Story of McDonald’s

If you want your success to be magnified, it is not enough to just be a high performer individually. You need to get that performance out of your entire team to really scale that success. 

Let me share a powerful story that will make you understand the importance of leadership and vision.

So there were two brothers, Richard and Maurice. 

Back in the 1940s in California, they started a small restaurant. 

Soon the restaurant became quite popular. The food tasted great, was delivered fast and the brothers were hard workers. But their success was still limited as they lacked the strategic skills to scale it. 

They even lacked long-term thinking. Many times when people approached them to become a franchisee, the brothers said it would not be worth it, because, in their eyes, they had no brand value outside of California.

 However, after many customers suggested that they would love to eat out at a franchise of their restaurant near their home location, they thought about giving franchising a shot. 

On their own, they were only able to franchise the restaurant to around 15 buyers, out of which only 10 opened restaurants. 

Even in those restaurants, the brothers could not put the right systems in place and did not coordinate well with franchisees, so the quality of the products was not the same and their success was quite limited. 

It changed however when they met a man named Ray. Now Ray was a seasoned salesman who had a vision. 

In his eyes, what this restaurant was doing was truly innovative. People were standing in huge queues. Orders were ready almost instantly. People could eat anywhere they want. In the 1950s this was revolutionary.

He thought this had great potential. So he met and convinced the brothers to make him their business partner. Luckily, they agreed. 

Afterward, Ray laid out his plan. He saw this restaurant expanding all across America as a franchise. The brothers were not too enthusiastic about it as their own franchising results were mediocre. They even said, “it is better to focus on one great restaurant than have 50 mediocre ones.”

But Ray convinced them to do it. He went on a country-wide tour to sign up as many franchisees as quickly as possible. In the early days, he personally ensured quality control at each restaurant and traveled all over America doing just that.  But soon he recruited and rigorously trained supervisors to do the same. 

When systems were in place and a protocol was established, he went on to quickly establish hundreds of restaurants in just a few years. 

Yet the brothers felt all of this was going way too fast and they couldn’t manage it. 

After this, Ray offered the brothers a deal. He would buy out their restaurant chain for 2.7 million dollars (a big sum at the time) and the headache of further expansion would be his. Reluctantly, they agreed and retired to a wealthy life. 

But that “wealthy” life could not even remotely compare to how big their chain of restaurants was about to become. 

You see, 2.7 Million dollars may sound like big money but Ray, whose full name was Ray Kroc, himself ended up becoming a Multi-Billionaire! 

 Because the name of those brothers were Richard and Maurice McDonald and this is the story of the McDonald’s Chain of Restaurants which today has more than 21000 franchisees in over 100 countries!

The McDonald brothers may have started the chain and were extremely good individual performers, but it was Ray Kroc who had the vision. Ray Kroc took the McDonald’s brand name to heights that the brothers could have never achieved, simply because he had the right leadership skills! 

He didn’t even attempt to change the name of the restaurants to his name because he KNEW how powerful the McDonald’s brand name could become! 

So remember, even if you are a great individual performer, you will only get the maximum success you deserve once you become a great leader.

You will need a vision, you will need courage, you will need persistence but most of all, what you will need is to inspire your team to perform at their Highest Potential!

Because as a leader, your job is not to DO THE WORK But To GET THE WORK DONE, and on a Massive Scale!!

Do This Long Enough and You will Be Sure to Achieve Unimaginable Success!!