A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A NEW YORK FOODSERVICE DISTRIBUTOR, PART II
“Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are the biggest selling days of the week. By the time we get toward the weekend, folks are pretty much set on what they need to get them through the weekend,” Staertow says.
Unless one of those emergencies crop up. Between two scheduled stops, Staertow delivers that fryer oil to a relieved chef. It’s a quick drop-off and she’s back in the car, and on the phone.
“I do a lot of business when I’m in my car,” she says.
The day is a blur of visits: at one of Rochester’s first microbreweries that offers upscale pub fare, a Greek family diner with an entirely made-from-scratch menu and a country club just getting cranked up for the golf season.
The restaurant operators expect her visits. They’ve become accustomed to her enthusiastically scurrying in around the same time each week and asking some version of the same question: “What went right and how can we support you going forward?”
It’s not a question read straight out of a customer service handbook. It’s one Staertow asks because she genuinely cares.
“My passions are food and people,” she says. “This way I can help people be profitable and realize success and can really be part of their business, and I still feel like I have a creative outlet.”
Her company offers in-depth menu profitability analysis; they build, structure and print menus, and serve as consultants.
“I like to call us the restaurant doctors,” she jokes. “Whether it’s going in and examining a customer’s line flow to make sure their menu isn’t bogging it down anywhere, so they can maintain a satisfactory ticket time or helping them understand the profitability in their menu, there’s just so much that goes into supporting our customers beyond just selling them boxes of stuff.”
Just as the job is more than a job. It’s a passion, and at the center of it is good beef.
“Developing relationships and menus are always based on the center of the plate,” she says. “It always gets your foot in the door.”
And she is constantly repping what you produce: high-quality beef. “We
carry life insurance and car insurance and homeowner’s insurance. Why
wouldn’t we want to insure our customer the highest quality beef-eating
experience out there? You can’t afford not to have Certified Angus Beef ® as part of your program.”
As part of CAB’s Master’s of Brand Advantages program, Staertow traveled to Nebraska cattle country last fall and spent time on ranches and at a feedlot.
“These are families like my family and your family out there loving what they do, loving the animals that they’re raising. They really have an understanding of what they’re doing and they’re working very diligently to bring the highest quality product to market,” she says.
Knowing the people whose livelihoods depend on what she’s doing—from producer to restaurateur—keeps her energetic and attentive. It’s what keeps Staertow going until she reaches her home office in late afternoon. There she catches up on e-mails and phone calls.
And when the kids come home from school, she’s mom.
“I have a family to feed and they have homework and sports events and girl scouts and baths and teeth to brush. It isn’t until they’re settled down into a bed at night that I can really sit back and focus on what happened today and what I’m preparing for tomorrow. And then the cycle repeats itself,” she says.
Busy weeks scamper by and quickly turn into memories of busy years, but Staertow says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
May your bottom line be filled with black ink,
Miranda
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