FRED DELUCA

It's tough for people to get into business, especially a small business.

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.'

I tell everybody there are only three things that we do. We build sales at the store level, we build profits at the store level, and we build more stores. The first two things go in tandem, of course. It's pretty tough to build profits without sales.

If you treat people nicely, and you allow them to fulfill a role that is satisfying for them, they'll accomplish a lot, and they'll enjoy their work.

We find that no matter what country we're in, if we hit the right economic notes and appeal to the mass market, we're able to build the business very, very rapidly.

In a typical situation, it's going to take pretty close to a year to get your location in, get your permits, and then get open.

There's huge access to information. If you need to learn something, you can go on the Internet and learn very quickly. You can reach across miles and miles to find companies that can assist you.

Everybody who goes through the business will make mistakes. The big question is how big will the mistakes be? How fast will they learn from the mistakes, and how quickly will they get the business in the correct direction?

Most of the people we sign on as development agents commit to goals they don't believe are possible.

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

I know a lot of people at some point in their business careers decide they'll just cash in and do something else, but for some reason, I've never had that feeling.

I guess that's one of the benefits of being sick. Your wife lets you have a big-screen TV in the living room.

To a large extent, we're working hard to fulfill the consumer demand for Subway sandwiches.

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

We have salads, some other beverages. But in reality, it's still fundamentally the same business. The most likely thing the next person will buy is a sandwich and a soft drink. After a half-century of glacial change, we're still pretty much the same business.

I watch 'Shark Tank,' of course. It's very entertaining. I think it's actually good to help people think about the business they might start, and sometimes you get encouraged by looking at someone going into business and saying, 'Hey, I could do that.'

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

I don't have any interest in cashing out or leaving the business or doing something else. I just love Subway, and I want to keep focusing on the company for the benefit of all our franchise owners. So I'm kind of like married to the job.

A lot of stuff happens daily when you're running a company like Subway. If you get too happy about some things or too unhappy about others, you get worn out. It's best if you can pace yourself a little bit more.

In the U.S. and Canada, we have one store for every 12,000 people.

If someone wants to eat healthy, they can do that and get the sandwich exactly right. I'm so pleased we're able to influence so many people and their eating habits.

I made the first sandwich before entering college.

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

If you have company-owned stores, you make 100 percent of the profit from each one, but you have less entrepreneurial spirit.

We have always had many more franchisee candidates than available locations.