CHEAPER, FASTER, BETTER

Fortunately, he’s been aided in that by younger employees and his twin 19-year-old daughters, who are first-year college students. And, the digital universe is quite important to the business, which relies on Slabsmith™ and Prairie Stone’s online presence – website and Facebook page – to help with marketing. Prairie Stone’s rural location isn’t a problem. Hoeft explains that his slabs come from a Minneapolis supplier once or twice a week. The shop is also within shouting distance of Interstate 29, (with a billboard out front) and the operation does have an approximately 30’ X 30’ display area set up. “The billboard has been really good,” Hoeft says. “Facebook has probably been the best. It’s hard for us to get people to the website, and the website has visualizers and everything on there. However, once they do go to the website, then they can come in and make an informed decision. They know, within one or two stones, what they want.” “Stones” is also something of a misnomer, because Hoeft estimates that 80% of his work has been in quartz, with the remainder almost exclusively granite. The company also recently scheduled its first porcelain-slab project. “It’s pretty new to the area,” he says of porcelain. “Nobody brought it in, and nobody offered it.” The company’s work so far has almost exclusively been residential. Surprisingly, for a guy who flipped houses, Hoeft has seen more of Prairie Stone’s work go into new homes, rather than remodels – on about a two-to-one ratio. “If we do one or two jobs for a developer, it seems like we’re taking over the account from whoever else was doing it before,” he says. “Of course, there are some people who want something crafted by hand, but we can do it cheaper, faster and better.” Northwood and Sasso each had their techs spend three weeks at Prairie Stone, but Hoeft admits that, in some areas, he’s still feeling his way. For instance, when the time comes to template a job, both Hoeft and his righthand man, Caleb Bellig, make the tripJeff . “Part of that has been so we can meet the customer again and talk to them,” Hoeft says. “It’s nice to have a second hand there checking everything, and we’re building both our competencies working together. And we all come to do the install.” That “all” includes a third person in the shop. Just as he and Bellig have learned as they’ve gone along, Hoeft is keen to train others. And, while he’s had inquiries from employees of some of his competitors, as with farming, he prefers to start from scratch. “I found anytime I hired a farm kid for the farming side, I had to break them of all those bad habits,” he says. “Or, they had habits that were different from what we wanted. We don’t want people to bring that old baggage along.” So far, it’s an approach that seems to be working. The shop averages three kitchens a week, and if it has the materials, Prairie Stone can turn a job around in a week. That has been a draw for customers, although as Hoeft’s story has spread, he says some of it is just people who call because he’s a farmer “I never thought that would be much of a drawing card,” he says. “But it seems everyone that has called has some attachment to a farm and they want to talk about it and are excited to be part of something like this.” Even Jennifer Hoeft has gotten onboard, and while Jeff Hoeft admits his pre-COVID five-year goal of having 13 or 14 employees may be out of reach, he remains optimistic. “We’re taking it month-by-month here because of how everything has changed, but I would like to think in five years we’ll be up to 10 or 12 employees,” he concludes. “I think we spent enough time researching and learning things before we got to this point that everything seems to be clicking now.”