StoneTalk Episode 43 – Rich Katzmann

Jul 17, 2018 | StoneTalk

In StoneTalk Episode 43, Patrick speaks with Rich Katzmann of Laser Products.

Listen to this episode to learn more about:

  • The importance of having passion for your work
  • The value of combining creativity and business sense
  • How to connect the dots in the digital workflow

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes… and please let us know what you think! You can leave comments for this show on the StoneTalk Facebook page or on this site.

If you have stories or insights that you’d like to share with other fabricators, please reach out to Patrick.

Download mp3 directly

Transcript

Patrick: Welcome to Stonetalk, the podcast for countertop fabricators. Brought to you by Moraware, makers of Job Tracker scheduling software and CounterGo estimating software for countertop fabricators. I’m your host, Patrick Foley. Today I’m speaking with Rich Katzmann, president of Laser Products. Let’s give him a call.

Rich: Hi, this is Rich.

Patrick: Hi, Rich. Patrick from Moraware. How are you?

Rich: Good, Patrick. How are you?

Patrick: Not too bad, thanks. I’ll start by asking about you. And if understand correctly, you were promoted to president not too long ago. How did you get involved with the industry, first off, and what led you to Laser Products?

Rich: Sure, that’s a great question. So Dan Louis, our founder and CEO, you know, the godfather of digital templating in our industry decided a couple of years ago that, you know, he’d built something great and he was ready to step away. So he started, you know, a plan, a succession plan to bring someone in. And after about seven or eight months of us kinda of dancing together, we decided to jump forward. And the fit was great. I come out of…pretty heavily out of flooring industry, you know. So I’ve been around home improvement, houses, new construction basically my entire career.

I’ve been associated with a couple of high growth companies. And Dan, you know, that’s really what Laser Products was experiencing, you know, two, three years ago and we are still today, is, you know, with the resurgence of our industry, Dan was dealing with just some massive growth. So, you know, just kind of the combination of my background and the way I’ve been able to navigate, you know, through some of the challenges that high growth companies have, we thought it was a great fit.

I went out to a, what was it? StonExpo, and [inaudible 00:02:03] two years ago before I even started, met the team and just listened to how amazed and how happy our customers were. Coming up to the booth, talking about, you know, all the stuff, the ROI savings, and what…how the laser’s been for them. And that’s when I was hooked. I think I went home after that show and literally, the next day called Dan and said I’m in.

Patrick: Well, I agree with you that I think the fabricators themselves are the most interesting part of the fabrication industry. So what have you learned since you took over this position with Laser Products? What have you learned about our customers? What have you learned about fabricators that maybe surprised you, or didn’t surprise you?

Rich: Yeah, the most amazing thing was the passion they have for what they’re doing. You know, I’ve worked with carpet guys before and tile guys before, but the passion that the stone guys have is just amazing. I mean, they’re artisans, they really…they’re really committed to the customer and to delivering, you know, a gorgeous product. I mean, you see how heavy this stuff is and how the dirty the plants are. And it’s just a hard way to make a living and these guys, I mean, they never complain. I mean…and I’ve just been…I’ve been amazed by that.

So when we’re out there and we show them a solution, I mean, you know, you can see the wheels turning. And they’re just very responsive to anything that can help their business. I think they’re really smart because, as you know, you know, there’s this big surge going from manual to digital. And it’s happening quickly and it’s really to their credit that they understand that this is kind of future and that they need to move rapidly in this direction, you know, if they want to keep flourishing and growing.

You know, and then kind of the last thing I noticed, the same things that we’re feeling here with high growth, the pressure, the worrying about your value proposition, and making sure that the customer comes first, I mean, I see that every day in these guys eyes. I mean, they’re so…everybody’s stressed out, you know, everybody is growing. New construction and the rehab market, I can feel the pressure and I can relate to the pressure that they’re under.

