KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is world famous. It’s founder Harland David Sanders (the Colonel) is a classic example of Silver Never Rusts™ business person. A short backgrounder is worth the visit.

He was born in 1890 in Indiana and when he was six his father passed away and as a result he did some cooking at a very young age to help around the house while his mother was out trying to secure ways to provide for her family. Throughout his life he had what can only be described as an eclectic and interesting number of jobs including farmhand, streetcar conductor, soldier (honorably discharged), railroad fireman (steam engine stoker), lawyer, insurance salesman, steamboat operator, secretary and failed acetylene lighting manufacturer (wiped out by electric light and a competitor selling a competing product on credit). As a lawyer myself, I cannot resist to point out that his legal career came to an end because of a brawl in the courtroom with his own client.

While he ran his own roadside restaurant he perfected his “finger-lickin’ good” recipe in 1940 and patented his method for cooking chicken in a pressure fryer in 1962. He was an early adopter of the franchise model and in 1952 sold his first earning him $0.04 cents for every chicken sold. At the age of 65 he was forced to sell his own restaurant due to a severe downtown of traffic because of new interstate highway affecting his business. This left him having to live on only $105 per month in social security. Undaunted, he travelled extensively going from restaurant to restaurant trying to sell his concept frequently sleeping in the back of his car to save money. Legend has it that he was turned down 1009 times before he had someone say “yes”. Once he started to have some success, people would came to him to try out his chicken. At the age of 73 he had over 600 franchised locations and he sold the corporation for $2 million (about $16 million USD today) to a group of investors.

Most would have stopped at this point but he did not sell all his rights as some jurisdictions in the United States were sold to others and he personally retained all of Canada and lived there for 15 years to oversee the growth of KFC in that country. Fried chicken is ubiquitous in the southern US but not so in Canada. There are friend chicken restaurants there but KFC dominates the Canadian landscape because of the Colonel.

He was a paid brand ambassador for the chain and would travel over 200,000 miles a year along with many TV and other media appearances. Today KFC has almost 20,000 locations in 118 countries and annual sales of approximately $23 billion. It is now part of the Yum food conglomerate which is number two in the world behind McDonalds.

His title as “Colonel” is honorary and he developed the iconic outfit which he wore for the last twenty years of his life. No matter what life threw at him the Colonel persevered and at an age where most say its time to hang up the frying pan, he was only starting. Even in his seventies when he had more than enough money to retire, he kept on going. It was never too hot in the kitchen for Harland David Sanders.

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