Cordia Harrington was tired of standing up all day and smelling like French fries at night. She also owned and operated three McDonald’s franchises (特许经销商) in Illinois, but as a divorced mother of three boys, she yearned for a business that would provide for her children and let her spend more time with them.
Her turning moment struck, strangely enough, after she was nominated in 1992 to be on the McDonald’s bun committee. "The other franchisees, all men, thought that was funny because of the word bun," she re calls. "But the joke was on them: They didn’t know the company would be picking me up in a corporate jet to see bakeries around the world. Every time I went to a meeting, I loved it. This was global!" The experience opened her eyes to business possibilities. When McDonald’s decided it wanted a new bun supplier, Harrington became determined to win the contract, even though she had no experience running a bakery. "You see a tiny crack in the door, and you have to run through it," she says. "I really believed I could do this."
Harrington studied the bakery business and made sure she was never off executives’ view. "If you have a dream, you can’t wait for people to call you," she says. "So I’d visit a mill and send them photos of myself in a baker’s hat and jacket, holding a sign that said I want to be your baker." After four years and 32 inter views, her persistence paid off. Harrington sealed the deal with a handshake, sold her franchises, invested everything she owned, and borrowed $13.5 million. She was ready to build the fastest, most automated bakery in the world.
The Tennessee Bun Company opened ahead of schedule in 1997, in time for a decline in US fast-food sales for McDonald’s. Before Harrington knew it, she was down to her last $ 20 000, not enough to cover payroll. And her agreement with McDonald’s required that she sell exclusively to the company. "I cried my self to sleep many nights," she recalls. "I really did think, I am going to go bankrupt." But Harrington worked out an agreement to supply Pepperidge Farm as well. "McDonald’s could see a benefit if our production went up and prices went down, and no benefit if we went out of business," she says. "That deal saved us."
Over the next eight years, Harrington branched out even more: She started her own trucking business, added a cold-storage company, and now has three bakeries all now known as the Bun Companies.
The major benefit of the experience in the McDonald’s bun committee is ______.