“As soon as I realized the challenges were attainable, I started to work hard for them,” said Hannah Lantz, a Domino’s Franchisee. “I have won five times, including at the $45,000 and $50,000 level. Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of pizza per week. It required growing the staff and more preparation.”
As a means of motivation, Monaghan’s use of Rolexes as incentives seem incredibly more effective than the “fuck you, look at my watch” method employed in Glengarry Glen Ross. In his essay “The CEO as a Corporate Myth-Maker,” Wayne State Literature and Folklore Professor Richard Raspa suggests that Monaghan believed “everyone who worked at Domino’s was a potential replica of the founder.”
That offering employees the same kind of luxury pens, ties and watches he owned — even the one off his own wrist — would bestow them with the same kind of entrepreneurial power Monaghan possessed to turn a Ypsilanti, Michigan pizza parlor into one of the biggest fast food franchises in the world.
Are they valuable?
As for the watches themselves, the ones that show up on the secondhand market have become oddball collectibles, selling at over what you’d normally expect to pay for a vintage Air-King. (They are more easily found than Rolexes branded by companies like Winn-Dixie and Coca-Cola, which gave their watches away for years of service rather than monetary goals.) Still, the Domino’s logo is a divisive feature.
“That Rolex gets more attention in my window than any other Rolex, except maybe the vintage Submariner,” said Steve Kivel, president of Central Watch in Grand Central Station, where, for months, a Domino’s Air-King sat in the shop window.