When First Impressions Crush Your Brand

We always hear sayings like “first impressions matter most” or “you don’t get back a first impression” or how about “It’s in the details”.  Most of the time we brush these off as something our parents hammered us with and we’ll be OK.  But in business, these quotes are what we build our entire business on.  You can’t get back those moments, and your company may be forever branded with that first impression.  I’ve always been told by friends in the restaurant business that if the bathroom is dirty, you DON’T want to see the kitchen.

Well, here’s my latest story.  Recently I attended a seminar with a few hundred attendees that was held at the headquarters for a business in the home building industry.  At first blush, it was a nice facility.  The entrance was decorated nicely and many awards were on the hallway walls.  They had conference rooms, breakout rooms, and concessions.  This facility was built to entertain and host many people.  During one of the breaks I went into the restroom and ran into this issue when I went into a stall:

You all know how I am when it comes to things like this.  I got out my cell phone and started snapping pictures.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Here I am standing in this big building that houses a  company in the construction industry and the hardware on the restroom stall wasn’t on the door!  To top it off the walls were marked up like none I had seen before, the bathrooms were really dirty and the list goes on.

It never fails! Businesses never think about the impression their restrooms and other facilities make, especially when conferences are being held there.  You’d think from the appearance of the entrance that someone was paying attention, but I guess they stopped there.  Hardware, paint and cleaning are not expensive.  Just think how far a few hundred dollars would have gone for this company, but instead they left a terrible first impression on upwards of 200 people this day.

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