Fresh look at Perception Management

My wife and I just had to run over to the church to do some promotional set-up for our VBS registration table. I was walking through the darkened halls and looked up at a wall-mounted brochure rack. For the first time I noticed the words on the sign above it: "Information to Educate." Really? It just looks like brochures to me, and I GUESS that's the point of brochures, right? To educate?

But what a dorky way to say it.

Which made me think what would happen if I were able to take my old-timer blinders off and see the place fresh for the first time. What would I REALLY see, and would I be impressed or not?

It's hard to see things through the eyes of a visitor, or in the case of a business, your customer. You see the same place so often that the signs on the walls and the rust on the railings just becomes part of the landscape.

Get a notepad out and just try to see things as if you'd never seen them before. Secret shop your own place and see what you discover. If you find it an impossible task, for some reason, ask an outsider to do the same thing.

We don't want to miss the obvious and glaring signs and dirt and grime and cobwebs and bad service that outsiders will notice and forever impact their perceptions.