Reading Reflection No. 1

Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

·       What surprised you the most?

What surprised me most in Ray Kroc’s professional history. I have always thought the most successful entrepreneurs are born to be successful and start exhibiting that at a young age. Because of this I always feel pressure to begin my entrepreneurial endeavors. However, Ray Kroc was a basic salesman transitioning from selling product to product up until age 52. It was not until he was middle aged that he became the historic businessman he is known as today. This was shocking and eye opening to me.

·       What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?

What I respect most about Ray Kroc is his work ethic and motivation. Kroc worked long hours for years, with 19-hour days frequently to make ends meet as a salesman and pianist. These hours didn’t discourage him. He kept working. When he found McDonald’s, he used his vision and understanding of consumers to grow his business. He was capable of putting in the hours to create what he did and it shows. Hard work pays off in the long run. At 52, after working hard for so long, he was ready for his opportunity and prepared to continue working for it.

·       What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?

When Kroc met the McDonald’s brothers and signed a contract with them, he made many promises to ensure their dreams would remain a reality. What was their entire livelihood and more important to them than anyone could understand became distilled into a business designed for consumer satisfaction and maximized profit. While Kroc promised them this would not happen, more and more kept changing from what their dream was until it was ultimately completely different. While I understand that Kroc had to do this in order to make the company as successful as it is today, it is sad to see brothers with a dream lose out on it the way they did caused by Kroc.

·       Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

Kroc encountered major adversity when he was working for a paper cup company. He had found a new business, milkshake machines, and wanted to begin working selling them. His cup company did not like the idea nor did they want to work with him on it. When he left the cup company to sell the milkshake machines and the cup company saw how popular they were, they immediately demanded 60% of his profit because he technically still worked for them. Even with their tremendous success, Kroc struggled greatly only making 40% of his own income. He described this time as a time he had to “grind it out”. He responded to his adversity by putting his head down, digging his feet in and working as hard as he could. This taught him how to do it again in the future as well.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

The main competency I noticed was his ability to understand consumers and trends. He knew paper cups were going to become tremendously popular. He could tell disposable dish wear and things of that nature would be the future. He immediately identified the importance of the fast milkshake machine and fast food in general. He knew when to stop talking when pitching a product to someone. He understood consumers and their environment more than nearly anyone ever has.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

I did not fully understand how the paper cup company was able to demand 60% of his earnings from the milkshake machine when he left the company to sell them.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

            -How did you stay motivated through all those years?

            -What did you use to determine what you thought would be popular in the future and what wouldn’t?

Kroc clearly had a skill for motivation and foresight. I would love to hear more about it than even the book has to offer.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I think Kroc’s opinion of hard work is harder than nearly everyone else’s. It is not easy to work a 19-hour day. Nor is it easy to create the most well-known and popular fast food chain in the world. Kroc likely worked harder than anyone I’ve ever met, and his opinion of hard work is probably significantly more than anyone’s that I know.