DSR of the Month

Rick Parks, a star DSR at Ben E. Keith's Oklahoma division, likes to say he takes a farmer's approach to sales: He starts with something small and focuses on growing it over time until he owns most of the business in an account.  Working the metro Tulsa market and outlying rural areas, Parks has "farmed" his way to success. Among the top five reps at his company, he'll hit sales of $8.3 million in sales this year.

While sales is a second career for Parks, foodservice isn't. Working in restaurants since the age of 14, he went on to graduate from the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, an affiliate of Le Cordon Bleu. He worked as a chef in several high-volume kitchens and operated his own restaurant for three years. At the suggestion of a DSR who called on him, he eventually applied for a sales position and the rest, he says, is history.

"It was a natural transition into sales," Parks says. "I'd always thought that I wanted to teach and this allows me to do that because I'm able use what I know to help people. My background in operations, my knowledge of menus and my practical knowledge of cooking really enable me to help my customers."

Those customers run the gamut, from a casino (his largest account) to country clubs to hospitals and small independents. He calls on them all each week, logging an average of 200 miles a day, but says part of his success is how he's changed his approach to managing time. "It used to be that 90 percent of my time was behind the windshield and in front of customers," he says. "Now, I probably spend 65 percent of my time in front of customers. There's so much more project work related to servicing customers that I also spend a lot of time in the office taking care of things like sourcing products, researching, and working on ideas for menu and operations improvements."

Parks is a big list and task bar user, and he relies heavily on e-mail to keep in touch with and in front of customers. "I have a reputation with some of my customers as the e-mail king," he laughs. "It's part of how I manage follow up to make sure customers are happy and to keep projects on track, I also use it extensively to send new product information, market reports, ideas for new recipes, etc. It's a great way to maintain a presence in front of customers every day without physically having to being there."

That type of presence, follow up and a strong, consistent focus on delivering value are what have enabled Parks to continue growing his business, even through the recession. And value, in his approach, has little to do with price. "By giving customers ideas and recipes, by following up consistently, by helping them tweak what they're doing and showing them how they can make money, they stop thinking so much about trying to save money on price. We're all in this business to make money, not save money. I make it my priority to show them ways to do that."