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Skylight Shades for Window Treatment Dealers: Easy Upsells, Solar Technology, and Untapped Revenue with Wayne Feltman
Episode 52
Tuesday, 9 December, 2025
Guest Profile: Wayne Feltman Wayne Feltman is an accomplished sales management professional that has built a long-term career with VELUX Skylights, the world’s leading Skylight and Roof Window Manufacturer. Wayne started his career with VELUX as a territory sales representative and served in this capacity for about 4 years before advancing into a District Sales Management role overseeing the Eastern Great Lakes District for more than 20 years and most recently moved into a Business Development Management role responsible for the growth and development of the company’s Skylight Specialist Program across a 15-state area comprised of the greater Midwest. Prior to VELUX, Wayne grew up working alongside his father in the family’s retail hardware business but also spent some summer months working for his grandfather, a residential homebuilder. Wayne graduated from Ball State University with a Bachelor of Science from the university’s nationally ranked Business Management and Entrepreneurship Program and while in college, had co-founded and operated a Landscape Management Company giving him a combination of academic and a first-hand real-world experience on what it takes to start and run a successful small business. Through some early exposure to skylights, Wayne developed a passion for Skylights and Sun Tunnels due to their unique ability to transform space and bring an abundance of daylight and fresh air into the built environment where people live, work and play. Other Notes/Links: Velux Website: VeluxUSA.comContact: Reach out through the Velux website to connect with your local representative. pssst…. want to be a guest on the show? Listen to other episodes Subscribe to Marketing Panes for more expert insights, strategies, and real stories from across the window treatment and awning industry. Spotify: https://bit.ly/4j20C49 ApplePodcast: https://bit.ly/4c2VN8s Video https://youtu.be/cmQdFuX4C08 Click here to display Transcript 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 make and sell, they throw a curveball at us and introduce something new. I think for all those reasons, know, it’s been 26 years, but I’ll be honest, some of my earlier career or jobs, I should say, seem like they were a lot longer than my 26 years at velux despite only being a year or two. Will Hanke (06:20)Yeah. For dealers that are not familiar, what does ventilation and light really mean in practice? Wayne Feltman (06:27)Yeah, no, great question. Actually, it’s fundamental to our company and our founding. So actually the name Velux is the root of two Latin words, V-E for ventilation, LUX, the Latin word for light. And just to give you a quick snapshot of the background of the company, mean, our founder was actually a glazing engineer by training and was given the task of converting attic spaces to classrooms. So this was back in 1941. There was a war going on. We’re based in Denmark. We’re a Northern European company. And they were trying to utilize all the attic space. A lot of buildings were destroyed. But anyway, he was given the task of converting some attic space to classrooms. And at the time, materials were scarce. Resources were scarce. ⁓ And so he came up with an ingenious way of putting a piece of glass ⁓ in the plane of the roof that would pivot and rotate and ventilate ⁓ and daylight the space, make it a functional space. So those are our humble beginnings. But ⁓ we’ve diversified and grown from just that attic room application. Today we have two core products. have some called roof windows, which are generally within reach applications. So think of like you’re here in the States, the most common applications would be the bonus room above a garage where you got the knee wall and the sloped ceilings. That would be a good application for a roof window that you can walk up within reach. Another one would be like story and a half type home where you’re finishing off your attic space and converting that into space, bedrooms or whatnot. Roof windows can meet egress requirements. But the more traditional application here in the States is what we call a skylight. And you take your typical home that’s got 8, 9 foot, 10 foot ceilings today. And you got that skylight up in the ceiling, up at a reach. And so the product category is a little bit different. They’re designed for up at a reach applications in use. But why you would want to skylight? I mean, it really comes down to a couple of things. First, obviously, natural light. You just can’t beat the value of natural light coming into a home. And if you think about it, where we put our artificial lighting, generally it’s on the ceiling through light fixtures. Why would we do vertical or natural light any different? And so there’s significant power and effect of bringing in natural light from overhead to skylights. But then there’s the ventilation aspect of it. It’s very powerful to utilize a skylight for natural ventilation. And it’s a scientific kind of concept called the chimney or stack effect. But the reality is heat rises. So if you open a skylight up high and a window down low, you get this chimney or stack effect or thermal effect. There’s a lot of different names for it. Where that hot air wants to go up and escape through that skylight, you’re bringing in that fresh air through those lower windows. ⁓ In Europe, they call that air conditioning. when mechanical air conditioning came along, we kind of got away from taking advantage of that natural air conditioning effect that skylights can provide. And the good news is now that you know Will Hanke (09:03)you Wayne Feltman (09:15)society’s becoming more sustainable, we’re getting back to it. ⁓ But so the ventilation aspect is another key reason why skylights are, you know, I think particularly valuable in design and construction. And then the last thing is, is, you know, there’s a lot of areas in your home that you just can’t light with vertical windows, interior spaces, hallways, interior rooms, like closets and whatnot, or you’re trying to maintain privacy. ⁓ And so what’s unique about a skylight, obviously, is you’re bringing in that light from overhead. And even in an interior room or hallway, you can pipe light in through the attic space, if you will, through a traditional skylight or an alternative product called a tubular skylight or a sun tunnel skylight, which is a very quick and easy way just to bring in light into an interior space. So that’s my quick one, too. I I hopefully gave your listeners a kind of a. new perspective on the value of skylights. And like I said, it’s not any one. I think it’s a combination of all of the above. Depending on what the design needs are, the space you’re trying to apply the skylights to. Will Hanke (10:06)Yeah. Yeah. Now I know they were big in the seventies and eighties and then they kind of faded for a while. you mentioned that they’re kind of back in style now. What do you think is driving that resurgence? Wayne Feltman (10:25)You know, that’s fair and I hear that a lot. what I’d like to say is, ⁓ well, velux like I we’ve been in the States, actually, we just celebrated 50 years. So we’ve been in the States ⁓ for quite a while. you know, we ride, you know, the economy, obviously, the ups and downs of the economy. But I think it is fair to say that in 70s and the 80s, Skylights were more popular. There were a lot of other vendors, lot of other manufacturers in the game as well. And our sales have grown year to year. We’ve consistently grown as a company. So daylight and fresh air never goes out of style. And I would argue even skylights really have never gone out of style. What’s changed is a lot of the companies that got into the business in the 70s and 80s that quite frankly were building inferior products that were problematic ended up having problems and they got out of the industry. The quality providers that really designed a quality product. For the most part, they’ve been a quieter, they’re still in the game. And I think it’s unfortunate because, and I’m talking about the old plastic, tar down bubbles. You still ask a lot of people today what a skylight is. Their vision of it, especially if they’re older, is the old plastic bubble that you can’t see through, that’s literally tarred down to the roof. And if it started leaking, they just added more tar and then you this ugly bubble on your roof. And I think that did tarnish the industry a little bit. ⁓ Velux, fortunately, has always made a quality product. We’ve always made engineered flashing systems to ensure that they’re watertight. But even our own product wasn’t as forgiving. Meaning if you didn’t do something right, it could come back to bite you and cause problems. And over the years, technology has greatly improved not only our installation processes, but the product itself. ⁓ is it fair to say that it was popular? Well, I think Skylights and the benefits they bring have always been popular. I truly do feel that way. Will Hanke (12:05)that. Wayne Feltman (12:14)It’s just that the risk reward ratio back in the early days, some of these problematic manufacturers caused people to rethink that, I don’t want to go there. Unfortunately, we’ve been clawing our way back to gain the confidence of consumers and builders, architects, and by and large, most of the folks that are designing today’s homes or building today’s homes ⁓ feel more confident about the product than that earlier generation. Will Hanke (12:23)Yeah. That’s awesome. So Wayne, most of the listeners for our show are window treatment dealers and awning dealers. They focus mostly on vertical windows. Why should they also be paying attention to skylight shades? Wayne Feltman (12:52)Yeah, great question, Will. Well, believe it or not, about 10 to 20 % of homes have skylights. Now, it varies depending on where you’re at in the country. But on average, like I said, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20%, you get into certain areas. It can be as high as 50 % of homes. Florida, my sister lives in Arizona. There’s a lot of skylights down there in Arizona. Here in the Midwest, where I live, Indianapolis, I would say it’s in the neighborhood of about 20%. For your window dealers, when they get into a neighborhood, there’s a good chance that if a neighborhood has skylights, there may be a lot of them. It could be every other home or every home for that matter. ⁓ so if they’re in there doing window treatments and they see that there’s a bunch of skylights and they don’t have some kind of window treatment or shades on them, it’s a great question to ask. Have you ever entertained the idea of adding a shade to your skylights? And quite honestly, Will, it’s been interesting over the years to learn that the average consumer just doesn’t, there’s just not the awareness to know that, ⁓ Velux makes products for their skylights, light control shades and blinds. But also the fact that you can actually just do that. It’s just not intuitive. Being that it’s a sloped piece of glass, you would think it would fall to the interior of the space or hang down and not look very good. But obviously, technology has allowed us to design operable shades