The new king of chicken is a template for corporate America

There’s a new king of the chicken chain store. For decades the cock of the walk was KFC, the chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then something, well, miraculous happened. A God-centered, family values chain called Chick-fil-A blasted past KFC with a fraction of the store locations, according to the latest Technomic data.

KFC has two-and-a-half times the number of stores, with 4,491 locations. Chick-fil-A has 1,775 locations yet they did over $5 billion in business while KFC did $4.2 billion. What’s

even more amazing is when you look at the individual store average. KFC averages about $938,000 per store. Chick-fil-A averages $3.2 million.

What’s more, Chick-fil-A voluntarily takes itself out of the competition one-seventh of the time. They’re closed on Sunday.

What gives?

Actually, it’s pretty simple. Chick-fil-A is unashamedly a business run on Christian family values. As CEO Dan Cathy once told the Tampa Bay Times, “We don’t wear religion on our sleeve. We serve it in the cup.” Unlike almost every other fast food restaurant, you won’t find openly disgruntled employees working at Chick-fil-A. They know the customer doesn’t care if they’re having a bad day. We don’t care if you don’t like your job. Your job is to be cheery, pleasant, polite and efficient.

In fact, Cathy says the secret to Chick-fil-A’s success is training. “It took us 10 years to teach teen employees to say ‘my pleasure’ when someone thanks them instead of ‘not a problem.’”

It ain’t that hard. You create a pleasant atmosphere and people want to come back. Of course, the food has to be good and Chick-fil-A literally invented the chicken sandwich.

There’s a feeling you get when you visit a Chick-fil-A restaurant. I can think of a lot of adjectives to describe it, but the word that really incapsulates that feeling is ‘wholesome.’ You not only feel good about the restaurant when you’re there, you feel good about yourself. You feel good about life.

Unlike other fast food chains that sell franchises and keep a percentage of the revenue, Chick-fil-A owns the stores. They charge an independent operator to run the the store and split the profits down the middle. As Cathy puts says, “It puts our interest on the same side of the table as theirs.”

Owning the stores gives them more control over quality and employees which are the hallmarks of their success. This is a lesson every business could learn. As customers, we’re not asking for much. If you’re going to be in the fast food business the first rule is to be fast. How many times have you stood at a restaurant in utter frustration of the glacial speed at which the employees were moving?

In addition to wanting your food fast, you want your order correct, you want your food to be good and you want your service to be pleasant. Pretty simple.

If your food isn’t good you shouldn’t be in the restaurant business in the first place, so that’s an easy one. Make sure your crew is working in concert. Make sure you put everything in the bag the person orders. And for crying out loud, don’t forget the straw and the napkin. And do it all with a smile and a kind word.

That’s it. That’s all we in the fast food consumer world ask for. 

If you’re still a little cloudy on how this works, just visit a Chick-fil-A.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The job-killing Congress

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to raise the minimum wage by 40 percent. However, 96 percent of House and Senate sponsors of a bill to do just that do not pay their interns, according to a new analysis by the Employment Policies Institute. It’s an incredible display of hypocrisy.

Aside from the hypocrisy of using free labor while simultaneously crying for a minimum wage hike, raising the minimum wage is a job killer. Obama and the libs in Congress will tell you

it’s not and they’ll point to “studies” that back their argument but that’s a case of cherry-picking your study.

According to Forbes Magazine, there was a comprehensive study that looked at the last two decades of data. It was conducted by David Neumark of UC-Irvine and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve Board. They determined that 85 percent of the research demonstrates raising the minimum wage kills jobs.

Of course, it’s just common sense. Payroll is the single biggest expense for many businesses. Unless you can raise the price of your product to cover the added expense, something has to give. Even Bill Gates said as much on MSNBC when he said, “If you raise the minimum wage, you’re encouraging labor substitution, and you’re going to go buy machines and automate things or cause jobs to appear outside of that jurisdiction.” He added that “it does cause job destruction.” Gates may be a big lib but he knows a thing or two about business.

