Published: April 20, 2009 02:44 pm      

Portable building company ignores economic slide

BYARS (AP) — Even Vance Wright will agree — his small manufacturing operation is in the middle of nowhere.

But Better Barns, the portable building company he started in 2002, seems unaware of its minimalist surroundings or the crumbling economy.

Since taking on that part of the construction business started by his father, Wright’s passion for crafting and marketing wooden custom buildings has spurred business by at least 30 percent every year since Better Barns’ debut.

“And that seems to be continuing,” he said.

In the first two months of 2009, sales increased 53.5 percent compared with the same time last year. “We had our best December ever,” he said, capping a year that produced a 44 percent growth rate.

While the nation’s economic downturn has persuaded many smaller companies to pull back and play safe, Wright is instead expanding his brand and hoping to capture more market share.

Shaky economy or not, “I have chosen to be self-motivated,” he said. “You have to be a risk taker.”

In a 9,500-square-foot plant, Wright, four full-time employees and a handful of contract workers build children’s playhouses and small storage sheds to larger buildings suitable for hunting cabins and oil-field offices.

“Any type of outbuilding, we put it together,” he said. While 80 percent of his business has been storage buildings, recent growth has come from diversifying into projects such as hay barns, carports and livable cabins.

To better market his treated pine buildings, Wright at first displayed them in places such as Purcell and Ada. In the past year, he began negotiating agreements with business owners already operating small car or equipment dealerships.

“It’s a great deal ... we bring our product in as an extra source of income, and they make a commission on each sale,” he said.

There are now three in the Lake Texoma area, and one each in Tecumseh, Chickasha and Duncan. A three-year-old company-owned retail outlet in Noble produces the most sales. Soon the newest dealership will open in Spencer.

“My goals were a lot smaller at first,” Wright admits, but demand for his buildings, and operational and marketing assistance from the Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance gave him the push needed to grow the business.

“We plan to have eight to 10 new dealerships by the end of the year.”

The majority of the businesses in OMA extension agent Dan Asklund’s territory are small manufacturers that often need some guidance to more forward.

And the difference between getting by and flourishing can be impressive.

“Better Barns is a good example of a company looking for help and took that help to heart,” Asklund said. “Vance had done everything right.”

Wright said he turned to the alliance a couple of years ago as demand began to outweigh production capacity and sales soared from $154,000 to more than $600,000 in one year. “Dan put me in touch with training to streamline operations, and he played a large part in redirecting our market efforts,” he said.