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Face it: you’re tired of hearing about your competitor’s
astronomically successful closing-rate. After all, when
dealing with potential clients who are visiting your office,
you and your main competitor are evenly matched, or so it
seems: Both of you are personable and quick on your feet;
both of you listen intently for your potential clients’
fears; and both of you can paint a picture to them of what
their big day will look like. Yet your competitor consistently
closes more sales than you do. Why?
Would
you believe the reason might be found in the design of your
competitor’s office? If you think of your office as your
personal statement, then you know that it says something
about who you are, about what your company is. You wouldn’t
conduct a meeting with clients while your desk was covered
in newspapers and old coffee cups, would you? If you did,
that client might get the impression that you and everything
about you—specifically, the way you run your company—is
similarly chaotic.
But
it doesn’t end there, at that disorganized desk. In fact,
lighting, furniture layout, color coordination and how wall
space is used all send subtle cues to potential clients,
and it may be the difference between your 85-percent closing
rate and perfection.
Does
your office design send negative cues? Read on to find out
and then learn some ways that you can change it.
First Things First
First, ask yourself two questions: “What do I want to say
to clients about my business?” and “What do my clients want
to know about it?”
“Our offices reflect our personalities and what we’re saying
to people, even if it’s subconscious,” says Gordon Sproul,
Southwest Regional Director of the International Feng Shui
Guild in Sandia Park, N.M. In other words, if you meet mostly
with brides-to-be, and we all know they’re the ones making
the buying decisions, then your office should make them
feel welcome.
Such
an important factor is not lost on Jose Gonzalez, owner
of N.Y.-based Elegancia Entertainment. Being a DJ whose
market is primarily Latin-born, Gonzalez has designed his
office accordingly. “I’ve got mostly customers who are Caribbean,”
he says, “therefore, I theme my office with tropical plants
and pastel colors. To them, it’s warm, familiar and inviting.”
Light:
The First Agent of Arousal
Many offices use fluorescent lighting, also known as limited
spectrum lighting, which has been reported to raise human
stress hormones. Spend six hours or more underneath these
lights and you’re likely to tire easily and get headaches.
Not good for you, and not good for your potential client.
Full-spectrum lights, on the other hand, keep stress hormones
at a normal level. So replace those old fluorescents with
full-spectrum lights, which are available in a fluorescent-type
tube at a cost of $200-$300 per case of 24.
Or forget overhead lighting altogether and install lamps,
an especially good idea if you occupy a basement office
with low ceilings. “You want to throw light onto the ceiling,”
says Sproul. “This lifts up the room.” Lifting the room,
or creating the illusion that the ceilings are higher than
they really are, alleviates the dreaded claustrophobia,
which can make your client feel uncomfortable and therefore
unwilling to book your services. If you do choose to throw
light on the ceiling, don’t make your office too dim. Though
comfortable, dim light can make you feel sleepy. Brighter
lights, on the other hand, act as an agent of arousal. The
best type of office lighting, though, mixes natural and
artificial light, combining comfort with arousal, the perfect
conditions in which to close a sale.
Color:
Can Be An Irritant
“When you walk into a room, the first thing you see is not
the desk or the lamp, but what the dominant color is. That
has the greatest impact.” So says Debbie Hattoy, the owner
of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Creative Color Consultants, who
thinks it a mistake to paint your walls white. “White walls
can be very intimidating. They’ve always been thought of
as clean, but they also inhibit touching, so it’s not very
relaxing. To make customers, on a subconscious level, uncomfortable
and agitated, fast-food restaurants use white walls with
high-contrast colors to get them in and out quickly. If
your carpet is also light, the space becomes touch-inhibitive,
and people don’t even want to step into the space.”
Because
white has a 100-percent light-reflection factor—it reflects
back every iota of light that hits it—Hattoy recommends
painting your walls a color with 70-percent light reflection
factor. (FYI—You can find a color’s light-reflection factor
on the back of the paint can.) And if you think that painting
your walls specific colors, like blue or green, will influence
your clients’ behavior, think again. “Psychologically, blue
can be calming, but if you leave someone in a blue room
long enough, it would become stimulating, having the opposite
effect,” says Hattoy. “That’s true of all colors, even red.”
