As every business advisor and start-up guru on the internet will tell you: knowing your customer is the most important aspect of setting up a business. It will inform everything you do: your product development, your marketing, your pricing. Much of your thinking when you are starting a business revolves around second-guessing what your customers are thinking. What do they want? How do they see us? Do we look viable enough? How much are they willing to pay for our services?
The same applies to the design of your business premises. One key aspect is understanding your customers’ aspirations. Essentially, you are aiming to create the kind of shop or café that makes your customer think: ‘I would like to think of myself as the kind of person who frequents this kind of establishment.’ In other words: ‘This is the kind of club I would like to belong to.’
What does that look like? Well, that depends entirely on what kind of business you are running. It might mean you try to create a place that feels luxurious, upmarket in an understated, classy kind of a way. Or it might mean that you go full-on glamorous, blinging with the best of them. Or you go down a themed route.
Here is an example: All of us construct our self-image out of external influences, and for many of us this includes popular culture, and often film references. Making your customers feel that they are starring in a Hollywood film is one way of making them feel that they are taking centre stage. The image above shows a diner on Route 66 in the US. It taps into your memory of the many, many American road movies you have seen in your life time. It also refers you back to a time that was the heyday of American influence worldwide. A time when America’s image was untainted by Abu Grhaib and Guantanamo and when the American dream epitomised freedom and wealth.
Understanding these references and using them to create the desired image for your business is the key.
Of course, this is a rather obvious example, chosen to illustrate a point. Most business premises operate in a more subtle way: the trendy coffee shop that makes you feel hipper than you really are. The clothes store that feels like a high-class boutique. The grocery store that looks a little like a farm shop that you came across on a holiday in the countryside.
Once you have decided on the overall story that will inform the look of your premises, it is time to look in more detail at the experience your customers will have within that space, which is what we will start to discuss next week.