Research has shown that there are things a marketing consultant can do on a first time, face-to-face meeting that will make a great first impression and build rapport when transacting business. Knowing do’s and don’ts may save a sale from getting away. Lighting is a very important factor.
Here’s why…
There are some things that work well and there are some strategies that are lucky, intuitive, or whatever.
The first thing that I would recommend: Whenever you meet people, especially at a restaurant, always arrive early and sit at the back of the restaurant, facing every other human being in the restaurant.
The person who’s coming to meet you will be obligated to sit directly across from you, and the only thing that they can see is you.
They might be able to hear stuff happening in the background but they couldn’t actually see anything; so you have 100% of the attention and essentially a perception that you’re totally in control of the environment.
The second thing is that, if you have a choice of where to take people, there are some things that we factually know are more likely to sell.
If you take people to a restaurant that has dimly lit lights, the probability of getting yes at the end of your proposal, presentation, whatever it is, is significantly greater than if you take a person to a restaurant that is well lit.
Why is that?
Because when lighting is down, the pupils expand in size. So when you look at your prospect, you see pupils that are large and unconsciously, nobody necessarily tells us this in school, we just know this from looking at babies that babies always have these big eyes, they’re happy.
We literally have all these powerful, wonderful associations to huge eyes.
When you look at a person in dim lights, their eyes are really quite large. And there is a feeling that people get inside, a sense that they’re comfortable, that things are good, that this is okay, I like this person, they like me.
Talk about tactics, that’s one of my all time favorite tactics, is that combination of dim lights and seating position in a restaurant. That’s worth 50 dollars if people would just do that.
When choosing a spot to meet, invite your client to a softly lit ambiance is your best bet for a new beginning. End of story.