Making Great First and Memorable Impressions

It's only natural for first-time visitors in your showroom to be a little reserved.  It's the showroom's responsibility and mission to make visitors feel comfortable, to earn their trust and engage in a meaningful conversation that leaves visitors wanting to come back. 

 

Start earning that trust by making visitors feel good about themselves. Your goal is to elevate the confidence, pride and esteem of everyone who enters your showroom.  The conversation should not be about the showroom, how great a designer you might be or how satisfied your customers are.  Your first impression conversation should be all about your customer.  Be interested in what they want, what their goals are, what makes them the happiest and what brings them their greatest joy.  As Dale Carnegie said, any person's favorite topic is themselves.  Let your visitors be themselves and talk about whatever they would like to say.  What can you do to make your visitors feel like they are the most important person in your space?

 

If you have common interests with your visitors, don't knowingly or unwittingly show them up.  For example, if your visitor says I really enjoy wine and have started a small collection, don't let the person know that you have been collecting for years and have amassed a collection of hundreds of bottles. Instead, ask what is their favorite wine and inquire if they would they be interested in coming back to the showroom for a wine tasting with local experts?

 

Don't forget to make eye contact.  There's nothing that says you are unimportant than looking around to see whom else might be in the showroom.  When you look directly into the eyes of a first-time visitor, you are conveying the message that he or she is at the center of your universe. 

 

Susan Scott, author of Fierce Conversations, claims, "While no single conversation is guaranteed to transform a company, a relationship, a life, any single conversation can.  Speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person. It could be. Participate as if it matters. It does."