Kaplan Consulting

06/05/2026

What does it look like when a stone fabrication business owner finally gets financial clarity?

Mike Hyer, CEO of Rocktops, came to Kaplan Consulting without visibility into his numbers, without a growth path, and without knowing what his company was truly worth.

We organized his operation, identified the gaps, and built a roadmap that gave him real options: grow, scale, or sell on his own terms.

His words: "It was worth every penny. It came back tenfold."
He had a number in his head for what his business was worth. The actual number was double that.

Kaplan Consulting specializes in business consulting for stone fabrication and countertop companies across the United States. Our services include business valuation, EBITDA analysis, operational improvement, and exit planning for shop owners ready to take the next step.

If you are a countertop or stone fabrication business owner looking for clarity on where your business stands and where it can go, this is the work we do.

Book a discovery call with Jon Kaplan at www.jkaplanconsulting.com and take the first step toward knowing what your business is actually worth.

05/29/2026

How does shop floor organization affect profit margins in stone fabrication?

The answer: more directly than most fabrication business owners realize.

At Kaplan Consulting, we have spent two decades working inside stone fabrication and countertop shops across North America. The shops that consistently grow their margins share one operational discipline: they treat shop floor organization as a business strategy, not a housekeeping task.

Here is the business case, broken down:

Material waste reduction. Organized storage and handling systems prevent material damage before it reaches the slab saw or CNC. Every stone piece preserved is margin recovered.

Labor efficiency. Designated locations for tools and materials eliminate search time and idle production cycles. The result is lower cost per unit on every job run.

Production capacity. Efficient workflow allows more jobs to move through the shop in the same labor window. Output increases without adding overhead.

Quality control costs. An organized shop environment reduces rework, remakes, and material replacements. Fewer errors per job = better margin on every invoice.

Employee engagement. A structured, well-maintained workspace communicates operational standards. Teams in organized shops demonstrate stronger attention to detail and higher output quality.

The data across our client engagements: 35% average efficiency improvement and 30% average margin increase in fabrication shops that implement systematic shop floor organization and workflow optimization.

Organization is not a project with a completion date. It is a daily operational standard that compounds into measurable financial results.

Ready to find what's costing your shop margin?

Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Jon Kaplan at www.jkaplanconsulting.com.

05/27/2026

Why does Kaplan Consulting run free webinars for the stone fabrication industry without selling anything?

Because that is exactly the point.

Jon Kaplan, founder of Kaplan Consulting, has built the firm's entire business development approach around a principle he calls give, give, get: lead with education, share real intelligence, and give genuine value to countertop fabricators and stone industry professionals, without a sales agenda.

The reasoning is straightforward. The relationship aspect of every major business decision in this industry is huge. Vendors, partners, consultants, every significant choice comes down to trust. And trust is built long before any transaction.

Our webinar series exists to open minds, share operational knowledge, and give stone shop owners and fabricators access to the kind of thinking that moves their business. When the time is right, the people who found real value in that content reach out on their own.

The discovery call follows naturally. That is how every strong client relationship at Kaplan Consulting has started.

Give give get. It always comes back.

05/26/2026

This is what it looks like when a company builds around people first.

Poseidon Industries has been a testament to what happens when leadership prioritizes genuine partnership, community, and a relentless commitment to innovation over transactional thinking.

The Poseidon Experience 2026 starts today, bringing together fabricators, business owners, and industry leaders ready to learn, grow, and connect.

At Kaplan Consulting, this is the kind of culture we help stone fabrication businesses build from the inside out. Because the companies that will lead this industry in the next decade are the ones investing in their people as much as their equipment.
Congratulations to the entire Poseidon team on an incredible event.

Poseidon Industries, Inc. posted a video on LinkedIn

05/19/2026

We work with stone fabrication and countertop businesses every day. One of the most common things we see holding shops back is not equipment, not capacity, and not market demand.

It is the absence of a real training system.

Here is what we have learned from helping manufacturing operations improve performance over the past two decades:

Shops that treat training as a system outperform shops that treat it as an event. Every time.

What a systematic training program delivers:

1. Defined skills development paths
Every technician knows what they are building toward. Growth is measurable, intentional, and consistent across the team rather than dependent on informal mentorship.

2. Standard methods that protect quality
When everyone learns the same best practices, quality becomes a function of process rather than individual effort. Variation shrinks. Rework costs go down.

3. Institutional knowledge that stays in the building
When experienced team members leave, their knowledge does not have to go with them. Training systems capture and distribute expertise before it becomes a loss.

4. Performance gains that compound
Our clients who implement structured training programs consistently see efficiency improvements within the first year. The data point we see most often: 35% efficiency gains within 9 months.