Patrick: Yeah, I agree with you, most especially on a point you made that our customers, fabricators in this industry, combine craftsmanship and a business acumen. I really respect that, I really like the way they keep their eye on both. They wanna make beautiful stuff, I think that’s why most people got into this industry, but yet they also know they have to do it in a sustainable way, and they wanna make a living and take care of their families and leave a legacy and all that.

And like you, we, even though our business is incredibly different from a fabricator’s business, we’re in the same range of company size and we have those growth issues as well. You know, yeah, it is hard, and sometimes it does stress you out. But I agree, by and large, this is an industry that doesn’t complain and I really respect that.

Rich: And that’s a really good point because usually, you know, someone who’s artistic and creative and someone who has a business sense, you know, a lot of times those are opposing ideals. And you nailed it. I mean, our guys do both, and that’s kind of rare. And I’m…again, I’m impressed that they’re able to switch that hat real quickly from, you know, the…how beautiful the scene has to look versus, “Okay, you know, where are we gonna hire our next guy?” They’re very good at balancing those two kind of different ways of thinking.

Patrick: And I agree that moving to the digital…to digital fabrication is a key part of being able to combine craftsmanship and beauty with business. So from our perspective, at least anecdotally, it seems that Laser Products appears to be the most popular templating tool. Do your numbers on the inside back that up, or do you have heavy competition from one of the other alternatives out there?

Rich: Yeah. No, a good question. You know, with all of us being private companies, it’s a little hard to get exact market penetration numbers. We believe that we’re somewhere in the 80th percentile in North America.

Patrick: Oh, really? Oh, wow.

Rich: Yeah, we’ve got a lot of evidence and…just from being out there and talking to people, we believe we’re kind of firmly in that 80% to 85% range. But what we’re just as proud as, if you look at the RockHead Group, right? And I love RockHeads, it’s a neat organization, they do a lot of things right, 93% of those guys use our laser. So that, you know, that’s a nice compliment to us.

If you look at, you know, Stone World Magazine, 11 out of the last 12 fabricators of the years identified by their magazine also use our laser. You know, again, we’re extremely proud of that. So there’s some small sub-segments of the overall market where we do really well, and that’s what we take pride in too.

Patrick: So for the small percentage who don’t yet use your tool compared to one of the others, or who obviously a much bigger percentage who hasn’t yet made the switch to digital fabrication, just back up and cover the basics a little bit. How does a laser work? How do you use a laser tool to measure a kitchen?

Rich: Sure, sure. That’s an easy one, I live and breathe that every day. So, you know, there’s some major differences between the old sticks and glue methods, you know, in how we do it. But basically, the templater will come into the kitchen the same way as always. Takes them about a minute or so to, you know, undo a tripod, throw the laser on top of it, boot up, you know, we supply a Microsoft Surface Tablet as part of our solution, boot that up, get that ready. And then it’s just incredibly simple, Patrick.

All they do is they shoot a couple of points on each of the cabinet faces and then shoot a bunch of data on the walls to get the walls described, you know, so you can get as much detail on the drywall, on the mud impact in the corners. And really what they’re doing is they’re just collecting data points, angles, dimensions, and it takes about five minutes. It’s really, really quick. Now, the majority of our users will then take that data, you know, just picture a bunch of points out there, and they’ll use our software which is incredibly easy to use. I’m sorry, I’m starting to sound a little bit too much like a commercial.

Patrick: That’s okay.

Rich: Let me stick to the facts. So then the next step of the process is to take the data points and connect everything. So we’ve built a very simple to use CAD program, and people make fun of us and call it CAD for dummies. But we wanted to make it very, very user-friendly so they can connect those dots and basically build the countertop right there on site. If they, you know, if they wanna drop in a sink, we provide sink files for them to do that. If they wanna add a backsplash, if they wanna add different radii on the corners, all of that is in basic English plus 13 other languages for them to manipulate the data points that they just took.

