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Italian Marble and Granite: Customer Care and Quality are Number One
Katrina Hora and Mark Zografos, co-owners of Italian Marble & Granite in Clarence Center, N.Y. (Photos courtesy Italian Marble and Granite)
By Peter Marcucci
Italian Marble & Granite was founded by Pasquali DiLisio in 1986. The 3,000 ft² facility located in Elma, N.Y., was perfect for the fledgling company to grow and spread its wings. In 1993, the company expanded to an 11,000 ft² facility under the leadership of Mark Zografos. Under its new management, Italian Marble & Granite settled in and focused on quality and customer service. Mark Zografos, along with 10 team members, grew Italian Marble & Granite to its next logical transition. In 2007 they expanded operations into a 22,000 ft² structure located some 30 minutes away in Clarence Center, N.Y. That move allowed them to have all operations under one roof. Fast forward to 2023. The company is again looking to expand, explained co-owner and CEO Katrina Hora. “We are in the process of meeting with architects and engineers to see if we can expand onto the building we have, and maybe put on a second floor, as well. That’s the goal for this year – to at least add another 10,000 square feet.”
This mitered Dekton® fireplace wraps on three sides. The spacious room has a matching mitered Dekton waterfall countertop tying into the fireplace. (Photos courtesy Italian Marble and Granite)
Katrina is Mark Zografos’ daughter, and as a teen would come to work during high school summer break: cleaning, answering phones, learning materials, and generally helping where able and safe to do so.
This commercial job features a mitered Dekton island with waterfall edge.
Then, years later, after getting her degree in Accounting and an MBA, Katrina made a life-changing decision. “I asked dad to give me a shot in 2012. I said, ‘You can let me work for you for one year, and if you don’t think it’s going to work out, you can cut me loose and I’ll go back to school and get my CPA.’ ” As the story goes, she never left, and became the company template maker using a Laser Products LT55. She learned about clients, contractors and estimating, she explained. “It taught me how to read drawings and blueprints, how to design with clients and how things come together and gave me the space I needed in the company.” Currently, estimating, co-scheduling, purchasing, large account sales, day-to-day operations, new systems integration and expansion are her responsibilities and areas of expertise.
Read more in the March 2023 issue of the Slippery Rock Gazette.
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What’s the Most Effective Advertising Platform for My Countertop Shop?
By Steven Alberts Countertop Marketing Company
I get this question often. Usually, it’s paired with, “How much should I spend on ads?” so I’ll cover that as well. If you want more retail jobs for your countertop shop, there are many platforms where you can get more website traffic and leads. The problem is, a lot of these sources of traffic aren’t the best fit for shops. I’ll order them where I think you should start. Here are 3 important points to think about before you start setting up campaigns. •How much is your marketing budget? You need to think of your overall budget. You’ll want to figure out your ad spend budget and also a budget for someone to manage the ads. You might be handling this yourself or hire a company to help. Most companies charge around 1-2K/mo to manage ads for companies. Your ad spend should be separate. I would start at about 1K per platform to start. •How is your website? There isn’t an easy way to say this. If your website isn’t all that great, then I would not waste money on Google ads. You pay per click with Google ads so if you are sending traffic to your site and it’s not good, then you will waste money. Before running Google ads, redesign your website. •How is your follow-up process? I see this problem all the time. Shops come to us to get more project leads, we get them more, and then their sales process isn’t great so it’s not as successful as it could be. Use a CRM (we have one called STONE ENGAGE but there are dozens of others) and manage leads that come in. Follow up with leads on the phone, email, and text.
Facebook and Instagram I put Facebook and Instagram at the top of the list because I think most shops should start here. The reason is that a lot of the shops I speak with usually need some type of website redesign. On Facebook and Instagram, you can run ads without homeowners having to go to your website. You can get leads right inside their platform. As for a budget, I would start with $1,000 per month, here. You can always scale up if the ads have a good lead cost. On Facebook and Instagram (you run ads from FB and they also show on IG) you set a daily budget. So about $30/day is a good place to start, which is just under $1K/mo. Give it a few months to run before saying it doesn’t work. Also, if you are getting leads and they are not converting into jobs, take a look at your sales process. A lot of the time it’s not the leads but the follow-up process, as I mentioned above.
Read more in the March 2023 issue of the Slippery Rock Gazette.
