Entrepreneur Magazine

Just hitting the stores is the July, 2008 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine.

An article in the magazine emphasized the need to be creative in your business approach in this current climate.

The article suggests you need to "Ignite your team's innovative spark--and watch fresh ideas power your business to new heights."

Following is the part of the article about us:

The kind of deep listening that Lee and Coles recommend is what helped Jay Jackson and his wife, JL, first realize the potential of Global Surroundings, their recycled teak furniture business.

While Jay, now 44, had a job managing the distribution of audiovisual products in Southeast Asia, JL found that there was a market for custom-made furniture for foreigners moving to Singapore.

The couple launched their furniture importing business when they returned to the United States 12 years ago, making arrangements with a factory and crafts-men in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to make furniture from the teak walls and floors of homes that needed to either be restored or torn down.

"We were selling the concept of uniqueness at first," says JL, 44, of the Phoenix-based company. "We thought it was really cool that this dining room table was made from someone else's floor."

But their company was regarded as just another furniture manufacturer at industry trade shows.

Then they realized that many customers looking for sustainably made products were excited by their recycled teak because it didn't involve further rainforest destruction--and excited by their stories of rebuilding villagers' old teak homes with brick after a destructive earthquake.

The Jacksons not only refocused their business on the eco-friendly market, but also fine-tuned their offerings by paying attention to home and garden trends. They found that high-income families were eager to invest in lavish outdoor living rooms.

JL and Jay posing on our reclaimed teak outdoor furniture.

The Jacksons already had the perfect material, as teak is weather-resistant, so they paired up with designer Mark Suess to develop a line of high-end, outdoor furniture.

The Jacksons didn't just find out how to produce the right product by listening to their customers--they figured out how to market to them.

Trade shows were still a struggle in this hotly competitive market, so they decided to establish a presence at some of the places frequented by their high-end consumers.

In one case, they had a prime spot in a luxury lifestyle pavilion at a collector car auction, right next to the Learjet space.

"You have to figure out nontraditional ways to market to the end consumer," says JL, who expects sales of $1 million this year. "Be in the places where you can be seen without the competition."

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