Presenting yourself to clients in a neat, professional manner matters. Always put your best foot forward.
By Henry Brown
How do important clients perceive your company? How do customers view your business? These are two important questions that you should be asking yourself because appearance matters. In business, it matters more how things appear rather than how they are.
An example of this would be your product. You may have the best product on the market, and you could be ready to sell it to multiple consumers. But does your product look fantastic and appealing? Does it look like the next thing that customers want or need? If it’s a consumer product, is the packaging appealing? If the answer is no, it’s not going to sell. This is just one example of how appearances can affect how your business performs. There are others for you to consider.
Employee and customer relations
Believe it or not, every time a customer interacts with an employee, they are judging your business. They are considering whether they would buy from you and noting the way they are treated. Customers also look at people and judge them based on appearance and manner. This is why you must ensure you have employees who look professional. They need to be neatly dressed, smartly presented and, most importantly, polite and friendly. One poor impression created by a single employee could have a huge effect on your business.
Online perception
So many business dealings occur online these days and appearance matters here as well. You will be attempting to win over customers and clients based on the impression they receive through your website and social media. As such, your online presence is important as well. The tone that you take on social media needs to match that of your business as a whole. It is acceptable to have a friendly laid-back tone through social media if that’s a message you want to convey about your business. If not, you need to take a more formal approach to posting content.
Office looks
if you have an office that clients will be visiting, does it look like the place of work for a professional business? Or, are there papers strewn across desks with floors that haven’t been vacuumed in months? Is the layout primed for an efficient work environment, or does it encourage it encourage idle behavior? Your office is going to be one of the first things clients notice when they walk through the door. You need their first impression to be a positive one. If you think your office looks outdated, take a lot at Next Generation Office Fitouts or a similar business. They will be able to help bring your place of work forward into the modern age.
Promotional techniques
Lastly, you should think about how you are choosing to promote your business. Each piece of marketing material released reflects negatively or positively on your business. Make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. And if you’re choosing a new form of marketing and promotion, think hard about the impression it will create. The best types of marketing allow customers to see the people behind the business and not just the brand that you are trying to promote.
____
Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.