that work just fine in a skylight application. And we just need help create more awareness that these shading products exist. and that you can retrofit them into existing skylights. Will Hanke (14:21)love the idea of an easy upsell when you walk into the room. That’s great. What do you think are some of the most common objections or concerns that you would hear from a consumer? Wayne Feltman (14:33)Yeah, well, when it comes to skylights, and like I said, if you got a homeowner that’s had a skylight and they’ve lived in that home for years, especially if it’s a great room application, let’s say, whether you watch TV and whatnot, ⁓ certain times of the day and year, there’s a pretty good chance that the sun is shining through that skylight and to where they wish they could control that light. ⁓ So first is just observing that the home has skylights. Second would be asking a few questions, like are there certain times of day or certain times of year where you would benefit, think you would benefit from having a shade? And I like to start with that because that obviously will probably resonate with most consumers. At some point in time, certain times of the day or certain times of the year, that sunlight’s probably coming in in a way that is making it difficult to see the TV or becomes blinding or whatnot. So I like to start with that. if they’re not really sold on that, I like to change and speak to the energy efficiency side of things. despite the fact and that. Now, that skylight could be quite an old skylight too. And we’ve got product out there that’s 30, 40 years old still. Old clear glass skylights, old bubble type skylights, they’re not very energy efficient. So first thing is they should probably replace the skylight. Let’s start with that. But if it is even one of our newer skylights, there’s significant energy savings that can be had by adding shades. And that’s an argument that applies to any and every skylight out there. Will Hanke (15:51)So Wayne, what is involved in installing a shade in an already installed Velux skylight? Wayne Feltman (15:57)Yeah, great question, Will. So the first thing is we want to identify and verify that it is a Velux Skylight and what model type and size. And the good news is Velux has made this pretty easy. I think we spoke to this a little bit. All of our products from really the early 90s on have a silver tag in the lower left-hand corner. On a venting unit, it can be concealed behind the sash where the sash closes down. But we can help you find the tag. ⁓ But the tag tells us when it was produced, what model and type of Skylight is, what size it is. With that information. You can reach out to Velux or your dealer or if you become a dealer and purchase a shade for that skylight specifically designed for that skylight and the installation process actually is quite easy. So the way our shades ship is that you know, they’re broken down in a box. You would mount a couple clips in the upper right hand corner, upper right and left hand corner, lower right hand corner. So total of four clips. The blind assembly snaps onto the clips up top. You mount a couple rails down both sides. There’s a couple tensioners that hook within those rail assemblies. ⁓ And then you turn it on and configure it to the remote control. ⁓ And the whole process takes about a half hour. The most difficult process or part of the process is access, right? Getting up on a ladder, getting into that, depending on where that skylight’s located, it may or may not be very easy. But the actual installation process, as I said, is pretty simple. ⁓ First time, it’ll maybe take you 45 minutes to an hour. Second one, you’ll get it down to that 45 minutes. That third one will be a half hour or less. Will Hanke (17:26)So Wayne, what’s the difference between performance of light filtering and room darkening skylight shades? Wayne Feltman (17:33)Yeah, in terms of what velux manufacturers, we do have two dominant or two primary shade types. One is a double pleated room darkening shade. And it’s a honeycomb structure that’s got a foil liner on the inside. And that is by far our most energy efficient shade, just to give an idea of the performance values. And it varies based on the size of the window, obviously, because we’re talking about unit performance overall. But the room darkening performance value in terms of U-value improvement is from 24 to 45%. So pretty significant. Now our light filtering shade’s a little bit different. That’s a single pleat translucent material. a fabric material that does let the light pass through. Gives you a nice soft, softens the light coming through. But because it’s not a honeycomb structure, it doesn’t have that foil liner, it’s not as good in terms of energy improvements. And the range on that’s from 9 to 28%. Will Hanke (18:03)Okay. Yeah. Wayne Feltman (18:25)So on the high end, we’re talking about 45 % U-value improvement with the room darkening up to 28 % with the light filtering. So it’s quite a bit of a difference there. Solar heat gain coefficient, that’s the other aspect of this. So U-value is like at night, if you were to close your shade and it’s really cold outside, how much of that insulation value that shade adds. Solar heat gains more that sun, direct sun, and how much heat is coming through that window and through that shade material warming up your space. Will Hanke (18:36)Nice. Wayne Feltman (18:54)And the room darkening, up to a 23 % improvement in terms of solar heat gain coefficient. And then the light filtering, up to 16 % improvement. regardless of which option you go with, there is benefit for sure. But the room darkening definitely has the benefit on the U-value, which is really where you’re going to save some money on your heating and cooling cost. Will Hanke (19:15)I like that. So ⁓ we’ll go ahead and address the elephant in the room that you mentioned earlier on. ⁓ Skylights used to have a reputation for leaks and being hard to control. How has technology changed with that over the years? Wayne Feltman (19:29)Yeah, great question. And earlier I alluded to it. I mean, there were a lot of inferior products sold on the marketplace back in the 70s and 80s. And it’s the old tar down, right? And I’m talking about the plastic bubbles that you would literally put a bead of caulk or roof cement around your opening, slap that thing in it, put more tar on it, and slap the shingles into it, and literally hope it didn’t leak before you got off the roof. And the reality is the sealants weren’t very good back then. On a roof, got dissimilar materials, expansion and contraction. It was just a matter of time, generally speaking, before those kind of products, especially in a cold winter type climate, would start getting you problems. I’m proud to say Velux has always made and engineered what we call a step flashed product. It’s the same way you install a dormer, a chimney on your house. You weave metal step tins in with your shingles. And it’s a dry installation, no tars, cocks or adhesives. and installed properly with vapor barriers, these things are designed to last the life of your roof. And so going back to our founding, we’ve always prided ourselves on making those engineered flashing systems as an integral component to our skylight system. That being said, even ours wasn’t very forgiving if you didn’t step flash it right. If you didn’t apply the underlayment or the vapor barrier, you can get some condensation issues, and it would cause some problems. So believe that, gosh, it’s been almost 16 years now. But back in 2010, we redesigned our product line. And we came out with what we branded the No Leak Skylight. And with that, we designed in some redundant layers of protection so that even those little things that were causing troubles for our own product, we kind of engineered out. So now you get our Deckmount Skylight, for example, comes with an integrated deck seal that seals down to the deck and seals off that rough opening. We provide an adhesive underlayment in the box, which is a vapor barrier, ice and water shield, that wraps the skylight. And then you apply our engineered flashing system. And those three redundant layers of protection, we call it, guarantee a leak-proof installation. In fact, we put a 10-year no-leak warranty on the product. And that’s product and labor. So we wanted to do what we could to bring back confidence in the marketplace. Like said, this was 2010, so going on 15, 16 years ago. And by and large, it’s worked. People now feel confident that we’ve got a long track record now of showing that this product is bulletproof. So that’s kind how we brought confidence back to the marketplace, to answer your question. And like I said, if you ever did have a problem with one of our products, we’ve got a team of people across the country that if you’ve got a problem with the Velux guy, it’s a Velux problem. We’re going to take a look at it, make sure we can figure out what’s going on. Will Hanke (22:05)Awesome. The other big question that would probably come up in my mind is around durability, especially giving their direct exposure to sunlight. How have you guys used technology for that? Wayne Feltman (22:17)Yeah, great question. And this is where there’s been a lot of improvements in the technology as well. And there’s two ways I can tackle this question. One is just speaking to the glass and how glass has evolved over time. So for example, when we first started producing skylights in the United States in the late 70s, early 80s, clear glass was the norm. It was insulated glass, but it was a piece of clear glass over clear glass. 90 % of everything would come through, 90 % of the heat. 90 % of the UV rays, which is ultraviolet rays. And that’s what would cause damage. mean, ultraviolet rays, fades, tables, carpets, chairs, it’s damaging. We were the first company in the industry in 1995 with our second generation product to add low E-glasses standard to our product lineup, which was a very smart decision and really, I think, propelled Velux to become the domestic leader in skylights. And then fast forward to 2010, we moved to the third generation of low-E, what we call low-E 3. And just give you an idea how far it’s come. 99.9 % of the UV rays is blocked out with this glass. And UV rays being the most, all rays, visible light even causes some, I’ll call it damage, if you will. But. When you’re 99.9 % of your UV is blocked out, you’re ensuring that things like your shades that you’re hanging under your skylights have some longevity to them. And then obviously the days of your tables, carpets, chairs, upholstery, and things like that fading from the exposure are gone as well. Will Hanke (23:52)That’s great. So I want to talk a little bit about consumer appeal, home benefits. We can start with solar since we’re kind of already on that track. I know that some of the items that you offer are solar powered, so tell me a little bit more about that. Wayne Feltman (24:05)Yeah, kind of back to the evolution of technology. So just to give you a history, like I we’ve always, at least since we’ve been in the States, had shades available and blinds available for our skylights. The early days, they were manual, meaning you would use, and if they’re up out of reach, which they typically are here in the United States, you’d use a rod and you would