Cerita komplit Kolonel Sandres

Maybe you've heard the story of 1000 restaurant owners
who rejected Colonel Sanders' Fried Chicken proposal,
and Prospect #1001 who finally said "yes."

  BUT... did you ever hear the story behind the story?

  This is a good one. An old photocopier salesman, who called
on Colonel Sanders back in the 60's, passed this along to me.

  The real story is:

  The Colonel had a restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, which
had been doing very well.  A new interstate highway was
planned to bypass the town of Corbin.  Seeing that his
business was about to dry up, the Colonel auctioned off
his operations. After paying his bills, he had nothing to
live on except his $105 Social Security checks.

  In 1952, confident of his chicken recipe, he began crisscrossing
the country in his car, making an offer to restaurant owners.

He would walk into a restaurant, announce to the owner,
"I bet my chicken recipe is better than yours" and propose a
cook-off.

  (The chicken provided by the restaurants he visited, using
his recipe, was part of his plan for feeding himself during
those lean days.)

  If the owner was favorable, he would "franchise" his chicken
recipe to them at 5 cents per chicken.

  In all, just over 1000 restaurants turned him down, without one
successful deal.

  Then one day he was having his daily cooking duel with a
bar owner, who said to him, "Sir, I'm trying to sell beer, not
chicken.  This stuff needs to be a whole lot saltier so
customers will get thirsty and buy beer!"

  So he grabbed the salt shaker, poured some salt on, and took
another bite.  "Now THIS is GREAT," he said.  "If you'll add
salt to this recipe, I'm a taker!"

  The Colonel took a bite and spit it out -- it was terrible!

  But Colonel Sanders had been on a NO SALT DIET for 30
years, so his tastes were obviously different than everyone
else's.

  The Colonel wasn't stupid!  He might not like the salt, but
it was better than poverty.  Thus began the Colonel's
enormously successful Kentucky Fried Chicken legacy.

  Here's the kicker: At one time, if you bought a box of
Kentucky Fried Chicken, here's what it said on the side:
"When Colonel Sanders added the 11th spice, he instantly
knew it was the best chicken he'd ever had."

  Of course they didn't tell you what spice it was.

  This is so instructive.

  First of all, Colonel Sanders could have made 1000 MORE
presentations, driven his car until the transmission fell out,
spent every dime of those $105 Social Security checks,
prayed for success and recited positive affirmations every
morning in front of the mirror.  But he still would have come
up empty handed, had he not been willing to change his
recipe!

  Secondly, although the recipe he so passionately believed
in was the best recipe for HIS taste buds, it was not the
recipe that his customers really wanted.  Without a recipe
that the customers wanted, no amount of effort or persistence
would make it work.

  With the right recipe, he was unstoppable.

  Third, the recipe he had before he added salt was ALMOST
right.  It was VERY, VERY CLOSE to what it needed to be.
Adding salt to a lousy recipe wouldn't have helped much.
So all the effort he expended developing the original recipe
was worthwhile.

  Fourth: Persistence DID pay off, but not the way we might
expect it to.  Sometimes we're looking for the magical day
when our persistence, and the sheer number of people we
talk to, leads us to the RIGHT person who will say "Yes"
and open wide the doors to success.

  But for Colonel Sanders, playing the "Numbers Game"
was not the key.  The real key was bumping into someone
with the audacity to suggest something different, and for the
Colonel to be eager enough for a breakthrough to change his
recipe.

  Fifth, the magical ingredient was ordinary table salt.  Salt,
all by itself, is worthless as a food item.  Chicken, all by itself,
is pretty bland, and may not even do the trick with 10 other
perfectly good spices.  Put them together, though, and you've
got a real winner!

  Never overlook the possibility of combining very ordinary
things to create something "entirely new."

  Finally, motivation and hard work alone are rarely (if ever)
enough to accomplish a challenging goal.  Innovation, flexibility,
careful listening, endless experimentation, and the setting aside
of egos and old paradigms are all equally important.

  Great trading almost always includes the addition of some
11th spice. An ordinary ingredient that makes everything
come together.

  It's right under your nose, waiting to be discovered and shared
with the world: