A Monday Series
“What have you been doing with your summer?” your competitor across town asks you oh, so innocently at the Chamber of Commerce brunch.
“Nothing much,” you say. “I took some time to—
and Read at the Beach all about how to knock my competition flat.
“How about you?”
If you’re burnt-out, antsy, and need to revitalize your attitude as much as your business, this is the series for you. Experience Design for beach-dreaming business owners comes to your summer Mondays.
Summer Is a Great Time to Walk the Grounds
Overheard at a local office:
Client: Have you stopped paying the bill for your landscaping service? It’s nothing… hardly anything. The lawn’s a jungle and there are weeds in every planter outside…”
Professional: [nervous laughter] Gosh I never noticed. Heh heh. That’s my job—what do you think I do on weekends? … I’d better call the building people, huh?”
Client: It’s pretty ugly. I’m surprised you’re here every day and you never see it.”
It’s when you’re there every day that you don’t see things. Our brains are designed to filter out sameness and only pick up on change—significant change. Growing weeds doesn’t count as significant, so we have to purposely train those powers of observation.
Noticing the outside of your building is an easier task in the summer, for your clients and for you. They’re not running to get in out of the weather, and they’re hoping for a bit of cheer in your landscape (especially if you have planters like the hapless fellow above).
You may run just the same, since it’s your business, but this week, get off the treadmill, get out in the warm weather, and walk those grounds to see what your customers are seeing.
Exterior inspection checklist for your small business
Look for:
Cigarette butts
Gum on sidewalks
Neglected landscaping
Burnt-out lighting
Peeling/ fading/ filthy paint on signage or building
Cracked sidewalks
Parking lot with cracks, stains, or potholes
Clogged gutters and drainspouts
This isn’t exhaustive, but these are some of the biggies that your customers will notice in a hurry. (I added the last one after I was deluged with water coming off a roof during a fairly light rain last week, and realized that the store’s gutters were overflowing with leaves and debris. My suit was stuck to me for an hour.)
What would you add to this list?
Be honest—do you notice exterior maintenance issues a lot more when you are a customer, than when you’re running in to your own business in the morning? What will walking a mile in your customer’s shoes out-of-doors show you?
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
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11 August 2008, 8:59 am
The sad thing is I notice this every day where I do work, and I wonder why no one does anything. The place is falling apart, yet the official word is that we are “world class”. I sure hope the world is better than this.
The other thing I really noticed when I returned today from vacation was an email asking someone to carry water from the front doors to the coffee room.
It seems I am the only one who does that.
Will everyone dehydrate once I set sail for warmer waters?
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post…viking fridays - the worst sickness.
11 August 2008, 12:10 pm
One tip I learned from selling a house is to not just look but to take a picture. For some reason (there is a reason — I can’t remember what it is…) you see things in the picture that you don’t necessarily see when you are actually standing in the place.
This might be a good tip for inside as well…
~Graham
11 August 2008, 2:05 pm
Also Look For:
- Wildlife (i.e. Racoons) in the offices at night
- Mice squeaking in the walls
- Water leaks from the ceiling
- Outside of buildings propped up with two-by-fours.
- Proposed new parking lot 3 miles away from the offices.
That would be REALLY FUNNY if it these were true, wouldnt’ it?
Friar’s last blog post…The Gospel of Action Movies According to Hollywood.
11 August 2008, 2:53 pm
Have you heard of the “Broken Window” theory?
An empty building can sit for a long time undisturbed. But as soon as a window is broken, it encourages more vandals to do the same, and eventually the building falls into ruin.
The moral is to keep patching the broken windowns right away, before the problem gets out of hand.
Rudy Giuliani took this approach to NYC crime (hitting hard on the minor infractions like people spitting in public or spray-painting). And it worked.
Friar’s last blog post…The Gospel of Action Movies According to Hollywood.
11 August 2008, 7:02 pm
Back in the days when I had my catering business I taught my staff a similar lesson. I left a potatoe on the floor in plain view in a high traffic area. It stayed there for 4 days until I put a halt to the experiment. Most of the staff admitted to seeing the potatoe but assumed it was unimportant and that someone else would take care of it. How long does it take to pick up a potatoe from the floor? The lesson sank in.
11 August 2008, 10:39 pm
Brett,
I hope the world is better than that, too. I was going to laugh, but then… it’s a bit sad!
Graham,
I like that take a picture advice. I do take a lot for looking at later, but I never thought about the fact that you probably see more that way than you do normally. Good tip!
Friar,
Outside of buildings propped by 2×4s… like unholy flying buttresses? Ugh. Unbelievable, once again.
The broken window theory, yes. I also read a book on housekeeping once (it didn’t help, but hey) playing off that idea and calling it something like the one sock theory. The living room stays clean until you leave one dirty sock, then the next guy leaves a newspaper, then a bowl of half-finished popcorn doesn’t seem so bad…
Then I think the raccoons come in.
Lion,
I wrote a post a while back called Lazy touching on that sort of problem. Leaving a potato on the floor is a pretty extreme example, but I’m glad it worked!
Regards,
Kelly
12 August 2008, 8:01 am
Kelly,
Believe me, the world is a lot better than that! It is sad. People used to have pride. When did it go… where did it go…
(Perhaps the 2 x 4’s propping up buildings crushed it.)
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post…viking fridays - the worst sickness.