Franchisee Success: How Darren Anthony became successful with Lenny’s Sub Shop

Darren Anthony always knew he would be working his best when he was working for himself. It was that mentality that made him a successful Lenny’s Sub Shop franchisee with two locations under his belt in the Atlanta area.

“I thought I would be the best employee if I worked for myself,” said Anthony.

So that’s what he decided to do. After working in finance for seven years, Anthony branched out and started looking for franchise opportunities. Anthony did his due diligence and ended up purchasing a Lenny’s Sub Shop franchise. He always wanted to work in a restaurant. With a Lenny’s across the street from his office, it gave him the perfect opportunity to enjoy the products and learn about the brand.

“I chose a sub franchise because I wanted to work more daytime hours,” said Anthony. “I have a young family and I wanted to work a typical 9-5 and have a normal lifestyle.”

Although Anthony didn’t have a background in the restaurant industry, working with Lenny’s provided him the opportunity to utilize a proven system to grow his business.

“Lenny’s has a proven and successful concept,” said Anthony. “They created a formula that worked and I copied it the way they knew it would work. I was also able to apply my business knowledge and ability to run a business to make it successful.”

Part of Anthony’s success comes from his background in sales and working with people.

“Having a sales background certainly helped me get large catering clients,” said Anthony. “A big part of our business is catering, and being able to go out into the market and being able to sell the brand to prospective catering clients helped me.”

The most important lesson Anthony has learned while running his two Lenny’s Sub Shop locations is that to be successful you need to be patient and don’t stress out too much about short term issues and focus on the big picture.

“Early on I was there working seven days a week from open to close and following the sales numbers very in-depth,” said Anthony. “There is no rhyme or reason to sales numbers. Some days we were up some days we were down and early on it worried me and I thought I wasn’t doing something right. It made me realize there are ebbs and flows in business and it needs to be a long-term picture.”

Anthony recommends staying positive and not letting the bad days get you down.

“Be even-keeled over things and don’t worry about the short term,” said Anthony. “It’s important to manage emotions and expectations.”

In addition to looking at the big picture, Anthony says that franchise owners need to be present in their business to be successful.

“Don’t get into this business if you just want to invest money in it,” said Anthony. “You won’t be successful unless you know what’s going on.”

That’s why Anthony is at his Lenny’s Sub Shop locations seven days a week. It allows him to know what’s going on with his business and is he there to fix issues and talk to the staff and customers to make his stores a success.