Our last business book review of 2020 will take you on Ray Kroc’s roller-coaster ride of a lifetime…

His book ‘Grinding it out’ (written by Kroc) is not just about the making of McDonald’s, it’s also about the longest period of his life before the McDonald’s opportunity came along.

I can imagine not a lot of people know Ray Kroc was a successful paper cup salesman, before heading his own company selling milkshake multi-mixers.

Which is when, at the age of 52 (hope for me yet) he met the McDonald brothers, and they agreed to let him franchise their brand and system.

You’re then taken on Kroc’s unbelievable journey of how he grew McDonald’s from 1 unit in 1955 to 7500 units with $8 billion revenues, by his death in 1984.

Ray Kroc was single minded in his mission to grow McDonald’s at scale, and every decision made was to help McDonald’s grow.

What’s interesting for me, is what Kroc pinpointed as the important things to aid their growth.

• Keep things simple and systemise everything you can
• Invest long term in the right supply chains and partners
• Build a loyal team with the right people in the right positions
• Give your people responsibility and allow them to make decisions
• Treat franchisees well and all decisions must help them grow

And for sure, we’ll be taking on board some of Kroc’s blueprint of success, to help us grow our office technology and electric car charger businesses.

It was a great read, and yes Kroc found himself in the right place at the right time, faced with a fantastic opportunity.

But McDonald’s didn’t get to 38,695 units and $21 billion in revenues in 2019, without someone initially building the right structure to allow this growth, and that was Ray Kroc.

‘Grinding it Out’ gets a thumbs up and 5 stars.

…thank you, any questions please connect and message me.