Fast Food Fury: How DeLuca Created a Franchising Phenomenon
Fast Food Fury: How DeLuca Created a Franchising Phenomenon
Inexperience: The very first day DeLuca opened up shop, he had spent the better part of the morning sitting out back, cutting vegetables with a three dollar knife on an old sheet of plywood. “There’s nothing in that store that would pass muster today,” he says jokingly. But despite his inexperience, DeLuca dove headfirst into his business and came to believe in the strategy of learning by doing.
Goals: “I say to [new development agents], ‘Ok, you must become the biggest fast-food chain in your country,” says DeLuca. From day one, DeLuca had his heart set on opening 32 Subway stores in ten years. He far surpassed that goal, but he never stopped setting new ones. Reaching one goal simply meant he had to set the next one even higher.
Customers: “We have good market acceptance and that’s why Subway is growing very nicely,” says DeLuca. “We win markets one customer at a time – that’s been our simple formula since the beginning.” Subway has become a franchising hit because DeLuca has made it his top priority to anticipate and listen to his customers’ needs. From the food to the building design, he has put his customers’ opinions front and centre. “Customers get what they want.”
Profit: DeLuca learned a hard lesson early on in the game: rising sales did not necessarily mean more money in his pockets. When the word came back that he was still at a loss, he knew it was time to change things around. By cutting costs and taking advantage of economies of scale, DeLuca learned to play the game of profit or perish.
Relationships: “Our job in the next five years is to build an international infrastructure,” says DeLuca. “And that’s done one store, one person at a time.” From his days of being unable to pay the bills, DeLuca has learned the importance of developing strong personal relationships at work. Today, he continues in that vein through his treatment of both employees and franchisees. “Subway is known for the fact that we bake our own bread in the store every day,” he says. “But it’s not just what we have. It’s who we are. Here at Subway, we’ve built a strong organization that can offer franchisee support.”
Although the company struggled in its first few years, Subway has since gone on to become one of the most successful companies in the world. For an unprecedented 15 times in 20 years, it has been ranked by Entrepreneur magazine as the number one franchise opportunity. With almost 30,000 units around the world, Subway’s growth is still going strong.
Fast Food Fury How DeLuca Created a Franchising Phenomenon
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“What's happening to us is beyond whatever I imagined,” says DeLuca, looking back on his career. “If you told me 30 years ago that one day I'd be sitting in a Subway store in Russia, I'd have said you were crazy.” DeLuca went from being just another kid in Brooklyn to being at the top of an international fast food phenomenon. How did he do it?
Inexperience: The very first day DeLuca opened up shop, he had spent the better part of the morning sitting out back, cutting vegetables with a three dollar knife on an old sheet of plywood. “There’s nothing in that store that would pass muster today,” he says jokingly. But despite his inexperience, DeLuca dove headfirst into his business and came to believe in the strategy of learning by doing.
Goals: “I say to [new development agents], ‘Ok, you must become the biggest fast-food chain in your country,” says DeLuca. From day one, DeLuca had his heart set on opening 32 Subway stores in ten years. He far surpassed that goal, but he never stopped setting new ones. Reaching one goal simply meant he had to set the next one even higher.
Customers: “We have good market acceptance and that’s why Subway is growing very nicely,” says DeLuca. “We win markets one customer at a time – that’s been our simple formula since the beginning.” Subway has become a franchising hit because DeLuca has made it his top priority to anticipate and listen to his customers’ needs. From the food to the building design, he has put his customers’ opinions front and centre. “Customers get what they want.”
Profit: DeLuca learned a hard lesson early on in the game: rising sales did not necessarily mean more money in his pockets. When the word came back that he was still at a loss, he knew it was time to change things around. By cutting costs and taking advantage of economies of scale, DeLuca learned to play the game of profit or perish.
Relationships: “Our job in the next five years is to build an international infrastructure,” says DeLuca. “And that’s done one store, one person at a time.” From his days of being unable to pay the bills, DeLuca has learned the importance of developing strong personal relationships at work. Today, he continues in that vein through his treatment of both employees and franchisees. “Subway is known for the fact that we bake our own bread in the store every day,” he says. “But it’s not just what we have. It’s who we are. Here at Subway, we’ve built a strong organization that can offer franchisee support.”
Although the company struggled in its first few years, Subway has since gone on to become one of the most successful companies in the world. For an unprecedented 15 times in 20 years, it has been ranked by Entrepreneur magazine as the number one franchise opportunity. With almost 30,000 units around the world, Subway’s growth is still going strong.
Fast Food Fury How DeLuca Created a Franchising Phenomenon
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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