DARE TO DREAM

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The story behind McDonalds Fastfood.


In 1954, a fifty-two-year-old milk-shake machine salesman saw a hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California, which belonged to two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonalds. And envisioned a massive new industry: fast food.


The McDonald brothers' restaurant was unlike any Ray had ever seen. In contrast to the popular drive-in restaurants of the time, it was self-service, had no indoor seating, and the menu was limited to cheeseburgers, hamburgers, fries, drinks and milk shakes, all of which were produced in an assembly-line fashion that enabled customers to place their orders and receive their meals in less than a minute.

Kroc quickly calculated the financial rewards possible with hundreds of these restaurants across the country. But when he approached the McDonalds with the idea, they told him they weren't interested in doing it themselves. So Kroc offered to do it for them. The brothers agreed, and gave Kroc the exclusive rights to sell the "McDonald's method".

Ray opened his first McDonald's in April 1955 in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines. He used the meticulously clean and efficient restaurant as a showcase for selling McDonald's franchises to the rest of the country. For each franchise he sold, Ray would collect 1.9 percent of the gross sales. From that he would give the McDonalds one-half percent. 

Then Kroc met Harry Sonnenborne, a financial genius who showed Kroc how to make money-not by selling hamburgers, but by selling real estate. Under Sonnenborne's plan, Kroc set up a company that would purchase or lease the land on which all McDonald's restaurants would be located. Franchisees then paid Kroc a set monthly rental for the land or a percentage of their sales, whichever was greater. By owning the land the franchises were built on rather than just the franchises themselves, Kroc was guaranteed a profit. With his real-estate formula in place, Kroc set out to fulfill his goal-opening 1,000 McDonald's from coast to coast.

But there were problems. Kroc continually clashed with the McDonald brothers over changes he wanted to make in their original formula. Kroc became increasingly frustrated and decided he wanted control of McDonald's all to himself. So in 1961, he bought out the McDonalds for $2.7 million-cash.

Without the rights to their own name, the McDonalds were forced to rename their restaurant "The Big M". So Kroc opened a brand-new McDonald's one block away and put "The Big M" out of business.

Kroc maintained the assembly line "Speedee Service System" for hamburger preparation, which was introduced by the McDonald brothers in 1948. He standardized operations, ensuring every Big Mac would taste the same in New York or Tokyo. He set strict rules for franchisees on how the food was to be made, portion sizes, cooking methods and times, and packaging. Kroc also rejected cost-cutting measures like using soybean filler in the hamburger patties. These strict rules also were applied to customer service standards with such mandates that money be refunded to clients whose orders were not correct or to customers who had to wait more than 5 minutes for their food.

By the end of the decade, Kroc had met and surpassed his goal, with nearly 1,500 McDonald's operating worldwide.

By the 1970s, McDonald's was the largest food supplier in the country and would remain so through the next two decades. At the time of his death on January 14, 1984, a new McDonald's was opening on average every 17 hours. Ten months later, McDonald's sold its 50-billionth burger.

Dare to dream. Without a dream that thing you are doing has no life. The McDonald Brothers had a name. Ray Kroc had a dream. To them, they were selling a name and just another cooking business. To him, he was buying his future.

WHAT DO YOU SEE? It's never too late.
Moses began his ministry at 80. Ray Kroc was 52 when he discovered his dream about McDonalds. 
YOU TOO CAN DREAM AGAIN.
DON'T LOSE YOUR FUTURE.
DARE TO DREAM.