One of the biggest brands in the world is McDonald’s and many people have eaten there and will eat at a McDonald’s this week. Many of those people have read something about McDonald’s for much has been written. One of the books which passed me by was Grinding It Out – The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc, Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1977. The author is the founder of the company and why he started the company is a great story. Mr. Kroc was selling the machines which make milkshakes, before that he had worked for a company that sells paper cups. This means over the course of trying to sell through cold calling and calling on repeat sales, he went into hundreds or thousands of restaurants. When he started most restaurants were one location only, as opposed to today’s chain stores. The original McDonald’s ordered 8 multimixers and others owners of restaurants on the west coast were calling about the product. Mr. Kroc was based in Chicago flew out to California to see what the excitement was about. When he got there he was amazed and began to see great opportunity. He stayed for a couple of days watching, learning and then asked about expansion. The McDonald’s brothers were not interested, and Ray offered himself to do the job. He had not gone to California to do that action but what he saw and learnt lead the path to McDonald’s.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, you know there is opportunity everywhere but most of the time we do not take the next step. Similarly with Ray Kroc, he must have gone into hundreds of restaurants before he saw McDonald’s and thought I can duplicate the success and sell more multimixers. That is a big step, it will take different skills but the idea came to him and he acted. Every once in while, you will see great opportunity in the field you know best. Once in a while it will be a success, but in the meantime if you invest in existing successful companies which pay you a dividend, when you need resources to move to action on the what you see is a great opportunity, you will have a starting base.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions