After 32 years, DSR Dave has learned from thousands of DSRs that if you take some basic steps, you’ll blow your competition away, while helping you and your customers MAKE MORE MONEY!
- DSR DAVE’S “MOST SOLD PRODUCT LIST” Ask your sales management team to provide you with a year on year sales history of the top 200 to 400 items in “DESCENDING CASE ORDER.” This report should have the most sold product first (by cases sold, not dollars), then the second most, third and so on. Remove any item that the general sales team cannot sell from this list (proprietary items). Smaller companies use the top 200 list, and larger distributors use the top 400 list.
This report IS what your company is best at in your market area or those products would NOT be on that list. This report is one that you should always be working against, and you should know every product on this list like you know the alphabet, period.
- CUSTOMER ORDER GUIDES: YOUR ROADMAP TO SUCCESS We say, if you don’t have these guides prepared for every customer (big and small), you’ll always be a “Back-Up” supplier, yeah, that’s right, a back-up supplier. Critical: Keep these guides up-to-date!
We want the inventory list that your customer could hand to their accountant for tax purposes. It has EVERYTHING used in the place on it. Tables, chairs, floor mats, silverware, china, bar supplies, crayons, meat, non-foods, bug spray, milk, bed pans (nursing homes) trash bags, trash cans, fries, frying oil, dish soap, plastic carry-out bags, produce, metro shelves, rat killer and especially, urinal pucks! EVERY PRODUCT that your customer (or prospect) uses should be on this guide, EVERY PRODUCT, even the ones YOU DON’T sell them, and even the products your company does not stock, yep, those too.
There are many versions of these order guides that we’ve seen out there, but there is ONLY ONE way to do an order guide, and that’s to have everything a customer uses on it, period.
DSR Dave says he’s only found two ways to get your hands on these lists.
- ASK if they have one that’s complete and has everything on it. But Miesse says there are very few independent operators that he’s found that have one the way he wants it.
- MAKE ONE FOR THEM!!! Dave says this is how he found the MOST SUCCESS. By making it yourself, you kill two big birds with one stone. You’re showing the customer that you’re working for them, and you get to see everything first hand, not second hand off of another distributors’ order guide. You get to see which brands they’re using so you can code out the right items.
Once you get the inventory list made, you’ll need to code it out using the MOST SOLD PRODUCT LIST we talked about in step one. If you don’t stock a product, still put it on their order guide using a 999 number or some numbering system that will work in your company’s system. If your company can’t handle this, make one using an Excel spreadsheet, but make the list. Give one to your customer, and KEEP IT UP TO DATE EACH MONTH—IT IS YOUR ROADMAP TO SUCCESS!
