The movie offers many great lessons in life and business, a few of which I intend to share

with you here.

Choose business partners wisely/Select Right Partners: Partners should be selected for

adding value instead of just giving their name and money. Ray Krock wanted to have
multiple franchise owners who follow his guidelines of standardization, automation and
discipline. Firstly, he selected a few rich franchise owners, but he found that they were not
following his inputs. Later, he carefully selected hard-working middle-class individuals for
their work ethic and ambition. This idea proved to be hugely successful.

Carefully Negotiate Contracts Initially, Ray Kroc agreed to a complex contract that stated
all the business decisions must go through the brothers. Later, instead of putting it in writing
the deal of providing 1% of earnings to McDonald brothers, Ray Kroc offered them a
handshake deal. The movie shows that McDonald brothers were legally forbidden from using
their own last name on the signage of their restaurant.

Persistence: The movie centres on Ray Kroc and it is fair to say he was persistent. At the
end of the day Ray was a salesman, and his overall persistence paid off. He never gave up
on anything. McDonald brothers were persistent in their attention to detail and sticking to
their morals and strict process for better or worse. Ray on the other hand was strict to the
process but was continually looking for improvement and cost reduction.

Be Curious: Curiosity is an important characteristic to get fresh ideas. Ray Kroc was not

able to sell his milkshake machines at many restaurants, but when he got an order of 6
machines from a far away restaurant, he got curious to understand why so many milkshake
machines were ordered by a single restaurant. Here, he could have simply delivered the
order, could have avoided travelling a long distance to figure out the reason, but no he was
curious and decided to visit the restaurant and the rest is history.

Find what doesn’t work and fix it

At the start of the movie we see Ray at a typical drive up dinner experiencing, long waits for
orders, incorrect orders, poor service, atmospheres not conducive to family or good moral
behaviour etc. The McDonald brother saw this in their own past restaurants and believed
they could change that. From this they evolved to their ‘speedy service system’ by looking at
how they could cut down the times taken to make food. They also ensured team members
served with a smile and all these initiatives attracted the desired clientele.

Think Big: Thinking big requires stretching the boundaries of possibilities. It enables

acceptance of new challenges and creation of capabilities to overcome those challenges.
McDonald brothers innovated and mastered the efficient restaurant business model and
decided to have one best in a class restaurant instead of multiple mediocre restaurants. Ray
Kroc thought big and with his persistence, he innovated and mastered the art of business
expansion through franchisee model.

Tolerate Frustration: Giving up on tough situations is an easy option, but with the ability to
tolerate frustration, one can create his path for success. McDonald brothers refused or
delayed on many ideas of Ray Kroc such as using powdered milk, tie up with Coca Cola,
renegotiation on contract terms, basement in store etc. Instead of giving up, Ray Kroc
tolerated the frustration, for the time being, he had lesser power, found new ways and rules
to make himself more powerful than McDonald brothers and then controlled the business
terms and conditions.

The right people are crucial: The McDonald brothers had already tried franchising when
Kroc came into their lives. The challenge they had was that the systems were not adhered
to. Kroc believed he could ensure quality control around the system over the various stores.
Initially Kroc built his own McDonalds and he ran it to the system, along the way finding
some team members were not right for the job but also there were some he could see
massive potential in.

In addition to team members the biggest challenge was future franchisees. Initially he bought
on his more affluent friends, however he soon found on his random store visits they simply
viewed the business as an investment and paid no attention to the system selling fried
chicken and with very poor quality control and cleanliness.

Kroc had the realisation that he needed hard working younger husband and wife teams.
People that wanted to get ahead in life as they had the desire to ensure the system was
followed and were more easily instructed than mature aged more wealthy franchisees. At the
end of the day it was about willingness and desire to succeed.

I strongly recommend that you see this film specially the ones who would be majoring
in marketing in the coming future.