You took months to prepare for your business launch. Your interior is immaculate, your staff is well-trained, and your products are on point. What you didn’t realize is that customers are deciding about your business before they even walk through the door.
That pile of leaves in front of your entrance? That dirt on your windows? The weeds peeking out of the sidewalks? They’re all communicating a message – and it might not be the one you want.
The Three-Second Decision
Studies show that first impressions are made within about three seconds. For your business, it’s when a customer is in the parking lot or right outside on the sidewalk. A glimpse of your storefront won’t make a customer think “well, the inside is probably nice.” It makes them think, “If they don’t care about the outside, what else don’t they care about?”
A clean exterior boasts professionalism and attention to detail, whereas a dirty one suggests lackluster performance. This becomes exponentially more important for restaurants, medical offices, salons, and other professional services – those that boast cleanliness as part of the value proposition.
The Costs of Looking Unappealing
And here’s where it gets expensive: it’s not just about walk-in customers. It’s about your reputation.
Imagine someone who drives past your business on the way to work every day, two times a week. Each time they see piles of leaves at your entrance, and each time they view a grimy sidewalk outside your doors. At some point, they need your services, but they’ve already made up their mind for the competitor down the street, who has taken the time to clean up their entrance.
And for a bonus: online reviews seem to correlate with exterior appearance more than you’d realize. Those who leave negative feedback say things like “parking lot was dirty” or “entrance looked dilapidated.” This exists across the board in reviews for any type of business. Those comments stay with the business and influence those who have never set foot inside.
The Weekly Reminder
Most business owners understand that their exterior is important. They just don’t have time to maintain it.
Landscaping might sound like an easy solution; paying someone to come in and do it all for you, but then there’s coordinating time, paying someone on a weekly basis adds up rapidly, and guess what? Landscapers operate during business hours. So now you’ve got noise, blocked entrances, and an unwelcome disruption while you try to service your paying customers.
What Actually Works
It isn’t rocket science for the businesses that consistently look sharp. They take care of the basics and have tools that allow them to work quickly.
Those businesses that always look nice take five minutes at the start of their day to clean up. A blower can get rid of debris, blow off the sidewalk and entrance; a simple cleanup might take five to ten minutes, and have your entrance looking pristine before your first customer walks in. A battery powered blower makes this feasible. You don’t have to worry about gas, pulling on cords, extension cords, and dragging them around; just grab it and go, and you’re done by the time your first customer walks in.
Alternatively, some business owners prefer doing this at the end of the day; either works, but it needs to be quick enough so it can feasibly become routine. Obviously, fall takes extra work with leaves everywhere, as does spring with pollen – and having equipment to help make maintenance feasible means you’re more likely to pay attention to these seasonal nuances instead of letting them pile up.
The Equipment That Makes Sense
Gas-powered tools are louder than we’d like and require fuel mixing. Corded electric tools aren’t ideal because if you don’t have the proper length of extension cord, you might not be able to get to where you need to – or if you cross extension cords across parking lots, you’ve got tripping hazards.
Battery-powered tools have come a long way and are capable of doing most business upkeep without putting you through any stress. Battery-powered blowers can clear sidewalks and entrances nicely, and they’re quiet enough to utilize during business hours so as not to disturb customers; they’re easy when you need them – no gas mixing beforehand, no searching for the extension cord beforehand – it should be as simple as getting a tool and cleaning up.
What Areas Matter?
You don’t have to tend to every square foot on your property on a daily basis – but certain spaces are high-impact for effort required.
The entrance is most important. The area at the front door should be spotless – no leaves, no dirt accumulation, no debris. This is what customers see and remember upon leaving and before entering when they’re approaching it. Secondary areas are walkways/pathways – wherever customers walk needs to be maintained; even light debris looks unkept. And don’t forget about the closest parking spots – customers will notice what’s on their pathway, and especially their first few spots when they arrive, which sets the tone for how they will feel about the entire experience.
How To Make It Sustainable
Long-term maintenance comes with making it part of a routine for owners or assigned staff members with time to complete it as part of their shifts. The goal is to eliminate any friction; if one needs complicated equipment or exertion just to clean up, it will never happen with frequency. But if it’s as easy as grab-and-go clean up in five minutes, it’s just part of owning a business or working one.
When To Get Help
There are certainly times when professional assistance makes sense; major landscaping efforts, seasonal planting, and tree trimming should be left to those with expertise since not many business owners boast specialized skills and equipment.
But daily or weekly efforts that help keep your property looking sharp most likely can be maintained on your own or by staff – maintaining control over timing ensures customers won’t have to wait, and paying additional costs isn’t necessary when you can reduce them and make money from maintaining that sharp exterior yourself.
The Bottom Line
Your exterior is working for you or against you every single day; potential customers are deciding how they feel about your business based on what they see from the street or parking lot. The good news? Maintaining a pristine appearance doesn’t require grandiose efforts in terms of time or money; instead, it boasts access to proper materials that make small efforts worthwhile.
A clean exterior won’t guarantee successful business, but a dirty one will cost you every time without fail. Most people just need their maintenance clean-up skills practiced until it’s second nature – not held off until it looks significantly poor from what it actually could be.
Tackle the entrance first and then move outward; make it quick, make it routine, and see how differently people respond to your business.
