Given the failure rate of most small businesses, he must have realized a crucial fact: for McDonald’s to be a predictable success, the business would have to work, because the franchisee, if left to his own devices, most assuredly wouldn’t! Once he understood this, Ray Kroc’s problem became his opportunity. Forced to create a business that worked in order to sell it, he also created a business that would work once it was sold, no matter who bought it. Armed with that realization, he set about the task of creating a foolproof, predictable business. A systems-dependent business, not a
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