Grinding it out: The Making of McDonald's. Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc is an amazing man with an incredible journey. When you read this book you will be amazed at how he started off in the industry. What surprised me the most is that he began as a door to dopr salesman. He wasnt the person you would think has all this fortune in the name of McDonalds. I admire him for the fact that he noticed something great and he was able to broaden its horizons. When he saw the McDonalds brothers selling hamburgers out of their storefront, he immediately saw the quickness and the satisfaction of their customers. By seeing this, he knew it could be much more than what the business was currently at.
An aha moment for me was the fact that Ray Kroc pretty much took credit for all of what the McDonald brothers had established. Although, he did offer to try new things, he kind of took advantage of the fact that he knew other people with a better idea to make this a worldwide phenomenon.
A good exercise for this class relating to the book would be to try and find a small business in the United States and think of ideas of how this can be expanded and possibly blown up to a greater proportion. This can be done as a group activity where each participant would be finding ideas while the other classmates find ways on how to make it bigger.
This book connects to the class in the way of learning needs/wants of the customer. Seeing opportunities that others may not see and taking advantage of those opportunities is also something that we have done exercises to try and figure out so far in class. Expanding your social network is something Ray Kroc did to learn about the idea of expandong McDonalds. He found the idea about buying the land of where the restaurants were built on by networking with someone in the real estate business before he even knew anything about how that indistty worked.
A good exercise for this class relating to the book would be to try and find a small business in the United States and think of ideas of how this can be expanded and possibly blown up to a greater proportion. This can be done as a group activity where each participant would be finding ideas while the other classmates find ways on how to make it bigger.
This book connects to the class in the way of learning needs/wants of the customer. Seeing opportunities that others may not see and taking advantage of those opportunities is also something that we have done exercises to try and figure out so far in class. Expanding your social network is something Ray Kroc did to learn about the idea of expandong McDonalds. He found the idea about buying the land of where the restaurants were built on by networking with someone in the real estate business before he even knew anything about how that indistty worked.
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI learned so much about McDonald's from your reading reflection that I had never heard of or known before. It is mind blowing to see how such a world renowned fast food restaurant, and business at that, all started from a door-to-door sales tactic. It is inspiring from a entrepreneurial stand point that the McDonald's brothers saw the potential with their business and never gave up on it. Nice job!