Many businesses are so pre-occupied with making money and developing their sales strategies that they pay too little attention to actually looking after the premises they run their business from.
This can be enormously damaging to any business, but when the business concerned is a shop or business that has many customers or clients coming through the doors virtually every day of the week it can have a much bigger effect than you might realise.
Even small things can have big consequences if you don’t take the appropriate steps to combat them. Let’s suppose for example you run a small store in a busy town. One of the floor tiles comes loose but instead of replacing it yourself or getting a professional company in to deal with it, you attempt to tape it down – with limited success.
If someone tripped over that broken tile before you got round to getting it repaired, you could be sued for damages – which would stand a chance of crippling your business permanently.
That’s why it’s so important to have an eye for how your business is doing in a very literal physical sense, because if you don’t you could end up finding yourself in just this kind of situation. It’s not only maintenance issues that can pose a problem either; if you let your standards of cleanliness slide then your customers or clients won’t be too impressed with what they see.
It’s said that first impressions last, and while this referred to people rather than businesses it applies equally in this situation too. You want your business to look as good as it possibly can every day of the week, and to every single customer who comes into your premises, and that’s why hiring the regular services of a professional cleaning and maintenance company will more than pay you back in the long term.
Some people view these services as a cost, but in reality they are an investment. As we have seen it is a false economy not to invest in how your company looks to others, and it can have an effect on you as the owner of the business as well – even if you don’t realise it.
If your business looks good and portrays a professional image then you are much more likely to do your best to maintain the high standards that go with that image. If things look shabby on the other hand, and rubbish is piling up all over the place, the floor is dirty, wall switches don’t work and light bulbs are broken, it doesn’t inspire you to do your best work.
So you see the appearance of your business has a real effect on you too – not to mention the future of your company. If you get into the habit of making sure maintenance issues are dealt with as soon as they arise you will start to take real pride in your business, which will spread to your employees as well. The effect as a whole can be quite amazing – and it’s worth shooting for.