Although much of fabrication work is done via automated equipment, everything is still hand-finished to some degree to make sure the quality level remains high. countertops (along with casework) — and so he put his creative thought and relationship building to work and struck up deals with numerous outlets.
Market and Marketing Diversity The company interacted with a variety of market segments, selling direct to
homeowners, doing some commercial work, working with kitchen & bath centers and
developing relationships with area remodelers. However, builder business, at that time, remained its main outlet.
One way the company made its successful
foray into other areas was to educate potential
his business went to market allowed him to not only weather the economic storm, but to also expand. Before then, his operations
partners about solid surface and its properties.
had already outgrown his shop, and the drop
remodelers and explain what the material was
surfacing on the scene drove him to explore
The next step was to take over the templating and installation. Because the company was already preparing templates digitally, it was easy to provide electronic templates to its fabricating partner. For the installation, a
Ludwick would visit k&b dealers and
in granite prices and the arrival of quartz
and how it could be used to meet the demands
expanding his shop and his product offerings.
handling equipment and some trial and error
Shop and Product Expansion
install in-house. This provided thicker margins
of specific designs.
Later, this education process grew into a series of “lunch-n-learn” meetings, in which the A&D community and other specifiers would come
to the show for a day of instruction, education and lunch. Some of the events even offered continuing education units (CEUs) for those
In 2005, because of pressure by his builder market, Ludwick began offering these hard
After doing careful research, Ludwick
and shiny products along with solid surface. However, in the beginning the company purely
Unlike many other fabricators that relied
neighboring city to avoid sending work to his
looked at every channel, including building
relationships with real estate agents, flooring
companies and advertising. Premier even hired three full-time designers to handle complete
and lead to even further exploration of fullfledged stone/quartz fabrication.
requiring ongoing learning credits.
was never enough for Premier, and so they
opened the door for the company to bring the
clients for him to enter the granite and quartz
subcontracted out all of this work. Premier
mostly on repeat business and referrals, that
relatively small investment in heavy material
partnered with a stone/quartz fabricator in a direct competition, but found that the time spent with the customer outweighed the small pass-through markup it received. So, the company began to explore the idea of bringing it in-house.
determined in 2006 that he could afford to
expand into a larger building and include the expanded product offering as a product that
would be fabricated by his staff. However, that
meant finding additional staff with the expertise
to fabricate both stone and quartz. After finding a suitable location for the facility to expand into and tracking down some experts to lead and train his staff, in December of 2006, Ludwick made the move to a newer facility.
remodels, from the ground up. They will assist customers in selecting all aspects of their
new kitchens, even with products not directly carried by Premier, such as appliances. This urge to diversify and grow eventually led to
the company’s current strategy of expansion, which is largely Internet-based marketing.
By 2006, when the building boom first began its decline, Premier Countertops was still heavily leveraged in that market, but the
steps Ludwick had taken to diversify the way Premier offers just about any surface type or brand a customer could want, along with sinks, faucets, cabinets, flooring and more. This product diversity is one of the company’s main keys to success. Circle RS#22 on page 57 or visit www.isfanow.org/info.
International Surface Fabricators Association • Vol. 9 / Issue 1 • 37