Quesiton: We went to the Countertop Shop on Saturday. It has a nice storefront along Airport Highway and a nice showroom, too. Better than you would think looking at its current web presence.

Some helpful info we got from the salesperson Kim we spoke to was she described their retail clients are mostly the 60-65 age range, the empty nesters. They also have young families between the ages of 30-35. It's pretty sparse the ages in between. That's helpful as we think of the tools we use to market for that older audience.

She also said that about 10% of the business is walk ins through word of mouth knowing someone who had been a client and had good service. The 80-90% is from builders. A lot of builders actually send their clients to the Countertop Shop to get a look at the different options, so traffic through the store is not direct selling to those clients but to the builders who are working with those clients. So that is the first question they ask someone when the walk in is if the individual is doing the work themselves or through a builder. Then the next step is for them to pick a style and color, then they start the conversation about what type like quartz or granite.

The other helpful thing that we learned is the do have an online customer relationship management system. While the owner described it as the sales people with their clipboards, that is true, but then they enter it into a system called Moraware where they can put down contact info and other notes.

She said as a salesperson it is their job to make sure the customer walks away with something. Ideally it is a quote, however they cannot do that without square foot information. If they can't give a quote, at least a sample or at the very least a business card.