12 ways to create curb appeal for your business

What is ‘curb appeal’ anyway?

It’s whatever makes you want to leave your comfortable place on the curb and go inside and explore.

Is it relevant for businesses without brick and mortar storefronts? Yes. It’s about making your business appealing to potential clients and customers.

What creates curb appeal? Consider these 12 things you can do to make your business appealing.

Be welcoming or interesting. You need to know whom you want to appeal to (target audience). Their ideas of welcoming and interesting may not be the same as yours. Find out what is important to them. It’s a lot like having guests and thinking about how you can make them feel at home, only applied to your business.

Be easy to find. If you’re driving, can you find the address easily from the street? If you are searching the web, is the website easy to find? If you’re on a website, can you find the phone number or other information you are seeking on the first or second try?

Make it simple to understand what your business does. If your company provides complex technical solutions to big companies, then your clients are already IT professionals and everybody speaks the same language. If not, use plain English to describe what you do. Avoid jargon, and if you just can’t, then explain it. A spouse or friend can give you a helpful reality check.

I didn’t realize I did this myself, even after 15 years of extracting jargon from architects’ and engineers’ writings. I just thought everyone knew what all that marketing stuff was. Now I know they don’t — neither do your clients.

Be prepared. Know what to say when someone asks you what you do. Plan and practice an elevator speech suited to your professional colleagues as well as for prospects who are outside your profession.

Be noticeable. Publish an article, give a talk, host an event, organize a panel discussion, comment on relevant blogs and discussions, attend networking events. We can’t become curious about you if we don’t know you exist.

Cultivate word of mouth and referrals. Nothing creates curb appeal like an enthusiastic endorsement. A referral makes you trustworthy. It tells someone who doesn’t know you that their friend believes you are not only competent, but good to work with. Treat those who refer you like gold. Make sure they know how much you appreciate them.

Be friendly and personable. Be yourself, but dress and speak to put your clients at ease. Self-expression takes a back seat here. Put your photo on your web site. A video blog lets someone get a feel for who you are.

Give great service. Remember why Nordstrom is so successful: great service. You provide a service too. If you aren’t sure if your service is as good as it needs to be, ask.

Ask how you can improve. People appreciate being asked. It gives them the message that you value their business, and their opinion. If they make a suggestion that you can implement, let them know. Thank them for their time even if they said nothing new. They gave you a precious commodity – their time.

Understand that your clients may be scared. Many of us struggle with some aspect of technology. Unfamiliar jargon and complex technical stuff can make us feel dumb or confused. How will we know what is the right solution or choice? You can put your prospective clients at ease by talking to them in words they can understand whether you are a doctor, attorney, engineer, plumber, or car mechanic.

Learn to assess real needs. Don’t assume we all want or need a Mercedes solution. A VW or Toyota might be just right. Multiple choice questions can work really well. Offering a few solutions within a range takes less time and is easier to understand.

Solve a problem. Make it simple, show us how it works. We all know we need to back up our hard drives and data. Do we do it? Not as often as we should. Offering simple solutions makes them easier to understand and more likely to be done.

Get it? It’s all about how your clients and customers feel when they interact with you and your business.

Curb appeal 201: Have a brand. Many of us prefer to hire an established brand. That brand can be safe and respected like Volvo, or leading edge like Smart car (tagline: open your mind to the car that challenges the status quo.) A powerful brand represents a promise from the company to us about the experience we will have using the product or service. Brands incorporate the points mentioned above, plus more. Your personal preference is one factor in your brand, but knowing what will connect with your target clients is most important. Consider that a brand includes how you — and your business — talk, dress, look, as well as the service you provide and how you deliver it. It’s all about how you make them feel.

In summary, curb appeal means being attractive and accessible to the people you want to do business with in the multiple ways they interact with you.

What does curb appeal mean to you? How do you create curb appeal for your own business?

Thanks to Phill Briscoe of Briscoe Network Solutions for asking me to talk about this topic.