Tweet

The World Famous Colonel: How Harland Sanders Got His Start

Article Overview: He is known as the Southern gentleman in the white suit, white goatee and black string tie, and he is perhaps one of the most famous colonels in the world. Despite not founding the business until he was 66 years old, Harland Sanders turned his local chicken stand into a multinational fast-food franchise. Today, KFC has more than 14,000 franchise outlets in over 100 countries, and pulls in over $520 million in annual revenue. That success, however, was the result of a long and uphill journey for Sanders.

The World Famous Colonel: How Harland Sanders Got His Start

He is known as the Southern gentleman in the white suit, white goatee and black string tie, and he is perhaps one of the most famous colonels in the world. Despite not founding the business until he was 66 years old, Harland Sanders turned his local chicken stand into a multinational fast-food franchise. Today, KFC has more than 14,000 franchise outlets in over 100 countries, and pulls in over $520 million in annual revenue. That success, however, was the result of a long and uphill journey for Sanders.

Harland David Sanders was born on September 9, 1890 on a farm in Henryville, Indiana. He was the eldest of three children to a butcher father, Wilbert Sanders, and a homemaker mother, Margaret Ann Dunleavy. Sanders’ life was turned upside down when he was just five years old. His father died, leaving his mother to look after the three kids. Sanders was left in charge of his siblings while his mother worked extra jobs peeling tomatoes at a canning factory and sewing. This first experience of learning how to cook for his siblings would be an important one for the young Sanders.

When Sanders was ten years old, he got his first job working part-time on a local farm. He soon quit school so he could work full-time and help support his family. At 12 years old, Sanders’ mother remarried to a produce farmer whom Sanders would not enjoy an easy relationship with. While the rest of the family moved to Indianapolis, Sanders stayed where he was, working on a farm for $15 a month, plus room and board.

After three years of working on the farm, Sanders found a job as a streetcar conductor in New Albany. He soon quit that position to enlist in the U.S. Army, where he would spend a year as a soldier stationed in Cuba. When he was discharged, he got married and moved to Jasper, Alabama, in what would be the beginning of a long and varied career.

Sanders started off by selling insurance, but soon opened up his own steamboat ferry company on the Ohio River. A few years later, he began to work as a secretary for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. Here, Sanders met an inventor who had found a way to run natural gas lamps on gas from carbide. Sanders bought the rights to the patent and attempted to start a manufacturing company, but it quickly failed.

Sanders then went to work for the Illinois Central Railroad, during which time he also earned a law degree by correspondence from Southern University. When he lost his job with the railroad, he saw it as his perfect opportunity to begin practicing law. Despite modest success, Sanders’ legal career came to a quick halt when he got into a fight with a client in the courtroom.
By then it was 1930. The depression was beginning to hit people hard and employment was difficult to come by. Never one to have an easy time working for someone else anyway, Sanders finally decided to go into business for himself. At 40 years old, this was going to be the start of something new.

Related Articles
  Lesson #1: You Have To Get Yourself A Gimmick
  A Little Colonel Of Truth: How Sanders Turned KFC Into A Global Success
  Finger Lickin’ Good: Sanders Opens Kentucky Fried Chicken
  Branding: How KFC Is Trying to Reclaim Its Brand Identity
  Colonel Harland Sanders

Article Tags: black string, canning factory, david sanders, dunleavy, ferry company, first job, food franchise, franchise outlets, harland sanders, henryville indiana, jasper alabama, local farm, margaret ann, mother margaret, peeling tomatoes, selling insurance, southern gentleman, string tie, u s army, white suit



Related Forum Posts
Categorizing the Famous Entrepreneur Profiles? - By the way Evan, what do you think about my idea to categorize your list of Famous Entrepreneur Profiles by industry rather than by alphabetical order? For instance, if I was a small business owner looking to enter the food industry, I might want to look for inspiration from famous entrepreneurs in a related field (like profiles on Dave Thomas, Harland Sanders, Debbi Fields, etc...). It just seems a bit time consuming having to run down the long list of names you have on the "Features" page. Thanks
Hello, I'm a newbie too - Hi, I was introduced to your site by a friend from a different forum. I had asked the question "how many people became successes after age 45?" and one response led me here. I'm still looking for the answer to that question, I've been studying a variety of things, and I've read Ray Kroc's autobiography, which led me to wonder how many people became a success after the age of 45. So far I've come up with Kroc, Colonel Sanders, and a few singers. Can any one assist me with this? Thanks, Anita
The Value of Mentoring - Successful mentor pairings (in case there was any doubt as to the value of mentoring): 1. André Ouellet (President, Canada Post) mentor to Mark Whalen (Urban Organics and winner, Young Entrepreneur Award) 2. Marc Lefrançois (President, Via Rail Canada) mentor to Jeffrey Campbell (Core Networks, Inc. and winner, Young Entrepreneur Award) 3. Donald Kendall (former CEO of PepsiCo) mentor to John Scully (former CEO of Apple) 4. Harland Sanders (the Colonel) mentor to Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy's) 5. Stuart Friend (KMart manager) mentor to Wayne Sales (CEO of Canadian Tire) 6. Jim Rohn (author, motivational speaker) mentor to Anthony Robbins (author, motivational speaker) 7. Robert Patterson (CEO, National Cash Register) mentor to Thomas Watson (founder of IBM) 8. Henri-Paul Rosseau (President, Laurentian Bank of Canada) mentor to isabel Rodriquez and Yves Besner (i4design and winners, Young Entrepreneur Award)
Name for website - Hmmmm Authors World Authors Network Authors World Wide Weblog World Wide Authors Arboretum (or some other alliterative word) WritertoWriter Writer to Reader WritersWorld WritersConnect AuthorsandtheirReadersBlog
Re: What would you like to see be invented? - Sirs, It is all well and good thinking about where you could go, but don't forget, lots of jolly unwelcome types might suddenly show up on your doorstep. If you are going to invent a teleporter, I want you to invent an unidentified-teleporting-personage-unexpected-arrival-on-my-doorstep-repulsion-mechanism that I can use to fend off sudden and unappealing arrivals. Yours faithfully, Colonel Blimp


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Paint A Word Picture - Excite Your Customer

The Digital Diet by Daniel Sieberg

Ways to Improve Your Landing Page Conversions

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.