Stone Specialties Inc., Mobile, Ala.

“Right before Katrina,” he says, “we just finished a $7 million home in Pascagoula, Miss. Within that $7 million, the owners put $400,000 into hurricane-proofing the house.
“After Katrina,” says Lott, “there was nothing left but the steps.”
Lott and his company can’t replace a whole house after a natural disaster like Katrina – but Stone Specialties is certainly doing its bit in providing granite countertops for new construction and remodels, as well as working on commercial projects and fireplaces. With a service area along the Gulf Coast that goes as far west as New Orleans, there are plenty of projects.
“With the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there’s a high demand for construction,” he says.
Lott is a young man – 30-or-so-years-old – with not only the sobering Katrina fallout under his belt, but also a solid dozen-plus years spent in the stone industry. Stone Specialties Inc. is a 25-employee business and Lott has spent his entire young adult life coming to know, love and work in the stone industry.
“I’ve been in the business for 13 years,” he says, “and I’ve been an owner of this shop since 2004. We took over from another guy who owned it; I first worked for that owner in 1993. He was ready to retire, so he called me to see if I was interested in purchasing it from him.
“The way I was first introduced to the industry was back when I was getting out of high school,” says Lott. “My mother worked with a lady whose husband was in the business. I came in as a clean-up guy; I swept, moved materials, and cleaned up areas.
“A couple of guys started showing me a few things and I picked up on it quickly and started fabricating and fell in love with the business. I fell in love with turning a slab of stone into something beautiful.”
And Lott’s seen a few changes in those dozen or so years since he began as a teenager working as a clean-up guy.
“When I started, the technology was not as advanced,” he says. “So I learned how to do everything the old-fashioned way – the tools were very limited, it called for a lot of elbow grease, a lot of hours. And it was mostly marble back then. Granite was not as well known because the technology wasn’t around to produce granite.
“I got started doing everything by hand,” he adds, “learning it all the old way. The good thing was that I then moved on to work at a high-volume shop. There, I learned how to do things with production in mind, with high volume in mind.
“So, I had the best of both worlds: the newer, more modern ways plus knowing old ways.”
Yet all that education and opportunity couldn’t squelch Lott’s desire to become a businessman, to have his own shop.
“I’d always wanted to be my own boss,” he says. “Once I decided that this was going to be my career, I began talking to other guys who started young and went on to opening their own businesses. When the opportunity fell into my lap, I jumped on it.
“And I have no regrets at all. I don’t think I could ever go back to working for someone.”
Lott has watched, in his 13 years in the business, how stone fabrication moved into the mainstream. Where once specialty kitchens, bathrooms and fireplaces were the hallmarks of the upper middle class or wealthy, Lott says his customers are, today, the Everyday Joes – those living in much more modest homes than his clients of the early 1990s.
“The business has changed so much from back then to now,” says Lott. “The price has gone down so much. When I first started working in this industry, we worked on $4 million dollar homes—and those were $4 million homes way back when.
“Now, stone fabrication is routinely done in the $200,000 home. The amount of work we do has increased because of the cost going down. It’s more available to the average homeowner.”
Homeowners comprise some of Stone Specialties Inc.’s clientele, as does the real-estate industry as a whole.
“We have a lot of walk-ins doing remodels,” says Lott, “and a lot of builders. Forty percent of our business comes from builders and developers.
“And, most of the work we get is business generated by word-of-mouth. That is, by far, the best advertising you can get. As long as you make a good product and show a lot of customer service, you end up with a lot of goodwill—and therefore a lot of good business.”
Lott also recognizes that his 2007 customers look nothing like the typical 1993 clients. People who come to him with visions of a kitchen rebuild in their eyes come armed and knowledgeable.
“Customers are more-aware; they know more than ever,” says Lott. “The Internet has changed the customer’s knowledge-base like no other tool. They come in already knowing, for example, that the look of the stone changes from week to week, that it can look totally different than what it looked like two years ago.
“Furthermore,” adds Lott, “today’s end-user really cares and knows a lot about stone. It makes our job so much easier because you don’t need to educate them. They know that it’s a product of nature and that it has variances and different characteristics – they fully understand what they are getting.
“That’s due in large part to the Internet and information available out there. By the time my customer walks through the door, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they’re looking for.
“Our job, then,” he notes, “is making sure we meet all of their expectations.”
Stone Specialties, Inc. is not yet doing much commercial work, but Lott says that he hopes to change that in the future.
“We don’t, for example, work on the condominium projects at the beach – our whole operation would have to be dedicated to that,” he says. “When we do a commercial project, it is usually small. For now, we stay on the residential side.
“But, hopefully, that will change in the near future. The building we have now is great, and the layout is perfect. We have it the way we want it. But we don’t have any land, and we want to expand and start importing our own material – but we can’t do that because we just don’t have the space.
“That’s one more step we need to take, in order to offer a better price and have more control of the material we house. We’re planning to move our facilities into a bigger place, and we will then start up a commercial division. We’re looking for a November or December 2007 move. We have Realtors® working on it.”
In the meantime, Lott focuses on his current shop set-up, his hand-picked support team and an upgrade in equipment.
“We have 10,000 ft²,” he says. “About 8,000 ft² is warehouse, and 2,000 ft² is office and showroom.
“And we’re very lucky to have our employees,” he adds. “We have12 fabricators, four installers, some splash guys, and a couple of sales and administrative people.”
And, he has a full range of equipment, including a bridge saw from Superior Stone Equipment and a Marmo Meccanica S.p.a. edger.
“In 2006, we had a Superior bridge saw installed,” he says. “The technology is well-advanced from the saw we previously had when we bought the business. It is so much easier to operate and work on. It’s a very simple design that really works and functions well, and is very user-friendly.”
And Lott adds that a well-functioning stone-fabrication business is built, at its core, on those employees he depends upon for continued success.
“It’s extremely important to have the right people working for you,” he says. “The employees can really bring you down or really make a difference in your shop.
“It’s about treating the employees the right way. We want our people to feel like they have ownership in the business. It’s a trade they’re learning and they can take that trade anywhere and find work.
“Always treat employees right and make them feel appreciated,” he emphasizes. “And they’ll do the best job they can for you.”
Meanwhile, Lott and his staff continue to fabricate and help to rebuild the Gulf Coast—natural disasters and all, with a reach east to Pensacola, Fla., and as far north as Jackson, Ala..
“I don’t think we’ll geographically expand,” he says. “We’re about 290 miles from New Orleans, and with the hurricane rebuild, that’s enough. That’s about the limit we want to go … and trust me, that’s plenty.”
Cathie Beck is a freelance writer based in the Denver area. She recently completed a memoir, Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship.

This article first apppeared in the May 2007 print edition of Stone Business. ©2007 Western Business Media.