Fabricator Forum Breakout Session

In this recorded session, a panel of fabricators shares insight on the challenges and innovations facing the fabrication market, with a focus on technical, business administration, and marketing.

Hard Surface Industry Town Hall

This session explores the challenges and opportunities that currently exist in the hard surface industry. Prior to COVID-19, industry leaders had identified several key objectives that needed to be addressed in order to continue to grow and develop the market for hard surface products, including tile, natural stone, and wood flooring.  Examples include addressing marketing campaigns from competitive products, a lack of trained and qualified labor market, and recruitment pathways to bring more people into the industry. COVID-19 created new challenges for our industry, but many of the issues facing us before the pandemic remain. 

Managing a Family Business

What makes a family business successful? Learn from a panel of three stone professionals as they share their experiences and explore best practices for handling the unique dynamics and challenges that come with managing a family business.

State of the Stone Industry

What is the current state of the natural stone industry?  Learn first-hand how industry leaders and peers are addressing matters ranging from government regulation, competing product challenges, and forecasting market growth. 

Women in Stone Legacy Series: Featuring Barbara Cohen

The Women in Stone Legacy Series will explore and celebrate the successful careers of influential women in the natural stone industry. We hope that their stories will inspire future generations of women leaders to pursue their dreams. By learning from their challenges and triumphs, future industry leaders will be motivated to succeed and help our industry thrive.

On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at Coverings we honored Barbara Cohen, third-generation owner and President of Miller Druck Specialty Contracting and the first female recipient of the Migliore Award for Lifetime Achievement. In this video recording, we hear directly from Barbara about her storied career in the industry and learn how she has paved her way over her 40+ career in a male-dominated industry.

Building Your Fabrication Production Process: Creating Measurements that Ensure Efficiency and Growth

Do you know your company’s production process?  This course will discuss how to itemize your production process and delineating measurements that produce an accurate report of your company’s efficiency.  Come away with a plan for mapping your production stages, finding bottlenecks and creating efficiencies that will mitigate pain points and backups.

Estimating for Profitability

How does your company estimate a project? Are you estimating to ensure profitability?  This session covers the basics of estimating, including factors that impact a project estimate and how to create estimates based on actual project costs. During this session, we will also review project-specific risks that are often overlooked.  Come away with a list of items you should always consider when estimating a project.

Perspectives in Benchmarking: Using Metrics to Drive Growth

One of the most important aspects of running a successful business is understanding what metrics are important to measure and how to measure your company against competition. This session will define business benchmarking and discuss what metrics should be measured to ensure a company’s success. The session will also discuss resources for finding industry benchmarks so a company can better measure their metrics against others in the industry.

Building Your Shop Through Automation and Digital Software

Join the Natural Stone Institute and Stone World Magazine as we discuss building your shop through automation. Learn how to investigate products that are new to your process, including tooling equipment and digital software. Learn how to develop focused questions that will help you ensure the product or machine you review will perform as anticipated and provide the expected results.

Building Efficiency in Your Fabrication Facility

This session covers ways to build efficiency in your fabrication facility by finding and fixing bottlenecks in your operations. Learn how to determine when and where to augment your facility with automation. At the end of this course, you will have a plan to increase productivity through more efficient operations.

Stone Sales I: Basic Sales and Marketing Measurements

This session is an introduction to sales techniques and measurements in the stone industry. Join us as we discuss demographic analysis, creating measurements, and using the data to increase sales.  Come away from the session with a plan to create a measurable sales process.

A Breakout Discussion on Selling Natural Stone

Are you a salesperson in the natural stone industry? Join this interactive discussion on selling stone to discuss common challenges in this field with your peers. Learn best practices from leaders in your field, ask questions, and share your own experiences on topics such as acquiring leads, sampling, product knowledge, understanding customer needs, dispelling online myths, and naming consistency.

Templating Complex Projects

Customers are asking fabricators to take on more unique challenges.  Whether customers are asking for stealth desks, staircases, or curved surfaces, fabricators must find a way to template these projects in an efficient and accurate manner.  During the session, we will discuss what fabricators should consider when accepting complex jobs.  Learn about templating techniques that will ensure an accurate measurement and come away with a plan to reduce time on the jobsite and lower rework due to inaccuracy.  

