DSR of the Month

After a long and successful career working for high-profile, high-volume foodservice operations in Florida and Georgia, co-owning a restaurant, and landing a management position at The Greenbrier Resort upon her move home to West Virginia, Frannie Waybright finally found her true calling. At age 48, she’s a rookie DSR who in less than a year on the street has established herself as a rising star and discovered that foodservice sales is where her heart is.

On track to hit sales of $2.5 million this year in a large and largely rural West Virginia territory, Waybright services 53 active accounts for Wendling’s Food Service. Her customers range from bars and restaurants to healthcare and daycare facilities, hotels and even garages, to which she’ll sell items such as degreasers and trash bags. In just seven months, she’s grown the $30,000-per-week territory that she took over into a $45,000- to $50,000-per-week route, with strong prospects for more dramatic growth ahead. “My husband told me for years that I should try sales. He was right. I’ve found my niche and it’s really exciting,” she says.

Given her background in restaurant operations and hotel food and beverage management, Waybright says her greatest asset as a DSR is the fact that she has walked miles in her customers’ shoes. As such, her approach to sales is solutions-driven. “I know what they’re facing,” she says. “I do a lot of analysis and ask a lot of questions and my accounts appreciate that. When I can sit down with a customer and teach them how to do portion costing or revise their menu pricing for greater profitability, that’s the type of relationship I try to create. Anybody can take an order. I go into every account thinking of them as a partner and they trust me because of it.”

Waybright has grown her sales through a combination of account penetration and adding new customers. She leverages her company’s local, third-generation family-business roots and small size compared to the corporate distributors that service the market to get a foot in the door. Once she does, she says the fact that the warehouse is close by and that Wendling’s has an extraordinary commitment to customers from the owners on down, enables her to provide flexible, responsive service to grow the business.

Lately, she set her sights on catering as a growth segment and added a new customer that, like her, has had great success right out of the gate. “This brand new company is doing a dinner for 1,500 people in August and we’re the only distributor in there. They’re already talking about buying a new building to accommodate their growth. I hope to be able to help them grow and I’m close to signing on additional catering companies, as well. Caterers know how many people they’re going to have and what jobs are coming down the road. That can help even things out when restaurants are having a down month.”

While her last position at the world-renowned Greenbrier might have seemed a feather in her cap, Waybright says not a day goes by that she isn’t thankful to have left for Wendling’s. “It’s taken me so long to really be able to enjoy what I do,” she says. “I have such respect for the entire Wendling family and every morning I look forward to going to work. It’s been a very nice experience and I hope that it lasts for a long, long time.”