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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.