DAYTON, Tenn. - Since taking over the formerly bankrupt Majestic Stone operation here in 2016, Patrick Wells has helped the company more than quadruple sales of the mountain stone that the business ships across the country.
That's not bad for someone who admits he knew little about mining and selling stones before Alderman Holdings acquired the business in the fall of 2016 and named Wells as CEO. But Wells, who earned an MBA from Samford University, didn't know a lot about either of his two previous business ventures in the legal outsourcing and auto salvage businesses.
Wells said he was able to grow Majestic Stone by investing in new equipment used in the seven leased quarries atop Dayton Mountain where the company gets its product and by making improvements in the stone-cutting facilities here. Wells also has improved the sales network across the country by focusing on selling and serving more than 100 distributors of the mountain stone throughout the U.S.
With such upgrades, the Dayton business has been able to capitalize on the growing housing and remodeling market, which remained strong even through the COVID-19 pandemic.
But Wells is focused on finding even better ways to connect with and serve customers.
"How do we get our product in front of distributors more consistently?" Wells asked while showing off his Dayton operations last week. "Our quarries change and evolve and our product varies in color and thickness and it's hard to supply a perfectly consistent product."
Addressing those concerns led Wells to decide to create a new internet sales approach to help stone distributors find out more about the specific stones and prices they are paying.
Working with David and Natalie Martin and the company's chief operating officer John Bryant, Wells on Tuesday is launching StoneLoads.com as a website and sales platform to allow mountain stone distributors to see specific stone piles that will comprise the truckloads delivered to stone distributors and the stone prices at quarries across the county. The new sales platform will help product buyers see the specific stone loads they are buying in advance and what the prices are for such loads in a competitive and visible website.
A stone load typically refers to a truckload of mountain stone that is mined and cut for delivery by quarries and usually sold to builders or remodelers through stores supplied by stone distributors.
Rather than just serving his own Majestic Stone business, Wells and his staff and partners developed a new website to connect hundreds of quarries and stone suppliers with distributors and national retailers which buy truckloads of the mountain stone from suppliers across the country.
"As a quarry and fabrication CEO myself, I decided to build StoneLoads because I knew firsthand that our industry needed this," Wells said. "I'm confident it will yield wins for natural stone businesses of all sizes everywhere in the continental United States."
Tony Mueller, vice president of sales at Buechel Stone, which has design stores in San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis and Kohler, Wisconsin, said StoneLoads "is a selling tool we've needed for a long time" and said his company's use of the technology has shown that it is easy to use.
"The fact that the platform was built by an industry insider makes it intuitive and truly helpful," Mueller said in a description of his company's use of StoneLoads. "Having the ability to showcase our products to a large audience of buyers, in real time online, gives us the ability to sell more natural stone than ever before. StoneLoads is a game-changer."
By using the platform at StoneLoads.com, natural stone quarries and fabricators across the United States can list full truckloads of product to be purchased by landscape supply yards anywhere in the United States.
"One of the biggest challenges facing the natural stone industry for years is a lack of transparency with regards to product availability," Wells said in an announcement of the new business venture. "StoneLoads provides that remedy. Now quarries and fabricators can list their products online for a national audience of landscape supply yards that are hunting for those exact materials."
(READ MORE: Majestic Stone sets out to bring reliability, brand awareness to the stone industry)
In development for more than a year, StoneLoads recently finished a successful beta testing phase and as of Tuesday is ready to add to its user roster of buyers and sellers from coast to coast.
Marcus Amendola, the owner of Daco Enterprises in Holly Springs, Georgia, said StoneLoads gives his business more access to stone inventory than he has ever had.
"We're able to see what products are available now, where they are located, and how much they cost," he said in a statement issued about the new venture. "StoneLoads has brought a level of product transparency to the stone industry that has never existed before."
The new website opens up quarry sales around the clock with a simplified and more transparent pricing process. For landscape supply yards, they know when full loads may be picked up immediately and they can see actual images of the materials in the load they are buying in advance.
Kevin Schofield, who helps run Rockall Products in Asheville, North Carolina, said in a statement that quarry owners like him see StoneLoads "as a cause for celebration.
"Not only will you be able to sell your products in a straightforward online way, but you'll now be able to reach new potential buyers across a national footprint," he said. "This is an exciting development for everyone in the natural stone industry."
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340. Follow him on Twitter @dflessner1.