The Real Estate Strategy Behind Domino’s Effort to Improve Delivery Times

Sometimes taking a chance on a business opportunity is not as easy as entrepreneurs make it look. For Greg Keller, it meant putting his family’s financial wellbeing in jeopardy in order to open two Domino’s Pizza franchises just outside of Seattle more than 20 years ago. Back in 1996, Keller had three young kids, two car notes, and a mortgage. Yet he put all $40,000 of his family’s savings down as an investment to reopen two Domino’s locations in Bremerton and Silverdale, Wash. that had historically underperformed. “The experience scared the crap out of me,” Keller said, whom before becoming a franchisee, had served nine years as a store manager and franchise supervisor for the famed pizza chain. As the latter, he oversaw eight different Domino’s locations at once, experiencing great success in turning around each location he was in charge of. And as a single store manager, he raised store sales—sometimes even doubling them—over his tenure. “The trick is to get