Stone People: Selling Service and Selection

By K. Schipper

ANCASTER, Ont. – When Michael O’Brien bought Dessco Countertops a decade ago, he saw a business with good attributes, and the ability to build on them.

What he didn’t understand was the limited the scope of operations, or how much more could be done, because in those days Dessco had one specialty: Corian® countertops.

Click photo to enlargeQuickly realizing that his customers wanted more options, O’Brien first added other types of solid-surface materials to his inventory, and then introduced stone and quartz surfaces.

As 2012 draws to a close, the company is preparing to take a significant step forward, with a new addition to its building allowing all fabrication under one roof for the first time. Up next: additional showroom space to better show Dessco’s wares.

LOOKING GOOD

Dessco Countertops is actually observing its 20th anniversary this year. O’Brien explains that the company began in 1992 when the founder, originally in the business of framing homes, decided to add countertops to the mix.

However, in those early days, Dessco had one specialty: Corian. Still, when O’Brien decided to buy the business in 2002, he liked what he saw.

“This is the third company I’ve owned,” O’Brien explains. “I was always looking for a deal, and when I looked at this company it had an infrastructure – which I wanted – and it had an established clientele and cash flow.

“I thought that it was the kind of thing I could take over because it was predictable.”

He quickly found out everything was predictable, but not perfect. For one thing, the countertop market in southern Ontario (Ancaster is an historic city of some 33,000 residents approximately 50 miles west of Niagara Falls and a suburb of the much larger Hamilton) was quite competitive. And, O’Brien says, some of the suppliers the company was using made things difficult by wanting Dessco to use their products exclusively.

“That didn’t make sense to me,” he says. “My thought was that if a customer wanted something, we were going to service the customer.”

His first inclination was to maintain the status quo. The problem was customers kept asking for more.

“It was our habit at the time to say, ‘No, we only do Corian, and you can have anything you want as long as it’s Corian,’” O’Brien says. “However, it became obvious that they liked our service and quality and they wanted us to do other things for them. And, I started to think that we weren’t doing them much of a service if we were sending them elsewhere all the time, especially if they wanted to deal with us.”

Expansion came literally on a case-by-case basis. As people came in with jobs that called for other materials, O’Brien made the connections with the appropriate suppliers, first with solid surface and then with other materials.

“We took on the philosophy that even if we don’t carry it, we’ll try and get it for you so you only need one number on your speed dial,” he says. “If we’re not currently carrying it, we’ll look around for you instead of you having to look for it.”