DSR of the Month
Paul Haskins of Pate Dawson-Southern Foods is AFDR’s DSR of the Month
With 26 years of Foodservice Distribution experience, Paul Haskins of Pate Dawson-Southern Foods in Greensboro, North Carolina, has earned the honor of AFDR’s December DSR of the Month and is being inducted into the AFDR DSR Hall of Fame.
Haskins started his foodservice career as a truck driver learning from the ground up as to how customers like to be treated, and what they liked and disliked about DSRs. He then worked his way up through operations to become a transportation manager. When Haskins became a DSR, those experiences helped lay the groundwork for him to help his company and customers make money. Due to Paul’s work in transportation, he knows the Right way to ask for routes and stops!
Paul strives to do enough homework on prospects so that when he does make his first call on them, he feels like he already knows them. Haskins uses the internet and visits (as a customer) to a prospect’s operation to provide him enough information to get started on solutions he can suggest to an operator. Most prospects respect the background work he has done to make informed suggestions. Lately, Paul has been fortunate because most of his new accounts come from referrals.
Reaching goals for Haskins is based on “Relationships” and a “Total Trust” attitude with not only his customers, but also with everybody at Southern Foods. Those two ideals enable him to reach his goals, his company’s goals and his customer’s goals.
Naturally, this DSR of the Month understands the important role his Drivers play in the day-to-day operations as well as in his customer relations, so he makes sure he lets the Drivers know he appreciates their work. Haskins says that he got some of the best training for being a DSR because he learned every step in the process it takes to get a case delivered to a customer.
