Ray Kroc was 50 and selling milkshake machines when he found McDonald's, a small California restaurant run by Dick and Mac McDonald. He got the marketing rights, built it into a franchise empire, and bought the brothers out for $2.7 million. Kroc's story shows it's never too late to start something big.
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Welcome to another Famous Friday. I believe that whatever goal you have, whatever mission you're on, whatever challenges you're coming up against, somebody has already solved it. And instead of you trying to reinvent the wheel and come up with every new idea yourself, model success. Find someone who's already accomplished what you want to accomplish, see what worked for them, and apply it to your business. So today I want to look at the success behind Ray Kroc, who's the man who built up McDonald's. Of McDonald's, and his lesson is it's never too late to start. So Ray Kroc was 50 years old, he was selling milkshake makers, okay? He was representing the companies going out and selling the machines to help you create milkshakes. And he basically was traveling across the United States to all these different restaurants and to all these different soda shop fountains selling his milkshake maker. There was a problem though. He was having some initial early success, but then he started losing customers. Because in the '50s, people were leaving cities and moving to the suburbs. And as a result, all of the restaurants and soda shop fountains in the city were having a hard time staying afloat. A lot of them were going out of business. And so they weren't ordering new equipment. And Kroc was now suffering. And think about it, this is a really important part in somebody's life, right? When your business isn't working and when you're 50 years old. A lot of people at that point would say, "I should go back and get a job. I don't know, I gotta find something to do. I'm worried about my retirement. What am I gonna do? I'm too old to start a new business. I can't start this all over again. I need some security." But not Ray Kroc. That wasn't the story he told himself. Instead, he said, "You know what? I'm gonna make my own destiny. I'm gonna go find a new opportunity that I can hang my hat on and be proud that I built." And so he found it through one of his customers. And there was this one store in California that bought 8 new milkshake mixers from him. And this is a time when, you know, most companies were buying 1 or 2 milkshake mixers, and at this point, most people weren't buying anything from him anymore. They were going out of business. And here's a company in California that wanted to buy 8. That means they can make 40 milkshakes at a time. He had to go see the company, figure out what was going on, why they were so successful. He visited them. It was run by Dick and Mac McDonald, and the company was called McDonald's. It was a very simple store. They had no indoor seating. They had a very limited menu of just cheeseburgers, hamburgers, french fries, soft drinks, and milkshakes. That's it. That's all you could buy there. He saw the success they were having and said, 'You guys could go international. You guys could have thousands of locations around the world. You guys could make a ton of money beyond just having this one location.' And they didn't want to do that. They wanted to just run their location. And so they agreed to give Kroc the marketing rights to go and promote McDonald's across the country and later around the world. And here's Ray Kroc, right, 50 years old, Not having a stable source of income where most people are worried about retirement, where most people are thinking they're too old to start something new and, and go travel across the country, put on a brand new business and put it all on the line to trust in yourself that you can make something new happen when your last business started failing. That's where most people are, and Kroc said, "No, I'm gonna make my dream happen," and he bet on himself and he started growing locations across the country and he eventually bought out the brothers for $2.7 million and became the only owner of McDonald's and grew it to, I don't know how big McDonald's is now, multi, multi, multi-billion dollar company. And he had massive success and he started it when he was 50 years old. This is an important lesson, guys, because if you're at that point where you're not happy with your life, where you're in your 50s approaching, and you're, you know, you don't know what to do. You don't like your job, but your business isn't doing well, and you may not have the courage to start up and do something on your own. And you tell yourself, I'm too old to start. You got to understand that that is just a story you're telling yourself, and as long as you believe that story, then it's going to become your reality. Be like Ray Kroc and bet on yourself. I know that you're never too old to start: believe. For those of you watching and like the video, you can subscribe to the channel to see more just like it. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon. Every week I share my best information to help you fuel your business forward in my newsletter. Check it out below.
Hi, I'm Jason J. Rosz Fonsica of RoszOnline.com, and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to, period.
