What They See Is What They Think
When a customer enters your place of business, everything they see or don’t see sends a message.
A lot has been written about Steve Jobs’ focus on design and simplicity since his death. Jobs intuitively understood the power of design to send a message and evoke a feeling.
This stands in sharp contrast to my experience this morning.
Two months ago, I took my son, Alexander, on a walk. It was beautiful fall morning here in New England. Many of the trees are starting to explode in brilliant bursts of color.
We decided to stop in at our local diner for breakfast. It’s a landmark in these parts. Here for over 70 years, it was recently certified on the National Register of Historic Places.
We sat at the counter, on just the right seats that afforded me a clear view into the kitchen.
As we tear into our blueberry pancakes, I look though the kitchen door, and see a display box sitting on a shelf. The side of the box reads:
Estroven
Maximum Strength
The natural place to start for menopause relief.
What is this doing in the kitchen of a diner?
My first thought was: What are they adding to the pancakes?
What I can tell you is that this sighting did nothing to positively add to my experience as a customer.
Whatever it was there for, I didn’t need to see it.
What ‘Estroven boxes” do you have lying around?
Who’s seeing them?
What are they thinking?
Alain Hunkins leads personal and professional development trainings for individuals, teams and organizations. Over the last two decades, Alain has facilitated for over a thousand groups, ranging from at-risk youth to Fortune 500 executives. He moves between the educational, artistic, not-for-profit, government and corporate worlds. Alain sharpened his facilitation skills as an Educational Consultant in New York City, developing programs on many subjects, including Conflict Resolution, Networking, Customer Service, Communication, and Leadership.
Alain earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College and his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee Professional Theater Training Program. He is a certified Leadership Challenge & MBTI facilitator, as well as a certified co-leader for ManKind Project International, whose mission is to help men lead missions of service in their families, communities, and workplaces. Alain completed the New Warrior Training Adventure in 1995.
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
