Failure To Millionaire: The Story Of Colonel Sanders And KFC

KFC, you must have heard about this name, right? The fast food restaurant chain specializes in delivering quality friend chickens and is currently one of the largest fast food restaurant chains in the world. However, do you know about Colonel Sanders? The man whom you see on the logo is none other than him, who is the founder of  KFC. However the journey of him starting KFC was not pleasant at all as he repeatedly met with numerous failures that can’t be imagined.

How the failures made him  strong

In his 20s, the young colonel saw a bunch of failures in his job life as he had a short career as a lawyer. Then he landed a job as an insurance seller, but in a short span of amount, he was fired from this job also. He finally came to the decision that instead of doing a job, he would start his own business.

You will be surprised to see that initially fast food business was not the first option for him. When he was in his 30s, the first startup he did was a ferry boat service in the rivers of Ohio. This was a perfect thing, but alas a bridge was made near the place that dent his service. His next venture, which was the oil lamp business, was mainly in rural America, but unfortunately, it was also met with a piece of bad luck as, during that time, electricity had already reached there. Then, he took charge of a gas station in 1927 in Kentucky, but he was also forced to close it down due to the Great Depression.

But these failures actually, instead of breaking him down, made him a strong man, which he himself stated in his autobiography. This was evident when he started a second venture in Kentucky at the height of the Great Depression despite being repeatedly greeted with failures. However, little did he know that it was about to become a turning point for him.

A small venture becomes a turning point

In 1930, he opened Sanders Court and Café where he mainly started to sell homemade chickens to the truck drivers to earn extra bit of cash and to sustain himself. This time, he was not greeted by failures, but it quickly gained a massive success, which led the Governor of Kentucky, Ruby Lafon, to give him the title of Kentucky Colonel in 1935. He finally got a success which he was hoping for.

However, once again, bad luck arrived for him, but there is a proverb that blessings often come in disguise; this was proved here, which also will be the first step of the formation of KFC.

The blessing in disguise

The bad luck was that Sanders Court and Café burned down in the late 1930s, but instead of giving up, he decided to rebuild it, and in this process, he was looking forward to some innovative recipes which could help him attract customers. In this process, he discovered a recipe for frying chickens in a new device, which is a pressure cooker and in this process, mixing  11 herbs and spices. This recipe would later serve as the main formula of KFC. 

His new recipe regarding chicken was so popular that by 1952, he made a deal with his friend Pete Harman to sell this dish under the name of Kentucky Fried Chicken in exchange for 4 cent royalty to him in every piece it sold. This was the beginning of the formation of KFC. By 1953 he made the same deal with various other local restaurants. His approach was quite innovative also as he would enter into various restaurants and offer to cook the chicken for owners, assuring him that if they liked it, then they could negotiate. So, it can be said that the burning definitely was a blessing in disguise.

This went down till the 1960s; after that, someone his age would happily end up in retirement as he was 65, but he has some other plans.

The journey of KFC as a franchise

In the 1960s, Colonel Sanders decided to turn his Kentucky Fried Chicken into a massive fast food franchise instead of opting for retirement first; he obtained a patent protecting the method of his recipe and trademarked the phrase Its Finger Licking Good in 1963.

By 1964, KFC had expanded onto various countries like Canada, the UK, Australia, Mexico and Jamacia, which not only made KFC a franchise but also, in this very same year, he became a millionaire. Finally, he took retirement by selling his business in the early 1970s. However the influence of him was still on.

The Influence of Colonel Sanders

Despite selling his business, he has a very strong influence on the company, as many of the people who used to work during that time at KFC have stated that he has very much influence over executives. One of the main reasons, as often being pointed out for this, is that due to despite selling KFC, he was still the mascot of the company and used to film many TV commercials, which helped the company to create its brand awareness. 

Colonel Sanders, even after retirement, used to provide surprise visits to various KFC outlets and if he didn’t like the food here, he would have immediately denounced it as a part of the franchise.

In 1980, at the age of 90, he passed away from leukaemia, leaving three children behind.

The legacy

Even after his death, Colonel Sanders is still active, being a mascot of the company in the commercials, mainly animated or portrayed by an actor. In recent years, through the usage of AI, the company  also presented Colonel Sanders as a social media influencer for their commercials.

A biopic of him currently is in development which is being developed by Cheryl Guerriero and will be produced by Meridian Pictures.

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