Quotes from Ray Kroc

ostentatious

If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.

The best part of it for me personally was that every time I saw a new Walgreen's store going up it meant new business. This sort of multiplication was clearly the way to go. I spent less and less time chasing pushcart vendors around the West Side and more time cultivating large accounts where big turnover would automatically winch in sales in the thousands and hundreds of thousands.

I'd have a store with a row of vending machines in it. You'd push some buttons and out would come your Big Mac, shake, and fries, all prepared automatically. We could do that; I'm sure Jim Schindler could work it out. But we never will. McDonald's is a people business, and the smile on that counter girl's face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.

It was not long after the "Fold-a-Nook" fiasco that I became intrigued by the stories of the McDonald brothers and their operation that kept eight Multimixers whirring up a bucket brigade of milk shakes out there in sunny San Bernardino.

Then I went over to the building and introduced myself to Mac and Dick McDonald. They were delighted to see me ("Mr. Multimixer" they called me), and I warmed up to them immediately. We made a date to get together for dinner that evening so they could tell me all about their operation. I

we were accused of having torn down a Greek Revival "landmark" building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so we could build a McDonald's on the site. The writers failed to mention that the building was a wreck. It had been vandalized and burned before we bought it. The city of Cambridge had refused to designate it as a landmark building.

I was fascinated by the simplicity and effectiveness of the system they described that night. Each step in producing the limited menu was stripped down to its essence and accomplished with a minimum of effort.

It seemed like we averaged a blowout every fifteen or twenty miles. I'd jack up the car and pull off the wheel to patch the traitorous inner tube, and sometimes while I was applying the glue or manning the air pump, another tire would go bang! and expire. The roads were pretty primitive, of course, especially those red clay tracks through Georgia.

People have marveled at the fact that I didn't start McDonald's until I was fifty-two years old, and then I became a success overnight. But I was just like a lot of show business personalities who work away quietly at their craft for years, and then, suddenly, they get the right break and make it big. I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night. I

the stylish simplicity of the food service made a lasting impression on me. They had no printed menu because there were just three entrees: Maine lobster, steak, and roast duckling. Years later I recalled that spare bill of fare in my first motto for McDonald's—KISS—which meant, "Keep it simple, stupid." Another

But I paid particular attention to the french-fry operation. The brothers had indicated this was one of the key elements in their sales success, and they'd described the process.

Too many salesmen, I found, would make a good presentation and convince the client, but they couldn't recognize that critical moment when they should have stopped talking. If

I've been in the kitchens of a lot of restaurants and drive-ins selling Multimixers around the country," I told them, "and I have 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 every one would boost my Multimixer sales. What d'you say?" Silence.

People have marveled at the fact that I didn't start McDonald's until I was fifty-two years old, and then I became a success overnight. But I was just like a lot of show business personalities who work away quietly at their craft for years, and then, suddenly, they get the right break and make it big. I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night.

I took care not to be ostentatious (I detest snobs), but my style kind of dazzled my staff at the office. They were eager to follow my examples. I stressed the importance of making a good appearance, wearing a nicely pressed suit, well-polished shoes, hair combed, and nails cleaned. "Look sharp and act sharp," I told them. "The first thing you have to sell is yourself. When you do that, it will be easy to sell paper cups.

Supplying buns to McDonald's was the break of a lifetime for many of these men. Mary Ann Bakery, for example, was a small organization when it started dealing with us. Now it has a plant with a quarter-mile-long conveyor belt for cooling buns after they're baked. The firm uses more than a million pounds of flour a month to make buns for us. Mary Ann also has a trucking company that services McDonald's.

I had to twist Harold Freund's arm repeatedly to get him to build a bakery just to service our California stores. Freund now has the largest, most automated bun plant in the world. It produces eight thousand buns an hour for McDonald's. It also has a plant in St. Petersburg serving all of Florida, and another serving all of Hawaii. Fred

See that big white house with the wide front porch?" he asked. "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 are in a position to enjoy life now, and that's just what we intend to do." His

It'll be a lot of trouble," Dick McDonald objected. "Who could we get to open them for us?" I sat there feeling a sense of certitude begin to envelope me. Then I leaned forward and said, "Well, what about me?

If anyone stood to gain by our success and suffer if we failed, it was our suppliers. They knew McDonald's restaurants possessed the potential of becoming super customers, and they knew we played straight.

One time a McDonald's operator came to me with the idea he'd dreamed up to cut costs by producing a doughnut-shaped patty. His notion was to plug the hole with condiments, and cover it with a pickle so the customer wouldn't notice the hole. I told him we wanted to feed our customers, not fleece them, but I couldn't suppress a chuckle at the outrageous con artistry of the idea; a real Chicago fast one. We

No self-respecting salesman makes the same pitch to every client.

If you believe in something, you've got to be in it to the ends of your toes. Taking reasonable risks in part of the challenge, It's the fun.