Productivity and Broken Window Syndrome

Today, I am victorious. Today, the company I work for is re-painting our sales offices - the place where my sales team meets with prospects and converts them into students. It has taken me, the Sales and Marketing Director, months of management-prodding to be triumphant. Why all this ridiculous effort on my part and resultant excitement? I believe that the bland, dirty, pock-marked walls affect the people within those walls - my sales staff and their would-be sales, alike. I believe in the power of broken windows.

Broken Window Syndrome
Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling was first published in Atlantic Monthly in March of 1982. Most recently, Malcom Gladwell referenced it in his bestselling book about epidemics, The Tipping Point. The Broken Window theory states that signs of physical property decay - including small things like litter and broken windows to the more visible like abandoned vehicles - leads to deterioration on a grander scale, resulting in negative behavioral shifts of the people living and working.

For example, Wilson and Kelling talk about cleaning up entire neighborhoods with certain enforceable city ordinances like having an excessive number of dogs and cats, parking in the front yard or running a business from home. Gladwell tells the story of how New York City reduced its crime rate by cleaning up graffiti on rail cars and and essentially re-reinstating respect for NYC's rail cars and system.

To over simplify the hypothesis, the lack of caring for and maintenance of one's surroundings rapidly evolves into a lack of caring within that person. It is also important to note that the emphasis of the theory is based on small things being capable of rapidly having big impacts on big things.

Product and Product Presentation
What does this mean for businesses? I'll answer that question with more questions.

Who wants to hand a big check over to a nice and very competent, but shabbily surrounded sales person in a dark office with pock-marked walls? Not my clients. Do those walls inspire - do the surroundings in general - inspire a sales person's confidence and pride in his or her company? Does that salesperson really believe their product is worth the big check? Not my sales people - not really.

Broken Window theory also goes beyond brick-and-mortar applications. As a marketer whose work is Internet-heavy, valuable, user-friendly content and design are critical to me. In What Does your Brochure Really Say About You? by SuccessfulMassageTherapist.org, Irene Diamond says massage therapists should make first impression look like a $100 massage will be worth the money with heavy card stock and professionally printed promotions materials as opposed to home-printer-produced flyers. Compare how Tony and Guy's hair stylists dress code to the Super Cuts'. It's only clothes and makeup and hair, but that's what clients pay for, right, style? I have been to both places and gotten good cuts at both, but going to Tony and Guy is a treat.

The bottom line is leads, productivity and sales. More questions: If the massage therapist's print materials were nicer, would he or she get more leads? If the room in which the salesperson made sales was more elegant, cleaner, more striking, would that salesperson be more confident when make a sale? Would he or she stand differently, use different words? Would the conversion rate be better? Would we sell more? Would the whole experience be more enjoyable if the first impression was just a little bit nicer? I'll let you know.

So when presenting your business to a client for the first time, whether it be with a brochure a user-friendly web page, the front of your building or the inside of your sales team's office, look for a broken window. If you find one, patch it up before it brings down the whole neighborhood.