Did you know that McDonald's doesn't make its money by selling burgers and fries, but in a completely different way? Get ready, it's likely to surprise you. You should know that 93% of McDonald's restaurants are franchises, which means that you and I can open a McDonald's at any time. The only condition is that you need to have the money. This is because when you open your McDonald's, you have to pay the brand a rent and a commission on each sale.00:23And the rents collected by McDonald's are simply enormous because all the buildings where McDonald's is located belong to the brand. And since they are franchises, the rent price is well above the local real estate price. Now McDonald's primarily makes money by leasing its brand through rents rather than through the food it sells. McDonald's isn't in the burgers and fries business, it's in the real estate business.00:46What you can take away from this is that it often takes a deep analysis of a business to truly understand how it makes money.