BUDDYZ Pizza in McHenry knows the importance of the first impression and takes pains to present their restaurant in a positive light, including with clean windows.

As a business owner, you’ve probably read books about the importance of making a good impression. No doubt, you realize this is a concept that extends to the physical presence of your store or office. That’s why you take the time to clean and organize. This is why you spend time designing your signage and decorating the front window to give potential customers the right impression. Of course, while creating a storefront-window display, you also make a point of cleaning the windows.

An Sept. 5, 2014, article, in Forbes magazine, refers to one ‘expert’ who suggests that first impressions are often “highly accurate.” Though another expert refers to first impressions as “frustratingly arbitrary,” the question is really a matter of how people react to their first impressions.

If you own and operate a restaurant, cleanliness is more than ‘next to Godliness;’ it’s one of the business commandments for a place that serves food. Someone who is considering your restaurant as a place to dine wants to know that their food is properly prepared and, in fact, safe. One sign they’ll automatically look for is the general cleanliness of your establishment. But, this also applies to other businesses.

Ask yourself, why would a hiring official reject a resume with a few grammatical errors from someone seeking a position as a welder? The answer is that the quality of the resume is a demonstration of the prospective employee’s commitment to doing a thorough job. It doesn’t matter that the welder will, probably, never have to consider grammar while welding.

Still, if someone thought about it, they might say, ‘I don’t care that things are unorganized in this store or office; why does it matter to me that the windows aren’t clean?’ They might figure that, once they bring the products they buy home, or contract for your services, they may never return to your office. But, they might also say, how good are can their products or services be if this is how little they worry about creating a good impression.

Worse yet, many people don’t consciously think about first impressions at all. The first impression is made silently, without conscious thought, while coloring their decision-making processes. This is why it’s essential to maintain a clean and organized store, restaurant or office. You can save yourself from that bad first impression. Oh, and don’t forget the clean windows.