We were lucky to catch up with Dian Mullis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dian , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

I have a Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics degree and I was working as a Director of Engineering for 6 years when I lost my job in 2019. Prior to losing my job, for several years I had it in my heart to have my own concrete business, making countertops and other functional art pieces but I was apprehensive about leaving a solid, well paying career. I had poured concrete countertops in my house in 2015 and fell in love with the versatility of concrete for infinite color choices and shapes.

I truly enjoyed being a Director of Engineering and I was a white collar executive. The thought of being on my own, doing blue collar type of work was scary. It wasn’t the blue collar type of work that scared me, it was the prospect of starting my own business, with my own money, with no clients lined up, and with no large financial reserves to rely on. I was the breadwinner of our 4 person family and we could not afford our house without my income. We had two girls in middle school and one had severe special needs. Starting a completely new career in my 40’s when I had a successful career in my educational background seemed extremely illogical and I am a very logical person.

When I lost my job in 2019, I figured it was the best time to take the Concrete Countertop Institute 5 day, hands on training class in North Carolina. I flew there and although I had made the commitment to take the class, I was struggling internally with starting my own business or going back to a well paid career of Engineering.

The first morning of class came and I had been sitting in my hotel room, my heart was racing, my mind was running and I was pleading with God to give me a sign of what to do with my life. I took two steps out of my hotel room that morning and literally tripped over a small rectangular 1″ x 2.5″x 1″ piece of concrete. I bent down and picked it up and just stared at it in disbelief. That was my VERY sign from God of what I should do! I still have that piece of concrete today sitting by MY work computer in MY concrete shop at MY business.

Dian , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Pro Concrete Countertops is a 2 person concrete artisan shop. We hand make all our products and we locally source our materials. We are based in Minnesota, the state that I was born and raised in. We create concrete countertops, bathroom vanities, sinks, fireplace surrounds, furniture and art. We have a passion for making unique, handmade, beautiful concrete functional pieces of art. We work in residential and commercial construction. We make concrete goods that can not be found anywhere else and each piece is one of a kind and made especially for our clients. We have innovated our own techniques to provide our customers designs that can not be found by any other concrete artisan.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Although I had my sign from God about starting my business in 2019, I still faltered. Faced with bills at home and the overall mental challenge it is to go full-in was still too much for me in 2019. I found a new Director of Engineering job and went back to full time work.

Though I threw myself into my Director of Engineering job and once again enjoyed the work of a new challenge, I still had the passionate concrete flame in my heart. I worked on concrete at home after work and on weekends. I slowly found clients that wanted my work.

Then one day, I had a call that was a from a contractor looking for concrete countertops. They sent me the plans and I wondered who this “Rudolph” family was on the plans but it didn’t matter because any concrete was work that I wanted and I sent them the bid. They accepted and I felt the confidence to ask them who the home owner was. I was astounded when they told me it was Kyle Rudolph, the MN Vikings NFL Player.

We had met Kyle Rudolph at a “Make a Muscle for MDA” event many years ago. My oldest daughter has Spinal Muscular Atrophy and the event was a charity raising event that we attended as one of the families affected by Muscular Dystrophy and Kyle and his wife attended as charity patrons. I had photos of Kyle with my daughters from the event.

We completed the project successfully and when Kyle happened to be at his new home when we were installing his countertops, I jumped at the opportunity to show him old photos of my daughters with him. He chuckled at how old the photo was.

It was winning and successfully completing that project that lead me to start looking for a large shop. I felt that if I could randomly find meaningful work at a NFL players house, I could make a successful concrete business!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

I was working with a female contractor on a large bathroom vanity project and she mentioned an organization called Women in Construction and she suggested that I join. I was honestly apprehensive about joining an all women’s group as my previous field in Engineering was very male dominated and I was comfortable in that space. The WINC group in Minnesota (www.wincmn.org) held networking events and I decided to attend one of them.

Networking events in general can be mentally daunting if you go alone, it was even more out of my comfort zone being an all women attended event. I mustered up the courage and attended a WINC event held at Ferguson Kitchen and Bath. I was greeted with a smile and many women came up and talked to me without me having to feel awkward and try to talk to them. The conversations came easily and the food was amazing. The showroom was beautiful and the entire event was like no other networking event that I had ever attended.

I started going to more of the WINC events and joined their Facebook group. I saw a post about becoming a member on the WINC Board of Directors and I quickly applied. I was accepted as a general board member and it has opened up many networking opportunities with my target clients, interior designers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.proconcretecountertops.com
• Instagram: proconcretecountertop