DSR of the Month

George Morgan may not be Greek, but he has wholeheartedly embraced “philotimo,” a Greek concept espoused by the Mouskondis family, owners of Nicholas & Co., where Morgan has been a DSR for nearly a decade. Tough to translate directly, it has to do with love of honor, Morgan says – a sense of love for family, community and country; a joyful hospitality and an obligation to one another to make things better and do what’s right.

From a business perspective, it’s an approach that jives well with Morgan’s commitment to treating his customers, co-workers and competitors with respect and to do whatever he can to help his accounts improve their business. He also has a great time doing it. “I really love my job and feel very blessed to be where I am, doing what I’m doing,” he says.

Covering a wide swath of central Utah, Morgan takes care of a diverse array of customers. His largest is nontraditional—a dried and canned food re-packager for food storage programs—while the balance run the gamut of commercial and noncommercial foodservice segments. He maintains a base of 40 to 50 active accounts and divides his time in the field by visiting a different region of his 300-mile territory each day, Monday through Thursday. Fridays are spent catching up on administrative duties, handling special orders and doing research, he says, and weekends include fielding voicemail orders and, before heading to church on Sundays, phoning some customers for their orders for Monday delivery

Morgan is prime supplier in roughly 80 percent of his accounts, a level he’s achieved in part because of his good-natured dependability and in part because he works hard to help customers improve their businesses, according to Brad Burton, his district sales manager at Nicholas & Co. “George’s customers love him and look forward to his visits. They all know they can depend on seeing him every week at the same time and on him working really hard on their behalf,’ Burton says.

In that regard, two primary areas of consultative focus for Morgan are portion control and food cost control. “The main thing I try to do is to help them with menu pricing and cost control,” he says. “I’m continuously talking with them about making sure there’s no waste and that there’s not anything going out the back door. And portion control is huge right now. It’s the key to keeping prices down, and people today are looking for both smaller portions and smaller prices. These are some of the things operators really have to stay on top of in order to make it through and it’s my job to help them. Their business is my business. If they don’t succeed, neither do I.”

Despite having nearly 10 years experience under his belt, Morgan maintains he still has a lot to learn—especially on the product side. “I love learning about products and just soak it up,” he says. “I rely on our brokers and product category specialists to do ride withs and really enjoy learning from them. I can’t be an expert on everything and they bring so much to the table. It’s really a team effort.”