“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history,” said Penney. “Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.” Penney understood the importance of deciding where he wanted to go, and striving to get there no matter how difficult it may have seemed at the time. His career is characterized by his ambition, his focus, and his refusal to give up in the face of difficulty.
Penney’s strategy for success may seem all too obvious today, but at the time, he was facing an uphill battle. Kemmerer, the town where Penney opened his first Golden Rule store, was a mining town, where workers were paid by the mining company in coupons instead of cash. They would then use their coupons to shop at the local store, which was also owned by the mining company. For the most part, miners tended to spend their income immediately and later rely on credit from the mining company. Because of this system and the loans they received, miners would usually stay put in the town.
Penney wanted his store to operate on a cash only basis and that was exactly why many people thought he would fail. When he sought out the advice of others, he was told that such a store would close in little time. After all, three other cash-and-carry stores, similar to that which Penney wanted to open, had folded in the same city just some time before. Even the local bank cashier had strongly warned Penney against opening a cash only store because no one before him had been able to compete with the strongly rooted credit based mining companies.
Penney was aware of those failures, but was convinced he would have a different fate. Penney believed that as long as he stocked the shelves with the products that customers actually wanted, dealt with them in a fair manner, and upheld the Golden Rule, his business could succeed where the others failed. To this end, Penney also joined a buying syndicate and traveled across the country to stay up to date with the latest trends.
He knew that in order to achieve his goal, defy his critics, and make his cash only store profitable, he would have to differentiate himself from the store of the mining company. He did not care that people did not believe in his dreams; he just knew he had to prove them wrong. Penney began opening his store at sunrise as part of the promotion for the store as being different from the competition. Penney’s regular hours were from 7 am until the streets were empty. On Saturday nights, that would often mean working until past midnight.
“No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized,” said Penney. He had a clear focus on his goals, organized himself accordingly, ignored the naysayers, and set out on his to achieve his dream.
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