For Nick Henry it’s about knowing who you are and what you are capable of, then going after that segment of the market. And for Henry’s company, Countertops & Cabinets in Syracuse, New York, what they do best is manage a project from start to finish, including coordinating tear-out, countertop installation and plumbing services.
“The bigger guys only want to sell the countertop,” he explains. “If the cabinets aren’t level, it’s not their issue. They don’t want to mess with plumbing or any of the odd stuff associated with a countertop job, either. So, we offer more services. When a customer comes in we take care of the job from start to finish. We can do as much or as little as they want, depending on how much money they want to spend.”
One Stop Shop
Which makes them their customers’ best friend when it comes to remodeling their kitchens. Countertops & Cabinets offers laminate, solid surface and quartz surfacing for residential and light commercial customers. They also sell pre-manufactured cabinets.
“The installation is the big thing,” Nick says. “That is what makes or breaks a job, so we always control that part of the job. We fabricate laminate and solid surface in-house, but we have a local fabricator do the stone, which helps us control the overhead. It works out very well.”
Countertops & Cabinets was established 30 years ago by Henry’s father, Emil. The company was small, and it focused on a single product – laminate countertops. Ten years into the business Nick came onboard and the company branched out into solid surface. Shortly after that Countertops & Cabinets added quartz surfacing to the product mix.
The Digital Age
“My dad was pretty much old school,” Nick remembers. “There was a lot of convincing to do in order to upgrade the equipment and to bring the company into digital processing. Now we have a CNC, we use JobTracker for our scheduling and we do electronic templating. In fact, I even do laser templating for another fabricator now, which is all coordinated online through Moraware.”
Nick added pre-manufactured cabinetry to the product mix in a move to diversify the company and provide growth without adding overhead.
“You have to grow,” he says, “and there are only so many countertops you can do. Right now we don’t install the cabinets, but that will probably be the next thing. Our biggest challenge, however, is finding good help. Even though we have a good crew now, we are a dying breed in this area. We are always looking for good people.”
Want to know more? At Moraware, we make software for countertop fabricators. CounterGo is countertop drawing and estimating software. JobTracker is scheduling software that helps you eliminate the time you waste looking for job folders. RemnantSwap is a free place to buy and sell granite remnants with fabricators near you.
