Thrive: 30 Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories

Sam Walton

Samuel "Sam" Walton was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. His father held a variety of jobs, including banker, farmer, farm-loan appraiser, and insurance and real estate agent, while his mother was a homemaker. Growing up during the Great Depression, Sam performed many chores to help his family make ends meet, including milking the family cow and delivering milk bottles to customers after school.

After high school, Sam attended the University of Missouri, where he also played on the football team. As his parents could not afford to pay for his tuition, Sam paid his way through college on his own. He held various jobs, including waiting tables (in exchange for meals), working as a lifeguard, delivering newspapers, and selling magazine subscriptions. By the end of college, Sam had employees and was earning $4,000 to $5,000 per year, a respectable amount at the time. When Sam ran for student body president, he learned the secret to winning votes that would later serve him well working in retail: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. He went out of his way to get to know everyone on campus, and everyone thought of Sam as their friend. As a result, he was successful in being elected to every office he ran for.

When he graduated with a business degree, Sam planned on becoming an insurance salesman. However, after speaking with a couple of college recruiters from J.C. Penney and Sears Roebuck, Sam decided to pursue a career in retail. He accepted a job as a management trainee with J.C. Penney in Des Moine, Iowa for a starting salary of $75 per month. He proved to be a good salesman, with one problem: his handwriting was terrible. Sam also couldn't stand making a customer wait while he was going through paperwork, which caused great confusion for the store's back office. "Walton, I'd fire you if you weren't such a good salesman. Maybe you're just not cut out for retail," said his J.C. Penney regional manager, Phil Blake.

Sam quit his job at J.C. Penney after eighteen months to join the United States Armed Forces during World War II. However, he was turned down for combat due to a minor heart irregularity. Since he already quit his job, Sam headed south to Tulsa, Oklahoma to find a job in the booming oil business. There, he met his wife, Helen Robson. Before the two could marry, Sam was called by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps to serve, supervising security at aircraft plants and POW camps across the United States. He married Helen on Valentine's Day the following year.

While serving, Sam kept his passion for the retail business, reading books to educate himself and studying retail businesses across the country. Sam's father-in-law was a prominent lawyer, banker, and rancher who recognized Sam's potential. After the war, Sam approached the Butler Brothers Company, which operated two chains of franchise retail stores: Federated Stores and Ben Franklin. The company offered twenty-seven-year-old Sam a Ben Franklin store of his own in Newport, Arkansas. Borrowing $20,000 from his father-in-law and investing $5,000 of his own money, Sam agreed to pay 5 percent of gross sales as rent and bought the store, which at the time grossed around $72,000 in sales per year. As Sam believed in setting goals, he set a goal for this store: he wanted it to be the best, most profitable variety store in Arkansas within five years.

Sam succeeded in growing the store's sales figures. He tried a lot of promotional tactics to do so, even taking a $1,800 loan from the bank to buy a soft ice cream machine for the front of the store, which ultimately became very profitable. Within three years, Sam grew sales from $72,000 to $175,000, and he was able to pay back his father-in-law. Sam also managed to take over the lease for the store adjacent to his competitor across the street, which prevented his competitor from expanding his store. After five years, Sam's store was turning over $250,000 in gross sales per year, with $40,000 in profits. Phil Blake, Sam's former manager at J.C. Penney, almost fell over when he heard of Sam's success. "It can't be the same one I knew in Des Moines," he said. "That fellow couldn't have amounted to anything."