Let’s take the fast food industry, for example. You’ve no doubt heard about the protests around the country - organized by the unions - to raise the minimum wage of fast food workers to $15 an hour. Experts say the typical restaurant labor force accounts for a third or more of a restaurant’s operating expenses. The New York Times quoted Stephen Caldeira, president of the International Franchise Association, as saying that such a drastic increase in wages would lead to a 25 percent to 50 percent hike in prices. That $3 burger could essentially become that $4.50 burger overnight.

We, as consumers, have options. We don’t have to stop by the fast food joint. We do because it’s fast (supposedly) and affordable. Once it’s no longer affordable we stop going. If that happens not only do the employees not make $15 an hour, they don’t make squat. They’re out on the street.

Shy of going out of business, the fast food restaurant will start devising ways to save money. I foresee a day when you drive up to a drive-thru window and some guy in India takes your order. Or, maybe you just use voice commands to place your order, swipe your credit card and drive to the next window where your order is waiting. The same could be done inside the store. You just place your order at the automated terminal and wait for your food to appear.

As you might imagine, there’s already such a thing as a burger-making machine. This babycake is self-contained, automated and can churn out 400 burgers per hour. You think your local Mickey D’s isn’t already eye-balling that bad boy? According to the maker, Momentum Machines, making burgers costs restaurants $9 billion a year. Not only does this automatic burger-flipper make faster burgers for a fraction of the cost, it takes up far less space than the conventional way.

So, keep pushing this minimum wage hike. And be prepared to hand out automated burgers to those newly unemployed workers standing in the unemployment line.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Common sense inequality

The unions are at it again.  They’ve expanded the fast food strike from 20 restaurants in New York City to 200 nationwide.  Their complaint?  The same old tired refrain of a living wage.  They want $15 per hour.  The minimum wage is $7.25.

The truth is only a small percentage of restaurant workers make minimum wage.  Those are entry-level positions.  In fact, the restaurant industry is one of the easiest industries in which

to advance.  One has to be willing to work hard, work smart and take on more responsibility.  That’s the problem with liberalism.  It’s never the liberal’s fault.  It’s always someone else’s fault. 

Let me tell you something.  If you’re 50 and you’re making minimum wage at a fast food restaurant it’s your fault.  Barring some mental or physical handicap, if you’re trying to make a living off minimum wage you’ve made some bad decisions.

That’s the conversation few in this country want to have.  What is the root cause of poverty?  It’s impossible to say with certainty what the percentage is but it’s safe to say that most people are poor because of bad choices.

You may gasp at that notion but it’s true.  Let’s put it another way.  How do people get to be rich?  Trust-fund babies aside, people who become rich do so based on the choices they make.  Some may call it luck but Bill Cosby was once asked if he felt like he’d been lucky.  He said it’s funny but the harder he works the luckier he gets.

Fortunes aren’t made by happenstance.  They’re built.  That’s why it irks me when people talk about an unequal distribution of wealth.  Wealth is not distributed.  It’s earned.  If these folks striking at these restaurants really want to better themselves they need to get back inside the store and start making it happen.  Make yourself a valuable employee.  I’m not promising you’ll never get fired but I can assure you you’ll go a lot further in life than you will standing out in front of some restaurant holding a sign complaining that you’re not making enough money.

Were I the owner of a restaurant and my employees were striking in front of my store I’d fire the lot of them.  There are plenty of folks looking for a job and, moreover, looking for an opportunity.  That’s what these striking employees can’t see.  They can’t see the opportunity.  

The average salary for a McDonald’s store manager is $42,000 per year.  Too many people turn up their noses at $42,000 a year.  When I first started out in radio I made $6,000 a year.  Six grand!  That’s the equivalent to $17,000 a year today.  Did I think I was underpaid?  I never really thought about it.  I was there for the opportunity.  I was there to learn, to grow, to advance.

These folks standing outside of Taco Bell and McDonald’s have absolutely no ambition.  And they’re being brainwashed by union thugs who’ve convinced them they deserve a “living wage.”  They deserve to be fired!

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.