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I don't have any interest in cashing out or leaving the business or doing something else. I just love Subway, and I want to keep focusing on the company for the benefit of all our franchise owners. So I'm kind of like married to the job.
From my point of view, what I really like, what I think is really terrific about my work, is that the company's had the opportunity to train literally thousands and thousands of brand new franchisees to successfully run their very first business.
I tell everybody there are only three things that we do. We build sales at the store level, we build profits at the store level, and we build more stores. The first two things go in tandem, of course. It's pretty tough to build profits without sales.
I watch 'Shark Tank,' of course. It's very entertaining. I think it's actually good to help people think about the business they might start, and sometimes you get encouraged by looking at someone going into business and saying, 'Hey, I could do that.'
We have salads, some other beverages. But in reality, it's still fundamentally the same business. The most likely thing the next person will buy is a sandwich and a soft drink. After a half-century of glacial change, we're still pretty much the same business.
When you're invested in your own business, you're going to run it better. When people are financially responsible for whether their store succeeds, they're going to have that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that's harder to get if headquarters is running things.
A couple times a year, I get in the car, and I'll drive 1,000 miles cross-country, going through side streets. I'll stay off the highways as much as possible. And I realize it's a huge country, and for us to be in so many places in the country is an amazing thing.
Six months after we started, in 1964, there was a day when we sold only seven sandwiches. If we'd taken all the money from the register, we couldn't have paid an employee, much less the food or the rent or all that. It could have been a turning point. We could have given up.
There may be a perception that, with franchises, they're all the same, so that limits the ability to experiment. But that's not true. We've always kept two slots open on the menu of each Subway franchise - slots that franchisees can use to come up with their own sandwich ideas.
You have to realize that the customer really is king. People who go into more established businesses probably have to be careful not to be casual about that. When you have a brand-new business, and nobody knows who you are, you know you have to work really hard for your customers.
We give great value for our franchisees: They can build a store for well under $200,000. And we have extremely simple operating systems. The preparation is mostly done in front of the customer. That simplicity is really what attracts our Subway franchise. You see it, and you can do it.