Business Lessons from the Movies - The Founder & the Start of McDonalds - AZ TRT S06 EP13 (275) 7-27-2025

Business Lessons from the Movies - The Founder & the Start of McDonalds

 

- AZ TRT S06 EP13 (275) 7-27-2025           

 

What We Learned This Week:

• Speedee Service System - assembly line approach invents the fast-food industry, replicated to this day
• What Business Are You In? - McDonald’s is a Real Estate Company w/ an estimated $42B in Real Estate Holdings
• It's the Name, McDonald’s - Branding - from The Founder
• McDonald’s is the New American Church - Positioning

 

 

Notes:

Seg. 1

The Founder

What Business are you in? – McD in real estate biz, largest in US

Power of the Name – branding, McDonalds is New American Church

Systems – Speedee System, speed and lean, like a factory in the kitchen

Bonus * - Perseverance – Kroc was 52 when he met McDonalds brothers, selling milk shake machines

 

 

 

 

You’re not in the burger business you’re in the real estate business. You don’t build an empire selling $.15 hamburgers. You build an empire on the land that those hamburgers are made of.

Power of the name, branding, McDonald’s is the new American church on main street. A vision of a wholesome America, families go to eat share values. Branding see that name lit up on the sign. McDonald’s sounds like America.

Would you eat at a place named Crocs? Guy eats at McDonald’s he’s never going to get pushed around.

Great book on McDonald’s, and the industry called Fast Food Nation by Eric S

 

Speedee system, bring factory component to a kitchen.

Redesign a kitchen for speed and efficiency, orders in 30 seconds like a conveyor belt. No plates all paper throw it away when done. You have a service window people walk up and get their food immediately.

The idea of being is to go lean. Initially there was a learning curve with customers but soon it caught on and it was the model for all fast food restaurants. They did practice runs to test their system with no customers see it in action and let the data dictate how the plan should be.

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+founder+movie+clips

 

** Clips from past show:

Moneyball, Boiler Room, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Founder

- Business Lessons from the Movies

- BRT S03 EP42 (141) 8-28-2022

 

Full Show: HERE

 

 

 

Seg. 2

The Founder, the story of Ray Kroc and McDonald’s.

 

What Business Are You In? - McDonalds is a Real Estate Company

 

Replay Clip from 2/9/20, where Matt talks about the biggest franchise of all, and what their real business model is. McDonalds has built a business empire thru Real Estate, not burgers. 

The Dollar Menu is designed to get customers in the door. McDonalds loses $ when people purchase from the dollar menu, it is a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). This is also called a ‘Loss Leader’, selling a product at a low cost to get customers. McDonalds then makes money when people buy more, and off return business.

McDonalds is one of the biggest Real Estate companies in the world. The stock is valued on the $37 Billion in Real Estate they own. They make money as a landlord, because the franchisee is their tenant.

The Founder – business movie biography of Ray Kroc. Kroc started as a milk shake salesmen to the McDonalds brothers in California, then went on to create the franchise system we know today. The first President of McDonalds Franchise (Harry Sonneborn) helped Kroc create the real estate model that the franchise was base on, and used to scale to a billion $ company. Internally McDonalds used the Brother’s Speedee Service System created pre-Kroc.

The Question ‘What Business Are You In?’ comes from business consultant Peter Drucker. Business owners need to understand what problem or service they really offer their customers.

Ie – Starbucks is in the Customer Experience business, not coffee, but the atmosphere of drinking the coffee

 

 

** Clips from past show:

McDonalds, Apple, Disruption, 80/20 - Best of Host Matt on Business Topics

- BRT S03 EP10 (109) 3-6-2022

 

Full Show: HERE

 

 

 

 

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‘Best Of’ Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Best+of+BRT

 

  

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