Ray Kroc and the World of Fast Food II

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Lead: In the mid-1950s salesman extraordinaire Raymond Albert Kroc charmed the founders of a little restaurant chain into placing him in charge of expansion. His problem: feeble profits.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: As the consummate marketer, Kroc was able to sell franchises at a rapid rate, but there was no mechanism to force franchisees to adhere to McDonald’s business model and his obsession with “QSC – Quality, Service and Cleanliness.” The solution was to go into the real estate business. The company would buy the land and build the building and after a rigorous selection process sell the outlet to the franchisee, whom Kroc now considered his partner, at a ridiculously low rate. The conditions for operation were built into the lease for the property, the cost of which was determined by a graduated percentage of gross sales.

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Ray Kroc and the World of Fast Food I

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead: Born at the dawn of the twentieth century, master salesman Ray Kroc helped transform the way the world consumed food.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After brief service as an ambulance driver trainee in World War II, Kroc began his professional life and gradually absorbed the craft of salesmanship. After nearly two decades with cup manufacturer Lily-Tulip, rising to mid-western sales-manager, Kroc became fascinated with the multispindled milkshake maker. He eventually bought the company, Prince Castle, and in the post-World War II business revival the company prospered.

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Estee Lauder: Beauty Industry Innovator

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Lead: The daughter of immigrants, Josephine Esther Mentzer, a.k.a. Estée Lauder set the industry standard for women’s beauty products in 20th Century America.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts

Content: Esther grew up a borough girl in Queens, the ninth and last child of Max and Rose Mentzer. Early on she became fascinated with the creams and fragrances that her mother used and that her relatives sold in their stores. As a teenager she learned merchandizing and customer relations, caught up as she later wrote, “by pretty things and pretty people.” She learned early on from her Uncle John Schotz the benefits of hands-on selling demonstrating how products worked on the faces and hands of her customers.

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Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall

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Lead:  Victor Gruen surveyed his creation and was deeply disappointed.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: When Gruen arrived in America in 1938 on the SS Staatendam he was penniless. One of Austria's most promising young architects, just as he was beginning to receive lucrative contracts to provide innovative designs for Vienna's department stores, Adolf Hitler's Nazi cronies took over the country in the Anschluss. Gruen got out in time and soon established himself in the United States as a commercial architect of great creativity.

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