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Success Stories: Sam Azhar"In our family, two things were expected of you," says Taco Bell Franchisee Sam Azhar. "The first was to get a good education and the second was to be able to start and run a successful business." 
"The thing I like about the food business is that, if you manage it well, it's quite predictable. I can forecast within a couple of hundred dollars how much each of my stores is going to make on a given day." When Sam decided to get into the food business, a friend recommended Yum! Brands. He logged onto www.yumfranchises.com, filled out an online franchise application and soon received a call from the company. Before he knew it, he was in Louisville talking about ownership opportunities. Although his idea had been to buy a KFC franchise, he was presented with a unique opportunity to take over 13 Taco Bells in Northern California and an express unit at a military base in Southern California. He and his partners have since opened an additional free-standing unit apart from the 13 stores. The restaurants were underperforming in their markets. "We felt there was a lot of hidden value," Sam says. He was right, too. While Sam might not have planned to buy so many restaurants at one time, he has come to see the value of running multi-store operations. "In a lot of ways it is easier to operate 14 restaurants than just one," he says. "With that many, you can hire professional managers and you can afford to build a team with different skills and styles that complement one another. I know my own strengths and weaknesses, and I know what I need in a team to compensate for those weaknesses. My partners enhance and complement my skills, and the professional managers we have hired have the necessary experience and motivation to run the operations." He recognizes that his group would not have achieved 100% CER within 2 months of operation of a turn-around situation without having professional leadership and management at all levels. "I feel you get your money back if you invest in Building Great Restaurants." Sam continues: "This is only the beginning. Yum! has allowed us to set targets and to grow within the system. We all have ways we find to fulfill our dreams and being a Yum! Franchisee is our way of fulfilling our dreams." |
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