Chapter 5: Decision Made – A New Career

As busy as he was, Al took the time to walk me through the entire process at Granite Giant. All we had in Courtenay was an office in a strip mall with a small showroom to feature the samples. What it lacked in elegance, it made up for in economy. Al was much more interested in taking his customers to see actual installations and meet the satisfied customers. He was that confident and the buying public responded to it.

I studied the economics of the business and I learned just why Al was so confident. I had some old estimates of granite installations from North Island that I had held onto and went over them with Al and his accountant/estimator, Rita McLeod. We took the estimates apart, piece by piece and I could see where Al had a competitive advantage. From the cost of the granite, to the finishing, to the de-installation of the old counters, through to the installation of the new, Al's costs were significantly lower.

"So, as you can see, Gerry," Rita said, "when we book referral business, we still have room to pay them a finder's fee and your reduced commission. That gives us an opportunity to expand our sales force without hiring anyone. Naturally, we still do all the measuring and templates. If we don't, then all guarantees are void. We have to have control of the accuracy from start to finish. This isn't like wood. We can't just shave an inch or two here or there if someone makes a mistake."

I nodded. "I'm impressed, Rita. I knew Al was thorough, but this puts all the responsibility for accuracy on us. My experience says that's the way to go."

"Yep. We do it and we do it right the first time," she grinned.

Rita McLeod was Marion's cousin. She had recently arrived from Edmonton after settling up her personal affairs. She was an attractive redhead, about mid-thirties and very confident in what she did. She had a degree in accounting and was a stickler for detail. I hoped I would find her easy to work with, and so far that seemed to be the case.

I was amazed at the amount of granite Al's suppliers carried. I didn't want to guess how much money was tied up in inventory. The raw material came from all over the world. Russia, Brazil, India, China, U.S.A., Canada ... every continent had the resource and the colour and pattern variation seemed almost limitless. It was hard to imagine you couldn't find a colour and pattern that would satisfy everyone.

Al had four suppliers and we visited them all. In each case, the granite was stored outside in huge slabs. The suppliers learned that the best place to view the product was in natural daylight. I had no idea there was this much material available just in the greater Vancouver area. There must be one hell of a lot of new and replacement countertops being sold.

I was walked through the finishing process from beginning to end. I wondered how long the bits on the drills and blades on the saws lasted. I watched a huge block of marble, at least a four foot cube, being cut by an automated saw. I was told it would take almost two days to complete one cut. Interestingly, this marble was quarried on the northern end of Vancouver Island. Another discovery for me.

By the second week, I had seen what I needed to see in the production of the granite from slab to countertop, backsplash, or other miscellaneous uses. It might have been boring for most people, but it wasn't to me. I was learning, and that was important. I needed to know all that I could if I was going to sell this product.

I learned that not all granite is equal. Some grades finish better than others. I was taken to see some installations of low grade granite and just by running my fingers over the surface, I could feel the imperfections. These were usually caused by "soft spots" in the material itself and little could be done to remove them after the fact. Al meticulously reviewed every single piece he bought for just those kinds of problems. He would settle for nothing less than the best, and his suppliers knew it.

The other part of the business was removing the old countertops in a renovation project prior to installing the new granite. That was more complex than I realized. Taking care not to damage the surrounding woodwork or walls was paramount. Al had hired older men with extensive carpentry skills to do that work. It paid off in less problems and better customer satisfaction.

Al had called on all the cabinet manufacturers in the district, trying to get them to recommend his product. That was going to take a little longer. He'd only been in the valley six months and was still thought of as a newcomer. Building a reputation was going to take longer than that. That's where I came in. I had twenty-two years of reputation behind me. I many cases, if I said they could trust a certain product, that was good enough. That's what I brought to the party.

By the end of week two, I felt I was ready to go out and do my new job. I didn't know everything, but I knew who did. Granite Giant wasn't limited by production capability. We had four suppliers to look after that. We could expand our sales dramatically without overtaxing them. What we needed was to make sure we had the ability to respond to opportunities with manpower. That made the de-installation and installation crews very important. That also meant that we needed an adequate sales force to take advantage of those opportunities.

The thing that struck me about Al was how hands-on he was. He didn't sit in the office waiting for things to happen. He had a list of jobs on the go and he was out visiting the jobsites, talking to the crews, chatting with the customers, making sure everything was going according to plan. He was at his suppliers every week, looking for just the right product. He also did whatever it took to keep his word. If he said he was going to do something, then he did everything possible to make it happen. Every once in a while, the unforeseen would delay a shipment. But it was so infrequent that he could reschedule work on the spot to make sure the customer wasn't disappointed.

When he wasn't on the jobsites, he was talking to other builders to see what they were doing. He patrolled the city halls in Comox, Courtenay, Cumberland and Campbell River for proposed new projects. He called on the local architects. All these contacts were ultimately going to be my responsibility, but Al had such a strong belief in his products and service that he couldn't resist telling anyone and everyone about them.

I suppose I knew almost immediately that I'd made a good decision to join Al and Granite Giant. I had a hunch from being with Al over the last six months that he was my kind of guy. Two weeks into my new job and I knew I was going to be content here.

"You look happy, Daddy," my daughter said one evening after I'd begun my new job.

I turned to her and smiled. "Yes," I nodded. "I am. I think I'm going to stay happy, too."

I always knew when Dionne was feeling good about us. She called me "Daddy" then. It was like a secret signal that she used to tell me how she felt.

She came and sat beside me on the sofa and I put my arm around her. We sat in quiet comfort for a few minutes before I spoke.

"Tell me about you and Rick, please," I said.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, looking a little wary.

"How do you feel about him? He's the first young man you've ever been ... serious about," I probed.

She looked at me for a moment or two, probably wondering where this conversation was going.

"I like him a lot, Dad. He's nice. At first, I just saw him as a big, handsome guy. But I hung around with him and we seemed to get along really great. He didn't put any pressure on me ... you know?"

"I remember you referring to him as 'hunky, ' when he first arrived," I chuckled.

"He is," she giggled. "But he's also serious sometimes. He thinks about what he'll be doing with his dad in the future. He likes working with him and he can see it's a good business."

"So, you two talk about that? The future?"

She nodded. "Yeah. We do," she admitted, turning to me and looking at me with a very serious expression. "Do you think I'm too young?" she asked.

"Too young for what? I married your mother when she was twenty and I had just barely turned twenty-one. You'll be twenty in a year. But it isn't about age, is it? It's about how you feel with someone. It is how much you know about that person and what he ... or she ... is likely to become as they age. There is no perfect formula for finding out, either. A lot of it is instinct and a lot of it is driven by emotion, and some of it is just luck."

"I have almost two years of school left," she said. "There's no rush for me. If Rick's the right guy, I should know by then."

"Smart thinking, my daughter. Your momma didn't raise no silly girl."

"You miss her, don't you," she said after another silence.

"Of course," I admitted. "Every minute I'm in this house. When I go to bed at night and when I get up in the morning. When I'm alone and when we are all ... you and Mike ... together. I miss her terribly."