Stephen Alberts

Countertop Marketing Co.

The market is rough right now! Let’s not sugarcoat it. Around summer 2023 we saw a slowdown for a lot of shops (we work with 50+). Some weeks were busy, and then some were not. The covid rush of jobs that lasted years is over and now we are back to the ups and downs in the market. The economy doesn’t help and also more shops are advertising so that doesn’t help you either! You need to focus and start working on all of the strategies we are going to talk about below. 

To Do List


1. More Project Pictures

We tell this to the shops we work with all the time. You need to get consistent project pictures from customers. Whether that means having your installers take them right after the job, getting a photographer to get some, or having the customer send them. You NEED more! I know what you are thinking:

  • The project isn’t done when my installers are done, so the pictures won’t look great.

  • I don’t want to hire a photographer (or not sure how to).

  • Getting the customer to send us pictures is not easy, or they take bad pictures. 

This is all very true! But in the end, it doesn’t matter how you get them – you need them. And I’ll explain why. 

The most visited pages on your website will be your homepage, your granite and quartz page, your project page, and your FAQ page. People spend a good amount of time looking at pictures on your website and that will have a huge impact on when they decide to use you or not. 

Plus this is great social media content and you can use it anywhere online to promote your shop more. 


2. Run Paid Ads

The covid rush is over and the economy isn’t the best. Plus competitor shops are starting to advertise. If you don’t do any online marketing you will be left in the dust eventually. You need to either learn Google and Facebook ads or hire a solid company to help you with this. An advertising budget is part of the business. Our advertising budget is 5% of gross revenue. You can allocate more or less than that but it should be something.

Between paying someone to help them and an ad budget, most shops spend around $3000-$6000/mo. If your shop is generating 1 million a year in revenue, that’s about right in the ballpark of a 5% ad budget. 


3. Foot Traffic for the Win!

We work with 50+ shops and almost all of them can close walk-in foot traffic to their showroom well. Some of them can close this at a rate of 70-90%. If you are in the same boat, get more of it! 

How you do that is with Google and Facebook ads. Both work really well to help increase this traffic. So not only will you get some online leads, but you will get people walking into your showroom more. The problem we see with this traffic is that it’s hard to track. What we recommend is that you ask every person who walks in where they came from. Alway ask these questions:


How did you hear about us?

  • Google

  • Yahoo

  • Bing

  • Facebook

  • Instagram

  • Friend or Family

  • Builder / Contractor / Designer

  • Sign / Truck / Employee

You probably use a pen and paper to get this information. I suggest using an online form so that you can keep better track of this traffic. Remember if you can close this traffic at a high rate, treat it like GOLD!


Google Reviews4. More Reviews on Google

I have said a million times that shops need more reviews. We do trainings on this and have written many articles about it. Google reviews aren’t easy to get, but if you do it consistently you will see slow growth with your Google Maps profile and that will turn into more jobs. 

Put together a process. It doesn’t have to be super involved. What works best is a week after the job is complete, have someone call that customer. If they are happy, right on that call ask them for a review. Then use a tool (our tool can do this) to send them a request as an email or SMS message. You will see a great conversion rate from asking for reviews and converting them into actual reviews. 

At the end of the day, you need to be consistent with this and if you are, it will yield a handful of reviews each month. And that’s all you need. After a year you’ll have 40-60 new reviews on your profile and that will bring in revenue. 


5. Use a System for Following Up

I talk with many shops each week and about 95% of the time they are not using anything to follow up with new leads which is always crazy to me! New leads need constant follow-ups. People are busy and they probably forgot that they contacted you! This simple tip alone will bring in more revenue. 

If a new lead comes in, you call them right away. Then you also put them into a system where the system follows up with them through email and text. Our system STONE ENGAGE is fantastic with this but there are others out there like Pipedrive and Hubspot. 


You are missing out on revenue by not using one of these CRM systems. It will keep your shop organized and close more business. 

If you focus on each of these this year you will see more business and revenue. With the slowed-down economy, you must start doing this asap and work on it each week. You will see results if you are consistent. 


Stephen Alberts is the owner of the Countertop Marketing Co and STONE ENGAGE. They specialize in helping countertop companies grow the retail side of their business outside of word-of-mouth and referrals. They also offer software to help you engage more with customers and close more countertop projects. To learn more visit countertopmarketingco.com or stonengage.com .
You can also email Stephen at steve@countertopmarketingco.com.