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When Ray Kroc received an order for 8 of his new trademarked milkshake mixer from a restaurant in California he was impressed that someone saw as much potential in his product as he did. Kroc decided to head out and see who this was. When he arrived, he found out that two McDonald brothers were running a small burger shop.
Their menu was very slim, but they focused on delivering high-quality products that nobody else did and that's why their burger shop was so popular. This impressed Kroc and he wanted to improve the efficiency and popularity of the burger shop and this is how McDonald's got started.
From a small hamburger restaurant, McDonald's grew into one of the largest and most well-known companies across the whole world. Here is how Ray Kroc was able to achieve this.
Always looking for new opportunities
A lot of entrepreneurs and businesses fail simply because they are stuck on a certain idea of what their business should be and they never make changes. Sadly, in business, things are far from ideal and you always need to find new opportunities on the market, talk to customers and learn about their wishes, and come up with solutions for them.
Kroc has always emphasized the fact that he was able to achieve such great success because he was trying to be at the right place at the right time, and have the courage to do something about the problems customers were having.
Are there any potential business opportunities that mean offering different services or products, or can you improve your quality and deliver more value?
These are all important things that were always on Kroc's mind. Just think about McDonald's and how many times the company has changed, adjusted, improved, and offered something new that they didn't have before. Kroc never stopped being an entrepreneur, even when things were going well.
The business is as good as its employees are
Once a business starts growing and more people come on board, the organization no longer depends on the leaders alone to achieve success but on all employees. Simply put, a business is as good as its worst employees are.
Your employees are also your company's representatives and they are working and communicating on behalf of your business every day.
If they do something wrong your customers won't blame it on them but on your business. The same rule applies when they do something good which makes customers happy. Kroc understood that if he was going to build a big company that would operate throughout the world, he would need good staff that was going to help him because he can't do it alone.
He also added a suggestion box where employees could share their thoughts on what can be done to improve the business. This is how some of the most famous meals and drinks were added to McDonald's and they still exist to this day. Employees are a part of your business, so allow them to feel valued and share their thoughts and ideas.
Focus on your customers and community
It doesn't matter to which community you sell your product or offer services, you need to be a part of it. Ray Kroc has always made a lot of different initiatives that would create communities around all of his restaurants while also trying to improve existing ones. A lot of the operators in McDonald's were hired from the same communities they catered to.
For each and every community, he also had local advertisers that would work on certain communities and organize special events, birthdays, holidays, celebrations, and so on. He also thought that his business should give back to the communities through charity work and this is something that the company still does.
It's essential to get into the community that you are working with and find ways to make their lives easier, get them to open up to your business, and give them something in return for being loyal customers. This doesn't apply only to food and hospitality businesses, but to all types of organizations.
In the end, McDonald's is living proof that you only need to focus on customers and employees to succeed. This is clear even today, as McDonald's continues to learn what customers want and deliver those things while keeping a happy base of employees, even hourly workers.
