Fred DeLuca quotes:

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

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

How you handle the obstacles has a big impact on how you do. If you give up, then you obviously don't get there, but if you're persistent, and you keep thinking of new ways to approach the business, you're more likely to reach your goal.

Even if you set a long-term goal, that doesn't mean it's a straight-line journey. Often, there are problems and obstacles along the way.

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.

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?

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.

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

Higher unemployment generally bodes well for franchising. People are looking for a new opportunity, and people who have jobs are a little less confident they'll always have a job.

You start a business, and you really don't have much of a budget.

I was able to solve enough big problems along the way that the sheriff didn't come along and put the 'bankruptcy' sign up.

I don't have much of a bucket list. I don't have a lot of needs and desires.

From my point of view, my job is just to work hard for our franchisees, so they can maintain the position they're in, and to grow market share.

From my point of view, what I really like, what I think is really terrific about my work, is that the company's had the opportunity to train literally thousands and thousands of brand new franchisees to successfully run their very first business.

A couple times a year, I get in the car, and I'll drive 1,000 miles cross-country, going through side streets. I'll stay off the highways as much as possible. And I realize it's a huge country, and for us to be in so many places in the country is an amazing thing.

We give great value for our franchisees: They can build a store for well under $200,000. And we have extremely simple operating systems. The preparation is mostly done in front of the customer. That simplicity is really what attracts our Subway franchise. You see it, and you can do it.

The franchisees are uniquely in touch at the local level. They see what's going on in their communities in a way we couldn't ever imagine.

The United States is a huge market, and once you get rolling, you can replicate that model over and over pretty easily. Your supply lines are taken care of. You don't have technicians to deal with. You've got your customer base.

I was 17 years old when I built the first store... A very simple, basic store with a basic counter - not very much equipment, all purchased second-hand. And the menu was very simple.

We're very much in the people business in that there are two important groups you have to work with: customers and employees.

You could have everything right but be in the wrong place. You think your business is no good, but really, the problem is your place is no good.

For a franchise system to work well, you really need people with an entrepreneurial mind-set because, while you have a large, overarching system that everybody has to work with, a lot of local issues have to be handled.

When we first started the company, I didn't have any thoughts of franchising. We just had company-owned stores.

You have to realize that the customer really is king. People who go into more established businesses probably have to be careful not to be casual about that. When you have a brand-new business, and nobody knows who you are, you know you have to work really hard for your customers.

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.

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.

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.

The people who come to work deserve to be paid properly, and there's no excuse. I could understand someone making a small error, but sometimes people make systematic errors, and that's not right.

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

Back when we started, people didn't even know what a submarine sandwich was. The product was only sold in a few markets.

The payroll tax is affecting sales. It's causing sales declines.

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

When you're invested in your own business, you're going to run it better. When people are financially responsible for whether their store succeeds, they're going to have that kind of entrepreneurial spirit that's harder to get if headquarters is running things.

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