Jimmy John's

Perseverance pays

By Mary Jo Larson
As published in: Franchise Times - May 2008

Perseverance is a word every entrepreneur—and teenager—should know.

Almost all parents have had the "talk" with their kids at some point or another. When son Ben, now a freshman in college, was in high school, one particular semester didn't go too well. I sat him down and had "the talk"—no, not that one, the one about grades, people—and I admit I was not very sympathetic of his plight. I was angry.
About five minutes after our discussion concluded, I was still a bit miffed. I
was sitting at the computer working, and 14-year-old Sam strolled in.
"Mom, I want to talk to you about next year," said the then-eighth grader. Do you think taking two advanced classes next year might be too much for me?"
Ah, timing is everything. Sam, in an effort to, mmm, suck up, decided to remind me he was going for advanced classes while his brother was taking a semester to goof off. (Yes, he eavesdrops.) His star would rise faster if his brother's was falling, wouldn't it? If not, perhaps he could give his brother's star a kick to speed up the process.
Being the younger sibling isn't always easy—I know, I'm the younger sibling. Ben has had years to experience things first, shine in plenty of ways in his
parents' eyes over the years, and sometimes ignore his younger brother's efforts to be noticed.
But, as I always do, I tell Sam there are plenty of ways to shine. It just takes a bit of perseverance.
And here's this month's link to franchising—indeed, there are many stories of
perseverance to be had in the world of franchising, with both franchisors and franchisees.


Take our cover story this month: Jimmy John Liautaud, the founder of Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches, was just 19 years old when he opened his first store with a loan from dad. As FT Editor Nancy Weingartner reports, Liautaud's first two employees quit and left him to run the store by himself. He worked open to close, seven days a week for such a long time, he even knew which jokes to tell which customers. I guess that's when you see a person's character: how they react when the going gets tough.
But as smart entrepreneurs often do, Liautaud learned from his mistakes and fixed them—there's that persevere word again—because he was driven to succeed. Today, Liautaud has a successful franchise business with almost 700 locations and growing. There's much more to his story than that, so you'll want to read Nancy's account of Liautaud's rise to sandwich fame. He's an interesting character, with some wisdom to impart to the rest of us.
We also have the story of John Rotche, a former Domino's Pizza and Krispy Kreme exec turned Ductz franchisor. Where his days were once a bit more glamorous in a suit and tie working for a high-flying chain during its glory days, he soon found himself driving around with his brother-in-law in a van eating a fast-food hamburger out of a bag for lunch as they headed to their next duct-cleaning appointment. But he turned a not-so-glamorous service into a business that partnered with super companies such as Service Brands and garnered contracts to do post-Katrina clean up on government buildings. He has since sold the franchise to the U.S.'s largest restoration company, but is still in charge of growing the Ductz franchise. We could go on more about Rotche here, but we'd rather you read his full story, which includes other great details of working your way to the top. Perseverance.
My own, personal perseverance plays out in the pages this month with my coverage of Franchise Expo Paris—it was my goal to talk to as many people as I could over the four-day event so I could bring you the true flavor of the show. So it's not quite perseverance on the scale of Jimmy John Liautaud and John Rotche, but my feet did hurt by the end of each day.
Let that be a lesson to you, Sam: Your efforts at perseverance will be noticed—including those advanced classes. Hmmm. Now we'll be expecting you to persevere on logging in some "A"s.