reach up and hook a little round hook on the top right-hand corner of your skylight. You would twist it and the shade would go up and down or the Venetian blinds would twist. It worked. But we’re humans, we’re lazy by nature. The idea of having to get up off the couch, go over and grab that rod and hook this thing 10, 12, 15 feet up isn’t something you were gonna do on a regular basis. And the same is true with opening a skylight if you had a venting skylight. So, a few years later we realized, and again, we do a lot of market research that, hey, people are buying shades but they’re not opening and closing them. They’d stay always open or always closed. So we said, we gotta electrify these. And so we came up with electric systems that made these, now you could go to a wall remote ⁓ and it was a low voltage system. So you had wires behind the wall that would go up to that shade or to that venting skylight and you would push a keypad on the wall and it would open and close your shades or open and close your skylight. It was great, worked well. Problem is how do you retrofit that into an existing home where you got to run wires? So there were challenges there. Now new construction, we had pretty high adoption and guys were embracing the technology. But it was really as we were looking into our third generation product, we said, we just got to go all in on solar and solar technology. So I think it was 2008, and I said it was 2010 that our current third generation product came out. But 2008, a couple of years prior, we introduced a solar powered shade. And so the way this works is it’s a completely self-contained shade. So the shade literally mounts on the inside of the skylight. But within that shade assembly is a solar panel and a battery. And the small integrated solar panel charges the integrated battery, and the shade actually works off the battery power. And now it is remote control. So you’ve got a remote control that you can mount anywhere in the room. And it’s a radio frequency remote, so it’s not line of sight. The days of having to point right at it to get it to work are over. So it goes through walls, windows, doors, and whatnot. So you can put that remote pretty much anywhere. And with the touch of a button, now you can operate your shades, which, again, With that kind of convenience, now you’re going to use your shade when you need to use it and be smart about taking advantage of the benefits of that shade. And the same is true with our operation and functionality of our venting skylights now. We have solar powered venting skylights that work on an exact same kind of principle. Completely separate system from the blind solar panel. It’s got its own self-contained solar panel battery system and can work off the same or multiple remote controls. Will Hanke (26:50)Any smart home applications? Wayne Feltman (26:53)Absolutely. our current shades and skylights ship standard with a basic remote. Basic remote pretty much being a stop, up, and down button. And that’s true of the shade and the skylight. Now there is an upgrade you can make. It’s called our touch remote. Now the touch remote allows you to control multiple skylights with a single remote. And it also has some basic programmability. So it has a timer function. So if you had, for example, a venting skylight in your bathroom and you wanted to open it up while you’re showering to let the steam out, you could set the timer for 30 minutes. It’ll open, open for 30 minutes, on, actually close. So that’s kind of step two. Step three then would be we have a gateway that we sell that now allows your shade to connect to the internet. So you download an app and now via your mobile device, you can control your skylight shades or skylight venting skylights, which is pretty cool. And then the ultimate in technology is something we call Velux Active. And this is really where we’re trying to take things. And the idea behind Velux Active is the skylight is now smart. It’s working on behalf of you to improve your indoor climate in a number of respects. So what Velux Active is, is it’s a smart keypad that mounts the wall now that has three sensors built into it, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, and a CO2 sensor. And so you’ve got complete control and programmability over your skylight as well as your shade. So you can say, every day at night, I want my shades to close to save on energy cost in the winter months at installation value. You can program it to do that. The bathroom application I was speaking to in terms of eventing skylight, if you had a velux Active system and this keypad mounted in the bathroom, you hop in the shower, start taking a shower as soon as the humidity levels rise in that bathroom. it’ll automatically deploy your skylight, open it, naturally evacuate the humidity, and automatically close once the levels return to normal. So Velux Active is a really cool kind of first step in where this technology is going to go. It’s available today, though, which is neat. Like said, we’ve got a number of these skylights down at our lake house or cabin in southern Indiana. Anywhere in the world, I cannot check the status. So now in the winter, if I want to know if the heat’s working, I just check in on my skylights and make sure that the temperature is where it belongs. But before I Will Hanke (29:09)That’s awesome. Wayne Feltman (29:10)head down in the summer, I can use my phone and open up all my skylights and cool the cabin off 20, 30 degrees before we get down there in a hot summer months. ⁓ So pretty cool technology. Now, if I wanted to, could act with the velux Active. I could let the system just run itself. For example, the sunroom application, when the sunroom heats up, I could have a parameter set where, when I reach this set point, this temperature, I want my skylights to open and cool this place off. And when it cools down, automatically close. Will Hanke (29:19)That’s nice. Wayne Feltman (29:36)Because we’re not there, don’t utilize, when we’re there, we’ll utilize that technology, but when I’m away, we’re more just using it for remote access and control. Will Hanke (29:44)Right, yeah, yeah, very cool. I’ve always loved this part. Wayne Feltman (29:46)But yeah, these are things that the average consumer doesn’t know exist today. like I said, one of the things that changed with COVID for us, and it’s really changed our product program as well, is instead of laying our people off, we decided we were going to start doing virtual consultations. And up until COVID, most of our interactions as reps and as a company were with contractors, roofers, builders, remodelers. And today, generally, it’s the roofer that installs our product. ⁓ And that’s where our interactions kind of were. But with COVID, we said, you know what? We’re going to, on our website, give consumers the opportunity to talk to a guy like me. And if they’ve got an old Skylight they’re messing with, wanting to replace, or if they’re doing a sunroom addition or something, why would you want to add a Skylight to that and have a virtual consultation? And what was interesting is when our reps or a knowledgeable individual that understands all this technology and the benefits of Skylights and the benefits of this technology got involved, that homeowner not only would incorporate a bunch of skylights, but they would incorporate the technology that is available. They would almost always buy the shade. They would almost always go to a venting skylight. Whereas before COVID, they were dealing with a roofer or a contractor that may or may not have had much knowledge of the benefits of adding that shade. And so our shade ratio historically was about 10 to 20%. With COVID, like said, when we were tracking our projects, we were in that 75, 80 % threshold. Will Hanke (31:13)everybody’s home. Wayne Feltman (31:14)Yeah, so we said there’s something to this. So we hired an outside research group called the ⁓ company by the name of Cantar, said, hey, here’s what we’re seeing. Historically, our sales don’t align with this. Could you do some research into this and make sure that we’re not missing something that we think is going on here? And we did. And obviously, the Cantar research came back very much that consumers want shades, in fact, that we’re willing to pay for them. ⁓ And the reality is it was an awareness issue. And sometimes the contractor was maybe a hurdle for us to get past because, you know, what roofer wants to go inside a house and mess with a shade? You know, they generally don’t. so when we kind of had this new found knowledge and understanding that, you know, the majority of consumers actually 90 % is what our research came back with. Not only want to shade, but are willing to pay for it. said, you know what, we need to make this a standard part of our program. So actually this year, April, 2025, we launched what we call the Velux system. Now we’ve always had a system. It was a skylight, a flashing kit, and then optional shades and remote controls and things of that nature. Well, today, our core products are deck mount and curb mount products. And we don’t need to get into all the details and the differences there. But our core product lines now come standard with room darkening shades. Will Hanke (32:26)Okay. Wayne Feltman (32:27)And it was a direct result of that interaction through COVID with consumers. Will Hanke (32:27)Very cool. I love that. So if I’m a window treatment dealer listening today, what’s the first step to add skylight shades to my offerings? Wayne Feltman (32:39)Yeah, so great question. And like I said, your customers see a lot of homes. mean, they’re in a lot of different homes. So the first thing is identify homes that have skylights, right? The second thing is they really need to identify what kind of skylight it is. And we can help with that. And I would encourage anybody that’s listening to this that’s interested in learning more about skylights and how they can make money on this opportunity to contact or reach out to us. And let’s put you in touch with your local Velux representative. We’ve got a rep that covers every state in the country. And what we will do is we’ll come in and do some training. We’ll teach you how to identify the different types of skylights that are out there. The good news is the vast majority of them are Velux skylights. And there’s some unique features that identify it as a Velux. The other thing that’s quite powerful is all Velux skylights, going back to really the early 90s, have an ID tag on them that tells us exactly what model type and size that skylight is. So with that information, if we can teach your dealers to identify that it’s a Velux skylight, get that tag information, then it’s a simple, OK, here’s your blind options that are shade options that are available for that product. And we still support all our back product with shades so that they can retrofit and add shades then to those existing skylights. And there’s a huge base, like said, up until really just the last couple of years. From COVID-4, we really moved the needle on our shade sales. And now today, like I said, our core product is coming standard. Will Hanke (33:54)awesome. Wayne Feltman (34:05)We’ve got a 50 year history where the vast majority of our skylights only about 10, depending where you’re at, 10 to 20 % of our skylights