Beating Rey

In all off Graffito’s life as he had always told me, he had never met a better cook than me. Not to boast, I think I am a pretty good cook myself so why deny such praise from such a wonderful friend. Graffito and I had been best friends long before we came to the East Coast to practise journalism. Over time he had grown to become a very big influence in my life and a wonderful companion, he seemed to always have an answer for all and when he didn’t know he just shut up.

Back to the cooking, once we had lunch at Rey Jonalds. Rey at that time was arguably the world’s best at making beef rolls, with outlets and delivery setups around the world. Rey had turnovers of millions every month. Anytime we sat down to eat, Graffito would say; I know you make better beef rolls than them but they are Rey and you are just you. I always got annoyed whenever he said this but never showed it until one day. On that day I stormed out with my mind aimed at opening my own beef roll outlet the following week.

Sourcing for funds wasn’t hard, even Graffito supported but told me I would regret it. First week of sales was superb, the people loved the taste and kept coming back. I was living my dream and within three weeks, people were catching the fever around town. I had extra bucks to spend well and do bigger things and for one thing I love Graffito for; he stands by his words. He kept telling me to focus on bloodline and not the physical look of the horse, but my happy ‘rich’ mind always shut him up back then.

It was all good until one rainy Sunday, calls kept coming in that deliveries would be needed due to the rain. I felt happy as knew that would mean extra bucks, but little did I know that I was stepping into a pit called failure, I refused to call Graffito for advice. I started making rolls to meet up with demands and of course as you expected I couldn’t meet up, I was frustrated with calls that day. While was happening, staff members of Rey were delivering co
mfortably in their delivery trucks and beating me to the game.

My little smart brain told me to employ more people and I did, then demands came for varieties. I handled that for a week and finally packed up, thanks for my day job at the news agency and the ever giving hands of Graffito I would have ended up as a financial wreck. Some days after my ordeal, as we sat to eat at Rey after weeks of competing against them he made his regular statement ending this way:
“…it isn’t always about the quality of the product most times but the quality of the system that makes the product.”

Tags: advice, competition, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, productivity, quality