Floors,
whether carpet or wood, should be in the same light reflection
range as the walls. “For floors, the color matters less
than the light-reflection factor,” says Hattoy. “My suggestion
is to pick a paint color first, then check its light reflection
factor, and from there, pick a carpet that’s similar. Be
careful not to pick a carpet that’s much lighter than the
walls because that’ll give you a reflection off of that
too.”
The
next best thing to carpeting is wood flooring, which projects
a warmth that seems to make people comfortable. “The reflection
factor of the floors and the walls should be between 50-
and 70-percent, that’s where people are most comfortable,”
says Hattoy. “After that you get into more intense accent
colors, like the deep reds and greens. Those are better
as accents, but not against a white wall. The trick is to
keep the values close together. The contrast shouldn’t be
too great. If you were to look at a paint deck—the strips
that paint colors come in—usually every other color on that
deck can be used as a contrast. So if your wall is a light
color, skip a color and then your next highest value you
could use as an accent.
“An office that you’re doing business in should be in neutral
colors such as beige, something that looks professional,”
continues Hattoy. “You can accent with colors like indigo
blue or hunter green, because those colors have been noted
in society as being trustworthy. A lot of banks and financial
institutions use those colors, as do lawyers. Metallics
can represent a higher socio-economic level. But again,
everything depends on the particular clientele you’re serving.”
For example, if your office is decorated with the “power
colors” (inferring authority) of gray and black furniture,
and most of your clients are brides, it might give them
the impression that you conduct your DJ business in an impersonal,
distant way. This is, of course, great for corporate clients,
who associate the black and gray with power, sophistication
and seriousness. But in most cases, your brides-to-be are
looking for a DJ who can give personal attention to their
event. So, despite your warm personality, superior references
and pages of testimonials, without an office painted in
“warmer” colors, these brides may hesitate to hire you because
of what your office is saying.
Feng
Shui (That’s Fung Shway, By the Way)
Now that you’ve figured out your color scheme, it’s time
to arrange your furniture. Feng shui, the Chinese art of
placement, is one method worth considering. The idea is
to keep the energy (ch’i) in your office flowing harmoniously
with the energy of the earth. “If your desk is cluttered,
how do you expect your business to run smoothly?” says Sproul.
“You’ll make money, but boy, you’ll feel like a beast of
burden.”
Small
details contribute to an office’s energy flow. Having your
back to an entrance, for example, is said to put you in
a vulnerable position. You want to see what opportunities
are coming to you. To figure out where your desk should
go, draw two straight lines from either side of the doorway
to the back wall. This is called the mouth of ch’i, and
your desk should go to either side of it, because sitting
within the mouth of ch’i can wear you down.
(Of
course, there’s always the theory that you should abolish
altogether the very idea of a desk. “One thing that I learned
in my training as a doctor was that a desk is one way to
set up a barrier between a doctor and a patient,” says Gonzalez.
“So, with that knowledge, I decided in my office to replace
my desk with a round table. This way, we’re all equal, implying
there are no questions that can’t be asked and I have nothing
to hide, but I still have enough table room to take notes.”)
Back
to feng shui: Adding plants and nature pictures to liven
up the space (in feng shui-speak, they attract good ch’i)
and removing clutter (especially by the entrance) ensures
good balance and energy flow. Clutter is thought to be the
antithesis of balance as well as an energy drainer.
Placing mirrors in narrow spaces or dark spaces will reflect
the available light and give the impression that the room
is larger and brighter than it is. Awards or degrees should
be hung in a prominent place. Choose a few important ones,
since crowding the walls with too many will only compete
for attention and distract your clients. When hanging pictures
on walls, make sure they’re hung slightly higher then eye
level; this will force people’s eyes upward and help make
low ceilings seem less oppressive.
“We
have to have heart in our business,” says Sproul. “It’s
not about the music that you’ll play for clients, it’s about
clients liking you. I don’t care how many good jokes you
can tell, it’s how you interact with people. And how your
office is designed sets the stage for that.”
So
the choice is yours. You can make your office work for you
or not. After all, you have nothing to lose but business.
If
you have any questions for TCB, please write to
DJ
Times c/o TCB,
25 Willowdale Ave.
Port Washington, N.Y., 11050
fax 516-944-8372
e-mail djtimes@testa.com.
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