Making Hay While the Sun Shines

By Steve Mast, ISFA President

Anyone tired yet? If you are in the countertop industry right now, chances are you are running at capacity, facing challenges around finding and retaining staff, and feeling like you need five extra hours a day just to keep up. And maybe your revenue has dramatically increased, but perhaps your profitability isn’t where it should be. You aren’t alone. As we are trying to put out fires and get countertops out the door in a reasonable timeframe, sometimes money is slipping away in areas we don’t know about or have the bandwidth to fix.

My grandfather was a fifth-generation farmer in the Sacramento Valley. He always said, “Make hay while the sun shines.” (He was a tomato and wheat farmer, but the saying still goes.) The point is, he knew how to take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. We find ourselves in this phenomenal market, so how can we make hay when we feel like our tanks are running on empty?

You probably have as much work as you can uncomfortably handle. It doesn’t seem like that long ago when the recession was upon us, and we were all waiting for the phone to ring. In this current boom, we mustn’t waste any of the profits during the chaos.

It’s hard to make improvements or changes, especially when we are busy just keeping our heads above water. Pick just one area of improvement each month and commit to focusing on it. By focusing on just one thing at a time, not only will you and the team be able to accomplish the goal, over time, you will see significant improvements. For some shops, this means going from manual to digital. I remember when we were growing, and we decided to move from physical templates to digital. I’ll tell you it wasn’t easy. But, if we hadn’t made the transition, it would have been tough to grow. We wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are now without this technology that enabled us to do more in less time. (More hay!)

Create a defined process for the entire life cycle of an order and then document it. Make sure it’s written clearly, and it’s easy for new people to understand. It’ll make it easier for new hires to get up to speed. Record some simple videos of your processes. We use a software called Snagit. It’s affordable (a one-time purchase of $49,) and it lets you record your screen so you can create tutorials of your digital processes. We post the videos where everyone can access them, and they can refer to them whenever they need to. Even without a solution like Snagit, your cellphone will take great videos so you can record people doing various tasks around the shop.

Another way to increase profitability is to sell more to the same customer. Adding a little more to the sale is much easier than getting a whole new sale. Just like us, our customers are extremely busy. Sometimes they don’t know all the options, or they don’t know they want the thing until you explain the benefits. Offer profitable add-ons like tear-out services, plumbing reconnects, or even tile backsplashes. You already have a relationship with the customer, now just offer them more solutions to their problems. It builds trust, and you’ll see that customer come back or refer you to other customers because you went the extra mile. (More hay!)

The good news is all of the investments we make now will serve us well for the long term. Like all successful farmers, my grandfather knew to take advantage of the sun’s bounty so he could invest in his operations to bolster him through the darker times. Make hay while the sun shines. Words to live by, to be sure.