Key Pulse Points for Building A Successful Stone Fabrication Business: Bring Order to the Chaos

Join the Natural Stone Institute and Stone World Magazine as we discuss key pulse points for building a successful business. Explore ways to build your team and create metrics to inspire success. Learn how to build a company infrastructure that will create future business growth.

Terminator Level I CNC Tool Operator Certification Pre-requisite

Course Description

This pre-requisite course is geared towards any fabricators interested in attending Terminator CNC Training Center’s Level I Tool Operator Certification.  Taking this course prior to attending the certification will allow the attendee to arrive with a better understanding of the most foundational concepts and basic classroom terminology.

Webinar- Basics of Water Recycling

This session will discuss the science and legality behind water recycling for fabrication facilities.  Learn about current regulatory issues affecting the stone industry and how best to meet those requirements.  This session will also discuss current methods of water recycling and how this can both help the environment and your bottom line.

Theories in Templating

Templating is the key to accurately measuring, fabricating, and pricing your product. This session will include a review of manual and automated templating processes and a discussion on the strengths of each. We will also discuss subcontracting options that might be available in your area. Come away from this session with a plan to improve your templating process while keeping cost low.

Vertical Templating- Assuring Accuracy for a Successful Installation

Accurate vertical templating is important to insure a successful installation of fireplaces, showers and other vertical applications.  Join us as we discuss how to perform a successful vertical template.  During this session, we will discuss tips and tricks to assure accurate measurements on vertical templates and how to identify uneven substrates.  Come away with checklists and and handouts on how to build a plan to assure successful measurement.

Selling Natural Stone: Building Your Company’s Sales Structure

Join the Natural Stone Institute and Stone World Magazine as we discuss creating a sales structure for your stone fabrication business. During the session, we will discuss the differences between residential, retail, and commercial sales and learn what safeguards should be in place when setting up your sales contracts. Come away with a plan to diversify your sales streams to ensure continued revenue.

Fabricator and Installer Roundtable: Sales & Promotion During a Crisis

How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way you connect with customers? Join a panel of countertop fabricators and installers as they share ideas and best practices for connecting virtually, implementing new policies, and meeting changing expectations. Learn how you can increase sales and find new ways to promote your company and connect with your customers both in person and virtually.

Natural Stone Distributor Roundtable: Sales & Promotion During a Crisis

How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way you connect with customers? Join a panel of natural stone slab and landscape distributors as they share ideas and best practices for connecting virtually, implementing new policies, and meeting changing expectations. Learn how you can increase sales and find new ways to promote your company and connect with your customers both in person and virtually.

Social Media Marketing: An Interactive Discussion for Stone Professionals

Are you a marketing professional in the natural stone industry? Join this interactive discussion on social media marketing for the stone industry. Learn best practices from leaders in your field, ask questions, and share your own experiences on topics such as sourcing photos, efficiency tools, topic identification, and platform best practices.

Adjusting Your Marketing Strategy in Times of Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we do business in the stone industry. This course will explain best practices for connecting with customers during times of crisis and creating a plan for connecting with customers during the coming months.

Remnants: A Pile of Opportunity

Is your stone yard filled with remnants from past jobs?  Join us as we discuss remnant management.  During this session, we will review how to reduce, recycle and reuse remnants.  Come away with tips on to repurpose salvageable pieces while reducing waste cost for unusable pieces. 

How to Be Resilient - The Power of Understanding People

Developing successful relationships is critical to having a successful personal and professional life. This session will show you how to establish and develop effective relationships by providing you with techniques to better identify and understand the intrinsic needs of others. Through storytelling and experiential exercises, author Dave Mitchell will help you gain insight into your own unique interaction style and teach you how to communicate, motivate, sell, and service more successfully no matter the personality types involved. We will discuss being resilient in today’s changing world by better handling the stress of peak performance and work/life balance. David will explain the behaviors that insulate us from being stressed out and how we can manifest them.

Women in Stone Discussion Panel

2020 has turned our worlds upside down. Working mothers have struggled, but many have found solutions and are thriving. Empathy and clear communication have never been more important in the business world, and women are needed in leadership roles. Find out how you can support Women in Stone’s mission to recruit, retain, and advance women in the natural stone industry.