One the best ways to understand the experience that your
clients or potential clients have with your firm is to become
a client.

Your goal here is to attempt to see your business as the
world does.

In order to do that I suggest you try this exercise first.

Go visit a business that you have never been to before
and, as you do this, make note of all the things that your
brain and your senses are taking in.

Register all the sites, smells, sounds and feelings you
are going through.

Why do this? Because that’s what everyone of your
prospects does when they first come into contact with
your business. So, that truck that’s filthy, the person that
answers the phone rudely, the pile of boxes in the hallway
all produce a marketing result…even if you’ve grown to
just accept them or ignore them.

Try this. Call your business and act like a prospect. Ask
some basic questions about your service. Don’t look at
this as spying…look at it as quality control. Call your
competitors and do the same. How do they fare?

Request marketing materials…what do they look like?
What impression do they make? With your newly awakened
sensory perception, take a walk around your office and
find all the things that need to be dealt with.

Many prospects make buying decisions based on how they
feel about a company. These little things are hard to measure
but they do make a huge difference.

So, the question is, would you buy from you?

At first this shopping trip may cause you some alarm but
it may also unlock the secret to greater sales and profit.