There’s a lot to be said for having a keen understanding of who you are as a company and where you find your strengths. That kind of perspective allows you to focus your resources and energies on the segment of the business that delivers the most return.
Case in point: The Granite Guys in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
“We’ve done a little bit of every type of work,” says Desmond Belcastro, who has worked for The Granite Guys for over 7 years,
“but residential is where we like to stay. That is our niche market. We like to concentrate on pleasing our customers at a level where they really appreciate the work. In order to do that it takes having really great employees. They take great pride in their work and are always seeking a better way to meet our customer expectations.”
As it turns out, pleasing customers is at the heart of the company marketing strategy. But it’s more than just delivering a great installation every time -The Granite Guys excels at turning their customers into avid promoters for the company to their friends and neighbors. One way they do that is by soliciting customer testimonials, which are then posted on the Web.
“There are a lot of people that come into our showroom who want to go with us just from what they have read online,” says Belcastro. “Some is due to our new website, which was designed by siitesNsolutions.com, a company that focuses solely on fabricator websites. We are climbing in the Google organic search rankings very quickly. We control the content ourselves and we are getting the hang of managing the website, including SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and the blog.”
Sensing An Opportunity
The Granite Guys was established nearly nine years ago by Ken and Lorna Usselman, who own Call Canadian Plumbing & Heating Ltd. “At the time there weren’t a lot of people doing granite in Calgary,” says Belcastro. “The use of granite countertops had really started to pick up due to advances in machinery and fabrication techniques. It was Ken who recommended that we should take a crack at this. Next thing you know, nine years down the road, we are a company with a purpose and a great future.”
The Granite Guys leverages its relationship with its sister company, Call Canadian Plumbing, by offering turn-key service to its retail customers.
“We work almost like their contractor,” Belcastro explains. “We send out the plumbers to disconnect everything and we come in the next day to install the new counters. First thing the next morning the plumbers are there to reconnect the plumbing. It’s a one-stop shop.”
That kind of service gives an edge to The Granite Guys, who now must compete in a post housing boom environment. “It’s a flooded market,” says Belcastro. “The housing boom in Canada, which is related to the oil boom, helped jumpstart the company. But today there are a lot of granite fabricators in town and it is very competitive. We are not the cheapest company, but we definitely stand by our work. Our reviews are what sell our company.”
Want to know more? At Moraware, we make software for countertop fabricators. CounterGo is countertop drawing, layout, 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.