What the majority of our folks will do is they’ll take it to that point, which ends up taking in a normal, L-sized, L-shaped kitchen maybe 15 to 20 minutes, they’ll do all of that and they’ll simply email that DXF file, that CAD file, back to the shop. Now the shop can start fabricating and the templater now can just move on to his next job. So, you know, in a normal kitchen, it takes about 20 minutes or so to collect and manipulate the data so that someone back in the shop can start fabricating.

Patrick: Nice. And the only change I would make to that, at risk of sounding like a commercial myself, is that instead of emailing that, if you’re using Job Tracker, you should upload it right on the job. And…which you can do. Your Surface Tablet is connected to the internet, right?

Rich: Absolutely. And you beat me to it. I was gonna plug that for you.

Patrick: All right. So it’s okay to be a little of a commercial here because people do obviously wanna know the differences. So you’re not the only laser tool in the market. What’s different about you from the other laser tools? Why Laser Products specifically?

Rich: Sure, sure. Well, let’s just say digital templating instead of laser tools because then we can, you know, kind of include Proliner into the market.

Patrick: Fair enough.

Rich: You know, Proliner’s the next biggest competitor in our space. They’ve been around for a long time, great product, but just has some limitations, right? You’re connected with a string, so you have to be able to reach where you’re going. The, you know, the software side…again, I don’t wanna bash anybody. Let me flip it the other way. Our use of the Microsoft Surface Tablet with Windows allows for moving data and manipulating data a little bit easier than their system does. Yeah, we’re basically open source. Like you said, if you wanna bring up Job Tracker, you know, right there, you’re doing it from the tablet. If you want CounterGo or Job Tracker to load data into our software, same process. It brings it right into the software so that you’ve got all the customer notes and everything.

So Proline, a good system, a little different than ours. You know, the other competitor out there uses a red laser from Europe and they’ve written some software for it. Not a horrible solution. There are some things we don’t care for with, you know, with like the laser that they’re using. Again, one of the advantages of our system is it’s manufactured by us, right here outside of Chicago. So if anything ever goes wrong, if it gets run over by a car, you name it, just send the laser back to us. We can take it apart, we can fix what needs to be fixed, and get right back into your hands. You know, so we view that as kind of a big advantage of our system.

Another one too is–and we had this on our website, it’s a little bit hard to visualize–the ability to collect data. You know, can you measure straight down? Can you measure at a hard angle close up? Our laser, the way we’ve built it allows for almost unlimited acquisition of data points. You don’t have to move things around to collect data. And that’s important when you’re inside a tub, when you’re doing a full height backsplash, there’s just a lot of instances where having that greater vision helps out.

Patrick: Interesting. And kind of similar to you, we have a pretty high percentage of market share, we believe as well. And we also know that our biggest competitor isn’t another company, it’s a whiteboard and paper file folders. So similarly, I assume you said, you know, the glue and stick method or whatever you called it is probably still your biggest competitor. So to people who aren’t using digital fabrication at all, or digital templating at all, what would you say to encourage them to at least investigate the switch? What are they going to experience as the primary business or craftmanship advantage of moving to some sort of digital templating tool?

Rich: Sure. No, that is a great question. And you’re right. That is our biggest competitor. When we talk to 80% market share, right, that’s just 50% of the market because there’s still 50% that hasn’t converted. You know, so it sounds great, you know, but that’s what makes us comfortable that we still have a lot of growing to do here.

Patrick: Exactly.

Rich: You know, from a customer perspective, I mean, this is one of the things that amazed me when I came into the industry is the normal method for templating a countertop is the guy has to come in and physically take off the old countertop, disconnect the sink, do all the measurements, then they basically leave the family in the lurch, right? For the two weeks it might take to select the stone, fabricate it, install it, they’re eating at McDonalds every day because their kitchen’s been taken apart.

