The most successful businesses are those that find hidden opportunities that help them make more money…

In this article, we’re going to equip you with two keys that were set up for you in the debut article to this series.

Imagine yourself for a moment, trying to sell paper cups to the food industry.

And by the food industry, I mean everyone from the hotdog stand on the street corner right up to department store cafeterias.

Something of a challenging industry to be in, wouldn’t you agree?

But Ray would come to make more money by discovering how to turn the average sale into a continuous blast of high-ticket sales, while peddling paper cups for a living.

In order to uncover this secret, Kroc dug deep and used the first key: re-positioning his product as a business growth asset instead of an expense.

Now, how do you turn a low-value item like a paper cup into a conduit to make more money? In 1930, Kroc finally came up with the answer to this question.

Getting Others To Perceive Opportunity

He brought his freshly-conceived idea to a cafeteria manager named Mr. McNamarra and pitched his paper cups as a conduit for extra income stream instead of an expense.

Ray explained to the ticked-off manager that by adding a 2 X 2 foot space at the end of his service counter, the cafeteria, well-known for its milkshakes, could boost its profits with takeout.

McNamarra told Kroc his idea was crazy. He couldn’t see how a takeout only area could be profitable.

So Kroc gave him 300 paper cups at no cost to try out his idea. The experiment proved a screaming success.

Did I mention that McNamarra’s cafeteria was a Walgreen’s cafeteria?

When the Walgreen’s head office took notice of how the takeout counter opened the floodgates to new income, it implemented the practice in all its stores.

Walgreens also ordered all its paper cups through Ray Kroc. Not only did he get great business out of that initial Walgreen’s store, but he got a new stream of revenue with each new Walgreen’s store that opened.

Now, On to key #2.

How The Great Depression Created
A Money-Machine Like No Other

With no jobs to be had in Depression-era New Hampshire, Maurice headed west to California.

His first job was as a movie prop handler, which didn’t pay a fortune, but was better than struggling with not having an income.

The next year, Maurice’s brother, Richard also came out to California and scored work with his brother’s employer.

They spent the next 5 years there until they’d saved enough money to open their own business.

Based on their experience in the movie industry, they confident they could buy a run-down movie theater and turn it into a wildly popular venue for movie fanatics.

In another time, their bet would’ve paid off, but there were many negative forces working against them.

Massive state-wide worker strikes crippled the local economy. As a result, they never could fill their theatre.

A hotdog vendor outside the brothers’ movie theater would often sell them their only meal of the day – a single hotdog.

One evening, Maurice took notice of something while eating his hotdog of the day.

While no one stopped to look at what was showing at their theater, many passersby were stopping for a hotdog.

It was at that moment the brothers chose to write off the theater for good and follow the stream of money to where it was flowing at that time.

What Maurice & Richard Did Right:

The brothers ditched their assumption-based business (the theater) and followed the one business that was making money at the time (food).

No matter how bad the times were, people were still going to the race track and if they had money to spend hours there, they had money to buy food while they gambled.

The brothers approached a race track owner with the idea of starting a snack bar there.

In our next article, I’ll show you how the brothers did succeed with their bet…but had to keep sharpening their ability to perceive opportunity and make more money.

Try Mastering A Key Right Now

I can think of no better way to push forward on how to make more money than by seeing you go into this with a model you’ve already built.

Whatever model you choose to go with, the #1 thing you need to be sure of is that it delivers an 80/20 result for the time, money and energy you put in.