Finding a new niche in a pinch

Two neighboring businesses in Pepperdam Industrial Park are working hard to think outside the narrow scope of their industries, coming up with ideas that they hope will carry them through tough economic times.

Barry Taylor, president of a shutter distribution company in North Charleston, started making flower boxes earlier this year after he discovered that his giant $140,000 saw machine could stencil the Clemson tiger paw and a pineapple design onto scrap pieces of rot-resistant wood board. Next door, a company that sprays a tough rubber coating onto pickup truck beds is offering its services to a new class of customers.

Diversifying calls for putting more money and energy towards ideas that, in this shaky economy, might not even work. Will gardeners spend money on durable, specially designed flower boxes these days?

That's not the point, Taylor explained.

"Right now, you have to go with every idea you've got," he said. "You can't wait 'til this is over with."

According to Taylor, the way to combat this nasty recession is with a dose of good ol' American ingenuity. In the face of falling profits, some local business owners are rethinking their operations. This creativity isn't just happening in retail stores and the service sector but with small-scale manufacturers, whose business models are typically thought of as repetitive and unimaginative.

For Taylor, diversifying became more urgent when demand for shutters slowed as the housing market weakened. His company, Window Master, is one of a few distributors that buys smooth, long boards and ships them to companies that make them into shutters.

John Swiney, who operates a Line-X franchise next door, also is exploring ways to boost business. His firm's main specialty is replacing the ribbed plastic bottoms on truck beds with more durable, textured rubber lining.

Business at Line-X's North Charleston branch hummed while people were still buying trucks. But sales have slowed following tougher car loan standards, the memory of gas price spikes and economically shaken consumers.

So Line-X has started calling on other customers who might want or need the services of a company that provides nonskid surfaces. Swiney said his firm is now spraying wooden decks, the floors of walk-in coolers and pet groomers' tables. Workers also have sprayed several outdoor sculptures made for Spoleto Festival USA to protect them from harsh weather conditions.

The company has even sent out brochures to local Baptist churches about spraying the tubs they use for baptisms. The protective coating makes the tubs durable and skid-proof, helping protect against what Swiney likened to a bride-trips-over-her-gown moment.

"It opens up a whole new side of the business that you have to be able to adjust to, respond to and take advantage of opportunities that come about," he said. "It's a whole different mindset."

Other Line-X stores haven't been immune from the economic slowdown. Already, two other locations in Spartanburg and Greenville have shut down since the recession began.

But Swiney said diversifying requires hard work: more phone calls, more customer visits and additional travel time to spraying sites. And despite his extra efforts, he said, his bottom line is not back to where it once was.

"But spraying truck beds, if that's all you focus on, that's all you're going to get," he said.

Reach Katy Stech at 937-5549 or kstech@postandcourier.com.