"I Just Took the Hamburger More Seriously than Anyone Else" -Ray Kroc

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, recalls with fondness his time spent as a seventeen year-old, working for a unit of the McDonald''s Corporation. This best-selling author, professional public speaker, sales, service and marketing consultant salutes McDonald''s guru Ray Kroc, for helping to revolutionalize business and for launching "millions and millions" of careers, worldwide.

I was rereading one of my favorite business books the other day and I happened upon a quote of McDonald?s guru, Ray Kroc: ?I didn?t invent the hamburger. I just took it more seriously than anyone else.? I love that line. Kroc, as you may know didn?t invent McDonald?s, either. He invented the MODERN McDonald?s; the one you and I know, and have probably frequented a hundred or more times in our lives. The McDonald brothers, of San Bernardino, California, invented what was then a breakthrough for a fast food drive-in.

Kroc?s work represents a watershed not only in fast food marketing, but also in systematizing service work.

And I have been a beneficiary of his wisdom, quite a direct beneficiary, at that.

When I was seventeen, I worked for an experimental unit of McDonald?s, called Ramond?s. This is pronounced exactly as you would Mr. Kroc?s first name, Raymond, except the emphasis is on the second syllable.

We tested new menu items, such as roast beef, and different pricing and d?cor changes.

And Ramond?s units were not drive-ins or drive-throughs. They were like today?s urban McDonald?s units, on the first floors of office buildings.

Anyway, what?s important is how seriously we were all taught to take cleanliness, service, and being systematic. Everything we did was operationalized.

When do you flip a burger? When a little ring forms around the outside portion of a cooking patty.

I could go on.

What Ray Kroc did with food I?ve tried to do, obviously in a more modest manner, with customer service and sales work: to make them highly achieving and idiot proof.

After all, to impress a seventeen year old, get him to work his tail off, teach him the value of discipline, cleanliness, service, and systems, well, that?s nothing less than a huge achievement.

Millions and millions of employees, worldwide, got their start under the the Golden Arches, and we have benefited immeasurably because one fellow simply took the hamburger more seriously than anyone else!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone? and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, ?The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,? published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC''s Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations from Santa Monica to South Africa. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at [phone] or at: [e-mail].

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