Aaron J. Crowley

Stone Industry Consultant

Recently, my wife and I bought and moved our four kids (soon to be five) to a 20 acre farm.   

Somehow reconnecting with the heritage of a simpler, slower, agricultural lifestyle seemed the perfect antidote to the complicated, hectic, and urban reality that is running a granite counter top company.

We currently have chickens, goats, a donkey, barn cats and a dog, but they are merely the gateway drugs of the mini-farm that will inevitably lead to more serious livestock!  Serious livestock being a couple Jersey milk cows, horses for my girls, and a small herd of beef steers for freezer and sale.   

This pursuit is consuming a serious percentage of my strategic thinking and since these animals consume serious quantities of feed in the winter, I’ve begun to consider and research the possibility of growing and harvesting our own hay.

So naturally…I Googled “How to grow hay.”  The first article I read surprised me by its content (or lack thereof) then amused me by the fact that it might actually apply to the granite counter business.  

What surprised me was the glaring absence of topics such as soil prep, hay selection, time to plant and harvest, fertilization, irrigation, regional considerations, storage, and bales per acre in this article titled: “How to Grow Hay.”   What amused me was that 80% of the article talked about hay equipment!   

See the connection to the granite business?

It has been my observation for years the over-emphasis on technology and equipment as the easy answer for fabricators struggling to improve output, manage costs, and increase profits.

Now, any fabricator can go to a trade show and finance equipment, but that alone is about as likely to put profit in the bank as hay machinery is guaranteed to put hay in my barn for this winter.

If you are considering the purchase of a major (or even minor) piece of equipment as a silver bullet solution, take a moment to chew on this fact:  

If your company is already struggling to meet deadlines, manage overtime, and generate a reasonable profit, acquiring sophisticated equipment (or more of it) will not resolve the underlying factors causing those struggles. It will more likely compound them.

The underlying factors can be grouped into three categories of People, Processes, and Pricing. 

People:  People who don’t share your values, who care only about themselves, or perhaps have been promoted beyond their competency (The Peter Principle) will be a limiting factor on your company’s performance and its ability to deliver as long as they fill important positions.  

Processes: Even if the right people are in place, a lack of clearly assigned tasks and standards will lead to chaos, then a bunch of costly re-work and overtime trying to get things done.  This is true whether an employee is cutting a sink by hand or programming a machine that will do it.

Pricing: If you’re not charging enough to turn a profit without the equipment, do not be deceived by believing that a piece of equipment will enable you to do more of that low cost work to make up the difference!  The way to raise prices (and profit margin) is to better communicate the value of your service or to add services that increase the value and ultimately the price you are able to charge.

If you’re on the verge of placing an order for some equipment that will solve all your problems, know this: equipment can do amazing things while we stand there and watch it run,  but it cannot evaluate problem people and decide whether to replace them or train them.  Nor can it develop the processes and procedures that will ensure it’s programed, operated, and maintained properly. And finally, equipment cannot justify itself to the customer and command a higher price.

Nope, that’s your job, boss, because you’re the only one who can do it. And that’s great news when you think about it, because that’s one job that will never be replaced by a machine!

Aaron Crowley is a stone shop owner, author, speaker, and consultant to mid-size stone companies. Readers may respond to his commentary at aaron@fabricatorsfriend.com.