What A Great Idea!
Now What Do I Do?

Wow! You just had a GREAT idea! It’s brilliant and stunningly clear—and it could make you a lot of money. That’s good, right? Write it down right now so you can remember every detail.

Now what?

Well, great ideas occur all of the time. You’ve probably had 12 this year. So you know what it feels like when you have an idea and two years later, someone else brings it out successfully.

It could have been you! You had the idea and you could have been making the money. Now someone else is.

Some great ideas are obvious. Were people surprised when Isaac Newton said, "Guess what, guys? An apple fell off that tree and hit the ground!" Were they used to seeing ripe apples floating around randomly trying to decide where they would go?

What was exciting about Newton’s discovery? He was able to develop the theories of motion that led to the law of gravity. He proved that because of gravity, every apple would fall downward towards the Earth’s gravitational field. Gravity is a law that works first time, every time.

Two other great ideas: In 1948, brothers Maurice and Richard McDonald opened a hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California. It served 15 cent burgers, 10 cent fries and 20 cent milk shakes. The food was quick, hot, tasty, cheap and the hamburger stand was kept clean. People came from miles around just to buy bags of burgers and fries and get those great shakes. That was one great idea—fast food that would taste good all of the time at a cheap price.

To meet the demand, Maurice and Richard decided to buy 5 Multi-Mixers, a machine that can make 8 milkshakes at a time. They ordered them from Chicago based paper cup and Multi-Mixer salesman Ray Kroc. Kroc had been looking most of his life for the chance to make a lot of money and he was curious about why the McDonald brothers needed to make 40 milkshakes at a time. So in 1954, he drove from Chicago to San Bernardino to see what was going on with this hamburger stand.

The place was small and deserted when he got there but before it had opened for lunch the parking lot was filled and people were in line waiting to order. He talked to several of the customers and found out that they often went to McDonald’s Famous Hamburgers and would drive miles to buy the food. He had a great idea—that this was a system that could be duplicated in hundreds of places across the United States.

How many other salesmen sold meat and potatoes and napkins, straws, ice cream and milk to Maurice and Richard McDonald? How many thousands of people had already enjoyed the food and come back again and again to buy it?

Kroc tried to get the McDonald brothers to share his vision but they were already happy. They were making $75,000 a year with one restaurant and didn’t need to work harder. They rejected the idea of starting a chain of McDonald’s restaurants. But Kroc kept at it—this was the best idea he’d ever seen. He finally talked them into allowing him to franchise McDonald’s. The brothers were willing to receive royalty checks if Kroc would sell other people on the idea and handle the business of the company. In 1955, he opened his first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois. Kroc took his great idea to the Fortune 500. Before his death in 1984, he had bothe money and time to play as well. He owned the San Diego Padres professional baseball team from January 25, 1974 until his death in 1984. On July 9, 1999, he was inducted as a charter member of the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame.

The McDonald’s Corporation currently has more than 25,000 restaurants open around the world.

Now back to YOUR great idea. Keep it handy and in the next issue we’ll talk about how to take it from the drawing board to the bank.

Great Ideas Become Great Products >>

-Cynthia Nemeth-Johannes