YouSaid · the spoken record

Ray Kroc

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71
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2017-05-27
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2017-05-27
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  1. “I would have rights to franchise copies of their operation everywhere else in the United States. The buildings would have to be exactly like the new one their architect had drawn up with the golden arches. The name McDonald's would be on all of them, of course, and I was 100% in favor of that. I had a feeling that it would be one of those promotable names that would catch the public fancy. I was for the contractual clauses that obligated me to follow their plans down to the last detail too, even to signs and menus, but I should have been more cautious there. The agreement that was that I could not deviate from their plans in my units unless the changes were spelled out in writing.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “So now we're going to go back to the conversation he's having with the McDonald's brothers. So I asked Dick McDonald when he wondered aloud who they get to open a lot of similar restaurants for them. What about me? The response seemed to surprise him and his brother momentarily, but then they brightened up and began discussing this proposal with increasing enthusiasm. Before long we decided to get their lawyer involved and draw up an agreement.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “It was not long after that I became intrigued by the stories of McDonald's brothers and their operation that kept eight multimixers whirring up a bucket brigade of milkshakes out there in sunny San Bernardino. What the hell? I thought, I'll go see for myself. So I booked my 52-year-old bones onto the red-eye special and flew west to meet my future. Okay, so now we're gonna get into, we're gonna go back to where the story started. Describing what he notices at McDonald's. It was a restaurant stripped down to the minimum in service and menu. The prototype for legions of fast food units that would later spread across the land. Hamburgers, fries, and beverages were prepared on an assembly line.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Then he works to buy out Clark. And when he's doing that, a war erupts. And then he's forced to not sell it for a while. Now he's back to selling it. And the company that's producing the multimixer is actually about to implode. It wasn't easy to be cheerful about my business in the early 1950s. Al Dodi once told me that he liked to have lunch with me because he always learned something about his own business trends. You seem to be able to see further into the future than the rest of us, he said. I believe I did, and what I saw made me very unhappy. It was clear that multimixers days were numbered. Liquid carbonic corporation, that's the people that make the multi mixer.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “A salesman without a product is like a violinist without a bow. So I scratched around and made a deal to sell a line of low fat molted milk powder and 16 ounce paper cups for a drink called Multiplenty. It was mixed in the cup using the metal sleeve or collar just like a one in a million. I managed to make a living on multiplenty. But paying off my debt became a real nightmare. This is the debt of the $68,000 to buy 60% back of his company. I did it though. And then when World War II ended, I was able to go back to selling multi-mixers on my own. It was a glorious feeling. So the first half of the book is just a series of ups and downs. Every time he thinks he's making progress, he takes one step forward, two steps back. So this section is the downfall of the multimixer and the transition to McDonald's. And so he sells the multimixer for two years, realizes he's getting screwed.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “This is an interesting story how World War II now impacts his business. On December 7, 1941, we were thrown into the war by the Japanese sneak attack on the Pearl Harbor, and I was thrown out of the multi mixer business. Supplies of copper used in winding the motors from the multimixer were restricted by the war effort.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “pay tribute in the feudal sense for many years before I was able to rise with McDonald's on the foundation I had laid. Perhaps without that adversity I might not have been able to persevere later on when my financial burdens were redoubled. I learned then how to keep problems from crushing me. I refused to worry about more than one thing at a time and I would not let useless fretting about a problem no matter how important keep me from sleeping. I knew that if I didn't, I wouldn't be bright and fresh to deal with customers in the morning.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “This is how he's going to raise the $68,000 to buy out and get, so he owns 100% of the company. And this is what I would consider the first phase of grinding it out. And grinding it out is not only the title of the book, but I would say the motto of Ray Croc's life. I didn't know where in the hell I was going to raise the money, but I had made my mind up to do it. In the end, most of the cash came from my new home in Arlington Heights. I managed to get an increase in the mortgage, much to Ethel's dismay, Ethel's first wife. Her apprehensions about becoming Mr. Multimixer had been laid to rest at this point, and I don't think she ever, but I don't think she ever got over the shock of discovering that we were nearly a hundred thousand dollars in debt. She couldn't seem to handle it. For me, this was the first phase of grinding it out, building my personal monument to capitalism.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “All right, I said, how much? I don't know how he kept from choking on his So, just give you some background there. The owners of the company of Sanitary Cup were holding the license. And one of their employees did this deal with Ray. But Ray didn't know, and his name is Clark, that Clark got the license from the company for free because they had no interest in selling multimixers. But he didn't tell Ray that for over two years he was getting the 60% of Ray's business while he was still working at Sanitary Cup. So basically got screwed by this guy. And there's a couple examples in the book that he talks about how important it is to just to know what kind of deals you're doing because he gets excited and doesn't look at the details and winds up screwing him.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I determined after a little over two years that I was going to have to get that 60% back somehow. So I went to Clark, this is the guy that he did the deal with, and broached it to him. It was then I learned how he had misled me. The brothers who owned Sanitary Cup had given up their interest to him for free. They probably never cared about the multi-mixer at all, and he was going to take his pound of flesh from my heart. I was boiling mad, but there was not a damn thing I could do about it. I think this machine you're selling has a big future, Ray, he said. I was willing to discount the present to allow you to realize that future. But if you insist on getting my share back, then I must tell you that I want a handsome return on my capital investment. Never mind that I hadn't wanted his damn capital in the first place”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I was a one-man marching band. I had a tiny office in Chicago, but I was seldom there. My secretary ran the office while I traveled all over the country. Sales were not bad considering the newness of the product. I could feel it beginning to catch on, but I was extremely unhappy with my financial setup. As a sixty percent partner, Sanitary Cup was able to restrict my salary. Sanitary Cup was his previous employer, and he did a deal with them that he was one of their best salespeople. He wanted to quit selling cups and then sell the multi-mixer, but they own the license, the resell license. So he had to do a deal with them where he had to give up 60% of his business.