were going out the door with shades on them. So the vast majority of them are what we call naked skylights. And there’s nothing more that we would love than for your audience to say, you know what? That’s an opportunity I want to capitalize on. And I’m going to add some shades to those for these folks. Will Hanke (34:25)Yeah. So another segment of listeners for the show are ⁓ people that do awnings, exterior shading. Do you see this as a good add-on for them as well? Wayne Feltman (34:37)Again, the awareness consumers have of what their options are with skylights is pretty limited, unfortunately. ⁓ Most people, they have a skylight, right? And they don’t know if they got a bubble skylight. They don’t necessarily know that there’s alternatives that are much better. If they’ve got an old Velux skylight, they don’t necessarily know why they might want to replace that skylight or why they might want to add a shade to that skylight for energy improvement reasons and or just light control reasons. I think there is an opportunity, regardless of whether you’re inside the home or exterior, when you see skylights, I think there’s an opportunity there. unfortunately for us, not too many people are dialed into this category and talking about it. So you can do a couple of things, whether you’re an interior window treatment specialist or an exterior awning guy. If you want to get in the game, first thing is reaching out to us and say, You know, I heard this podcast, I think there’s an opportunity here. I’d like to learn a little bit more about it. And what we’ll do is we’ll come in and we’ll do some training and kind of let you know what the opportunities are in terms of, okay, if it’s this kind of skylight, here’s what you need to do with it. If it’s one of ours, here’s what your options are. But in a lot of cases, you might want to even do a partnership, you know, knowledge is power. And if you guys are at the home, have the relationship with the homeowner, part of what I do in my current role is develop a network of skylight specialists across the country. And our skylight specialists, I mean, they make their living literally installing, replacing, and servicing skylights. So there’s an opportunity there, I think, where you could partner, if we have one in the market that one of your customers is working at, to create a partnership and say, hey, I don’t want to get in the business necessarily of replacing skylights. And hey, I’m not a roofer. I’m not comfortable with that. But I am a shade guy, or I’m an exterior awning guy, and I see an opportunity here. And depending on the age of that, you installing the shades is easy, but you might not want to install a shade on a 40-year-old skylight, right? So there might be some synergies that could happen there. ⁓ And by all means, like I said, I’ve brought people into our industry, into our category of skylight specialists. A lot of our specialists had no former industry experience. And it is unique industry in that not everyone’s out talking about it, which that’s a positive in some respects, because it’s a niche then that you can really carve out a market for yourself. Will Hanke (36:51)So I think it all starts with paying attention, right? And just if you see those bubbles when you’re putting on and oning, you know, it’s time to have a chat about those probably. Wayne Feltman (36:54)For sure. Yeah, sure. And like I said, I understand that their core focus is probably awnings or window treatments. this isn’t necessarily going to be for everybody. But for those that are interested, would say reach out to us and let’s talk. Let’s see what we can ⁓ kind of work out. Will Hanke (37:17)Yeah, so Wayne where do you think the skylight and shade market is going in the next two to three years? Wayne Feltman (37:24)Great question. I wish I had that crystal ball. Like I said, I really love our current product program because of the functionality, the solar power, the velux Active with the automation and stuff. ⁓ There’s a lot of other technologies out there. I right now we’re still relying on a fabric pleated or honeycomb style shade. There’s technology out there today. It’s just expensive where you push a button and the glass changes. color. There’s electrochromic, photochromic glass, things of that nature. I don’t know how soon that is on the horizon. A lot of it’s cost. Some of it might be durability and longevity. And I’m not sure, quite honestly, how that, in terms of energy performance, the one benefit of putting a material fabric type shading device is you’re adding another layer to that glass and really improving the energy performance. So from a solar heat gain, could see that technology being really good. From a U-value perspective, I’m not sure it would be as good as what we have today. But I do see a trend towards that probably, as it applies to skylights and even vertical windows. I imagine the folks in your industry are probably even more up to speed on that than I am. ⁓ But the other thing that I do see is that the society is becoming much more energy conscious and much more sustainably focused. We say this at velux a lot, and it’s true. A skylight is the most energy efficient window in the world. And when you hear that, you think, I’ve heard just the opposite. Skylights are energy hogs. They’re energy losers. Well, the reality is you get twice as much light through a skylight as you do a comparably sized vertical window. So if you’ve got a 2 by 4 vertical window, you could put a 2 by 2 skylight, half the size, and get as much light, and I would argue a better quality of light through that skylight than that vertical window. But when you talk about an energy envelope of a building, ⁓ that’s powerful. If you can get twice as much light or as much light but with half the fenestration area. And smart architects, smart builders, as energy codes get more stringent, I think our category and our products are going to become much more relevant. And I think we’re going to see the adoption of skylights and daylighting through the roof only improve. ⁓ in terms of my crystal ball, And the other reality is, our market penetration now is, depending where you’re at, 10 to 20 % of homes. So we’ve got a huge growth trajectory to get to where we want to be, which is 100 % of homes out there having some kind of skylight or tubular day lighting device. Will Hanke (39:52)Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. Lots of upside for you. That’s great. Wayne Feltman (39:59)Absolutely, absolutely. And for our partners. I like I said, we’re a manufacturer, and we’re only successful if we got good partners out there helping bring awareness to our category. And that’s our biggest challenge. You need a vertical window. Codes currently require it. You need an entryway door. You don’t necessarily need a skylight. At least people don’t know that they need one. I would argue they do. They just don’t know it. And so over time, I think as we build out our network of installers, our specialists, as our company grows, our advertising and marketing budgets grow. And again, the sustainability argument really bodes well for our product category because it is the most sustainable way to daylight a house. It’s the most energy efficient way of doing it. Will Hanke (40:42)Wayne, I appreciate all the things that you’ve shared today. As we start to wrap up, I wanted to ask, ⁓ do you have a favorite success story where adding Skylight Shades made a big difference for a dealer or a homeowner? Wayne Feltman (40:56)boy. You know, the one thing I love about this job is we get to see some really cool homes and do some really neat things. I’ve been involved with a lot of the HGTV projects over the years and we’re in all the major shows. And what’s really cool is with those projects is, know, we the budgets kind of go out the window and we can load them up with skylights. And I recently did one down in Nashville, Tennessee, where it was the center of a home that a central staircase, tall, narrow, three story type home. And we put a bank of five over five skylights above this three story staircase in the middle of the home. would have been vertical windows could have gone up it, but just wouldn’t have been the same. And they were venting skylights with shades and a touch of a button or a touch of your. your app on your phone, all the skylights would open, all the shades could come down. And when you put a room darkening shade in that application, what’s really cool about it, when you got that many skylights and an application that really needs the daylight, when you bring all those room darkening shades down, you can see what that space kind of would look like without skylights. And then when you open them all, you’re like, wow, what a difference. I’m so glad we added these skylights. And that’s just a one-off. we do lots of probably. We’ve got a system that allows us to do gangs or groupings of skylights. But those are always the most fun because the impact is so dramatic. And when you put the solar powered shades on it, you can operate them all simultaneously. And it’s really dramatic. So it’s not necessarily one project as much as those type of projects that I really like, because it really features the power of what we can do. And then on the flip side, I work with a number of builders that, you know, small master, I’ll call it primary bass. And for whatever reason, they may not have vertical windows because it’s an interior type location. And then I may have a single two by four skylight. And same same thing applies though. Yeah, you know, put a room darkening shade on that. You know, Mr. Mr. Homeowner, especially if it’s in a model home, and it’s an option, which unfortunately, a lot of times builders just want to I don’t want to price myself out of the market. So yeah, I’ll offer skylights, but it’s gonna be an option. And what we do on the sales agent training side is we go in there and we say, OK, here’s how you sell the skylights. You close the shade and say, OK, here’s this room now. Open the shade and say, here it is with the skylight. And then it sells itself. Even with a single skylight, it’s that dramatic. Will Hanke (43:31)Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, thank you. For anybody that’s interested in exploring this opportunity a little further, what’s the best way for them to connect with you or Velux? Wayne Feltman (43:41)Yeah, great question. I would recommend starting with our website. Our domestic website is VeLUXUSA.com and there is a wealth of information out there. And then through that mechanism, through the website, you can reach out to our customer service team. You can email or there’s phone numbers out there as well. But reach out to us and just say, I’m in such and such a state. I’d be interested in connecting with my local Velux representative. Like I said, we do have a representative in just about a just about every state, but every state is definitely covered. And they will welcome your call and look forward to the opportunity to sit down and talk about what the opportunity is to partner with us. And like I said, we can partner in a number of different ways. It really just depends on their level of interest and what they’re trying to achieve. Will Hanke (44:24)Wayne, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been some fantastic insights. Wayne Feltman (44:29)Hey, Will, I appreciate the opportunity to be on and hopefully we’ll hear from some of your customers. Will Hanke (44:34)Awesome. Well, that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Marketing Panes A big thank you to Wayne Feltman for sharing his insights and showing us how Skylight Shades are not just about comfort, but also about creating a new revenue stream for dealers already in the home. If today’s conversation gave you even one new idea, do us a favor, share this episode with another window treatment or awning pro who could benefit. Make sure you’re subscribed to follow us on our social media and YouTube at Window Treatment Marketing Pros so you don’t miss future episodes packed with real world marketing tips and industry insights. And if you want to learn more about adding skylight shades to your business, check out the resources Wayne mentioned and connect with Velux. We’ll have all his info and links in the show notes on our website, WTMarketingPros.com. