Renegade Conservatory Guy

Alan Stein is the Co-Founder of Tanglewood Conservatories - probably the best conservatories in the world.

They specialise in high quality timber bespoke conservatories for the US market. If you check out their website you’ll be amazed at the type of conservatories they manufacture!

In Alan’s own words:

Find a company that knows what they are doing. Find a company that loves what they do. Chances are you will also love what they do.

How did you get involved in the bespoke conservatory business?

I was in the Washington DC area in the business of supplying local home builders with prefabricated sunrooms and skylights. We worked at this with some degree of success until the real estate market imploded in 1990. After that happened, we targeted our work to home improvement contractors at which time the size and complexity of the projects began to increase dramatically.

That was when one of our clients showed us a picture of a conservatory and asked if we could build one. This led us into the world of conservatories. We searched for a supplier but were unable to find someone who offered a product that was of the quality we wanted. So, we decided to build it ourselves.

The first conservatory, the one with the green interior on our website, went surprisingly well. When a second customer asked for one, we started to think we could make a business out of this specialized niche.

We had some very skilled carpenters and much of the work on the first one was done on site since we only had a very small wood shop at the time. One of the challenges was how to use the standard sized windows that we bought from a local distributor to produce the very custom looking conservatory that we had designed. This required quite a bit of creatively. For example, we had to come up with a method of adding spacer blocks in certain places so that things would line up just right—something that has always been very important to us.

And of course the trim details were difficult to get right because we didn’t have the flexibility to make all the modifications to the woodwork as we do now.

The frustrations of having to work within the bounds of someone else’s standardized product, is what has led us in to all the custom manufacturing that we do today. From making our own specialty windows and doors, to the highly custom copper work that we do, to the special techniques we use for making our insulated glass, all of these items were originally outsourced, but were eventually taken in house because we found that it was the only way we could have complete control over the design, the scheduling and the quality of the product.

That original job turned out to be spectacular, the customer was VERY happy and Tanglewood Conservatories was begun.

What particularly excites you about Tanglewood Conservatories?

I love the creative design process, especially when we come to develop a really new concept or a new product.

For example, we’ve recently been doing a lot of work with copper. We now produce conservatories as well as windows and doors completely clad with copper. Figuring out how to be able to do this and working out all the details with our other team members was very rewarding for me personally.

Another example is the work that we did to develop our new line of antique-style greenhouses. These structures were a total departure from our typical conservatories and utilized a roof glazing system that had not been used anywhere for many years. So we had to figure out how to resurrect the system and make it work alongside our current manufacturing process.

I think that if I had to spend my working day just managing an organization that made the same product over and over, I would not want to do it for very long.

In what ways do you feel the conservatory marketplace differs between the UK and US?

From what I know of the UK conservatory market, there are many more companies competing for the business than in the US however, the UK market is also very much larger.

Anyone who has been to the US knows that many houses have a wood deck on the back. These are used in stead of patios or lawns for entertaining, eating meals etc. and are raised up off the ground sometimes at the second floor level of the house. They are essentially our “outdoor rooms”.

I’ve always had the feeling that the conservatory is to homes in the UK what the wood deck is to homes in the US and I think they both are seen on about the same percentage of homes in their respective cultures.

So the conservatory industry in the UK is fairly similar to the outdoor wood deck industry in the US. Conservatories, while gaining in popularity, are nowhere near as common here.

There is a lot of talk in the UK about US housing market difficulties. How has this affected demand for big ticket items such as the bespoke conservatories you sell?

Well, as people feel less secure about the future growth of the economy and their own financial future, they inevitably pull back from spending.

Obviously at the higher end of the market, less so, but still the general lack of confidence effects most everyone in some way.

My own feeling is that much of the situation is unfortunately caused by people being constantly bombarded by negative “news”. How could anyone help but become nervous with so much “bad news” about the economy and all the “economic problems” we are facing. So in a way it has become a self fulfilling “unreality”.

The more bad news we hear, the more we react to it and when we pull back ourselves, that exacerbates the very situation we fear.

How important is your website in generating enquiries and converting sales?

Tanglewood Conservatories’ website is a very important piece of our overall marketing and sales strategy.

In the last 10 years, there has been a marked shift in effectiveness away from print media and advertising to the internet. People have become much more comfortable with using the internet to locate, research and purchase products.

The internet brings far more power to both consumers and sellers alike. As a seller, I am able to present far more information about our company, products and services. I can use flash, video, audio, all linked together to convey my message.

On the flip side, there are many, many more options at consumers fingertips if my site does not have what they want or cannot convey my message as powerfully as someone else’s.

What advice would you give me in driving good quality traffic to my website?

There are two pieces that have to be looked after for a site to sustain a high level of quality traffic.

First, your site has to be presented in the right way and has to contain the right information so that YOUR target customer will feel that it “speaks” to them. For this, you must understand who your “perfect” customer is and how to speak to them.

Knowing what is important to your perfect customer will allow you to tailor your message and its presentation so that it is like a precisely aimed rifle bullet. Too many companies use a shotgun approach which might hit more prospects, but might not hit the ones they want or hit a lot of superfluous stuff at the same time. This is basic marketing 101 stuff but it is very important.

Getting lots of traffic to your site is not really the goal—it’s getting the RIGHT people to your site that’s important. Otherwise you can wind up having to waste a lot of time sifting though lot’s of dross to find a small amount of gold.

The second factor is visibility. You can have a really great site and it can be perfectly tailored to your prefect customer, but if it never gets seen, it does not help you. These days, website visibility is to a large extent controlled by the major search engines so you have to learn how to play that game. Organic SEO and PPC both have their time and place so a high level of competency with both is essential.

Do you find having a blog section of your website is useful?

I don’t know if the blog on our website is useful but I enjoy writing it and I don’t get to spend as much time on it as I’d like.

I’ve always tried to find ways of communicating with people. I used to personally write a newsletter for our company employees because I wanted to share with them everything that was going on at Tanglewood. Even though we are a small company, it always amazes me when I discover again how little of the big picture most people see.

I think that as the reach of our personal worlds becomes greater, the need for good communication becomes more essential.

For example, I’d never had met you if it weren’t for my writing the blog and who knows where the connection (and many others) will lead or what I’ll discover in the process!

What challenges can you see ahead for your business, and how do you intend to tackle them?

My goal is to build the very best conservatories in the world, both from an artistic and from a technical standpoint and also to build one of the very best companies in the world in terms of the experience for our customers and our employees.

This is a challenging undertaking in the best of times and requires an almost fanatical attention to the quality and details in every area of the business.

It also requires that I myself constantly work to improve upon my own professional capabilities and personal qualities. To the degree I am successful with this, I can expect others to follow me. To the degree that they can accomplish their goals, our business undertaking will succeed.

I know it can sound trite, but I am convinced that each of us has an almost unlimited potential but we do not demand enough from ourselves and do not take total responsibility for our lives and so do not accomplish all that we might.

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For more information please visit:

http://www.tanglewoodconservatories.com/