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I was having a lot of fun back in early 1938 when I struck off on my own with a brand new multimixer in a big sample case and the whole nation of soda fountain operators and restaurant owners quivering in anticipation for this product. At least I thought they were. It didn't take long for me to discover how wrong I was on that score. But there was enough evidence of interest to maintain my faith in the product. I believed I would be successful.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Almost nothing you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. I told that to a group of graduate students at Dartmouth College in March 1976. They had asked me to address them on the art of entrepreneurship, how to pioneer a business venture. You're not going to get it free, I said, and you have to take risks. I don't mean to be a daredevil, that's crazy, but you have to take risks and in some cases you must go for broke. If you believe in something, you've got to be in it to the ends of your toes, taking reasonable risks is part of the challenge. It's the fun. So this section right here is going to be called a one-man band.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I had to lie about my age, of course, but even my grandmother could accept that. In my company, which assembled in Connecticut for training, was another fellow who had lied about his age to get in. He was regarded as a strange duck. Whenever we had time off and went out on town to chase girls, he stayed in camp drawing pictures. His name was Walt Disney I brought that up because obviously you guys know that I have an interest in Walt Disney. I think it was the second podcast ever was about him. And I found another book recently about his life that I think I'm going to do like a part two, maybe in a few weeks, a few months from now.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Work was play. I got as much pleasure out of it as I did from playing baseball. So, the majority of the podcast is going to be about his time after he does this deal with the McDonald's brothers. But I found this one anecdote interesting and I wanted to share it. School ended that spring, the United States entered World War I. I took a job selling coffee beans and novelties door to door. I was confident I could make my way in the world and saw no reason to return to school. Besides, the war effort was more important. Everybody was singing over there, and that's where I wanted to be. My parents objected strenuously, but I finally talked them into letting me join up as a Red Cross ambulance driver.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Now one area that Ray kind of fits into the mold of all the other entrepreneurs we're talking about is he was kind of entrepreneurial at a young age. So let me go back into his life when he was a young man. They called me Danny Dreamer a lot. Even later when I was in high school and would come home all excited about some scheme I thought of. I never considered my dreams wasted energy. They were invariably linked to some form of action. When I dreamed about having a lemonade stand, for example, it wasn't long before I set up a lemonade stand. I worked hard at it and I sold a lot of lemonade. I worked at a grocery store one summer when I was still in grammar school. I worked on my uncle's drugstore. I worked in a tiny music store I'd started with two friends. I worked at something whenever possible. Work is the meat in the hamburger of life. There is an old saying that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I never believed it because for me”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Him becoming the person that can expand all the McDonald's franchises since they don't have an interest to. So let's skip ahead a little bit. And this is him speaking. This is a really important part because a lot of the people I know we've covered maybe had some kind of success early on Ray Croc did not. And you'll see what I'm talking about here. When I flew back to Chicago that fateful day in 1954, I had a freshly signed contract with the McDonald's brothers in my briefcase. I was a battle-scarred veteran of the business wars, but I was still eager to go into action. I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and inseppant arthritis. I had lost my gallbladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “That's our home, and we love it. We sit out on the porch in the evenings and watch the sunset, and look down on our place here. It's peaceful. We don't need any more problems. We're in a position to enjoy life now, and that's just what we intend to do. His approach was utterly foreign to my thinking, so it took me a few minutes to reorganize my arguments. But it soon became apparent that further discussion along that line would be futile, so I said they could have their cake and eat it too by getting somebody else to open the places for them. I could still pedal my multimixers in the chain It'll be a lot of trouble for us, Dick McDonald objected. Who could we get to open them for us? I sat there feeling a sense of certitude begin to envelop me. Then I leaned forward and said Well what about me? So he convinces them.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “My enthusiasm for their operation was genuine, and I hoped it would be infectious and rally them in favor of the plan I had mapped out in my mind. I've been in a lot of kitchens of a lot of restaurants and drive in selling multimixers around the country, I told them, and I've never seen anything to equal the potential of this place of yours. Why don't you open a series of units like this? It would be a gold mine for you and for me too, because everyone would boost my multi mixer sales. What do you say? Silence. I felt like I'd dragged my tie in my soup or something. The two brothers just sat there looking at me. Then Mac gave that little wince that sometimes passes for a smile in New England and turned around in his chair to point up at the hill overlooking the restaurant. See that big white house with the wide front porch? he asked.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “So I'm going to jump right into the book, and this is the part where he's selling his business at the time. He's selling these things called multimixers, which restaurants would buy from him to make milkshakes. And the McDonald's, the original McDonald's in San Bernardino, California placed a large order. They had like eight of these things running at one time. So he went out there. It's like, what are these guys doing? So he meets with them. He's extremely impressed with their organization. And now he has an idea in his mind. And so we're going to jump right to that.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “There's no talent here. This is hard work. This is an obsession. Talent does not exist. We are all equals as human beings. You could be anyone if you put in the time. You will reach the top and that's that. So I am not talented. I am obsessed.”

    2017-05-27 · Founders · #7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source