FMF #24 - Is Your Business Green And Growing Or Ripe And Rotting?
I would love to take credit for the title of this blog and podcast, but it’s a quote from Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's. I’m not sure if Founder is the correct title for Ray Kroc, especially after seeing the movie FOUNDER, but Ray Kroc was the man who made systems what they are today.
Ray Kroc took systems, developed initially by the McDonalds Brothers and made them better, and also made them his own. Good enough was never good enough for Ray Kroc.
The Success
Ray Kroc was asked why McDonald’s was such a success, and his answer was straightforward: “We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else making hamburgers”.
If you think about that statement, it is incredibly bold, but it is also very accurate. So, how seriously do you take your own business?
Did you set it up because it was better than working for someone else? Was there any real passion behind your business idea, or was it a means to an end?
And, are you willing to do what is required to make your business a successful enterprise. Are you prepared to make hamburgers better than anyone else making burgers, or whatever it is that you make or do?
Three Ingredients
The worldwide success of McDonald’s came about by having amazing yet simple systems. Proving that systems don’t need to be complicated to work efficiently and be successful; they just need to have three ingredients:
1. They need to be followed by everyone in the business. All the way from the top down, no exclusions.
2. They need to be developed further as the business landscape changes. They cannot stay static. A static system is a doomed system long-term.
3. They must be documented.
Could you imagine McDonald’s if Ray Kroc or the McDonald Brothers before him had never spent the time documenting how a cheeseburger or Big Mac should be cooked and put together?
Simple Systems
If you look at McDonald’s today, it is run on systems that are so simple; yet he has been able to create a billion-dollar business primarily run by kids. These kids are the same kids that don't clean their bedrooms at home, and many don’t even have a driver’s licence; however, they are an integral part of a billion-dollar burger empire.
Understanding the power of systems will make you money.
Your most significant growth period in small business occurs when you’re GREEN, when everything is new and exciting. The problem though is when you stop growing, when you become complacent, settled and happy with what you’ve achieved. You’ve become RIPE.
Reinvention
If you don’t re-invent yourself and replant new business ideas or change the way you do things within your business, it will slowly begin to rot and smell.
You have probably witnessed this firsthand. A new business opens, for simplicity let's say a restaurant, and it is so popular you have to book a week ahead to get a table, however, a year later you can get a table without a reservation. A year after this the restaurant is closed.
When a business becomes ripe, the business owner has three options:
1. Do nothing. I think this is a weak option and becoming complacent, resting on past successes and thinking your business with continue to grow without you having to put in any effort or thought is madness.
2. Introduce new products, services and equipment and improve upon the successful formula you already have in place. McDonald's have come a long way since making the Cheeseburger, and their relevance and continual success relies on new products and services. They stay fresh.
3. Expand and open multiple locations to keep the growth going, but make sure it's managed, sustainable growth.
If you want to stay green and growing and not ripe and rotting, you need to follow and implement options two and three and avoid, at all costs option one.
I hope you get something from this and if you have any questions from this episode please email me at
It's No Secret Business Conference
On the 17th and 18th of August 2018. I will be holding a 2-Day It's No Secret Business Conference in Cairns and this year's theme is 'Communication, Persuasion and Influence'. My Keynote Speaker is David M Frees from Pennsylvania, who was also my guest on Podcast Episode 2. Bookings are NOW OPEN and for more details please visit my EVENTS page. (Limited to 50 attendees)
FREE DOWNLOADS:
First 16 Pages of My Book – It’s No Secret There’s Money in Small Business.
12 Secrets to Get More People Through Your Front Door.
Comments
Post a Comment