Stone People: Finding the Best Solution
A DIFFERENT PATH
A lot of Nelson’s success can be attributed to breaking away from the path that many people might believe would lead to success. The year away from the shop showed him that fabrication might not be the most-valuable route for him.
“My background really came more from purchasing,” he says. “I have a lot of hands-on experience fabricating, but it’s more archaic. As we went on, I stepped away more and more and became a manager versus physically being there fabricating.”
Dan NelsonBy spending his time in the office, one of the things Nelson realized was that the run-up in the housing market – which drove countertop sales – couldn’t last forever. In 2004 he opened GSI to do commercial work, with an emphasis on cladding and panelized work.
Although the countertop market took a dive, starting in 2007, he says that and the following two years were great for GSI.
It’s not like MGS is anything is a small operation. The company employs 15 people, has a 10,000 ft² shop, and shares office and showroom space with GSI in a separate 7,500 ft² building. Nelson recently completed a 30,000 ft² plant that will handle fabricating panels for GSI.
As in the company’s early days, MGS is focused on doing higher-end jobs. While Nelson says his staff still sees walk-in clients looking for the inexpensive Uba Tuba kitchen, that’s not the shop’s forte, either in stone or in price.
Because Nelson is doing so much importing – he estimates he spends 80-100 days a year in Mexico and Brazil, China and, more recently, Europe and the Middle East – MGS offers a great deal of higher-end stone.
“We sell clients the top 10 percent of granites,” he says. “It’s higher-end material, often exclusive to us, and that’s one way we make our money.”
At the same time, the company’s clientele is not the homeowner looking for a $29.95 ft² bargain. He estimates many of his projects run around the $50 ft²-plus range.
“We don’t advertise a flat rate; we’re just too skilled for that,” Nelson says. “Our approach is that it becomes a very personal experience for our clients. I tell our sales people to educate, educate, educate.”
Click to enlarge photoThat includes telling people the limitations they may face with a particular stone they’ve selected. He says it’s not uncommon for the company to get calls from people unhappy with the jobs done for them by other stone fabricators, when what’s been done is fine – but incomplete.
“We’ll tell people, ‘Here are the limits of the product you’ve chosen and here’s what’s going to happen and what’s not going to happen,’” Nelson says. “Our competitor may have never communicated that to them, and they’re unhappy.
“We try to give them very complete service.”
Nelson says one of the things that bothers him the most is seeing jobs installed by some other shops where a joint won’t line up properly – for example, around a sink – so it’s forced together, clamped and bonded, only to pull apart or crack at the corners later.
“We spend a lot of time making sure our substrates are properly installed and our kitchens are perfect,” he says. “The joints naturally line up and then you don’t have issues with cracking or popping.”
To further enforce that MGS is offering a great product and a great experience, the company offers warrantees of 10-20 years, depending on the material involved.