Training is not a line item to be trimmed when margins get tight. It is the investment that protects every other investment you have made in your operation.

We help stone fabrication and countertop businesses build the training infrastructure to make that happen.

If you are ready to find out what that looks like for your business, we would like to talk. Send us a message and book a free discovery call.

05/15/2026

How do stone fabrication shops use AI to reduce remakes without a costly implementation?

That is the question driving our new four-part AI webinar series, built exclusively for the stone industry.

At Kaplan Consulting, we work inside stone fabrication businesses every day. We know that the remake problem is almost always a systems problem. And we know that "AI solutions" from generalist boot camps rarely translate to the shop floor.

So we built something different.

This series focuses on practical, operations-level AI applications that fabricators can deploy now. No theory. No lengthy projects. Just targeted tools that reduce remakes, improve consistency, and build accountability into everyday operations.

Who it is for:
Stone fabrication shop owners and operators who want to understand how AI actually applies to their business, not just the hype around it.

What you will get:
Specific, real-world AI use cases for countertop fabrication. Guidance on where to start without overcomplicating it. A clear path to implementation that produces a return.

Stay tuned. The full webinar video is coming soon.

Want to get started now? Book a discovery call with our team and we will show you exactly where AI fits in your operation. Link in bio.

05/13/2026

Stone fabrication business owners deserve more than a gut feeling about what their company is worth.

Our Business Valuation and Diagnostic Engagement is our most sought-after service for a reason. In two days on-site, we assess your operations, dig into your financials, deliver an enterprise value range, and hand you a Management Review Letter with clear, actionable next steps.

Whether you're planning to grow, preparing to sell, or thinking about succession, this engagement gives you the clarity to move forward with confidence.

Built exclusively for the stone fabrication and countertop industry.

Reach out to learn more: [email protected]

05/07/2026

Great people make great events.
Our own Jon Kaplan and Bob Nagy had the pleasure of connecting with Duan Coqui of Stoneworld Tennessee and Joe Alva of Poseidon at the 2026 RHG Spring Member Event in Annapolis. This is exactly the kind of room we love being in, sharp operators, honest conversations, and a shared commitment to building stronger stone businesses.

Events like this remind us why relationships are at the core of everything we do.

If you are here through May 8 and have not had a chance to connect with Jon and Bob yet, we would love to find time. We have been seeing remarkable results with stone fabrication businesses through StoneSync Pro, our joint offering with Synchronous Solutions that combines GOS operational frameworks with Synchronous Flow Process optimization. Clients are achieving 19 to 30% productivity gains with return on investment in 90 days.

Reach out and let's make it happen.

Solutions

05/01/2026

What happens when a fabrication shop has a great sales team but a broken production system?

Customers wait too long. Reviews drop. Revenue stalls. And no amount of new leads fixes it.

Kaplan Consulting recently partnered with a stone fabrication business that had a high close rate but was weeks behind on production. We diagnosed the root cause and built a structured system to fix it.

Here is what we implemented:

-A weekly production plan tied directly to the sales pipeline forecast
-Daily crew goals with visual progress boards on the shop floor
-Team lead training focused on early delay detection and rapid response

Results within 45 days:

-Lead times reduced by 32%
-On-time delivery rate climbed to 96%
-Sales brings customers in. Operations keeps them.

Stone fabricators lose revenue every day not because they lack customers, but because their operations cannot scale with demand. Kaplan Consulting specializes in helping fabrication shops build structured, repeatable, and scalable production systems that protect the customer experience and support long-term growth.

If your production floor is falling behind your pipeline, that is the problem we solve.

Visit jkaplanconsulting.com to start the conversation.

04/22/2026

Most businesses don't have an innovation problem. They have a paralysis problem.

The teams we work with across the stone fabrication industry are not short on talent or drive. What they're missing is a clear path forward. Without that, even the most capable people default to analysis mode, endlessly weighing options, avoiding the wrong move, and ultimately making no move at all.

The result is predictable: Meetings without decisions. Strategies without ex*****on. Growth that keeps getting pushed to next quarter.

This is what "frozen" looks like inside a business. And it has nothing to do with effort.

The shift happens when clarity replaces confusion. When accountability is built into the structure, not just talked about in meetings. That is exactly what the GOS Model was designed to deliver — a defined system that gives teams the confidence to act, the structure to follow through, and the accountability to sustain it.

If your team is stuck in indecision, the answer is not a pep talk. It is a system that works.

Schedule a Business Diagnostic with Kaplan Consulting and get your business moving again. Link in bio.