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A business that could work without him.
Unlike most small business owners before him—and since—Ray Kroc went to work on ...
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The business-as-a-product would only sell if it worked. And the only way to make certain it would work in the hands of a franchisee anywhere in the world would be to build it out of perfectly predictable components that could be tested in a prototype long before ever going into mass production.
The system integrates all the elements required to make a business work. It transforms a business into a machine,
Unlike the trade name franchise before it, Ray Kroc’s system left the franchisee with as little operating discretion as possible. This was accomplished by sending him through a rigorous training program before ever being allowed to operate the franchise.
There, the franchisee learned not how to make hamburgers but how to run the system that makes hamburgers—the
To The Entrepreneur, the Franchise Prototype is the medium through which his vision takes form in the real world.
To The Manager, the Franchise Prototype provides the order, the
predictability, the system so importan...
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To The Technician, the Prototype is a place in which he is free to do the things he l...
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The point is: your business is not your life.
Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so.
Pretend that the
business you own—or want to own—is the prototype, or will be the prototype, for 5,000 more just like it. That your business is going to serve as the model for 5,000 more just like it.
Not almost like it, but just like it. Perfect rep...
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The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders, beyond what they expect. 2. The model will be operated by people with the lowest possible level of skill. 3. The model will stand out as a place of impeccable order. 4. All work in the model will be documented in Operations Manuals. 5. The model will provide a uniformly predictable service to
the customer. 6. The model will utilize a uniform color, dress, and facilities code.
you don’t need to hire brilliant attorneys or brilliant physicians. You need to create the very best system through which good attorneys and good physicians can be leveraged to produce exquisite results.
How can I give my customer the results he wants systematically rather than personally?
great businesses are not built by extraordinary people but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
A business that looks orderly says to your customer that your people know what they’re doing. A business that looks orderly says to your people that you know what you’re doing. A business that looks orderly says that while the world may not work,
some things can. A business that looks orderly says to your customer that he can trust in the result delivered and assures your people that they can trust in their future with you. A business that looks orderly says that the structure is in place.
What you do in your model is not nearly as important as doing what you do the same way, each and every time.
accept the undeniable fact that business, even a very small business like yours, is both an art and a science.
Tolerance for failure is a very specific part of the excellent company culture—and that lesson comes directly from the top. Champions have to make lots of tries and consequently suffer some failures or the organization won’t learn. Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr. In Search of Excellence
Business Development Process.
Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration.
“Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things.”
it is not the commodity that demands Innovation but the process by which it is sold,
the entire process by which the business does business is a marketing tool, a mechanism for finding and keeping customers.
how the business interacts with the consumer is more important than what it sells.
It should make things easier for you and your people in the operation of your business; otherwise it’s not Innovation but complication.
By Quantification, I’m talking about the numbers related to the impact an Innovation makes.
How many customers do you see in person each day? How many in the morning? In the afternoon? How many people call your business each day? How many call to ask for a price? How many want to purchase something? How many of product X are sold each day? At what time of the day are they sold? How many are sold each week?
Orchestration is the elimination of discretion, or choice, at the operating level of your business.
If you’re doing everything differently each time you do it, if everyone in your company is doing it by their own discretion, their own choice, rather than creating order,
you’re creating chaos.
Theodore Levitt says in his stunning book, Marketing for Business Growth, “Discretion is the enemy of order,...
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Orchestration is the certainty that is absent from every other human experience. It is the order and the logic behind the human craving for reason.
apart from its process, the part of a process is dead.
“And that, I believe, is the heart of the process: not efficiency, not effectiveness, not more money, not to ‘downsize’ or ‘get lean,’ but to simply and finally create more life for everyone who comes into contact with the business, but most of all,
for you, the person who owns it.
The chief characteristic of the volitional act is the existence of a purpose to be achieved; the clear vision of an aim.
Robert Assagioli The Act of Will
Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day.
Their lives are spent living out the vision they have of their future, in the present. They compare what they’ve done with what they intended to do.
I believe it’s true that the difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.
the difference between living fully and just existing.
“Until you lift the curtain, Sarah,
until you dare to pull the mask off the world’s face, until you move beyond your Comfort Zone, you will never know what it is you were missing out there.