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Bronwick Connects Shop and Staff
by Sharon Koehler
We all know that the labor market has changed over the last few years. Looking for and finding qualified candidates is almost a full-time job in itself. Who has time for that? Who has time to place ads, interview and vet, not to mention haggle over salary and benefits? The recruiter, of course! “Whoa, the recruiter? What recruiter? I don’t want management or sales help. I want shop and install help. No recruiter is going to be interested in that.” That may have been the case before the recent economic shift, but that is not the case now. This is where Bronwick Recruiting LLC enters the picture. Bronwick works within the construction field and more specifically, they work with fabricators to find the best help available. In fact, 95% of their clients are stone shops. It is their intention, past, present, and moving forward to “fill any position in a fabrication shop.” To that end, they belong to and are affiliated with multiple stone industry groups and organizations: Rockheads Group USA, NSI, Artisan Group, and ISFA. They also had a presence at TISE 2023. Bo Schwartz, founder of Bronwick Recruiting, actually started recruiting and placing people in fabrication shops back in 2011, but he didn’t take the company to LLC level until 2019. Bo, realizing that this was not a one-man job, turned to his longtime friend and former co-worker Travis Sterrett for assistance. In 2020, Bo recruited Travis away from his job in sales for a general contractor. Travis, now director of Ssales with the company, was Bronwick Recruiting’s and Bo’s first full-time hire. Today, in 2023, they have a staff of 12 and an office in Austin, Texas. Even coming off a debilitating worldwide pandemic, 2022 was a breakout year for the firm. They placed 87 candidates nationwide. They are poised to place 100+ candidates in 2023. Even though they are based in Austin, they have their eyes on expansion. In the next five years, they hope to open other offices. Their prime target is somewhere in the Carolinas.
Travis is excited about what the company has accomplished and can provide in the future. “We don’t want to be just a recruiter; we want to be your partner and become your company’s in-house hiring department.” Also, according to Travis, Bronwick Recruiting has attained success by using what they call their “Two-Prong Approach.” “One – we respond faster to communication with candidates than our clients. Not because our clients are slow to respond, but because normally our clients are trying to manage a lot of other things and they may not have the opportunity to respond right away.” “Two – we cold call candidates. We scour job boards looking for candidates, and we reach out to them. We do not wait for them to come to us.”
Continued in the March 2023 issue of the Slippery Rock Gazette.
Coming in the April 2023 issue of the Slippery Rock Gazette
CaraGreen Offers Sustainable Choices
And More, Hot Off The Press!
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Publisher’s Corner
By Rick Stimac, BB Industries President/CEO
On February 22, 2023, International Surface Fabricators Association (ISFA) members traveled to Knoxville, Tenn., for the ISFA Regional Mineral Surfaces Fabrication Training. The attendees visited host BB Industries at their Knoxville headquarters; Smokey Mountain Tops fabrication shop, also in Knoxville; and Crossville Tile’s automated manufacturing center, in Crossville, Tenn. The training focused on getting a better understanding of the challenges and benefits of working with porcelain, sintered stone and ultra-compact surfaces, with the goal of being certified by the ISFA. At BB Industries, attendees were warmly welcomed by the BBI staff, and engaged in strategy and informational sessions, toured BBI’s extensive warehouse, and participated in a raffle drawing, while enjoying some Mexican cuisine. On the visit to Smokey Mountain Tops, the group toured the fabrication facility and participated in hands-on cutting, polishing, and gluing of porcelain tops. Fabricators at Smokey Mountain Tops demonstrated porcelain fabrication, including the mitering process, and generally how to work with porcelain materials. During the shop walkthrough, the attendees got to see demos on drilling holes, as well as how to glue porcelain properly. They also had the opportunity to have all of their porcelain fabrication questions answered during a Q&A session towards the end of the tour.
At the field trip to Crossville Tile, everyone was introduced to the porcelain tile manufacturing process: what is involved in a quality-controlled tile-making tile process, and how the Crossville factory implements security measures to make it difficult to pirate, duplicate or copy their designs. The entire process was demonstrated, from combining the initial ingredient like sand and other materials, to curing the raw tiles in a very long, hot kiln, to how the product is packaged and stored. The tour group also got to see first-hand how tile shrinks and hardens through the heating process, and learned about Crosville’s recycling process of tile that does not meet their high quality standards. Throughout the entire tour, many were very impressed with the level of automation in the entire facility. Heavy machinery and robots worked in concert together and moved the tile from one place to another with just a few people making sure that their product is manufactured and packaged to their exacting standards. BBI and ISFA would like to again thank everyone who came out for this training!
4100 Appalachian Way Knoxville, TN 37918
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