Real Stories

I basically abandoned most of the old ways of production, mining, and manufacturing. After a fair amount of trial, error, and out of the box thinking, we were able to create a high-end product that we could consistently reproduce in many shapes, sizes, and finishes.

The process started with developing new technology for mining of the high-quality raw material. Better mining practices and efficiencies, right through refining the manufacturing process, led to the ability to deliver an extremely high level of finished product — and lots of it — consistently.

I believed that once people started to use this product, they would realize it was the highest quality available, high demand would surge, and the company would achieve a much higher level of success.

All you have to do is get it out there…

Sounds good, right? Not really… the problem of poor industry reputation remained — and was like a wall holding this company back.

I knew I had to come up with a solution because, without one, the company would flounder.

So what I did was rebrand the product. Using the name of the geologic period in which the material was formed, I changed the name of the product to something that no one had ever heard of. Then I changed the name of the company to match. The entire product line was then trademarked with a reference to everlasting natural beauty.

Suddenly we had a brand, and an industry product line all to ourselves.

The next step was to market this “new” product to the existing industry customer base as the best, new, most workable, beautiful and consistent product in the industry.

Getting in front of architectural firms was a challenge, so I had to come up with a strategy to get in the door. Through research, I learned that architects need 18 credits per year of continuing education, and it was possible to get a course certified through the American Institute of Architects.

I then drafted a 10-point course that would provide practical, industry-specific educational information about the process from mining to manufacturing, installation, and care of the product and submitted it to the AIA for approval.

The course and I both became certified by the AIA. Meetings, learning sessions and “lunch and learns” were set up with architectural firms, primarily firms with dozens of architects that were working on high-end projects.

As I taught this course, I would answer many questions, interacting, brainstorming, and talking about ideas — some industry-specific and some that had nothing to do with my company. It was these things as well as honesty, thinking openly and creatively, that allowed me to build trust and relationships with the architectural community.

The architects would learn about the industry and its processes, its materials, and inadvertently the new “rebranded” product– and therefore the company– through this course. Because the product was renamed, and so was the company—when the product was specified by architectural firms (which it was, to great success), there were no alternate suppliers as the name was unique to the company. That meant that when the contractors followed the specs for suppliers with no alternates, they had to go to us.

This marketing technique really put the company on the map, creating an amazing path for success, and it was the trust that helped seal the deal. The company went on to become known as the “Gold Standard,” having the highest quality product available, and developing long-term clients such as Apple, Harvard University, The Smithsonian Institute, Rutgers University, Colgate Palmolive, Yale University, Corning Glass, Princeton University, The Dakota Apartment Building NYC and many other institutions and historical Buildings in New York City and on the east coast.

To learn more about Robert’s process, Contact Robert at: https://robertbellospirito.com/contact/

I set out to learn as much as I could about the origin of the material, and how it was naturally formed. Through my discovery and field work, I developed a process, and a set of criteria for each step of the process.

Beginning with a topographical analysis, and ending with a combination of core drilling and computer analysis with multiple steps in between, I was then able to discover, calculate and predict reserves years in advance with reasonable accuracy, which gave the business an opportunity to grow and thrive-which it did.

There were multiple positive results for this process:

• Profit: Introduced significant cost savings in the mining operation which contributed to making the company profitable well beyond the industry standard.
• Consistency: Gave the company the ability to stay in extremely high-quality raw material-which translated in high-quality finished product, giving the company a strong competitive advantage.
• Environmentally friendly: The process of locating material was basically noninvasive to the land as opposed to prospecting with a bulldozer.
• Volume: It gave the company not only the volume of material to sustain operations, but the predictability it needed to grow.

The company and myself were subsequently credited with the first ever modern, scientific, environmentally friendly mineral exploration for this material by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York Geological Survey.

It was a shop within a manufacturing plant, with a dozen or so processes involved, but nothing too mysterious or difficult. This part of the plant was extremely important… Not because it was complicated, but because the material that flowed through it dictated the speed at which the entire plant performed. It was the bottleneck.

The first thing I started to look at was the history. What happened over the last three months? For starters, there was a significant amount of knowledge that left the plant. People that were in those jobs for a few years knew their job well and required little supervision. But with the new influx of workers, the knowledgebase had declined.

The last couple of supervisors were good people, smart and hardworking, but were all relatively new, the same as the present supervisor, Jim.

Jim was a hard working supervisor and had knowledge of the industry. He was extremely organized, communicated well and had great math and people skills. He had no problem giving orders and was a pleasure to work with as he had a really gentle demeanor, and everyone respected him.

I started to work with Jim to get to the bottom of this shop performance issue. As I was observing him, it was apparent that he could see the proper flow of material, he could see what needed to be done next, and he could give the order to the workers on what to do… but the one thing I saw that was missing was the “how to do it” part.

I asked him if he could explain a bit better to the workers on the “how to do it part”, and of course he was in agreement. Upon observation, he did the best he could with telling them what to do– but he didn’t “teach them.” That was the part I saw that was missing. I realized Jim did not know how to teach.

The task at hand for me became teaching Jim how to teach.

There were 15 different stations in the shop, so we took the one that needed help the most, station 5. I went with Jim and together we began to explore different methods of teaching the employee: teaching him the “why” of what he was doing, giving the explanation and hands-on demonstration of what to do instead of just giving an order, how to stand, how to move, how to see and anticipate. Things that would not only benefit his work station, but the stations around him.

By the middle of the day, station 5 was performing much better, and flow had improved. We went to the next station that most needed attention, station 8. Although I was side by side with Jim, I let him take the reins with this one and coached as needed. Jim began to get it quickly, and one of the motivators was the progress at station 5. He did a great job with station 8, and then it was on to the next one. Jim began to understand, and therefore start to spot low hanging fruit. At that point I realized — he’s got it!

By the end of the 3^rd day, the shop was running close to 90% efficiency. Throughput had increased 45%, and rework was cut in half as the overall quality improved dramatically.

Teaching “how to teach” was one of the most valuable things I could share with a manager.