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SMALL BUSINESS
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By Robert Burke |
The BusinessDominion Steel Inc., a nine-employee steel and metal fabrication and distribution company in Spotsylvania County. The PlayersOwners Madeline and Frank Slonka started the
business in May 1996. Both had worked in the
steel business and held degrees in business
administration. |
| The
Problem The Slonkas badly
misread the market. The customers they wanted --
contractors and heavy equipment operators --
needed customized pieces. The Slonkas offered
steel off the rack and did few modifications.
"We thought, 'We're going to bring in the
steel, and people are going to come,'"
Madeline Slonka says. "So a month goes by
and they're not coming. We thought, 'Oh my God,
what have we done?'" |
 artwork by Chris OBrion |
The Background The couple felt prepared when they started the business. Frank Slonka had spent 27 years in the business with companies like Bethlehem Steel. Madeline Slonka had worked in the industry as an office manager and human resources coordinator. |
| There was no company like theirs within a
30-mile radius of the fast-growing Fredericksburg
area, so they thought they were filling a niche.
But they soon learned that customers were staying
loyal to distant suppliers. After three months,
Frank Slonka had to take a full-time job in
Baltimore to make ends meet. At night, he'd go to
the warehouse and do fabrication work until past
midnight. That schedule lasted until the
following spring. The Solution The Slonkas had to overhaul their equipment and skills to offer what customers wanted. "We became much more fabricators and manufacturers," Madeline Slonka says. "When we first started we'd thought we'd do a lot less fabrication. But that's not what people wanted. They want you to weld it and cut it and bend it and paint it and galvanize it and saw it and drill holes in it." They didn't want the off-the-shelf product being offered, so the Slonkas had to customize to build their relationships. "Now if you say to me, 'I want you to make me a truck rack,' we'll do it from the drawings or sit down with you" to design it, she says. "I never say 'no' to anybody. You hang up the phone and say, 'OK, how do we do this?' You learn over time what you can and can't do." Adding more services meant adding equipment and employees. The Slonkas started with two employees, a forklift and a delivery truck. Today Dominion Steel has nine employees and machines to cut, bend, drill and punch holes in the metals. The company has taken on big and small jobs: customized railings for home owners, steel channels around go-cart tracks, and the conversion last year of an old Fredericksburg theater into apartments. It also won a $14 million supply contract in 1997 for the gunnery stand project at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren. The business was able to pay off its 10-year initial loan in three years. Last fall, the Slonkas bought the building they were leasing and expanded. Their ability to reinvent their business and improve customer service made the difference, Madeline Slonka says. Local customers started turning to them for products. "Our steel isn't any prettier, it isn't any stronger. You've just got to get people stuff when they need it." Virginia Business collects tales of innovations from small businesses statewide. If you have a case study in problem-solving, e-mail cleitch@va-business.com.
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