our “Education Plan” gives him that much more time to master his craft. He’s used his 20 percent and found ways to make things easier, improve quality, and experiment before bringing what he’s learned into the showroom – so it’s just a really good fit for us that way.” There are other ways in which Kodiak Mountain Stone’s Education Plan fits the family and community culture of the business. “There are several books,” Heggie explains, “that we ask the whole team to read. Books like Good to Great by Jim Collins and How to Make Friends and Influ- ence People by Dale Carnegie are, we feel, universally beneficial. We recommend books like these to the whole team – to the folks in the Corporate Office in Cardston, to our sales reps in the two Alberta showrooms, to the factory workers in Utah – and then follow up with what we call our “Education Meetings” via conference call. It’s great to hear how these authors have had an impact and to get to know our employees as community members, wherever they call home. We’re a relatively small company so we know each other really well by now. Our Maintenance Manager down in Utah, for instance, performs magic shows with his son.” Heggie himself walks the talk and talks the walk with his employees. He volunteers as a basketball and football coach in his kids’ youth leagues in his hometown of Cardston. “Our communication within our company is great. We’re always talking back-and-forth and that goes a long way when you’re in sales – being able to call the factory and get ETAs and make specific inquiries to partic- ular people about our products. That’s huge.” “We’ve shipped product to Hawaii, Ohio, Georgia, Texas, California, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Alabama, Massachusetts, and in recent memory, to a customer in Guam. Guam is probably my most memorable online success. We’re very proud of our online presence.”
This is a huge payoff in an industry that is expected to provide a practically limitless line of products and cus- tomizations. “You know, things change, trends come and go and we’re always adapting to that. I think our educa- tive stance and open lines of communication help us do that,” Heggie says. “We also put a lot of effort into social media and we work with a local marketing company and it does pay off. We’re always looking for new reasons for people to come to our showrooms and our website.” As a company that Heggie describes as “still in a building stage,” Kodiak Mountain Stone is not wasting time coming from the ground up in their effort to stay ahead of local and regional competitors. “Selling rock over the internet – and not just manufactured stone, bricks, and acrylics; the natural stuff too – I think is quite an innovative thing,” he explains. “We’ve been able to implement on our website www.kodiakmountain.com something that I’ve dreamt of from day one. We call it the Kodiak Mountain Stone Visu- alizer. It allows the customer to upload a picture of their project – whether it’s a fireplace or an entire home – and with the click of a button change the stucco, paint, roof, or whatever they’d like. More importantly for us, it allows the customer to see what their project would look like with the addition of our stone in a variety of colours and styles. Helping the tech-driven client through personal service on our website has been big for us and will be a big part of our future because we don’t have national distributers yet.” While this may be true, Kodiak Mountain Stone is not without its clients beyond the reach of its Alberta showrooms. “In the last two months,” Heggie proudly summarizes, “we’ve shipped product to Hawaii, Ohio, Georgia, Texas, California, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Minne- sota, Alabama, Massachusetts, and in recent memory, to a customer in Guam. Guam is probably my most mem- orable online success. We’re very proud of our online presence.” Continuous growth, like continuing education, is always on Heggie’s mind: “We’re definitely in the growth phase again and we’re starting to see growth in the U.S. again.” A new showroom in Springville, Utah has sparked a flame at Kodiak Mountain Stone not seen since the recession and Heggie’s team is doing everything they can to fan the flame.
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JUNE 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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