Stone People: Amping Up the Business
“We actually have a lot of people who come into the showroom carrying this magazine,” Wyman says. “They’ll say, ‘I saw your ad in the magazine and I want to buy some countertops.’”
Wyman also has a website and a blog for marketing, although he admits it’s not getting the attention it should.
“I’ve been to seminars and I’ve read some books on it, and I’m supposed to put a new posting on it every day,” he says. “I don’t even have a company Facebook page yet, so I’m a bit behind the curve on that.”
Click photo to enlargeGreat breaks aside, Wyman is very much about improving his chances at every opportunity. A charter member of his local chapter of the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA), he applied when the national organization began soliciting fabricators for a fabricators’ advisory council – and was selected.
Later, when the council was told it needed to come up with a representative to the NKBA board of directors, he self-nominated and was named to that group. His three-year term will expire at the end of 2013.
Also, recently, he’s started traveling to Brazil to pick out granite containers with the aid of Cosentino North America.
“I’ve been there twice now, and I’m on my second container,” Wyman says. “It’s moving very sell. I get a substantial savings on the cost, and we try to stock about 10 different colors. That’s kind of a base point, but a lot of people say, ‘That looks nice; let’s do it,’ rather than having to send them to Seattle.”
Wyman admits to enjoying the travel, but he also has more practical goals in mind. For instance, several seminars on best practices have convinced him of the importance of standardizing his fabrication and installation procedures.
“When you ask four different people how to do something, you’re likely going to get four different answers,” he says. “I try to get everybody to do it the right way, and to do it the same way.”
He also thinks it helped Creative Countertops when he made the move out of the shop and into the office about five years ago.
“I know that’s a hurdle for some fabricators,” Wyman says. “I’ve become an owner and a manager and the guy who pays the bills.”
That guy is also keeping an eye on the future. One big question: whether or not he should buy or build his own building. However, Wyman says that decision is at least a couple years in the future.
For now, along with most everyone else, he’d like to work a little less and make a little more.
“We’ve got a great crew here,” he says. “I’d like to keep growing a little bit each year so I can think about retiring in about 10 years. But, I have no real big number in mind. If we keep growing at three percent or five percent a year, I’ll be happy.”
Click photo to enlargeAnd, there’s always the music.
These days he’s playing in the rock-and-roll band Down Goes Frazier, which released a CD, Perspective. (Click here to listen.)
“It’s doing real well,” says Wyman. “There’s a website called ReverbNation that ranks bands and we’re currently like number 261 in the country. I’m happy with it.”
The other band – as yet unnamed — Wyman describes as jazz.
“That’s a new one,” he says. “It’s all instrumental. I play lead guitar and we have a keyboard player and it’s a lot of fun. Hopefully, we’ll get some recordings of that, too.”
In an effort to keep his wife happy, Wyman says he only really practices once a week, alternating bands. However, customers have caught him jamming in the shop on Saturday afternoons, and he says sometimes they comment on his amp, which he’ll have sitting in the showroom.
“It intrigues some of them that they’re dealing with a musician,” he says.
Still, Wyman says his first commitment is to his granite work.
“I’m not going to run away and join the circus again,” he says.
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