I'm stumped.
With all the money a brick-and-mortar biz spends on buying/renting a facility, then remodeling, designing, furnishing it -- why, oh, why do these businesses then litter the stinking place with crappy, little handwritten signs?
You see them all the time. Usually they're messages for employees ("Wash Your Hands"), sometimes customers ("Please Use Other Door"). Almost always their done hastily onto a piece of typing paper and then stuck to the nearest wall, display case, or door with a couple of pieces of tape. Or worse, thumb-tacks (which just emphasizes the tackiness).
These things just scream, "We're a small local-shop. We don't really have to look good."
The trouble is, sweet 'ums, you do. Really.
Oh, it starts out innocently enough.... One little sign in a back room reminding your employees of the importance of clocking-in properly ("Clock-In Or You Work For Free!"), but before you know it, they're all over the place. (It's a known fact that crappy signs breed faster than newlyweds in Cancun.)
And the damage is done.
Customers start thinking to themselves, "This use to be such a nice [ insert your biz here]..." And they start to wonder in what other areas of your business standards might be slipping, which is just one teensy thought or two away from, "I don't think I'll go there anymore."
Little things mean a lot.
To your customers.
To your business.
To your bottom line.
Customers like clean,nice-looking, well-designed businesses. Think I'm kidding? Check out Tom Peter's manifesto 100 Ways to Help You Succeed/Make Money (Part 1) over at ChangeThis.com and see what his number one idea is.
Then get busy and replace all those lousy signs with nicely printed and attractively framed ones that let your customers know that you care what your business looks like and, more importantly, that you care that they care what your business looks like.
