The Farnam Street blog shared two stories about Sol Price – the godfather of retail whose innovations inspired the likes of Costco and Walmart.
Fiduciary duty. When Safeway sold sugar below cost, Sol did something insane. He put up signs in FedMart: “Sugar is cheaper at Safeway this week. Go buy it there.” His managers thought he’d lost it. Sol’s view? “I have a fiduciary duty to my members, like a lawyer to clients.” That radical honesty created something powerful. People drove 200 miles round-trip from San Diego to shop at his LA store. When you treat customers like clients, not targets, trust becomes your greatest asset.
Remove tables and chairs: Sol’s company culture always involved employees eating together. Texas law in 1957 required separate facilities by race. Sol’s San Antonio solution? Remove every table and chair from the lunch counter. If everyone had to stand, everyone could eat together.
Both stories made me smile because they were turned problems into opportunities for Sol to demonstrate his values.
We don’t control what happens.
But, as Sol demonstrated, we have a tremendous amount of agency in deciding how we respond.
