Have you heard the story of Harland David Sanders? Read it here….
- Harland David Sanders was born in Indiana in 1890.
- In 1903 he got a job painting horse-drawn carriages.
- In 1904 he became a farm hand.
- In 1905 a streetcar conductor.
- In 1906 he joined the army and drove a team of mules in Cuba.
- In 1907 he became a blacksmith in Alabama.
- In 1908 a fireman on the railroad.
- In 1909 a labourer in Tennessee.
- In 1911 a lawyer in Arkansas.
- In 1913 he was selling life insurance in Indiana.
- In 1924, for the first time, he moved to Kentucky and got a job.
- He ran a Shell station and discovered the concept of franchising.
- The more he sold, the more money he, and Shell, made.
- Harland David Sanders loved the idea.
- He began thinking of ways to get people to choose his station rather than the one across the street.
- He started selling food: country style ham, chicken, and steak.
- He began by selling it from his own kitchen table.
- It was so successful he eventually bought the station across the street and began serving his food there.
- In 1937 he opened a motel and restaurant selling his food next door.
- Trade was so good that the Governor of Kentucky made him a ‘Colonel of Kentucky’.
- This was a purely honorary title given to any businessman who contributed to the good of the state.
- The Governor made 5,000 ‘Colonels’ that year.
- In 1952, aged 62, Sanders decided to try the franchise concept with his food.
- He had a friend who owned a diner in Utah and he persuaded him that fried chicken would separate it off from the local hamburger joints.
- And Sanders would get 5 cents for every chicken sold.
- In order to make it a franchise he needed a brand.
- He decided to call it ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ to make it sound different to ordinary fried chicken.
- He used the line ‘finger lickin’ good’ to give it the feel of southern down-home quality.
- And he decided that he himself would become the symbol that sold the franchise.
- So he began to dress like a Southern, civil-war era, plantation owner.
- He called himself ‘Colonel Sanders’ (although he’d only ever been a private in the army).
- He wore a white suit and a white hat, he wore a string tie and carried a cane.
- He grew a goatee, which he dyed white to match his hair.
- And everyone accepted him as ‘The Colonel’.
- Despite the fact that this was 1950s America, and no one had dressed like that for a hundred years.
- And so no one questioned ‘the Colonel’s secret recipe’ embodied the quality of ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’.
- In fact it soon became America’s alternative to hamburgers.
- ‘Colonel Sanders’ travelled everywhere promoting the brand.
- By 1965 there were 600 franchises.
- In 1969 the company was listed on the New York stock exchange.
- In 1986 PepsiCo Inc bought the company.
- Today KFC has 37,000 outlets in 110 countries.
- And ‘Colonel Sanders’ is still on every box, every bucket, every sign, every napkin.
As Harland David Sanders knew, all you’re ever selling is yourself.
Read more: http://davetrott.campaignlive.co.uk/2015/02/18/a-kernel-of-truth/#ixzz3S6gv2Q35
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— KFC UK & Ireland (@KFC_UKI) February 17, 2015