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Marketing Panes. 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 make and sell, they throw a curveball at us and introduce something new. I think for all those reasons, know, it’s been 26 years, but I’ll be honest, some of my earlier career or jobs, I should say, seem like they were a lot longer than my 26 years at velux despite only being a year or two. Will Hanke (06:20)Yeah. For dealers that are not familiar, what does ventilation and light really mean in practice? Wayne Feltman (06:27)Yeah, no, great question. Actually, it’s fundamental to our company and our founding. So actually the name Velux is the root of two Latin words, V-E for ventilation, LUX, the Latin word for light. And just to give you a quick snapshot of the background of the company, mean, our founder was actually a glazing engineer by training and was given the task of converting attic spaces to classrooms. So this was back in 1941. There was a war going on. We’re based in Denmark. We’re a Northern European company. And they were trying to utilize all the attic space. A lot of buildings were destroyed. But anyway, he was given the task of converting some attic space to classrooms. And at the time, materials were scarce. Resources were scarce. ⁓ And so he came up with an ingenious way of putting a piece of glass ⁓ in the plane of the roof that would pivot and rotate and ventilate ⁓ and daylight the space, make it a functional space. So those are our humble beginnings. But ⁓ we’ve diversified and grown from just that attic room application. Today we have two core products. have some called roof windows, which are generally within reach applications. So think of like you’re here in the States, the most common applications would be the bonus room above a garage where you got the knee wall and the sloped ceilings. That would be a good application for a roof window that you can walk up within reach. Another one would be like story and a half type home where you’re finishing off your attic space and converting that into space, bedrooms or whatnot. Roof windows can meet egress requirements. But the more traditional application here in the States is what we call a skylight. And you take your typical home that’s got 8, 9 foot, 10 foot ceilings today. And you got that skylight up in the ceiling, up at a reach. And so the product category is a little bit different. They’re designed for up at a reach applications in use. But why you would want to skylight? I mean, it really comes down to a couple of things. First, obviously, natural light. You just can’t beat the value of natural light coming into a home. And if you think about it, where we put our artificial lighting, generally it’s on the ceiling through light fixtures. Why would we do vertical or natural light any different? And so there’s significant power and effect of bringing in natural light from overhead to skylights. But then there’s the ventilation aspect of it. It’s very powerful to utilize a skylight for natural ventilation. And it’s a scientific kind of concept called the chimney or stack effect. But the reality is heat rises. So if you open a skylight up high and a window down low, you get this chimney or stack effect or thermal effect. There’s a lot of different names for it. Where that hot air wants to go up and escape through that skylight, you’re bringing in that fresh air through those lower windows. ⁓ In Europe, they call that air conditioning. when mechanical air conditioning came along, we kind of got away from taking advantage of that natural air conditioning effect that skylights can provide. And the good news is now that you know Will Hanke (09:03)you Wayne Feltman (09:15)society’s becoming more sustainable, we’re getting back to it. ⁓ But so the ventilation aspect is another key reason why skylights are, you know, I think particularly valuable in design and construction. And then the last thing is, is, you know, there’s a lot of areas in your home that you just can’t light with vertical windows, interior spaces, hallways, interior rooms, like closets and whatnot, or you’re trying to maintain privacy. ⁓ And so what’s unique about a skylight, obviously, is you’re bringing in that light from overhead. And even in an interior room or hallway, you can pipe light in through the attic space, if you will, through a traditional skylight or an alternative product called a tubular skylight or a sun tunnel skylight, which is a very quick and easy way just to bring in light into an interior space. So that’s my quick one, too. I I hopefully gave your listeners a kind of a. new perspective on the value of skylights. And like I said, it’s not any one. I think it’s a combination of all of the above. Depending on what the design needs are, the space you’re trying to apply the skylights to. Will Hanke (10:06)Yeah. Yeah. Now I know they were big in the seventies and eighties and then they kind of faded for a while. you mentioned that they’re kind of back in style now. What do you think is driving that resurgence? Wayne Feltman (10:25)You know, that’s fair and I hear that a lot. what I’d like to say is, ⁓ well, velux like I we’ve been in the States, actually, we just celebrated 50 years. So we’ve been in the States ⁓ for quite a while. you know, we ride, you know, the economy, obviously, the ups and downs of the economy. But I think it is fair to say that in 70s and the 80s, Skylights were more popular. There were a lot of other vendors, lot of other manufacturers in the game as well. And our sales have grown year to year. We’ve consistently grown as a company. So daylight and fresh air never goes out of style. And I would argue even skylights really have never gone out of style. What’s changed is a lot of the companies that got into the business in the 70s and 80s that quite frankly were building inferior products that were problematic ended up having problems and they got out of the industry. The quality providers that really designed a quality product. For the most part, they’ve been a quieter, they’re still in the game. And I think it’s unfortunate because, and I’m talking about the old plastic, tar down bubbles. You still ask a lot of people today what a skylight is. Their vision of it, especially if they’re older, is the old plastic bubble that you can’t see through, that’s literally tarred down to the roof. And if it started leaking, they just added more tar and then you this ugly bubble on your roof. And I think that did tarnish the industry a little bit. ⁓ Velux, fortunately, has always made a quality product. We’ve always made engineered flashing systems to ensure that they’re watertight. But even our own product wasn’t as forgiving. Meaning if you didn’t do something right, it could come back to bite you and cause problems. And over the years, technology has greatly improved not only our installation processes, but the product itself. ⁓ is it fair to say that it was popular? Well, I think Skylights and the benefits they bring have always been popular. I truly do feel that way. Will Hanke (12:05)that. Wayne Feltman (12:14)It’s just that the risk reward ratio back in the early days, some of these problematic manufacturers caused people to rethink that, I don’t want to go there. Unfortunately, we’ve been clawing our way back to gain the confidence of consumers and builders, architects, and by and large, most of the folks that are designing today’s homes or building today’s homes ⁓ feel more confident about the product than that earlier generation. Will Hanke (12:23)Yeah. That’s awesome. So Wayne, most of the listeners for our show are window treatment dealers and awning dealers. They focus mostly on vertical windows. Why should they also be paying attention to skylight shades? Wayne Feltman (12:52)Yeah, great question, Will. Well, believe it or not, about 10 to 20 % of homes have skylights. Now, it varies depending on where you’re at in the country. But on average, like I said, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20%, you get into certain areas. It can be as high as 50 % of homes. Florida, my sister lives in Arizona. There’s a lot of skylights down there in Arizona. Here in the Midwest, where I live, Indianapolis, I would say it’s in the neighborhood of about 20%. For your window dealers, when they get into a neighborhood, there’s a good chance that if a neighborhood has skylights, there may be a lot of them. It could be every other home or every home for that matter. ⁓ so if they’re in there doing window treatments and they see that there’s a bunch of skylights and they don’t have some kind of window treatment or shades on them, it’s a great question to ask. Have you ever entertained the idea of adding a shade to your skylights? And quite honestly, Will, it’s been interesting over the years to learn that the average consumer just doesn’t, there’s just not the awareness to know that, ⁓ Velux makes products for their skylights, light control shades and blinds. But also the fact that you can actually just do that. It’s just not intuitive. Being that it’s a sloped piece of glass, you would think it would fall to the interior of the space or hang down and not look very good. But obviously, technology has allowed us to design operable shades that work just fine in a skylight application. And we just need help create more awareness that these shading products exist. and that you can retrofit them into existing skylights. Will Hanke (14:21)love the idea of an easy upsell when you walk into the room. That’s great. What do you think are some of the most common objections or concerns that you would hear from a consumer? Wayne Feltman (14:33)Yeah, well, when it comes to skylights, and like I said, if you got a homeowner that’s had a skylight and they’ve lived in that home for years, especially if it’s a great room application, let’s say, whether you watch TV and whatnot, ⁓ certain times of the day and year, there’s a pretty good chance that the sun is shining through that skylight and to where they wish they could control that light. ⁓ So first is just observing that the home has skylights. Second would be asking a few questions, like are there certain times of day or certain times of year where you would benefit, think you would benefit from having a shade? And I like to start with that because that