This is the story about a boy from Henryville
Indiana. In 1895 , When he was six years old his father passed away. His mother
had to start working in a tomato cannery , leaving him to cook and care for his
siblings. Life hit him hard at a very young age and because of the difficult
situations he faced.
He had to work as a farmhand at the age of
ten. When he was in sixth grade , he dropped out of high school and left his
home. He started working as a painter of horse carriages. When he was 16 , he faked his age to enlist in the US army. After being honourably discharged a
year later he started working as a railway laborer and studied law at nearby
university until he ruined his legal career by getting into a fight.
He was forced to move back in with his mom and
get a job selling life insurances. After sometime, he got fired for not
following orders. Some years later he established a ferry boat company and it
was an instant success. Later on he tried cashing in on his FERRY BOAT BUSINESS
to create a chemical lamp manufacturing company only to find out that another
company was already selling electrical lamps much better than his company’s
lamp.
All this hardship in life but this guy wouldn’t
give up. He moved to work as a salesman for a tier company. But again he lost
his job when the company closed its manufacturing plant.
By the age of 40 he met the general manager of
an oil company who asked him to run a service station for him but the station
had to close down as a result of the great depression. That same year the shell
oil company offered him a service station , rent-free. In return for paying the
company a percentage of sales. He started operating the service station and
also began to serve chicken dishes and other simple meals for people who were
stopping by at the station. His pan-fried chicken soon became a Favourite with
the people of the area and made him famous in the region.
Few years later he took out the station and
started a proper restaurant. After fairly succeeding at his venture he started
to advertise his food and to his shock , an argument erupted out of the blue
with a local competitor and resulted in a fatal shootout with one of his
employees dying.
Four years later he bought a motel next to his
chicken restaurant hoping for better business but it got fired and burnt
down to the ground together with his restaurant. Yet this ambitious man rebuilt
and ran a new motel with a 140- seat restaurant until world war-2 forced him to
close it down again. When war ended, he tried selling his recipes to
other restaurants. His recipe was rejected 1009 times. When finally in
1952 , he sold his secret recipe “KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN” for the first
time to the city’s largest restaurants. It quickly became a hit and as a result
several restaurant owners franchised the concept and paid him $0.04 per
chicken.
However , good times didn’t last very long. His
own restaurant was crippeled when an interesting highway reduced customer
traffic.he sold it and was left only with his savings and $105 a month from
social security. So finally he pursued his dream to franchise his chicken
concept nationwide and travelled the US looking for suitable restaurants. He
opened a new restaurant and a company headquarters in 1959. He often slept in
the back of his car. He visited a restaurant offer to cook his chicken and if
the owner liked it then he negotiated a franchise right. In 1965, at the age of
75 , he was just getting started!
After years of rejection , failure , and
misfortunes COLONEL SANDERS’ franchise approach became highly successful. KFC
was one of the first fast food chains to expand globally, opening outlets in
Canada , UK , Mexico and Jamaica. By the mid-1960s, the COLONEL remained the
company’s symbol after selling it. He travelled over 400000 KM a year visiting
KFC restaurants and delighting customers around the world. At the age of 90
COLONEL SANDNER passed away. At that time there were 6000 KFC locations in 48
different countries. In 2020 there are more than 23000 KFC restaurants in 150
countries worldwide.
If you are overwhelmed by rejection or
discouraged by setbacks remember the story of COLONEL SANDERS
- A SIX GRADE DROPOUT
- FIRED FROM MULTIPLE JOBS
- RUINED HIS LEGAL CAREER
- SETBACK BY THE GREAT DEPRESSION , FIRE AND WORLD WAR-2
And yet became the world's most famous
cook after reaching “Retirement Age”.
COLONEL SANDERS created one of the largest food
chains in the world with many things, but above all he was a great success
story!
With his story we can learn that despite
thousands of rejections and misfortunes, dedication along with hard work can
create success ; regardless of age.
Guys tried to cover the whole story , so if you
like it do share and comment from whose story you are inspired the most.
Insightful
ReplyDeleteGreat .... valuable, insightful and inspirational
ReplyDeleteHe is a one of the great example of successful person....
ReplyDeleteGreat person 😊👍
ReplyDelete