“The Founder” is a movie about Ray Kroc (Micheal Keaton) based on how one man overtook the McDonald’s franchise from its original owners. In one particular scene, Ray is giving a sales pitch, reframing McDonald’s as a real estate business by selling a vision rather than the product. At first, Ray struggles with his business, selling franchises is not going well and profits are inconsistent. Then, Ray has a breakthrough, McDonald’s is not a food business, it is a real estate business. Ray has an AHA moment by realizing that instead of making money from franchise fees and food, the real power is owning land (control the land, control the brand). From here, Ray stops selling the product and starts selling a system. For sales, this is a key moment in the movie. By doing this, Ray reframes the value proposition from “buy a McDonald’s franchise” to “own a piece of a reliable, asset-backed system”. This is an important lesson by showing that great salespeople do not argue, they change how the customer views the product. Real estate offers customers stable income, long-term security, and a tangible asset (land). This also gives us another lesson revealing that people buy when risk feels low. Another big adjustment is that Ray sells a vision bigger than the product. He is no longer pitching burgers, fries, and milkshakes, he is pitching national expansion in order to develop a future where McDonald’s is everywhere. This gives the watcher another important lesson that people do not buy a product, they buy what it can become. Overall, Ray is able to completely shift what he sells as a businessman. instead of “I sell _” it’s “what deeper values am I actually offering customers”. While Ray Kroc’s selling ways are quite ruthless throughout the movie, he is able to become the face of the McDonald’s franchise.
By timmonskg24
ChristmanAJ23 
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schartnerij23 2 thoughts on “Sales: “The Founder” Movie”
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This is an interesting take on sales! Like Coach said, we’re not selling the product. It’s about the customer. I find it interesting how he changed his way of selling, and how it worked. I’m not sure if that would happen in real life, but I do believe that longtime, future thinking is important in sales. With franchises, I think it’s a lot about the experience, the brand, and the idea of the “product” that sells, versus the actual quality of the product. It’s important for businesses to know what their value proposition is, and how to utilize it.
Ray Kroc is the perfect example of a very good, but very unethical, salesman. On one hand, the way in which he sells the McDonald’s franchise (as depicted in the movie) is an ingenious sales approach. But on the other hand, he uses his skills and his control over the McDonald’s name to eventually rob the McDonald brothers of their livelihood. It goes to show just how far ethics can go in how a salesperson is perceived by the public.