obviously will probably resonate with most consumers. At some point in time, certain times of the day or certain times of the year, that sunlight’s probably coming in in a way that is making it difficult to see the TV or becomes blinding or whatnot. So I like to start with that. if they’re not really sold on that, I like to change and speak to the energy efficiency side of things. despite the fact and that. Now, that skylight could be quite an old skylight too. And we’ve got product out there that’s 30, 40 years old still. Old clear glass skylights, old bubble type skylights, they’re not very energy efficient. So first thing is they should probably replace the skylight. Let’s start with that. But if it is even one of our newer skylights, there’s significant energy savings that can be had by adding shades. And that’s an argument that applies to any and every skylight out there. Will Hanke (15:51)So Wayne, what is involved in installing a shade in an already installed Velux skylight? Wayne Feltman (15:57)Yeah, great question, Will. So the first thing is we want to identify and verify that it is a Velux Skylight and what model type and size. And the good news is Velux has made this pretty easy. I think we spoke to this a little bit. All of our products from really the early 90s on have a silver tag in the lower left-hand corner. On a venting unit, it can be concealed behind the sash where the sash closes down. But we can help you find the tag. ⁓ But the tag tells us when it was produced, what model and type of Skylight is, what size it is. With that information. You can reach out to Velux or your dealer or if you become a dealer and purchase a shade for that skylight specifically designed for that skylight and the installation process actually is quite easy. So the way our shades ship is that you know, they’re broken down in a box. You would mount a couple clips in the upper right hand corner, upper right and left hand corner, lower right hand corner. So total of four clips. The blind assembly snaps onto the clips up top. You mount a couple rails down both sides. There’s a couple tensioners that hook within those rail assemblies. ⁓ And then you turn it on and configure it to the remote control. ⁓ And the whole process takes about a half hour. The most difficult process or part of the process is access, right? Getting up on a ladder, getting into that, depending on where that skylight’s located, it may or may not be very easy. But the actual installation process, as I said, is pretty simple. ⁓ First time, it’ll maybe take you 45 minutes to an hour. Second one, you’ll get it down to that 45 minutes. That third one will be a half hour or less. Will Hanke (17:26)So Wayne, what’s the difference between performance of light filtering and room darkening skylight shades? Wayne Feltman (17:33)Yeah, in terms of what velux manufacturers, we do have two dominant or two primary shade types. One is a double pleated room darkening shade. And it’s a honeycomb structure that’s got a foil liner on the inside. And that is by far our most energy efficient shade, just to give an idea of the performance values. And it varies based on the size of the window, obviously, because we’re talking about unit performance overall. But the room darkening performance value in terms of U-value improvement is from 24 to 45%. So pretty significant. Now our light filtering shade’s a little bit different. That’s a single pleat translucent material. a fabric material that does let the light pass through. Gives you a nice soft, softens the light coming through. But because it’s not a honeycomb structure, it doesn’t have that foil liner, it’s not as good in terms of energy improvements. And the range on that’s from 9 to 28%. Will Hanke (18:03)Okay. Yeah. Wayne Feltman (18:25)So on the high end, we’re talking about 45 % U-value improvement with the room darkening up to 28 % with the light filtering. So it’s quite a bit of a difference there. Solar heat gain coefficient, that’s the other aspect of this. So U-value is like at night, if you were to close your shade and it’s really cold outside, how much of that insulation value that shade adds. Solar heat gains more that sun, direct sun, and how much heat is coming through that window and through that shade material warming up your space. Will Hanke (18:36)Nice. Wayne Feltman (18:54)And the room darkening, up to a 23 % improvement in terms of solar heat gain coefficient. And then the light filtering, up to 16 % improvement. regardless of which option you go with, there is benefit for sure. But the room darkening definitely has the benefit on the U-value, which is really where you’re going to save some money on your heating and cooling cost. Will Hanke (19:15)I like that. So ⁓ we’ll go ahead and address the elephant in the room that you mentioned earlier on. ⁓ Skylights used to have a reputation for leaks and being hard to control. How has technology changed with that over the years? Wayne Feltman (19:29)Yeah, great question. And earlier I alluded to it. I mean, there were a lot of inferior products sold on the marketplace back in the 70s and 80s. And it’s the old tar down, right? And I’m talking about the plastic bubbles that you would literally put a bead of caulk or roof cement around your opening, slap that thing in it, put more tar on it, and slap the shingles into it, and literally hope it didn’t leak before you got off the roof. And the reality is the sealants weren’t very good back then. On a roof, got dissimilar materials, expansion and contraction. It was just a matter of time, generally speaking, before those kind of products, especially in a cold winter type climate, would start getting you problems. I’m proud to say Velux has always made and engineered what we call a step flashed product. It’s the same way you install a dormer, a chimney on your house. You weave metal step tins in with your shingles. And it’s a dry installation, no tars, cocks or adhesives. and installed properly with vapor barriers, these things are designed to last the life of your roof. And so going back to our founding, we’ve always prided ourselves on making those engineered flashing systems as an integral component to our skylight system. That being said, even ours wasn’t very forgiving if you didn’t step flash it right. If you didn’t apply the underlayment or the vapor barrier, you can get some condensation issues, and it would cause some problems. So believe that, gosh, it’s been almost 16 years now. But back in 2010, we redesigned our product line. And we came out with what we branded the No Leak Skylight. And with that, we designed in some redundant layers of protection so that even those little things that were causing troubles for our own product, we kind of engineered out. So now you get our Deckmount Skylight, for example, comes with an integrated deck seal that seals down to the deck and seals off that rough opening. We provide an adhesive underlayment in the box, which is a vapor barrier, ice and water shield, that wraps the skylight. And then you apply our engineered flashing system. And those three redundant layers of protection, we call it, guarantee a leak-proof installation. In fact, we put a 10-year no-leak warranty on the product. And that’s product and labor. So we wanted to do what we could to bring back confidence in the marketplace. Like said, this was 2010, so going on 15, 16 years ago. And by and large, it’s worked. People now feel confident that we’ve got a long track record now of showing that this product is bulletproof. So that’s kind how we brought confidence back to the marketplace, to answer your question. And like I said, if you ever did have a problem with one of our products, we’ve got a team of people across the country that if you’ve got a problem with the Velux guy, it’s a Velux problem. We’re going to take a look at it, make sure we can figure out what’s going on. Will Hanke (22:05)Awesome. The other big question that would probably come up in my mind is around durability, especially giving their direct exposure to sunlight. How have you guys used technology for that? Wayne Feltman (22:17)Yeah, great question. And this is where there’s been a lot of improvements in the technology as well. And there’s two ways I can tackle this question. One is just speaking to the glass and how glass has evolved over time. So for example, when we first started producing skylights in the United States in the late 70s, early 80s, clear glass was the norm. It was insulated glass, but it was a piece of clear glass over clear glass. 90 % of everything would come through, 90 % of the heat. 90 % of the UV rays, which is ultraviolet rays. And that’s what would cause damage. mean, ultraviolet rays, fades, tables, carpets, chairs, it’s damaging. We were the first company in the industry in 1995 with our second generation product to add low E-glasses standard to our product lineup, which was a very smart decision and really, I think, propelled Velux to become the domestic leader in skylights. And then fast forward to 2010, we moved to the third generation of low-E, what we call low-E 3. And just give you an idea how far it’s come. 99.9 % of the UV rays is blocked out with this glass. And UV rays being the most, all rays, visible light even causes some, I’ll call it damage, if you will. But. When you’re 99.9 % of your UV is blocked out, you’re ensuring that things like your shades that you’re hanging under your skylights have some longevity to them. And then obviously the days of your tables, carpets, chairs, upholstery, and things like that fading from the exposure are gone as well. Will Hanke (23:52)That’s great. So I want to talk a little bit about consumer appeal, home benefits. We can start with solar since we’re kind of already on that track. I know that some of the items that you offer are solar powered, so tell me a little bit more about that. Wayne Feltman (24:05)Yeah, kind of back to the evolution of technology. So just to give you a history, like I we’ve always, at least since we’ve been in the States, had shades available and blinds available for our skylights. The early days, they were manual, meaning you would use, and if they’re up out of reach, which they typically are here in the United States, you’d use a rod and you would reach up and hook a little round hook on the top right-hand corner of your skylight. You would twist it and the shade would go up and down or the Venetian blinds would twist. It worked. But we’re humans, we’re lazy by nature. The idea of having to get up off the couch, go over and grab that rod and hook this thing 10, 12, 15 feet up isn’t something you were gonna do on a regular basis. And the same is true with opening a skylight if you had a venting skylight. So, a few years later we realized, and again, we do a lot of market research that, hey, people are buying shades but they’re not opening and closing them. They’d stay always open or always closed. So we said, we gotta electrify these. And so we came up with electric systems that made these, now you could go to a wall remote ⁓ and it was a low voltage system. So you had wires behind the wall that would go up to that shade or to that venting skylight and you would push a keypad on the wall and it would open and close your shades or open and close your skylight. It was great, worked well. Problem is how do you