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COVER STORY
Second
To None
Whether it's for a beachfront condo or a year-round residence, clients
in this resort area know to go to Designing Windows Inc.
By Howard Shingle
There’s a little yellow
cottage with blue shutters about 100 yards from the beach in Ocean
City, MD. You may have to look between ocean-side condos to see
it from there, but if you’re traveling by car you can’t
miss it. It’s right on Coastal Highway along a 14-mile stretch
between the Atlantic Ocean the Assawoman Bay.
The cottage is home to Designing Windows Inc., and once you enter
it’s unlikely that you’ll leave empty-handed.
Owners, Debbie and Jerry Priestley, work out of this cozy cottage
by the ocean along with four decorators, an office manager, an assistant
and an installer. Its eight rooms are loaded with window treatment
samples including top treatments, plantation shutters, a variety
of blinds and custom draperies. There’s also fabric, trims,
wallpaper, hardware and custom bedding.
The cottage showroom, and its location, has meant a lot to the success
of Designing Windows. In fact, it has become synonymous with the
business; its likeness appears on its advertising, promotional material,
even its letterhead.
“We love our showroom,” says Debbie Priestley. “When
customers come in we can take them to different rooms in the shop
and work with them. When customers first walk in to our showroom
we have what looks like a little living room. We have a gas fireplace
going, a sofa and two chairs. It’s very welcoming. We offer
them something to drink and have them sit down.
“When they leave, we always make sure they leave with something,”
she continues. “We have custom folders. When they leave we’ll
put all of the information they’re looking for into the folder,
so when they leave they have that. When they come into the shop,
we make sure they leave knowing it was worth their trip to come
to us.”
BUSINESS CASUAL
This small window coverings showroom does big business in the resort
town of Ocean City with an even split between soft and hard treatments.
“We specialize in custom window treatments—that is our
main focal point. We do everything for the window,” Priestley
says.
“A lot of the windows we cover are in ocean-front condos,”
she adds. “We do a lot of ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall windows.”
For Designing Windows that often means shutters. Thirty percent
of the hard treatments its sells and installs is shutters, Priestley
says. “Down here in a resort town, we sell a lot of plantation
shutters,” she says. “In our town if somebody needs shutters,
they know to come to Designing Windows.”
Jerry Priestley is a carpenter by trade, which comes in handy when
installing treatments. He is aided by Kurt Wildmann, a staff installer,
and both are certified by the manufacturer for installing its shutters.
“So when we go out to a house, there is nothing we can’t
do,” Debbie Priestley says.
Living and working in a resort town “makes our jobs fun,”
Priestley says. “A lot of people who come here have second
homes. That’s neat because at home they’re very traditional,
but when they come down here they’re more contemporary, more
open to different ideas. It’s a very relaxed setting.
“It also makes it nice for us to work in this atmosphere because
we don’t have to wear a suit and tie to go out on an appointment.
We can be more dressy casual. It’s a wonderful place to work.”
It wouldn’t be unusual, she notes, for a customer to be in
a bathing suit while picking out shutters.
The mix in customer tastes that results from an area that has full-time
residents as well as an influx of seasonal visitors keeps things
lively for the decorators. “If they’re moving in from
out of the area and they’re bringing their furniture with them,
then we work with their furniture and they do tend to be a little
more traditional. That’s when we get to use our traditional
flair,” Priestley explains. “Then you have some people
who are more transitional. That’s another thing that’s
nice about our business and where we’re located—we get
to decorate in all styles: traditional, transitional, contemporary.”
One downside to working in a resort area is the population swings,
which concentrates the workload into a short, but busy season. Ocean
City is most full of activity four months out of the year—mostly
because of tourism—from the middle of May until September.
“Our busy time starts in February. We’ll start getting
busy from February until May as everybody is getting their condominiums
ready. We’re in there all winter long fixing up the condos
getting them ready for the next rental season.”
Helping to even things out is the area’s growing golf industry,
which has a longer season. Then, again, seasonal visitors are not
Designing Windows’ only customers. “With our reputation,
we’re busy year round because we also have our local clientele.
When all the second-home owners go home, there’s so much building
going on in our surrounding area. That keeps us busy year round,”
Priestley says.
LOCAL ICON
Designing Window’s reputation is supported by the knowledge
and expertise of its staff and its effective marketing efforts.
