This is the story of Sol Price, a man who invented the warehouse club, pioneered membership retail and quietly revolutionized how 300 million people plus shopped today. He started FedMart and Price Club, which sold to Jim Sinegal, one of his protégés at Costco. His innovations touched everything from how workers get paid to why you can still buy a hot dog and soda for $1.50 today at Costco.

But Sol Price's real genius wasn't in what he built. It was how he did it. This is the story of how a lawyer with no retail experience created an industry, mentored his competition and proved that nice guys don't always finish last.

Although we are interested in margin, it must never be done at the expense of our philosophy. Margin must be obtained by better buying, emphasis on selling the kind of goods we want to sell, operating efficiencies, lower markdowns, greater turnover, et cetera. Increasing the retail prices and justifying it on the basis that we are still competitive could lead to a rude awakening as it has with so many.

Let us concentrate on how cheap we can bring things to the people rather than how much the traffic will bear. And when the race is over, FedMart will be there. Isn't that brilliant?

I think that was brilliant. Here's the insight. Sol wasn't trying to trick anyone.

He was building trust. And when customers trust you completely, when they know you'll always look out for their interest, they become customers for life.

But Sol's real genius was creating frameworks that taught people to think systematically. His big one was called the six rights. The right product in the right place at the right time, in the right quantity, in the right condition at the right price.

It sounds simple, but apply it to anything and it works. Take a cashier, for example. The right person is someone cheerful. The right condition means well-groomed and professional. The right price means paying them properly with good benefits. The right quantity means having enough staff for your customer flow.

Sol realized that 80% of retailing operating costs were payroll and benefits, and by running your store with fewer people and fewer products to manage, you could pass those savings directly to customers. It was brilliant in its simplicity, and it worked.

As Sol put it, he had a professional fiduciary relationship with the members, like a lawyer has with clients. His duty was to be completely honest and fair. The best advertising, Sol would say, is the unsolicited testimonial of the satisfied customer.

His golden rule was simple but profound. If you want to be successful, just put yourself in the place of a cranky, demanding customer. See your business through their eyes.

Sol had another concept he called the alter ego principle. He'd explain it like this.

If a store owner could do everything himself, greet customers and stock shelves and sweet floors, he would, but he can't do everything himself. So he has to hire people and teach them to be his alter ego, to think and act like he would. That means the owner focuses on the highest value work while trusting his alter egos with everything else.

Sol refused to create training manuals. Other retailers had thick binders of procedures, and Sol thought manuals were a substitute for thinking. One of my favorite adages of his that he frequently found appropriate to repeat was, you train an animal, you teach a person.

He wanted people who could assess a situation and make the right call, not robots following a script. Jim Sinegal took this philosophy to heart. He used to say, if you're not spending 90 percent of your time teaching, you're not doing your job, and that's pure Sol Price.

Build people who can think, not people who just follow orders. This teaching philosophy would create a generation of retail revolutionaries. Bernie Marcus would take these lessons to “would take these lessons Bernie Marcus to build Home Depot.

Sam Walton would adapt them for Walmart, and Jim Sinegal would perfect them at Costco, all because Sol Price believed the most important thing a leader could do was teach.

Sol Price gave away every advantage he had. He taught competitors all of his secrets. He helped rivals succeed by every rule of business that should have destroyed him.

Instead, it immortalized him. Why? Because the real competitive advantage isn't in your tactics or your systems, it's in your principles.

And principles, unlike tactics, get stronger when you share them.

Sol's business philosophy was quite simple. It consisted of four points. One, provide the best possible value to the customers, excellent quality products at the lowest possible prices.

Two, pay good wages and provide good benefits, including health insurance to employees. Three, maintain honest business practices. And four, make money for your investors.

His secret, you can copy warehouses and membership keys, but you can't copy principles.