Thankfully, it’s not too difficult to put your best foot forward and leave your clients or customers with a positive and lasting impression. It might come as a surprise, but the single most important element in attracting new people into your business could be your indoor plants.
Why first impressions matter
People can’t control how they form their first impression of you.
It’s an involuntary and unconscious process: they’re not aware of the series of perceptions and conclusions taking place—in the blink of an eye—to seal your fate.
First impressions may be influenced by quite a few different factors, including the person’s age, sex, race, cultural background, mood, and contextual circumstances. But from an evolutionary perspective, the qualities that seem to be identified quickest relate to our survival instinct: trustworthiness and attractiveness are detected and evaluated first, and they hold our attention the longest.
These two factors determine your success. Your potential customers are driven by how they feel: they’re guided by their unconscious attitudes and gut reactions regarding how trustworthy, likeable, respectable and empathic you are. These feelings occur in mere seconds—somewhere between one-tenth of a second and eight seconds.
It’s also virtually impossible to correct a bad first impression: research estimates that it could take as many as 20 good interactions to make up for it, and it’s not likely you’ll be given that opportunity.
That’s why you have to get it right the first time, and make sure that you’re using your visual presence to establish your customers’ trust, earn their respect, and give them confidence in your ability.
So how do you get it right? One of the easiest ways is by using what nature gave you: plants.
Increasing kerb appeal
Your business is already being judged before your customers even set foot in the door.
Your kerb appeal—your attractiveness from the outside—is an important element in generating new business and growing your financial future.
Whether your business is a hotel, a restaurant, a store, or an office, its external appearance has a good deal of influence on whether or not people will take the time to come inside. This attraction—called kerb appeal—is one of the reasons that successful businesses invest in quality landscaping and gardening. Decorative and skilfully arranged plants have universal appeal, serving as a visual welcome mat that encourages your customers to come inside.
Like bees to flowers, people are attracted to buildings adorned with striking gardens and exterior plant designs.
But studies also show that retail stores that use plants as design features also draw in customers more frequently, and hold them there for longer. Decorative plants also influence how they feel about the business’s goods and services: they will rate the quality higher, and will even be willing to pay higher prices for the products. It’s amazing but true: your business will benefit from the pleasant feelings your customers absorb from your indoor plants.
Creating a powerful first impression
Prestigious Plantscapes can create breathtaking arrangements of plants to bring out the personality in your business and draw your customers in from every corner. For help in making a big impact the natural way, contact our professional plantscapers at Prestigious, and we’ll be happy to help you cultivate first impressions that truly last.