As Priestley points out, selling products is one thing, having the
knowledge to understand the products and their benefits is another
matter. She makes sure everyone at Designing Windows stays up-to-date
on the products they sell through seminar programs run by the company’s
main supplier, Elmar Window Fashions. “Anytime they have any
type of a training seminar—whatever they have—we go to
it and get certified and do whatever needs to be done. I can send
any of my decorators out. They know how to measure; they know if
the window is out of square. Customers end up falling in love with
our decorators because they are so knowledgeable and know what they
are doing.”
Priestley is a big believer in advertising, especially printed materials.
The business runs an ad in the local newspaper 52 weeks a year.
“We will go into the condos or the homes and we’ll see
our ad cut out and put on the refrigerator,” she says. “With
print, they have something to hold on to.”
Ads for Designing Windows also appear in some regional magazines
and publications printed by The Chamber of Commerce. But one of
its most important marketing pieces is a nine- by four-inch, glossy
16-page, full-color brochure.
“It has taken me almost two years to put it together,”
Priestley confesses, “but it was well worth the wait. We’ve
taken pictures of all our work and it’s really a wonderful
sales tool that we can give to realtors.”
Keeping Designing Windows’ name in front of those mostly likely
to steer business its way is an effective part of its marketing
efforts. “Because we deal with second-home owners, a lot of
times we have to get keys from the local realtors to go into the
condos when the owners are not there. Every time we go get a key,
we give that realtor a business card—whether we go there one
time or five times, they’ll get a business card and that way
they are constantly reminded of who we are,” says Priestley.
But it doesn’t stop there: pens, notepads, gift bags and even
drink coasters are handed out—each prominently displaying the
company’s name, address and telephone number and, in most cases,
featuring a likeness of the little yellow cottage showroom so immediately
identified with Designing Windows.
GET RIGHT ON IT
Debbie and Jerry Priestley moved their business into the cottage
shortly after starting Designing Windows in 1997. They began working
out of their home, but soon that had to change. “We realized
that working out of your home just consumes your whole life,”
Priestley says.
They saw the cottage for rent, and although it was listed as residential
they found they could run an office out of it. When it came up for
sale, they bought it.
Built in 1961, the two-story cottage needed a lot of renovation.
“It’s an old beach cottage that we converted. It’s
bright yellow outside with blue shutters. Inside we have 16 windows.
In each window I have either a shutter or a custom window treatment
to show customers different window treatment ideas. I have four
showrooms that are full of fabric lines, trim lines, wallpaper,
hardware. We have a lot of working displays—big ones, not the
hand samples,” she says.
Debbie Priestley’s background in the business began when she
was child. Her mother, Carol Suttka, had a fabric store and did
sewing and alterations upstairs. “So when I was 13 I used to
sell dress fabrics. I have grown up in the fabrics business,”
Priestley says. “Everything I’ve learned I basically learned
from my mom.”
In 1984 Debbie started working for her mother and father’s
window treatments business, Interiors by Carol, and she ran one
of their stores until 1994. Carol and Craig Suttka still run their
business in Ocean Pines, MD, about 10 miles away. “They do
the same business,” Priestley says. “My dad is an installer
and my mom does the decorating.”
When Debbie and Jerry set out to open Designing Windows, the first
thing they did was call mom. “I asked her how she would feel
about me starting up my own business and she was very encouraging.”
From there on it has been a success story—one based on quality
products, expertise, customer service and not solely on price. “Price
is a factor,” Priestley admits, “but if somebody comes
in [after shopping a discount or box store], we tell them right
up front, ‘We are not competitive with every product; however,
when you buy from us you get our knowledge.’ We give free in-home
estimates, we have two in-shop installers—one of them being
the owner. That’s very important. Customers know who is going
into their homes, that it’s not somebody that they don’t
know.
“My success is due to the people I work with. They helped make
our business,” Priestley continues. “Our customer service
is second to none. We have four wonderful decorators who go out
and sell the jobs, and what’s nice about that is that while
they’re out selling they know that back at the store their
customers are still being taken care of.
“While the decorators are out selling I have two people here
all the time making sure our business runs, answering the phones,
taking care of customers. If there is a problem, we don’t wait
until the end of the day. We get right on the problem, take care
of it and resolve it.”
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