TRANSCRIPT

Will Hanke (00:00 )
Welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes, the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning service providers or business owners about their successes and struggles related to marketing their business. I’m your host, Will Hanke. Today we’re exploring a powerful but often overlooked opportunity, Skylight Shades. If you’ve ever thought skylights were just an architectural feature or dismissed shades as a niche product, you’ll want to stick around.

My guest today is Wayne Feltman, a seasoned sales management professional with deep expertise in new business development, sales training, and residential construction. With a strong background in roofing materials, skylights, and solar hot water systems, he now leads efforts to expand the reach of Velux, skylights, and sun tunnels.

In his current role, Wayne is passionate about empowering entrepreneurial minded individuals and build businesses that transform homes and lives with daylight and fresh air through a franchise like program that delivers turnkey success without the fees. Wayne, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Wayne Feltman (01:08 )
Will, great to be here. Thanks for having us.

Will Hanke (01:10 )
Yeah, I really appreciate it. So Wayne, could you start by giving the listeners a quick introduction and how, tell us how you got started in the industry.

Wayne Feltman (01:18 )
Sure, absolutely. So I probably should start by just saying I’m based out of Indianapolis, Indiana, born and raised. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My dad owned hardware stores. So kind of grew up doing the retail hardware thing. And through that, we interacted with a lot of trades. My grandfather was a builder and spent some summers working with him, kind of being the runner and the clean up guy. that did lead to me getting into landscaping. My brother and I had started and ran a landscaping business for a number of years.

I tried that, but ⁓ ultimately I had decided I wanted to go to college to be an architect. Initially went to school to be an architect, quickly found out in early 90s that a lot of those guys were struggling to find jobs. So changed my major. I was going to try to get a minor in business anyway, but ended up switching to going full-time business and entrepreneurship and management. Finished with my business degree.

I continued to run the landscape management business part-time with my brother for a bit, but tried a few different things. Just to give you an idea, the diversity of my background was a stockbroker financial advisor for about a year, then got into computer system sales for about two to three years. And I was chasing the almighty dollar like a lot of us do coming out of college and just wasn’t happy, wasn’t enjoying what I was doing. And through some early experiences,

with Skylights through my parents who had built or renovated a few homes where we incorporated Skylights. I knew a little bit about Velux and Skylights and saw that they were hiring a territory representative, applied for that position and had to do a pretty hard sales job on that. The hiring manager asked why a stockbroker turned computer sales guy turned landscaper wanted to sell Skylights for a living, but he took a chance on a kid.

and hired me on and I was the Indiana Kentucky sales and territory rep for about four years. So that was kind of my ⁓ humble beginnings in terms of how I came to Velux and the rest is history as they say.

Will Hanke (03:15 )
Wow, it’s always interesting to hear people’s backstories about the random things they did that really had nothing to do with where they landed. Love that.

Wayne Feltman (03:22 )
For sure, for sure. But it

really was some early exposures though. mean, had it not been, my parents had built a, well, the first exposure really was a lakeside condo, a real narrow kind of three story condo that we had built back in the 80s, early 80s actually. And they incorporated some skylights, vending skylights. And this was just a summer getaway for my parents. We didn’t vacation, that was our vacation, so to speak. Cause when you’re in retail, you’re seven, 24 seven.

Will Hanke (03:49 )
Yeah

Wayne Feltman (03:52 )
But we’d go up there and you know dad would have us go upstairs and open up the skylights to cool the place down because in the summer when we’d head up there be really hot ⁓ So that was my first kind of all-cott exposure at the time. You know, didn’t realize how relevant that would be in my life ⁓ And then several years later, we acquired a log cabin in southern, Indiana That was my grandfather something he had built back in the 60s And my mom wanted to always wanted to add a sunroom off to the back of it. So we hired a contractor

And to his credit, he said, once we had this sunroom off the back of this house, we’re going to cut off the vertical windows going into that kitchen and dining area. And it’s going to get really dark. And to his credit, he said, I highly recommend we add some skylights not only over the kitchen area, but into the sunroom. And of course, we were pretty much on board with it because of our previous experience with skylights. But it was with that remodeling project that I really came to understand the value and power of skylights. it totally, and this is a dark log cabin.

And it just totally transformed the space. ⁓ And we went on to add skylights to the boathouse, to a gazebo, to a detached garage. I definitely live and breathe it these days, and we practice what we preach.

Will Hanke (04:59 )
Yeah, so you’ve been with the company more than two decades. What’s kept you excited about Skylights all these years?

Wayne Feltman (05:05 )
Yeah, you know, when I first hired on, like I said, I was a territory rep for Indiana and Kentucky and really enjoyed the job, moved up into a district management role for about 20 years. And then here the last few years, I’ve been in a business development role across the greater Midwest. So I went from a state and a half to six states as a district manager to now about 15, 16 states. So with those roles comes a different focus.

But really, it’s just the variety of what we do. We interact with every type of trade. So we interact with roofers, builders, architects, remodelers. ⁓ So when you’re doing that variety of interactions, it just never gets boring, quite honestly. And then Velux, the company, I mean, every few years we’re bringing something new to market. It’s a very innovative company, builds quality products. ⁓ So just as you think you got your head around everything that we