More important than making any sale is building a relationship, and there's an interesting relationship between sales and relations. Basically, we believe that if you're authentic in your relationship building, you'll make friends. And it's easier to sell to people who are your friends than sell to strangers. On the flip side, just because you sell something to someone you don't know does not mean that person will wind up as your friend.

Did you follow us there? Simply put, the gist of it is our commitment at One Source is to build true and authentic relationships. It's not about making a sale. It's about making friends and, when asked, providing the most relevant and accurate information to our friends. Everything else will take care of itself.

One of the biggest challenges we've seen over the last three to five years is the ability to directly connect with our customers. In large part, that was due to a global pandemic. We've also made it more convenient for our customers to visit our test kitchen or attend a live event, where we happen to have a lot of fun.

Sales: The Past, The Present, The Future (and What It Means for Foodservice)

If the importance of face-to-face customer relationships is the first thing we all learned during the Covid pandemic, the second thing we learned is the importance of convenience. The days of driving three hours to check out a new oven or range are over. While there's never going to be a true substitute for hands-on experience (at least in our lifetimes, probably), it is possible to discover foodservice equipment in a multi-access capacity.

Zoom has taught us connections are still possible, even though we can't always be in person. Even more so, sometimes Zoom is preferred because it's more convenient. We're committed to providing multi-access opportunities for our customers.

As we mentioned, Zoom isn't everything, though. With the creation of One Source Live and the opening of our new test kitchen over the last several years, we enjoy hosting foodservice operators ranging from fine dining to school nutrition directors, and we invite you to attend one of our quarterly OS Live events.

Would you like to meet us, hang out in the test kitchen, and learn some cool things? Click the image below to connect.