Amazing Career ZIGZAGs of Col. Harland David Sanders (1890-1980) of KFC

Summary:

FARM WORKER > STREETCAR CONDUCTOR > STEAM TRAIN STOKER > TEAMSTER > BLACKSMITH > INSURANCE SALESMAN > GAS STATION OPERATOR > LAWYER > FERRY BOAT OWNER > TIRE SALESMAN > RESTAURANT OWNER > KFC FRANCHISER

Col. Harland David Sanders (1890-1980) of Indiana of “Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)” fame did not look like a good prospect for any success in life when he was child.

Between the ages 10 and 16 he worked as a farmhand on local farms and he dropped out of school at the 7th grade. While his peers were going to high school, he was a conductor driving streetcars in New Albany, Indiana.

Other career zigs and zags Sanders took included working as a steam engine stoker (cleaning out the ash pans of trains), a teamster (in Cuba), a blacksmith’s helper, an insurance salesman and a gas station operator.

While busy jumping from one job to another, Sanders somehow found the time to finish the correspondence program of the La Salle Extension University. At one point his financial situation was so bad his wife Josephine took the kids and went to her parents’ home.

Next, we see Sanders working in Little Rock as a lawyer, which was followed by his wife and kids returning home. But when he got into a courtroom brawl with his own client his law career also ended abruptly.

In yet another major ZAG that followed all the previous zigzags, Sanders started to work as a laborer for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

This was followed by a stint selling insurance for Prudential Life Insurance Company. Yet the fiery Sanders could not hold this job for too long either and was fired for subordination.

What kind of a zigzag do you think Sanders took next?

He formed his own ferry boat company and started to carry passengers across the Ohio River. This was probably his first successful business venture in life. He sold his boat company and with proceedings he established a company manufacturing acetylene lamps. The company went bankrupt quickly when electric lamps were introduced to the market by Delco.

Next, we see Sanders in Kentucky selling tires as a salesman for the Michelin Tire Company. When Michelin factory closed its doors, Sanders started to manage a gas station which also went belly up in 1930 due to Great Depression.?

He moved on to another gas station in Corbin, Kentucky where he started to serve his customers chicken and other meat dishes. The customers and critics loved his chicken and business picked up steadily, allowing him to purchase in 1939 a motel in Asheville, North Carolina which was rebuilt after a fire with a 140-seat restaurant. Sanders at long last was warming up to food and restaurant business for good.

In July 1940 Sanders came up his first “secret recipe” for cooking chicken inside a pressure fryer. He was 50 years old. In 1952 he franchised his first “Kentucky Fried Chicken” restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah. For 13 years that first restaurant did fairly well but eventually fizzled out when new Interstates drained the customers away to different locations.

Now at age 65, Sanders pushed up his sleeves and started a brand-new franchising organization to spread his KFC brand wide and far. This was a low point at his career when he was reduced to just meager savings and his Social Security check.

The Colonel, accompanied by his second wife Claudia, started to travel the highways and byways of America trying to find franchisees, often sleeping in his car, and personally demonstrating in the kitchen to the prospective franchisees how his chicken should properly be cooked.

The KFC concept took off like a rocket and quickly became one of the most successful franchises in history.

In 1964, at the age of 74, he sold his company to a partnership and retired in comfort. To this day Sanders remains the official image of KFC, with his avuncular smiling portrait displayed on every KFC logo.

The next time you bite into a KFC drumstick, perhaps you’ll reflect on all the dozens of career zigzags that produced one of the most successful companies on earth today.

Feel free to read more about the many zigzags that some of the most famous celebrities took in life at ZIGZAG Your Way to Success!