First Impressions

Recently around Kingston I saw examples of both great and poor first impressions that small businesses offered to anyone who happened to come across them.

First, the poor one. I saw a driver's ed car, complete with full company logos, roof sign, etc., driving around town, with a student inside on a lesson, with a badly DENTED DOOR. My first impression of this company in its ability to teach proper driving to its students was, obviously, not a good one! If I had kids, I'd be making a mental note NOT to take them to that company for their drivers ed!

The second one, which I thought showed the company was paying proper attention to its potential customers, was Source for Sports in downtown Kingston. Their large front windows were full of flyers showcasing various promotions, and in order to make them easier to see, they had put large sheets of white paper behind them on all of the windows. This made it much easier to read the information on them, so that their energy and money invested in these promotional efforts weren't wasted from them being too hard to read. But, more importantly to me, it showed me that this was a business "paying attention" to how it does business. They are aware enough of the circumstances and physical enviornment through which passersby will view the windows, that they knew those window items would be hard to see unless they had a background behind them.

In "Trucker Management", we talk about this idea of "paying attention" in your business, ensuring you take the time to view your premises as others will view them, so that you can anticipate needs like this. Doing so will show people at a glance that you are attentive to all aspects of your small business, and therefore they will be more eager to do business with you, believing you can properly care for their needs as customers.

Which of these two would you want your first impression to be like?