With digital templating, you can go in and literally the coffee maker can be on the counter, you don’t touch anything. So it’s very un-intrusive to collect the data that they need. So, you know, we love that as a nice customer friendly feature, you know, large value and basically we’ve, you know, we’ve captured a lot of this in ROI calculations. You know, templating an entire kitchen I mentioned in 20 minutes. You know, if you are gluing wood together and taking countertops off, I mean, you can imagine that could be an hour and a half to two-hour job. So there’s a median efficiency gain by templating digitally and moving on to the next job and emailing or uploading the file into Job Tracker instead of collecting templates all day long. And at, you know, five o’clock in the evening, you carry four templates back to the shop and they can start doing the fabrication. With us, it’s a constant flow of data.

And then from the installation perspective, you know, with the laser, with digital templating, I mean, you’re at a 16th of an inch, you’re highly accurate. So your installations fit like a glove, they just snug right in. And so there really is a large savings of installation time. Where maybe an hour was built in in the past to, you know, do a little shaving in the front yard or do a little drywall digging. With our solution, I mean with all digital templating solutions, man, it just fits.

And in general, you know, we see an installation crew being able to go from two a day to three a day. You know, that’s a 50% increase. So as our customers are growing, you know, and their phones won’t stop ringing with how busy they are, the ability to spend a little bit of money on digital templating and automatically increase their efficiency, both in templating and installation, is a huge benefit for them.

Patrick: Awesome, and that’s the positive direction, let’s go to the other direction as well. So let’s say I do make the move and I start, you know, I move from manual to digital measurement. What are some of the challenges I might face? What have you seen that people struggle with a little bit until they get to speed?

Rich: Sure, sure. And you know, and it’s changed, right? I mean, if you’ve been doing something for years and it’s gotten where you are today, and you’re proud of the fact, you know, that, “I built this and this is the way we do things,” you know, when you’re gonna do something that’s so radically different, right? You can imagine gluing sticks together versus setting up a laser, you know, there’s a concern that aww, this isn’t gonna work. And so we’ve identified that and we’ve acknowledged that that is the biggest concern, because it’s really not that expensive of an issue. So price and cost really aren’t a big push back for us. It really is that their concerned that their guys, their templaters, just aren’t gonna be able to get it.

And so we’ve done kind of two things to help with that, you know. One is, again, the software has evolved for 20 years that we’ve been using it. So when the customer says, “Gosh, I don’t understand what this is,” or, “When I do it I do it in this order.” So we’ve really evolved the software to make it as absolutely user-friendly as we can. But more importantly even to that, is when we sell a system to a fabricator, we literally go to on job sites with them, we visit their shops, we won’t leave training you until you kick us out. We’ve got extensive check-list and sign-offs. We’ll do different kinds of jobs with you, but we know it has to be done on site.

You can’t, you know, go to a training facility that has a couple of things set up and then say, “I’m ready to use this every day.” And so we love going out with our fabricators and helping them. And, you know, for the first couple of times, generally they’ll still be doing it their own old way. You know, we’ll be working with them using the laser, and then after a couple of trips they’ll, you know, they’ll abandon the old method and just kind of transition in.

Patrick: Nice. And, you know, looking at your website, I noticed that you have…or at least you used to have, a 3D version and a 2D version. Can you explain to me what the difference is between those and why I might want one versus the other?

Rich: Sure, sure. Well, you can only the 3D these days…

Patrick: That’s kind of what I thought. Yeah, so I guess you kinda made the decision.

Rich: …and the 2D laser just won’t die so there’s thousands of them out there and they’re just running great. The 3D has a couple of distinct advantages, I mean, we’ve taken the battery life from 20 hours to 60 hours. So, you know, basically what we wanted to build into the new version was at the end of the week, Friday afternoon, plug it in and it’s ready for you Monday morning. You know, so that was a nice advantage. It’s a little bit quicker. The 2D you had to crank on the handle so it’s a lot more user-friendly as far as collecting the data.

