Stone People: Finding the Best Solution

THE RIGHT QUESTIONS…AND ANSWERS

Besides trying to appeal to the buyer who’s more interested in getting a first-rate product and a learning experience, rather than a low price, Nelson says his efforts to reach potential clients changed through the years.

Early on, the company was known primarily through word-of-mouth. However, in 2006, Nelson began a serious billboard campaign with select sites along the area’s main interstate artery.

Click photo to enlarge“There’s only one real road through the Wasatch Mountains, and that’s I-15,” he says. “Studies show that 70 percent to 80 percent of adult drivers are on I-15 at some point every day, so we did a campaign with billboards on I-15. It was pricy, but it brought a lot of recognition.”

That first campaign was aimed mainly at contractors. When Nelson could see the new housing boom start to slow, the company changed gears and began focusing on the group most-likely to drive kitchen remodels: Women.

“We started moving toward the moms with their homes,” he says. “That meant going where the soccer moms are, around gyms and other places where higher-income women were at.”

MGS works with a professional marketing design company, and one of its more-successful campaigns involved taking women from their 30s to their 60s and matching their faces with particular stones.

An example of that approach is also visible on the company’s website, which Nelson says had also been hugely successful, in large part because of the Granite Gurus blog written by B.J. Chandler, the sales/marketing manager, and Stephanie Southwick, who handles interior design and sales.

“A lot of people like our blog,” Nelson says. “It’s amazing to me how many people know the blog, and we don’t try to sell ourselves on it. It’s just very informative, and for the amount of marketing it does, it’s been phenomenal.”

And, still, MGS represents no more than 10 percent to 15 percent of Nelson’s total stonework. Its sister company, GSI, employs a base of approximately 80 people, but that number can grow to 400-500 depending on the job.

Along with its Utah office, the company also has outlets in South America and Hawaii. Because of its location, Nelson says GSI has done several temples for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it recently completed a project at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Click photo to enlarge“Hawaii has been a big game for us,” he says. “But, we do construction all over. We’re just starting a project in Peru and we have a couple others we’re trying to close in Brazil.”

Still, with countertops being such a small portion of his overall work, why does Nelson remain in that portion of the industry?

“I do have a love for the countertops; it’s what I started doing,” he says.

However, he adds that if they took up more of his time – he estimates he spends about an hour a day on that aspect of his business – he would probably drop them. As it is, Nelson says he’d like to see that part of the business grow another 30 percent to 40 percent.

The reason: cash flow.

He adds that on the commercial side, the dollars are simply bigger. Much bigger. In 10-15 years, he expects to see GSI doing jobs involving as much as $100 million in the stone component alone.