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April 2020|5 Stone Services Group Offers Pooled
Resources for Increasing Revenue
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WEcaught up with Rich Katzmann, owner of Stone Services Group (SSG) at the 2020 TISE show to see what is new with this innovative
service company.
With the addition of Hot Sauce, SSG now has four systems that help fabrica- tors increase revenue: Stone App, Quote Countertops, Granite Gold and Hot Sauce.
Stone App streamlines business from lead track- ing and visual quoting, to orders, inventory, pur- chasing, scheduling and production management. Quote Countertops helps fabricators in two ways: by sending them leads and pro- viding a showroom kiosk for low-pressure sales. Granite Gold is a consumer protec- tion plan that relieves the fabricator of time-consum- ing call-backs and provides the customer with peace of mind that their investment is protected. Hot Sauce is a program that upgrades countertop jobs to include premium edges, child-safe corners, lazy susans, furni- ture tops and many more op- tions to increase your profit.
“Many resources in our industry focus on opera- tions, but our programs primarily focus on increas- ing net profit,” said SSG founder Rich Katzmann. “In a recent study, 52 percent of fabricators said they make less than 10 percent profit. So you sell a $4,000 coun- tertop, and by the time you
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Stone Services Group and their product displays were busy at TISE. From left, in blue: Jacquie Cook, Anthony Anderson and Christina Scobey.
template, fabricate, install, promote your company on social media and other ser- vices, you end up with $300 of that countertop. What we are offering are instant pro- grams to make that $300 into $600, $800 or $1,000, as well as bringing fabrica- tors more customers with our mining techniques.”
“Three of our partners come from the stone in- dustry,” added Katzmann. “Inventor of Hot Sauce Geoffrey Gran is sharing a program he made for his business. Granite Gold founder Lenny Sciarrino sells granite polishing chem- icals and cleaners. These guys are very busy with their primary businesses, so Stone Services Group is pooling marketing resources to share these tools with others.”
From his experience at Laser Products, Katzmann saw a huge need to improve businesses from a software and process perspective.
Katzmann explained, “You come to these shows and you see that we have equipment figured out.
Robots, CNC routers, and all angles are covered. From an equipment stand- point, the stone industry is way farther along than in the software. You still see white boards being used for scheduling. There is a huge lag. My goal is to get the software side caught up with the equipment side.
We have four great soft- ware partners, and plan to add a fifth “area” of oper- ations in the second quar- ter. As far as our Services division, I am seeing a huge need for a national installation company (stone and solid surface) and am working diligently to build out that division. Many fabricators win large com- mercial jobs that are either outside their normal service territory or they don’t want to commit their everyday crews and disrupt their other business. At a 30,000 foot level, we want to have local salesmen/technicians in major cities across the country to help with local training and support.”
Where will you see Stone Services Group next? They are presenting at the Artisan Group Industry Showcase in Austin, and exhibiting at the Coverings show in New Orleans this month. They also have joined NSI & ISFA, so you may see Rich or his partners at one of those events.
For more information on SSG or its programs, visit stoneservicesgroup.com or call 815-210-1006.
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