And then probably the biggest difference is the 2D was built just to measure a countertop. And as our customers got into doing new and different things, they needed the ability to capture data on different planes. You know, so if they’re doing an outdoor patio, and they wanna clad a wall, or they’re doing a fireplace, the ability to easily…tub surrounds is another good example of how the 3D version is just much easier to use than the 2D version. We built the 2D so that you could do it, but it might take you three or four times longer than with the 3D version.

Patrick: Nice. And what’s next? I mean, so you moved on from 2D to 3D, is there a 4D? I mean, that’s violating the laws of physics. More realistically, are there other problems that you want to solve for fabricators that you haven’t gotten to yet?

Rich: Oh, perfect. That’s a great question. So our continued growth strategy is really kind of two-fold. So we’re taking what we’ve learned here in the stone industry and we’re porting it over to other industry segments. So in July, we recently launched into the cabinet world. And we’ve rebuilt…we have a brand-new software package that is focused on the cabinet guys. You know, obviously it’s gotta be 3D instead of 2D. What’s great with our current stone software is as you’re capturing the data, I mean, if you’re not using Job Tracker, you can literally export the CAD files right into the CNC machines. If they’re networked and they have their own email address, we can zap it right in, and the operator can start sending the tool path, can do what they need to do with no in-between.

In the cabinet world, there’s companies, Cabinet Vision, 20/20, 3D rendering guys that almost always sit between the measurements and the CNC saws. So, you know, with our wood launch, we had to figure out how to play and how to interact with those guys. So, you know, kinda back to your original question, you know, we’ve got some growth plans around taking what we’ve learned and what we’re good at in stone, going to cabinets, going to glass, going to contractors outside of those two industries as a way to kind of export things horizontally.

Now, more importantly for our guys who are in the stone world, we’ve got about three or four new products in different phases that we are extremely excited about. And I’m just…I can’t talk too much about it right now until they’re a little further, you know how that goes.

Patrick: We know how that goes. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rich: But I can tell you they’re all centered obviously around digital, right? We’re not gonna go, you know, build some new, you know, CNC drill bits or anything. They’re all built around digital and what customers need to do and use digital information better. And what we love, and you identified it right out of the gate, we’ve got this incredibly powerful tool, the Microsoft Surface Tablet, that is now in the customer’s house. And we wanna make sure that our fabricators are using that to the best of its ability.

Just like you said, let’s get the job scheduled right there. Let’s tap into Job Tracker and see when we can get this thing installed. Let’s…run Slabsmith right there and see, you know, the best place for the, you know, for the seams. So there are some, you know, some back-end software packages that we now wanna leverage because we’re sitting there in front of a customer with a tablet in our hands.

Patrick: So I know you can’t talk about upcoming products, but I noticed a press release a while back that you hired a new developer. And I believe I have spoken with him on the phone. So I do know that you are investing in software, so that’s good to hear.

Rich: We’ve also hired a junior developer under him. So we went from zero to two in like six months. So we are absolutely committed, you know, to new world-class software.

Patrick: Very good. And so the cabinet software that you were talking about, we have a few, you know, a healthy percentage of customers who do both cabinets and countertops. For existing customers using countertops, using your tool to do countertops, what would they need to do to get that new software? Are they gonna get it automatically, do they have to pay extra for it? If they have the 3D tool already, is it an add-on, or how would they get up to speed using both? Do they need new hardware?

Rich: Perfect. Yeah, a great question. So the software’s the same…oh, I’m sorry, the hardware is the same. You know, the same laser, no modifications to that…

Patrick: As long as it’s free.

Rich: …it’s just a different software package.

Patrick: Right, okay. Nice.

Rich: It’s a cost associated with it. It’s not a lot. And really with the cost, you know, again all the training is included. And if you’re going to a 3D software package and now you’re doing your cabinet work, you’ve always done stone and now you’re dabbling in cabinets and you’re out in homes with that, we want to come out and train you on how to use the 3D software. You know, so for that software price, you’re also getting full training associated with it too.

