not one of the more than 4000 USA Wal-Mart stores has a collective
bargaining agreement. This is a remarkable accomplishment given
the fact that the company has been under a corporate union campaign
for decades. Bergdahl believes Wal-Mart has no choice but to battle
unionization, because remaining union-free is not only the key to
the company’s continued profitability, it may also be the
key to its long term survival! Why are the unions so interested
in organizing Wal-Mart’s employees? Why are Wal-Mart’s
leaders such adamant antidistablishmentwalmartarians? In this article
he answers these questions as he reviews, “The Wal-Mart Way,”
and its Employee Relations practices that have contributed to maintaining
its non-union status. Readers will learn some of the inside leadership
secrets of “The Sam Walton Way” which are utilized to
this day by company leaders. Bergdahl reviews Wal-Mart’s “best
people practices” that have contributed to Wal-Mart becoming
the world’s largest company, and which have helped keep its
stores union-free!
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10: AntidisestablishmentWalMartarianism© (Long Version - 3760
words)
('First published in the University of Oxford's Retail Digest,
Autumn 2008')
Long Version: “Antidisestablishmentwalmartarianism”
is a term coined by Michael Bergdahl, a 26 year HR Professional,
who defines it as, “the opposition by Wal-Mart’s leaders
to the unionization of its non-union workforce anywhere in the world!”
In this article Bergdahl describes the ongoing battle between union
organizers and Wal-Mart’s leaders, and why after decades of
effort not one of the more than 4000 USA Wal-Mart stores has a collective
bargaining agreement. This is a remarkable accomplishment given
the fact that the company has been under a corporate union campaign
for decades. Bergdahl believes Wal-Mart has no choice but to battle
unionization, because remaining union-free is not only the key to
the company’s continued profitability, it may also be the
key to its long term survival! Why are the unions so interested
in organizing Wal-Mart’s employees? Why are Wal-Mart’s
leaders such adamant antidistablishmentwalmartarians? In this article
he answers these questions as he reviews, “The Wal-Mart Way,”
and its Employee Relations practices that have contributed to maintaining
its non-union status. Readers will learn some of the inside leadership
secrets of “The Sam Walton Way” which are utilized to
this day by company leaders. Bergdahl reviews Wal-Mart’s “best
people practices” that have contributed to Wal-Mart becoming
the world’s largest company, and which have helped keep its
stores union-free!
click
here to download this article
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11: Sam Walton's Strategies & Tactics for Business Success in
Tough Economic Times©
In
this article, Michael Bergdahl discusses the success story of Wal-Mart’s
founder, Sam Walton, which is a true “Horatio Alger Story,"
because he started with very little capital, almost failed, and
in the end his company grew to be the world’s largest. The
news media often pestered Sam Walton throughout his career to divulge
the success secrets he had used to grow his company to become the
global giant that it is today. Strategically, he waited until the
end of his long career to share his “how to” succeed
strategies and tactics. As it turns out he did have a blueprint
for success that included seven specific strategies, and ten specific
tactics for his business that he attributed to his personal success.
These seven strategies and ten tactics serve as a blueprint others
can copy, and follow, for their own business success. In these tough
economic times, it makes perfect sense to learn from the strategies,
tactics, and best practices of Sam Walton, an incredibly successful
entrepreneur, who after starting from scratch created the world’s
largest company, and in the process also became the world’s
richest man!
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