Young and old key to growth as conservatory boss extends reach

Craig Miller, managing director of Extend-a-Room, which puts up conservatories in just one or two days, is entering the retirement home and nursery markets as he looks to expand in 2010.

Mr Miller, 44, who previously served in the Household Cavalry and the police force, has built an innovative business since setting up in 2005 with just 40,000. The firm's core business expects to turn over 5m for year five, which is just about to complete, and Mr Miller expects this to increase this to 6.5m for 2010-2011, with a further 1m to 2m coming from the two new lines.

His staff have built a reputation for completing the conservatory installations quickly and with little disruption because they have taken steel sub-frame technology – normally used in the construction of bridges and skyscrapers – to the mass market.

The two new markets for Extend-A-Room should not be tied to the swings of the economic cycle, Mr Miller believes. Britain's ageing population means the demand for retirement homes is predicted to increase while nursery care is set to expand significantly after Gordon Brown pledged to provide free nursery places for every two-year-old.

Extend-A-Room, based in Harrogate and has 52 staff, built its first care home conservatory in Scarborough last year, in just under a fortnight, as a trial run. Now it has put up a total of 15 nursery or residential home conservatories.

"We worked our way through it and learned the process. We have an offering for that marketplace, " Mr Miller said.

"Residents get to feel they are having an outdoor life rather than four blank walls with a couple of pictures on them.

"We have done well with what we were doing and we have got into two new markets. We have got more routes to market."

The firm has also slashed the lead time on its traditional conservatories to just five weeks, rather than eight, between a customer signing the order and delivery.

In early 2008, Mr Miller's firm launched its single-storey extensions, but stopped selling them as demand for this slumped because of the credit crunch. The buildings, which cost between 30,000 and 40,000, are known as extensions, are made with less glass and have roof tiles and side walls built but are currently "off the shelf", Mr Miller said. "There was so much time and effort required to sell it into a market that did not want it. There is no point selling a product where there is no credit to buy it."

The core domestic conservatory business has weathered the economic storm, however, with turnover dipping for 2008-09 but since stabilising. The firm has also picked up new work on the back of an improved referral programme, which means previous clients get 180 worth of Marks & Spencer vouchers when they make an introduction to a sale.

Now it is going to open a call centre in Haslingden, Blackburn, which will create 17 jobs. The firm has also been able to trim the costs of its building trade suppliers, which have been hit by the construction slump. Mr Miller estimated he had saved between 25 and 30 per cent as the recession has forced makers of nuts and bolts, concrete blocks, trim and timber, to lower their prices.

ARMY ROOTS OF ENTREPRENEUR

Craig Miller may sound like the archetypal Yorkshire businessman but his background could hardly be more different.

Born in Hamilton, Glasgow, he joined the Household Cavalry, left, and was batman to Andrew Parker Bowles,

then husband of Camilla, when her affair with Prince Charles was going on.

A back injury forced him out of the Army, however, and although he later had a spell as a policeman the injury still limited his movement.

So he decided to go into business, remortgaging his home and selling his wife's X-Type Jaguar.

In 2008, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year

at the Yorkshire and

Humber Institute of Directors awards.

Mr Miller is also a devotee of philosophical self-help books by the likes of American psychiatrist M Scott Peck.

He recently travelled to Arizona to hear a motivational speaker.