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Wood Fruitticher’s Paul Streeter has been inducted into the AFDR DSR Hall of Fame and is the DSR of the Month for January 2017. Streeter’s territory in Auburn/Opelika, Alabama is about two hours away from their warehouse in Birmingham, Alabama.
Streeter started in the restaurant business when he was 16 years old working at a family style steakhouse both in the back and the front-of-the-house. That concept started franchising and Paul found himself on the traveling team opening new stores. Years later he purchased the original store in his hometown of Opelika, AL which used Wood Fruitticher as their main supplier.
Paul eventually decided to get out of the daily grind of owning and managing restaurants and set his eyes on working with a distributor. Wood Fruitticher’s way of conducting business won Paul over so he pursued a DSR position with them.
Streeter explains in his audio interview that in this business DSRs are going to have a lot of success and a lot of failures. According to Paul, “There are a lot of people who are just not going to buy from you. Many DSRs would like to think they could sell to every customer, but you just can’t; you have to take the good with the bad.”
DSR of the Month Streeter says that unless a prospect tells him never to come back, it’s “GAME ON” because he loves the challenge!
Topics & Sales Tips discussed by Paul Streeter in this audio interview:
- Always actively make new account calls because this business is like trying to fill a sack with a hole in it!
- The trust factor is key to long-term relationships so Streeter is up-front, right off the bat. If he knows he or his company can’t get something done, he does not sugarcoat it, he informs them ASAP.
- When making new account calls he likes to follow-up each week at the same time so the prospect can see that he’s more consistent than his competitors.
- You’re going to have a lot of success and a lot of failure in this business, so take the good with the bad and never give up on an account you or your company wants.
- If you tell a customer or a prospect you’re going to do something, ALWAYS DO IT!
- If you have multiple customers telling you that your pricing is off on a product, pass that information onto management to make sure it was not input wrong.
- Greenhorns should learn how to enjoy the business by talking to Vets about their lifestyle and how they got there.
DSRs, Be a Resource…and Sell Something!