retrofit that into an existing home where you got to run wires? So there were challenges there. Now new construction, we had pretty high adoption and guys were embracing the technology. But it was really as we were looking into our third generation product, we said, we just got to go all in on solar and solar technology. So I think it was 2008, and I said it was 2010 that our current third generation product came out. But 2008, a couple of years prior, we introduced a solar powered shade. And so the way this works is it’s a completely self-contained shade. So the shade literally mounts on the inside of the skylight. But within that shade assembly is a solar panel and a battery. And the small integrated solar panel charges the integrated battery, and the shade actually works off the battery power. And now it is remote control. So you’ve got a remote control that you can mount anywhere in the room. And it’s a radio frequency remote, so it’s not line of sight. The days of having to point right at it to get it to work are over. So it goes through walls, windows, doors, and whatnot. So you can put that remote pretty much anywhere. And with the touch of a button, now you can operate your shades, which, again, With that kind of convenience, now you’re going to use your shade when you need to use it and be smart about taking advantage of the benefits of that shade. And the same is true with our operation and functionality of our venting skylights now. We have solar powered venting skylights that work on an exact same kind of principle. Completely separate system from the blind solar panel. It’s got its own self-contained solar panel battery system and can work off the same or multiple remote controls. Will Hanke (26:50)Any smart home applications? Wayne Feltman (26:53)Absolutely. our current shades and skylights ship standard with a basic remote. Basic remote pretty much being a stop, up, and down button. And that’s true of the shade and the skylight. Now there is an upgrade you can make. It’s called our touch remote. Now the touch remote allows you to control multiple skylights with a single remote. And it also has some basic programmability. So it has a timer function. So if you had, for example, a venting skylight in your bathroom and you wanted to open it up while you’re showering to let the steam out, you could set the timer for 30 minutes. It’ll open, open for 30 minutes, on, actually close. So that’s kind of step two. Step three then would be we have a gateway that we sell that now allows your shade to connect to the internet. So you download an app and now via your mobile device, you can control your skylight shades or skylight venting skylights, which is pretty cool. And then the ultimate in technology is something we call Velux Active. And this is really where we’re trying to take things. And the idea behind Velux Active is the skylight is now smart. It’s working on behalf of you to improve your indoor climate in a number of respects. So what Velux Active is, is it’s a smart keypad that mounts the wall now that has three sensors built into it, a temperature sensor, a humidity sensor, and a CO2 sensor. And so you’ve got complete control and programmability over your skylight as well as your shade. So you can say, every day at night, I want my shades to close to save on energy cost in the winter months at installation value. You can program it to do that. The bathroom application I was speaking to in terms of eventing skylight, if you had a velux Active system and this keypad mounted in the bathroom, you hop in the shower, start taking a shower as soon as the humidity levels rise in that bathroom. it’ll automatically deploy your skylight, open it, naturally evacuate the humidity, and automatically close once the levels return to normal. So Velux Active is a really cool kind of first step in where this technology is going to go. It’s available today, though, which is neat. Like said, we’ve got a number of these skylights down at our lake house or cabin in southern Indiana. Anywhere in the world, I cannot check the status. So now in the winter, if I want to know if the heat’s working, I just check in on my skylights and make sure that the temperature is where it belongs. But before I Will Hanke (29:09)That’s awesome. Wayne Feltman (29:10)head down in the summer, I can use my phone and open up all my skylights and cool the cabin off 20, 30 degrees before we get down there in a hot summer months. ⁓ So pretty cool technology. Now, if I wanted to, could act with the velux Active. I could let the system just run itself. For example, the sunroom application, when the sunroom heats up, I could have a parameter set where, when I reach this set point, this temperature, I want my skylights to open and cool this place off. And when it cools down, automatically close. Will Hanke (29:19)That’s nice. Wayne Feltman (29:36)Because we’re not there, don’t utilize, when we’re there, we’ll utilize that technology, but when I’m away, we’re more just using it for remote access and control. Will Hanke (29:44)Right, yeah, yeah, very cool. I’ve always loved this part. Wayne Feltman (29:46)But yeah, these are things that the average consumer doesn’t know exist today. like I said, one of the things that changed with COVID for us, and it’s really changed our product program as well, is instead of laying our people off, we decided we were going to start doing virtual consultations. And up until COVID, most of our interactions as reps and as a company were with contractors, roofers, builders, remodelers. And today, generally, it’s the roofer that installs our product. ⁓ And that’s where our interactions kind of were. But with COVID, we said, you know what? We’re going to, on our website, give consumers the opportunity to talk to a guy like me. And if they’ve got an old Skylight they’re messing with, wanting to replace, or if they’re doing a sunroom addition or something, why would you want to add a Skylight to that and have a virtual consultation? And what was interesting is when our reps or a knowledgeable individual that understands all this technology and the benefits of Skylights and the benefits of this technology got involved, that homeowner not only would incorporate a bunch of skylights, but they would incorporate the technology that is available. They would almost always buy the shade. They would almost always go to a venting skylight. Whereas before COVID, they were dealing with a roofer or a contractor that may or may not have had much knowledge of the benefits of adding that shade. And so our shade ratio historically was about 10 to 20%. With COVID, like said, when we were tracking our projects, we were in that 75, 80 % threshold. Will Hanke (31:13)everybody’s home. Wayne Feltman (31:14)Yeah, so we said there’s something to this. So we hired an outside research group called the ⁓ company by the name of Cantar, said, hey, here’s what we’re seeing. Historically, our sales don’t align with this. Could you do some research into this and make sure that we’re not missing something that we think is going on here? And we did. And obviously, the Cantar research came back very much that consumers want shades, in fact, that we’re willing to pay for them. ⁓ And the reality is it was an awareness issue. And sometimes the contractor was maybe a hurdle for us to get past because, you know, what roofer wants to go inside a house and mess with a shade? You know, they generally don’t. so when we kind of had this new found knowledge and understanding that, you know, the majority of consumers actually 90 % is what our research came back with. Not only want to shade, but are willing to pay for it. said, you know what, we need to make this a standard part of our program. So actually this year, April, 2025, we launched what we call the Velux system. Now we’ve always had a system. It was a skylight, a flashing kit, and then optional shades and remote controls and things of that nature. Well, today, our core products are deck mount and curb mount products. And we don’t need to get into all the details and the differences there. But our core product lines now come standard with room darkening shades. Will Hanke (32:26)Okay. Wayne Feltman (32:27)And it was a direct result of that interaction through COVID with consumers. Will Hanke (32:27)Very cool. I love that. So if I’m a window treatment dealer listening today, what’s the first step to add skylight shades to my offerings? Wayne Feltman (32:39)Yeah, so great question. And like I said, your customers see a lot of homes. mean, they’re in a lot of different homes. So the first thing is identify homes that have skylights, right? The second thing is they really need to identify what kind of skylight it is. And we can help with that. And I would encourage anybody that’s listening to this that’s interested in learning more about skylights and how they can make money on this opportunity to contact or reach out to us. And let’s put you in touch with your local Velux representative. We’ve got a rep that covers every state in the country. And what we will do is we’ll come in and do some training. We’ll teach you how to identify the different types of skylights that are out there. The good news is the vast majority of them are Velux skylights. And there’s some unique features that identify it as a Velux. The other thing that’s quite powerful is all Velux skylights, going back to really the early 90s, have an ID tag on them that tells us exactly what model type and size that skylight is. So with that information, if we can teach your dealers to identify that it’s a Velux skylight, get that tag information, then it’s a simple, OK, here’s your blind options that are shade options that are available for that product. And we still support all our back product with shades so that they can retrofit and add shades then to those existing skylights. And there’s a huge base, like said, up until really just the last couple of years. From COVID-4, we really moved the needle on our shade sales. And now today, like I said, our core product is coming standard. Will Hanke (33:54)awesome. Wayne Feltman (34:05)We’ve got a 50 year history where the vast majority of our skylights only about 10, depending where you’re at, 10 to 20 % of our skylights were going out the door with shades on them. So the vast majority of them are what we call naked skylights. And there’s nothing more that we would love than for your audience to say, you know what? That’s an opportunity I want to capitalize on. And I’m going to add some shades to those for these folks. Will Hanke (34:25)Yeah. So another segment of listeners for the show are ⁓ people that do awnings, exterior shading. Do you see this as a good add-on for them as well? Wayne Feltman (34:37)Again, the awareness consumers have of what their options are with skylights is pretty limited, unfortunately. ⁓ Most people, they have a skylight, right? And they don’t know if they got a bubble skylight. They don’t necessarily know that there’s alternatives that are much better. If they’ve got an old Velux skylight, they don’t necessarily know why they might want to replace that skylight or why they might want to add a shade to that skylight for energy improvement reasons and or just light control reasons. I think there is an opportunity, regardless of whether you’re inside the home or