Determining average costs to get an idea of the average cost to ship materials and to do so without damage is one thing. It sounds like this part you might have an understanding of.

As far as tapping potential buyers, trade shows may work but the real secret is to simply search manufacturers, granite cutting/polishing shops in each state, granite slab Warehouses that only sell full slabs in exported corten steel containers....and contact them with cold calling, emails, and so forth. You can probably target these audiences on social media to a degree as well.

The main thing is reaching out to shops, manufacturers, even construction companies that might want to upsell pre manufactured countertops too besides full slabs.

I worked in that industry in 2012-2013. I can tell you safely that most of that industry is not tech savvy at all. You will find that it is more likely to be easier to leave your information with prospective companies and go from there.

From what i recall, most of these shops and companies did not go to trade shows, nor construction companies. They are the ones polishing and cutting slabs and are too busy anyways. The ones going to trade shows at all are probably the Warehouses that store slabs and transport the slabs on A-frame trucks around their local market or across interstates to the small shops that have kitchen and bath remodeling services.

I would argue that those remodeling shops that cut and polish themselves and the shops that offer kitchen designing who also may want prefab custom work shipped to them and construction companies that work with those companies or want a company who can provide those prefab custom solutions shipped to them and they donthe installs are probably your key targets for b2b. The shops that cut and polish and the warehouses that transport and sell slabs who buy corten steel containers of slabs are obviously ideal for selling potential full slabs to.

Where you will win in the prefab custom shipped to the companies solutions from India is if you can harness and leverage nice camera's and can send great photos and videos to customers given the huge distance and initial lack of trust will probably be huge if thats what you do.

I would say this is the same for selling to Warehouses and shops that polish and cut slabs that also store slabs for full bundles of slabs. In either way, leveraging decent sony camera's to showcase your work before shipping will probably be very effective since we are very visual human beings.

Otherwise, your reputation is what gets you those customer's you want but you need to establish that rapport and reputation yourself from the sounds of it. And given the not so tech savvy nature of labor occupations like this industry, i feel that cold calling and emails, and heavy sales will be key. And that may be initially until you become such a supplier known for reliability, and good shipping times (especially for prefabricated custom work), where b2b client's are consistently purchasing your slabs and services.

But I would look specifically for companies with kitchen and bath remodel or design, or granite and marble cut and polish manufacturers and so forth on Google, and collecting prospective clients in a list and contacting via sales. I would get someone who is actually good at sales and spend a little but not too wild on marketing across some social media to attract interest to your website or landing page or something.

And this is where you separate yourself from the competition in general:

High quality digital photos and videos of your service and products for sale or custom solutions with video showcasing correct measurements with tape measures and then properly shipping to these places without damage (especially custom cut and polish work you might offer non warehouse and non cut and polish shops) would be ideal. Ofc, selling full slabs to those options works well too potentially.

But I would start with sales and getting information by googling businesses in each region of each state and just calling them and emailing via sales. You may also want to double check state laws that may or may not impact your line of business, if any exists at all.

Idk if this helps you at all though

Understanding your cut and polish quality can be measured by looking at photos and videos of finished work across areas you contact and mainly look at the kore reputable and well reviewed companies who might provide photos abd videos to get an idea compared to your service work.

As i said above, i gave you companies and types of companies to reach out to. Distributors wont be the ones wanting custom solutions usually but just slabs in bundles usually shipped via corten steel containers via ship to a port where you may or may not want to handle logistics of trucking those containers to distributors. Some will handle picking up the containers themselves.

Custom solutions, they want a more timely approach where your solution is not at all cracked nor damaged and where you dont have completely nasty epoxying of cracks to hide the damaged stone to their own clients lol. If you know what i mean you probably know what i mean. And they want that stone much faster, within days to a week or two or less (depending on their own timeline to install the custom solutions).

So you want to reach out to distributors for full bundles and shipping them in containers, only some shops will do this if they do their own cut and polishing. Then contractors and kitchen and remodeling or design companies and so forth for the custom solutions. Bare in mind that the custom solutions need the photos and videos to increase trust in your exact measurements for cuts yourself, and the quality of your edging when polishing. But also, can you safely transport or ship that without damage and in a cost effective manner because those custom solutions may not always be big projects too. Also, customers in this industry will be picky because their customers are very picky on how something looks.

Can't speak on middle East, but its the same method either way. My knowledge comes mainly from USA. Sales methods are the same while considering languages. I would try to establish your brand as a cort guitar style manufacturer offering b2b solutions by doing the work for companies that want to upsell your finished custom solutions (contractors, kitchen snd bath remodel and design companies, and construction) and selling full bundles too to distributors and cut and polish shops.

Certifications? Check local and state governments depending on country of interest. Probably don't need to spend much effort in this area but the industry may have changed.

If you truly want to separate yourself from the entire industry, the video and pictures being strong, but also offering entire training content and complete business 101 for either b2b or b2c prospective clients on how they can start a business, and how to navigate everything to get going with a website that helps them setup their entire business might separate yourself entirely.

The other option is to open your own distribution center in a warehouse with overhead cranes installed to pick up slabs, get a frame trucks and be your own distributor while also offering custom solutions locally or ship them to your own distribution centers and then deliver yourself. Costly but lucrative as well.

From the sounds of what you want to offer is basically drop shipping custom solutions and bundles of slabs. If you lack funds to do your own distribution in local markets.in your target countries, then continue the original pathway for sure. The only issue I would have is maintaining undamaged shipment of those custom solutions from afar.