Reaching Out, and Up When the sunroom was strictly inexpensive three-season space, dealers fished for leads the same way they looked for window or siding prospects. But today, some dealers are taking aim at the higher end of the market, which they find requires a different kind of outreach (see “Glass Act,” page 72). The appeal of sunrooms, Larry Chavez maintains, is “not limited to a mid-priced home. You can now extend the product line to upscale homes. It’s a logical business strategy, to penetrate those upscale markets. We think it was always there for us. We just never approached it.”
The challenge, of course, is attracting the attention of that upscale customer. A first-rate Web site is critical. So is the right choice of advertising media.
“We steer away from radio or TV, because in 60 seconds, you can’t really show people what a room looks like,” Reichek says. “In print, you can.” Which is why the dealer says it’s worth his while to buy the back page of a local lifestyle magazine. “Even if it costs an arm and a leg, well, you’re creating interest that wasn’t there previously.”
Chavez recently found himself networking at a Parade of Homes in Albuquerque, N.M. “The first one was a $1.5 million home,” he says. “There must have been 50 people there, and all of them were capable of buying that home.”
Thornberry says the biggest challenge facing dealers today, no matter what kind of customer they seek, is leads. “The code part is big, but No. 1 is leads,” he says. Media sources have become diluted and less effective. And as lead costs have gone up, window and siding companies have begun selling sunrooms to leverage their marketing expenses. Thornberry suggests the best way to get sunroom leads is face to face, meaning shows and events. “Very specific scripts” at home shows and other public venues will help produce more leads at lower cost.
The Installation Issue For dealers with well-oiled marketing machines in place, the chief problem can be simply getting rooms built. “The biggest challenge is having qualified installation crews,” Chavez says. “It’s a unique trade. They’re hard to find, hard to keep. We sort of refer to it as the tail that wags the dog.”
Sunrooms, of course, aren’t the only sector of residential construction with a labor shortage. But “the same demographic that’s increasing sales — the aging of the population — is the one that’s causing us to lose installers,” Thornberry points out. “There are fewer young people — and fewer of those tradesmen available to us.”
Many sunroom manufacturers offer in-house and on-site training programs. Some even employ training coordinators such as former general contractor Lance England, who travels 13 Western states for Four Seasons, helping franchisees train crews. His No. 1 rule? “It’s got to be flat and sealed 100%.”
Siding or window installations are fast and simple compared with sunrooms, which can take anywhere from two days to three weeks to install and involve foundation work, electrical, roofing, plumbing and HVAC. Leaks — telltale signs of a botched installation — can be ruinous in every sense, starting with service calls and a poisoned customer relationship. For contractors, profitability oozes away with every leak. Say goodbye to referrals. “It kills ’em,” England says.
Skilled carpenters, those adept at working with wood, rather than glass and aluminum, don’t necessarily make the best sun-room technicians. What some companies find is that it pays to hire younger people with less advanced skills and train them to be specialists in sunroom installation (see “Plumb Jobs, Square and Level,” page 73). It also pays to pay well. Reichek’s best installers make six figures. For him, technicians who can put up flawless rooms on schedule are easily worth that.
Bright Forecast Manufacturers and dealers both scoff at the idea that there are already too many competitors and that the sunroom market has matured. “There’s not enough competition,” says Kevin Kruse, a general contractor in Florida who, a year and a half ago, switched to being strictly a sunroom and window dealer, installing PGT rooms. Kruse says 60% of sunroom customers end up buying doors and windows as well.
With new products and opportunities for reaching upscale customers, many dealers and manufacturers see unlimited potential for sunroom sales. “We’ve been hearing for years that in many markets, the sunroom market has matured,” says Betterliving’s Lederer. “Yet we have dealers in some of those mature markets who, year after year, still have the ability to grow at a double-digit clip.”