Patrick: Nice. So what do you think is next for the industry as a whole? For the stone industry especially? Do you…have you seen any changes or trends coming around the corner?

Rich: You mentioned it, you know, the consolidation of stone and cabinets. We see…

Patrick: Really?

Rich: …I think literally every day. We were out at this wood show in July and there’s not as many cabinet guys going to stone, but we’ve seen more and more stone guys going to cabinets.

Patrick: Interesting.

Rich: And, you know, there’s certainly some commonalities with, you know, well for one thing, our stone guys have to wait for the darn cabinet guys to put the cabinets in before they can go, right? And so I know there’s a degree of frustration where, you know, maybe something was moved and it wasn’t re-laid back, right? And so the ability to control both of those installations is attractive. And, you know, the CNC companies, there’s a lot of crossover there. Northwood, you know, is a big player in the wood CNC industry, you know, Biesse, who owns Intermac, they’re a big player over there too.

So there’s a lot of…you know, there’s just a lot of efficiencies in doing both, you know, especially from a workforce. If you can, you know, set up tool paths on a stone CNC, you’re probably gonna be a pretty quick learn on doing, you know, some cabinet facings on, you know, a cabinet CNC.

Patrick: Interesting. So one other…when you were talking, it made me wonder. Are there any markets where freelance templaters are growing? Or is that just kind of a niche thing? I’ve talked to a few people who don’t actually produce the stone but they, you know, got involved somehow in the stone industry and became good templaters. And then they made that their business, and ultimately their customers are the actual fabricators. Or sometimes, you know, they work with homeowners directly and then sub out the fabrication, sometimes go in that direction. Is that an identifiable segment for you or is that just kind of too niche to really even notice?

Rich: No, that’s a great observation by you. We’ve…some of our largest customers are templaters only, and they will template for stone, they will template for cabinets too. I mean, they’ll go in and they’ll do multiple types of templating. And like I said, if I look at our top 10 largest customers, I know at least 2 of them are templating services. And we are seeing that trend grow a little bit. It’s not rapidly growing, but we are seeing more and more of those guys out there.

Patrick: That’s interesting. Yeah, I just…that seems like something that would be interesting for someone to break into the market instead of just making…instead of making the cabinets themselves, focusing on the part in the customer home is so critical. And as I said, I do know…I think it was Ted Sherrit from FlowForm, I think I interviewed him on the show a while back, and he said they cover an enormous geography. Part of the reason they were able to do that is some of the more remote areas were covered by that kind of freelancer. So I’m just curious if that grows?

Rich: Yeah. No, right. And that’s exactly kind of the satellite offices where they, you know, they push that responsibility out to templaters. We’ve also seen…and I don’t know if it’s a trend. But we’re seeing guys moving stone, fabricated stone further and further away from their fabrication facility, right? So it used to just be local, you know, drive a couple of hours, we’re seeing some of the larger companies gaining economies of scale so that they could open up an office, you know, two hours away, four hours away, and still be able to deliver that fabricated stone out there more efficiently than a local guy doing it.

And so, again, I think that comes to, you know, the digitalization of our industry, you know, some of the normal trends that we kind of saw coming out of 2008 were unfortunately, you know, some of the mom and pops went away, the industry started to consolidate. But we’re absolutely seeing, you know, I don’t know if I call them super regional players, but we’re absolutely seeing a handful of regional guys that are running the fab from maybe just two places. And they’re servicing five or six states. It’s really interesting.

Patrick: Yeah. And I think digital is key to that because it saves you a trip. You really only have to drag that heavy material, the counters themselves, to the customer for once. And the templater doesn’t always have to bring…doesn’t have to bring something physical back to the shop because they’re uploading it. So that obviously having essentially only one trip from the fabricator to the home instead of having to have two, because the templater doesn’t have to go there, that’s critical.

Rich: Absolutely. Yup, I mean, that absolutely adds to the ROI on that.