exterior, when you see skylights, I think there’s an opportunity there. unfortunately for us, not too many people are dialed into this category and talking about it. So you can do a couple of things, whether you’re an interior window treatment specialist or an exterior awning guy. If you want to get in the game, first thing is reaching out to us and say, You know, I heard this podcast, I think there’s an opportunity here. I’d like to learn a little bit more about it. And what we’ll do is we’ll come in and we’ll do some training and kind of let you know what the opportunities are in terms of, okay, if it’s this kind of skylight, here’s what you need to do with it. If it’s one of ours, here’s what your options are. But in a lot of cases, you might want to even do a partnership, you know, knowledge is power. And if you guys are at the home, have the relationship with the homeowner, part of what I do in my current role is develop a network of skylight specialists across the country. And our skylight specialists, I mean, they make their living literally installing, replacing, and servicing skylights. So there’s an opportunity there, I think, where you could partner, if we have one in the market that one of your customers is working at, to create a partnership and say, hey, I don’t want to get in the business necessarily of replacing skylights. And hey, I’m not a roofer. I’m not comfortable with that. But I am a shade guy, or I’m an exterior awning guy, and I see an opportunity here. And depending on the age of that, you installing the shades is easy, but you might not want to install a shade on a 40-year-old skylight, right? So there might be some synergies that could happen there. ⁓ And by all means, like I said, I’ve brought people into our industry, into our category of skylight specialists. A lot of our specialists had no former industry experience. And it is unique industry in that not everyone’s out talking about it, which that’s a positive in some respects, because it’s a niche then that you can really carve out a market for yourself. Will Hanke (36:51)So I think it all starts with paying attention, right? And just if you see those bubbles when you’re putting on and oning, you know, it’s time to have a chat about those probably. Wayne Feltman (36:54)For sure. Yeah, sure. And like I said, I understand that their core focus is probably awnings or window treatments. this isn’t necessarily going to be for everybody. But for those that are interested, would say reach out to us and let’s talk. Let’s see what we can ⁓ kind of work out. Will Hanke (37:17)Yeah, so Wayne where do you think the skylight and shade market is going in the next two to three years? Wayne Feltman (37:24)Great question. I wish I had that crystal ball. Like I said, I really love our current product program because of the functionality, the solar power, the velux Active with the automation and stuff. ⁓ There’s a lot of other technologies out there. I right now we’re still relying on a fabric pleated or honeycomb style shade. There’s technology out there today. It’s just expensive where you push a button and the glass changes. color. There’s electrochromic, photochromic glass, things of that nature. I don’t know how soon that is on the horizon. A lot of it’s cost. Some of it might be durability and longevity. And I’m not sure, quite honestly, how that, in terms of energy performance, the one benefit of putting a material fabric type shading device is you’re adding another layer to that glass and really improving the energy performance. So from a solar heat gain, could see that technology being really good. From a U-value perspective, I’m not sure it would be as good as what we have today. But I do see a trend towards that probably, as it applies to skylights and even vertical windows. I imagine the folks in your industry are probably even more up to speed on that than I am. ⁓ But the other thing that I do see is that the society is becoming much more energy conscious and much more sustainably focused. We say this at velux a lot, and it’s true. A skylight is the most energy efficient window in the world. And when you hear that, you think, I’ve heard just the opposite. Skylights are energy hogs. They’re energy losers. Well, the reality is you get twice as much light through a skylight as you do a comparably sized vertical window. So if you’ve got a 2 by 4 vertical window, you could put a 2 by 2 skylight, half the size, and get as much light, and I would argue a better quality of light through that skylight than that vertical window. But when you talk about an energy envelope of a building, ⁓ that’s powerful. If you can get twice as much light or as much light but with half the fenestration area. And smart architects, smart builders, as energy codes get more stringent, I think our category and our products are going to become much more relevant. And I think we’re going to see the adoption of skylights and daylighting through the roof only improve. ⁓ in terms of my crystal ball, And the other reality is, our market penetration now is, depending where you’re at, 10 to 20 % of homes. So we’ve got a huge growth trajectory to get to where we want to be, which is 100 % of homes out there having some kind of skylight or tubular day lighting device. Will Hanke (39:52)Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. Lots of upside for you. That’s great. Wayne Feltman (39:59)Absolutely, absolutely. And for our partners. I like I said, we’re a manufacturer, and we’re only successful if we got good partners out there helping bring awareness to our category. And that’s our biggest challenge. You need a vertical window. Codes currently require it. You need an entryway door. You don’t necessarily need a skylight. At least people don’t know that they need one. I would argue they do. They just don’t know it. And so over time, I think as we build out our network of installers, our specialists, as our company grows, our advertising and marketing budgets grow. And again, the sustainability argument really bodes well for our product category because it is the most sustainable way to daylight a house. It’s the most energy efficient way of doing it. Will Hanke (40:42)Wayne, I appreciate all the things that you’ve shared today. As we start to wrap up, I wanted to ask, ⁓ do you have a favorite success story where adding Skylight Shades made a big difference for a dealer or a homeowner? Wayne Feltman (40:56)boy. You know, the one thing I love about this job is we get to see some really cool homes and do some really neat things. I’ve been involved with a lot of the HGTV projects over the years and we’re in all the major shows. And what’s really cool is with those projects is, know, we the budgets kind of go out the window and we can load them up with skylights. And I recently did one down in Nashville, Tennessee, where it was the center of a home that a central staircase, tall, narrow, three story type home. And we put a bank of five over five skylights above this three story staircase in the middle of the home. would have been vertical windows could have gone up it, but just wouldn’t have been the same. And they were venting skylights with shades and a touch of a button or a touch of your. your app on your phone, all the skylights would open, all the shades could come down. And when you put a room darkening shade in that application, what’s really cool about it, when you got that many skylights and an application that really needs the daylight, when you bring all those room darkening shades down, you can see what that space kind of would look like without skylights. And then when you open them all, you’re like, wow, what a difference. I’m so glad we added these skylights. And that’s just a one-off. we do lots of probably. We’ve got a system that allows us to do gangs or groupings of skylights. But those are always the most fun because the impact is so dramatic. And when you put the solar powered shades on it, you can operate them all simultaneously. And it’s really dramatic. So it’s not necessarily one project as much as those type of projects that I really like, because it really features the power of what we can do. And then on the flip side, I work with a number of builders that, you know, small master, I’ll call it primary bass. And for whatever reason, they may not have vertical windows because it’s an interior type location. And then I may have a single two by four skylight. And same same thing applies though. Yeah, you know, put a room darkening shade on that. You know, Mr. Mr. Homeowner, especially if it’s in a model home, and it’s an option, which unfortunately, a lot of times builders just want to I don’t want to price myself out of the market. So yeah, I’ll offer skylights, but it’s gonna be an option. And what we do on the sales agent training side is we go in there and we say, OK, here’s how you sell the skylights. You close the shade and say, OK, here’s this room now. Open the shade and say, here it is with the skylight. And then it sells itself. Even with a single skylight, it’s that dramatic. Will Hanke (43:31)Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, thank you. For anybody that’s interested in exploring this opportunity a little further, what’s the best way for them to connect with you or Velux? Wayne Feltman (43:41)Yeah, great question. I would recommend starting with our website. Our domestic website is VeLUXUSA.com and there is a wealth of information out there. And then through that mechanism, through the website, you can reach out to our customer service team. You can email or there’s phone numbers out there as well. But reach out to us and just say, I’m in such and such a state. I’d be interested in connecting with my local Velux representative. Like I said, we do have a representative in just about a just about every state, but every state is definitely covered. And they will welcome your call and look forward to the opportunity to sit down and talk about what the opportunity is to partner with us. And like I said, we can partner in a number of different ways. It really just depends on their level of interest and what they’re trying to achieve. Will Hanke (44:24)Wayne, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been some fantastic insights. Wayne Feltman (44:29)Hey, Will, I appreciate the opportunity to be on and hopefully we’ll hear from some of your customers. Will Hanke (44:34)Awesome. Well, that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Marketing Panes A big thank you to Wayne Feltman for sharing his insights and showing us how Skylight Shades are not just about comfort, but also about creating a new revenue stream for dealers already in the home. If today’s conversation gave you even one new idea, do us a favor, share this episode with another window treatment or awning pro who could benefit. Make sure you’re subscribed to follow us on our social media and YouTube at Window Treatment Marketing Pros so you don’t miss future episodes packed with real world marketing tips and industry insights. And if you want to learn more about adding skylight shades to your business, check out the resources Wayne mentioned and connect with Velux. We’ll have all his info and links in the show notes on our website, WTMarketingPros.com. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Marketing Panes.
