DSR of the Month

Cliff Yager wears two hats at Merchants Grocery Company (MGC). One is that of traditional DSR, calling on street accounts in a largely rural seven-county territory. The other, acquired through a more recent promotion, is that of Food Service Director for MGC, a UniPro-member distributor that specializes in service to convenience stores.

“About 25 percent of our total sales is to traditional foodservice. The vast majority is to the c-store segment and we’re growing that, especially with c-store operators who are implementing strong foodservice programs. Cliff is very instrumental to our success in both areas,” says Elvyn Smythers, company president.

As a DSR, Yager typically spends three and a half days per week calling on his 45 accounts, which are mostly family-dining restaurants, delis and senior feeding facilities. As Food Service Director, he steps outside of his own sales role to work with other reps on c-store business development. He coordinates the company’s hot beverage program for c-stores and works to promote and implement MGC’s turnkey c-store initiatives, which include branded sub sandwich and pizza programs.

Regardless of which hat he’s wearing, Yager takes a consistent approach: a problem-solving, consultative one that focuses on delivering new ideas for business improvement. “My most effective sales skill is evaluating customers’ accounts to see where I can help them improve on what they’re doing,” Yager says. “Then we have an approachable avenue to generate conversation, which leads to the customer asking questions, which leads to opportunities for sales.”

He adds that he always keeps his focus off of price and on profitability. “It’s all about helping customers understand what they can make on an item, not getting bogged down on what they have to pay for it,” he says. “When you’re able to do that, price becomes much less of a driving factor. I put in several turnkey sub programs last year in c-store accounts and didn’t have one ask about price. In each case, I took in a spreadsheet showing suggested sale prices, as well as the profit percentage and profit dollars they could make per sandwich. They understood the potential and said, ‘Put it in.’”

With MGC’s 12,000-item product line skewed toward the c-store segment, Yager says it can be tough to secure prime-supplier positioning in restaurants and other traditional segments. “While we do provide them on special-order basis, we don’t stock any fresh center-of-the-plate products so we’re not really broadline compared to larger competitors in this market,” he explains. “As such, we’re typically the secondary distributor. But I do have some accounts that rely on us for upwards of $7,500 to $8,000 per week .”

He achieves that level of account penetration by staying observant and delivering new, win-win ideas. He also targets categories that other reps often disregard—especially chemicals and disposables. “They’re my favorite categories because they’re areas that get the least attention and that customers don’t usually figure into their food cost and profitability,” he says. “They’re profitable for the distributor and can be money-saving categories for the customer.”

Yager says recent success in the disposables category resulted from presenting a simple waste-reducing idea, with a twist. Waiting to meet with a customer until after a busy lunch shift one day, he stepped back to observe the operation. “I was at a spot where all the service trays were going by me into the kitchen and noticed each had a wad of napkins on it, most of which weren’t even used. When I processed their order I asked if I could show them a way to save 30 percent to 50 percent on napkin usage. Before my next visit, we put together a couple of one-at-a-time napkin dispensers with the restaurant’s logo and name inserted along the sides. They were so excited they wanted to personalize their dispensers with two of their menu items. We took digital pictures, made special inserts for them and had a very satisfied customer. They ended up ordering 16 dispensing units. I now use that same approach in every applicable account.”