Patrick: Yeah, so before we wrap, first of all, do you have any questions for me? Anything you wanna know about Moraware? And, again, you guys have built an integration to our software which is cool, and I hope that gets better and better over time because we have a whole lot of mutual customers. Is there any questions about us that you have? Or…

Rich: No, I’m just extremely happy with you guys. I mean, was it Chase who was out here a couple of weeks ago? We had this great brainstorming session that really kind of focused on what I mentioned, “Hey, we’ve got this tool in the house, what can we do with it?” And, you know, he had some great ideas, you know, it was all kind of two years to five year out.

You know, we just kind of had, just a great conversation. Because we both know the industry so well, we kind of know it from different places. But when you put that together and you start brainstorming about how we can just make our fabricators lives easier and more efficient, some really cool ideas come out of that. And so I really enjoyed that and I’m energized and, you know, just basically wanting to work even more closely with you guys than we’ve had in the past.

Patrick: Great to hear. I can’t resist a joke since you mentioned it that way. I heard a brilliant speaker once talk about solar energy being two to five years away. The problem, it has been for 50 years. So obviously we hope it’s not one of those situations. But that’s part of the reason we don’t announce dates related to something we’re working on because you just never know with software.

Rich: You know, it’s funny. I learned my lesson, we had a product announcement miss last January at StonExpo. And so I’ve learned my lesson on that one here too. So that’s why we just say we’ve got a lot of things in development.

Patrick: We can only sell the product we have today. So…

Rich: Right, right, right.

Patrick: …let me segue to my last question. You mentioned StonExpo. Let’s say I’m a fabricator listening to this who hasn’t yet made the switch to digital, and I know, “Okay, I gotta check this out.” What is the best way for me to do that? Should I just give you a call? Should I go to StonExpo and see your booth there and the booths of your competitors? Or is there some other way to investigate digital templating other than those obvious alternatives?

Rich: Yeah. No, we got eight people outside selling the product that are Laser Product employees for us. So if you’re…pick a state. If you’re in West Virginia, we’re gonna be there in the next couple of weeks either traveling through it or in it. So if you go to our website, you know, there’s a nice territories map, find your state, there’s cell phone numbers of all the salesmen in that area, or you can call our main number, whatever you prefer. And just show, say, “Hey come give me a demo.” And I can, I don’t wanna say guarantee but in 90+% of the cases, you know, within three weeks we can sit down, talk to you, we always have lasers with us, we can shoot some things in your showroom. If you wanna go to a customer’s site we’ll do that.

I would take advantage of that. I mean, that’s what we’ve built. But, you know, if it’s right around expo time, say it’s mid-December, and you wanna come visit us at expo, we always have a large booth. We’ll have four stations set up there. They can run through demos of what everything looks like, if that’s, you know, the preferred method. Either one works fine but we certainly don’t mind coming out and visiting.

Patrick: Awesome. And that’s laserproductsus.com, if we’re looking for your website, right?

Rich: I keep trying to buy laser products and they won’t sell it to me.

Patrick: But laserproductus.com will get you there, so.

Rich: Absolutely, yeah.

Patrick: So go check them out. Rich, it was wonderful talking with you, I hope to talk to you again, perhaps in person at StonExpo. But thank you for your time.

Rich: Absolutely. Thanks for the call, Patrick.

Patrick: Take care, Rich.

Rich: Bye-bye.

Patrick: Thanks for listening to StoneTalk, the podcast for countertop fabricators. If you liked this episode, be sure to visit stonetalk.org or subscribe to StoneTalk in iTunes for more. Visit the StoneTalk Show Facebook page to join in the conversation, and follow @stonetalkshow on Twitter.

StoneTalk is brought to you by Moraware, makers of Systemize scheduling software and CounterGo estimating software for countertop fabricators. I’m your host, Patrick Foley, and I look forward to spending time with you again on the next episode of StoneTalk.