We’ve been participating in Park Industries’ Digital Stoneworking Expos for the past several years, and if you’ve never gone… you totally should! You can check out the schedule for future expos, here.
These events usually take place at a real shop, and occasionally at the Park factory. It’s a great chance to see real equipment in action, and take a tour. There are several reasons I really like these digital stoneworking expos.
Open and honest conversations. At the expos, you’re not surrounded by your closest competitors, which means you’re free to share the real numbers behind your business. It’s refreshing to talk about the actual dollars and time you’re spending in the office and fabrication.
Knowing how other fabricators across the country deal with issues in detail will help you run your shop better and more profitably.
Countertop fabricator stories. The primary goal of the Digital Expos is to explain the process of moving your countertop shop from “manual” to “digital”. That means different things to different businesses, but you’ll actually hear many perspectives from the speakers, who are all owners of countertop shops who’ve made that change.
These aren’t all the biggest shops in the country either. What’s cool is hearing from another business owner who’s just a few months ahead of where you are now.
Focus on metrics. The team at Park Industries really have kept the focus on data and metrics at these events. Even though there are intangible benefits to having a digital process, it’s vital to understand the impact of the numbers.
How you conduct your business and run your countertop shop will drastically affect your expenses, labor hours, and ultimately profitability and happiness.
Building relationships. Although Moraware is technically a vendor at these events, we feel like we’re part of the community as we learn, too. As part of the overall presentation, we chat a little bit to explain how better quotes and scheduling are part of the digital shop.
Over the years as we’ve gone to these events, it’s great to hear from repeat attendees about how we contributed a bit to their success, too.
If you haven’t attended a digital expo, please do!
