Do One Thing And Do It Well
It’s simple–the people who have the singular mission and chase their calling get paid for their decisiveness.
Something I have been thinking about is people who commit themselves to one singular mission. The world yanks, jolts, and rips us in a million different directions, but these people have an unwavering persistence towards their calling. When the world is mired in indecisiveness and always changing their taste, these people get paid for their decisiveness.
Todd Graves is the epitome of a person who was decisive about his mission. He founded Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, Raising Cane’s for short. He cares about one thing—chicken fingers. It makes their $10 billion business model.
Todd Graves started Raising Cane’s with a “chicken finger dream”. He always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He was the kid on your neighborhood’s street corner running a lemonade stand. He worked at bars and restaurants during his teenage years, and worked at Guthrie’s, a chicken finger chain in the South, providing the chicken finger inspiration. It was only right in his college business planning class he, and his partner wrote a business plan paper on a chicken finger only restaurant. However, his professor scoffed at the idea–giving the project a C- grade.
Todd Graves was undeterred. They pitched their C- business plan to bankers in hopes of financing their dream. The bankers saw a 23-year-old with an obsessive chicken finger commitment and limited offerings providing hesitation. They cited McDonald’s extensive offerings as proof doing only one thing wouldn’t work, but he didn’t desire to be fat in offerings and turn into a “concession stand”. He sought to go against the general trends of business. He only cares about doing one thing well.
Today, Raising Cane’s has 800+ locations across the United States and the Middle East. Safe to say, they do the whole chicken finger thing well. When you pull up to the drive through window a crewmember greets you with one of their many sayings, such as “Chicken! Chicken! Chicken! What kind of combo are you pickin'!?”
They have seven items on their menu: Chicken fingers, fries, Cane’s sauce, Texas toast, coleslaw, a sandwich, and a fountain drink.
Their sandwich is just their chicken fingers between two buns with lettuce and topped with Cane’s sauce.
They offer three combos, but the only difference is the number of chicken fingers.
Raising Cane’s makes delicious chicken fingers as evidenced by their 30% growth rate. My Raising Cane’s experiences confirm this as well. Todd Graves isn’t in it for the money either. He still owns over 90% of the business, hoping to pass it off to his children one day. He has turned down multiple billion dollar offers to continue to live his dream. Chicken fingers are his obsession.
It is the classic example of doing one thing and getting better at it for decades. In a world inundated with shiny object syndrome, it is hard to beat the person focused on the one thing.
Mariano Rivera was hard to beat because he did one thing well: throw a cut fastball. He revolutionized the game. When it is typical for baseball pitchers to have three or four pitches in their repertoire to confuse batters, Rivera stunned hitters with the same pitch over and over. He threw a cut fastball over 90% of the time in some seasons, an absurdity. Every batter knew the next pitch, but it didn’t matter. Some called it, “the single best pitch ever in the game”. It afforded him success for 15 years. He is the only player unanimously elected by baseball writers into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He did one thing and did it better than everyone else.
But this isn’t a sports phenomenon specific to Rivera.
Katie Ledecky is one of the greatest Olympians of all time thanks to her ridiculous ability in long distance freestyle swimming. She holds the top 20 fastest times ever in the 1500m freestyle. It’s her against herself. Dirk Nowitzki is the greatest European basketball player ever with his trademarked one-legged fadeaway jump shot. It was proven a defender needs to be 14 feet in the air to block it. Serena Williams overpowered competitors with the greatest serve ever, known for its speed and placement. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had the patented skyhook.
One thing works.
It is easy to love a lot of things because the world has an abundance of beautiful things. Sure, I have many hobbies, but hearing these stories shows the value of having the one thing above all else. Romanticizing the idea of always picking up something new will always be trendy, but at the heart of growth lies doing the one thing well. Todd Graves says,
“Our number one strategy for growth is staying true to who we are."
Raising Cane’s has a simple mission: doing one thing and doing it better than everyone else. This is not only an evergreen business model or sports success story but a life concept. Staying true to ourselves allows us to grow. GK Chesterton says,
“A tree doesn’t try to become a better tree - it just grows according to its nature.”
Todd Graves got in touch with who he was and learned the one thing for him was chicken fingers. Success lies in being who you are and doing the one thing. Do one thing and do it well. The rest will work itself out over time.
-Scantron
I appreciate you being here.
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