What’s My Line?

So who’s to say that you’re not making another mistake right now? (No, no, not by reading this – you’re doing just fine for that.) Have you ever thought you’re in the wrong business?
Chances are good that you like the stone business, and aren’t considering a major career change at the moment. And, I’m not going to even try and convince you that tomorrow’s the day to sell the business or tell the boss to take a hike, and head out to be a lumberjack or something of lesser social value, like a trial lawyer or state legislator.
Your profession is fine. As a matter of fact, it’s great. It’s your business, and how you define it, that may be off-kilter. Every day, you miss the mark just a bit more, and the gap between what your business is – and what it could be – gets larger and larger.
In a way, working with stone is a whole process of dealing with nothing but mistakes. The material we deal with can be full of flaws, chips, cracks and holes … and that’s after getting a polished slab delivered. Many a remodeling job means working around some stupid shortcut by contractors or carpenters from a century or half-century ago, and they’re too far into their dirt nap to wake up and fix it no matter how loud you yell. A simple job in a suburban kitchen to clean a few countertops can lead to the fixing of decades of abuse.
Dealing with everyone else’s problems takes up enough of the day, so thinking about general business strategy ranks low on the to-do list. Most of the packaged solutions that cost anywhere from a $19.95 paperback at the bookstore to a few thousand dollars at a weekend seminar always sound great until put into real-world practice. Many of these strategies sound feasible, although the usual result is, as Office Space’s Peter Gibbons relates, “listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.”
Instead, let’s put away the seven-steps-to-a-sharp-saw and shifts of the paradigm, put the feet up for a few minutes, and think about what you’re doing. Get away from the specific, such as granite fabrication or limestone restoration, and even move back from stone itself. What’s the end result – not the final product – that people get from your business?
Let me do the exercise to give you a better idea of this. Stone Business is a magazine, so that puts me (if you want to get very specific) in the word business. Take one step back, and we’re in the information business here, which is how most people would define us.
Information is pretty useless unless you do something with it, though, so the end result is something else: We’re in the time business. Readers invest time in finding information, whether in articles, columns or advertisements. They save time by finding the right information faster. The end result is more time on their hands to do more work, make more money, or give to other parts of their lives.
As a result, the magazine is structured with time in mind. The information’s all there, but long articles may be broken up into two or three sections. The three or four lead paragraphs provide a summary to let readers know the content and choose to go ahead and read or move on to the next piece. The list goes on, but you get the idea: The end result is in saving time.
Try the same with a stone-maintenance firm, and the results can be surprising. The easy answer would be that it’s in the protection business, but consider another: insurance. People buy protection products once, as in a car undercoat; insurance is a regular on-going expense and gives owners a sense of security.
A good maintenance program preserves an investment in stone, and creates a relationship with customers that lead to referrals. It’s the same approach that makes a ton of money for sellers of whole life insurance, so why not stone maintenance?
Fabricators may see themselves in the service business, filling orders for cut and shaped stone. Step back and consider that every product is a one-of-a-kind order that needs special measurements, and there’s another answer; fabricators are in the customizing business. They take slabs and cut them to a precise fit, with made-to-order finishes and edges.
With most residential work, as well as some commercial, fabricators end up performing design duties as well. It’s far from a chop-and-drop business, and brings plenty of added value to any job.
So what’s the payoff for most stone-related companies in figuring out their real business? Let’s be honest; with stone becoming more of a commodity than a luxury, the danger is being caught in the trap of having your business solely based on price competition. Top firms stay that way by selling themselves as well as stone, and put them a cut above – not only in quality, but in getting premium prices for premium results.
Of course, you can always think that the business is nothing more than sawing the slabs and slapping on the sealer. It’s an easy mistake to make, and it only costs you a little bit … every single day.

This article first appeared in the September 2003 print edition of Stone Business. ©2003 Western Business Media Inc.