Fred DeLuca

After 39 years of business, I'm still learning. I go through this every year -identifying new strategies that are extremely important.

Every time I come across learning items of interest, I'll send distribution voice mail to the appropriate group in the organization.

In 1974, we began franchising. We didn't have any big thought process except that, 'OK, franchising will help us get to our goal of 32 stores and help us run stores farther away from home.'

Higher unemployment generally bodes well for franchising. People are looking for a new opportunity, and people who have jobs are a little less confident they'll always have a job.

You could have everything right but be in the wrong place. You think your business is no good, but really, the problem is your place is no good.

The franchisees are uniquely in touch at the local level. They see what's going on in their communities in a way we couldn't ever imagine.

Back in the early days of international, everybody wanted to customize the menu for every place.

Back when we started, people didn't even know what a submarine sandwich was. The product was only sold in a few markets.

Everybody eats three times a day; it's only a question of where they choose to eat. The longer-term trends are people eat out more often.

Profit or perish... There are only two ways to make money: increase sales and decrease costs.

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.

Subway is a real point of pride. We have influenced the way people eat.