Remember the first day you walked through the doors of your present employer? You probably wore all the right clothes, brought along all the right items you would need and likely tried to say all the right things.How about your first date with your spouse or significant other? Did you go the extra mile to make a great impression on this person?It’s the same way when you have a business. When you open the doors for the first time, you want to make a great impression on everyone who walks through those doors. Even years later prospects may be walking through your doors for the first time, and you want them to have the best experience possible.Earlier this week, the local newspaper decided to send their food critics to visit a new restaurant that just opened on our golf course. The restaurant had already had a soft opening and had been open a few months, but there were still things they “intended to get to as soon as they had time”. The kitchen was built too small, so they couldn’t handle all the orders that came through. Many times it took more than thirty minutes to bring even the first part of the order. The servers were nice enough, but they had to apologize for everything that wasn’t quite up to par at the establishment.Because the restaurant was in a gated community, they hadn’t had a chance to get a sign up yet, so the critics had to ask people on the sidewalks where the restaurant was. Of course the critics didn’t announce where they were from. It took forever to serve the critics and the food was mediocre. That weekend the review appeared in the newspaper and the critics advised people not make the rather long journey to visit the restaurant, since there were plenty of better places closer to town.If only the manager and the team had ironed out problems the first few days. They would have made a much better first impression on the critics. And now thousands of readers probably won’t make the journey to the restaurant. Can they change it? Maybe. But now are in a reactive mode, instead of a proactive one. ACTION STEPS FOR THIS WEEK
- Ask someone outside your organization what their first impression was of your establishment.
- Ask a new prospect or customer what their first impression is.
- Listen to what the people from #1 and #2 say and determine if you should make changes so that future customers can have an even better first impression.
- How about the first impression you make on people? Is there anything you need to change? You have a month to do it before we hit 2017. If there’s a lot to do, put it into your 2017 goals and get to work!
