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February, 2007 
 Hooked on Concrete!!
 Buddy Rhodes Concrete Products Newsletter
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Greetings!

Thanks for reading our newsletter! In this issue we'll talk a bit about marketing your concrete countertop business. We'll introduce you to Brad Winkler and his business, Harmony Functional Arts. And of course, you can get this month?s tips from Buddy. Visit our website for all upcoming workshops and the national and Canadian distributor list. Feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested!

 Marketing Concrete Countertops
 Its All About the Customer

The most important part of marketing your countertop business is to put yourself in the customer's shoes. If we were writing an article in a homeowner?s magazine about finding a concrete countertop professional, it would outline the following guidelines:
  • Have these fabricators been recommended by someone you trust (good word of mouth)?
  • Have you seen photographs of their previous work? Do they have finish samples?
  • Can they give you references to ask about their service and professionalism?
  • Have they trained with an established countertop professional?
  • Have they been published? Are they local?
  • Have they been in business enough time to answer the above questions?
  • Do they have a website which you can look at which reflects their design sense?

So if you are a countertop fabricator, you should consider these questions and be prepared to answer them. These questions form the core of what I discussed with our profiled contractor Brad Winkler, and they prompt the guidelines for marketing your business listed below.
  • Consider all of your relationships* you can use to connect with future concrete countertop clients: former employers (contractors and others in the construction business); designers and architects, kitchen showrooms, remodeling firms.
  • Obtain excellent styled and finished photos of your work (see home magazines for ideas).
  • Build a library of good finish samples to show clients what you can do. Pass them out to local designers freely.
  • Be willing to do some at-cost or gratis work in public places to practice and prove your product. Your local coffee shop? A kitchen and bath showroom?
  • Ask happy customers to write you references or be willing to show off their counters.
  • Train with established concrete artisans and then you can do your own thing if you want.
  • Find a website designer and put up a good simple site to show off who you are.
  • Send photos to local papers and magazines for publication. They need you.
  • Push the local angle as green; supporting local craftsmen supports the community and saves energy.
  • Once you?ve checked off all of the guidelines above, then if you have money leftover, only then consider advertising locally and showing off in local home shows.
Lane Mangum of CCI wrote an article on what she calls ?relationship marketing? in the March 2006 issue of Concrete Concepts.

 


 Harmony Functional Arts
 Contractor of the Month

Brad Winkler is a partner with John Clancy in Harmony Functional Art, in Voorhes, New Jersey. After getting to know him through photographs and meeting up at The World of Concrete, we talked to Brad about his young concrete countertop business. We discussed his relatively new journey to concrete countertops as well as the challenge of marketing. Skilled carpenters in the construction business since college, Brad and John came to concrete countertops with a background in kitchen remodeling. Although his experience was in finish carpentry work rather than concrete, Brad?s interest in crafting concrete countertops had been growing over time. ?People kept telling me the market (in his area) isn?t ready yet.? Nonetheless, familiar with Buddy Rhodes from the internet, Brad went to The Sealant Depot, in Cinnaminson New Jersey, and told them he needed products to get started. Before he attended Rich Rhoades? class at Sealant Depot, Brad was wet-casting upside down and he didn?t trowel or press. Now he casts right-side-up and presses, using the drier-mix approach he learned in class. His favorite style , developed on his own, is to incorporate two methods in one countertop. For example, the center of the counter might be pressed and the outer area might be trowelled, or vice versa. That idea really excites him. For a local showcase house he fabricated two-tone countertops (shown) which had everyone guessing as to his methods. Marketing is his big challenge now, so we discussed some ideas which can now be found in this newsletter. Brad is just 20 minutes from Philadephia, so the room for growth is wide open. His carpentry and kitchen remodeling skills have given him a jump start on building complex molds, templating and installing finished countertops, as well as familiarity with various kitchen trim packages. ?Everyone comes up with their own way? to make their counters unique and compelling, and Harmony Functional Art caught our eye for that very reason.

 


Thanks for reading, and thanks for using Buddy Rhodes Concrete Products!

Sincerely,


Susan, Mark and June
Buddy Rhodes Concrete Products

phone: 877 706-5303
fax: 415 551-1575
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