God is in the Details, Part 2

Paco Underhill, who studies the retail environment (and who more church leaders need to be reading and listening to), once said he was working with one of the major home improvement stores and he took all of the executives into the restrooms in one of their stores. To his surprise, most had never been into their restrooms, and, since they were all men, which is another issue, none of them had ever gone into the women's restroom.

What did they find there? The standard industrial bathroom. It was there for convenience and nothing else. It was certainly not a point of selling anything, which was exactly his point to them. They are engaged in the business of selling people on the need to upgrade their homes, and they have the perfect opportunity to put that into practice in their restrooms and instead they ignored it. What if you had different types of sinks, faucets and toilets in the restroom, Underhill asked? What about having Kohler, or one of the other supplies, sponsor your restrooms so that only their products are seen? Then when people go in, and they can be encouraged by the sales people, they can see what the products actually look and feel like.

When I read that I began to totally rethink things and paid attention to whether people were paying attention to the little things or ignoring them. Another IKEA example. In their family bathroom, they have some of the items from their children section in the room, like a rocker and small table and chairs. It is not only convenient, it also shows off their product, and I would guarantee if they removed them that their sales on these items would decrease. But do they have anything in their normal bathrooms? No. They sell sinks, cabinets, chairs, etc., but they are not in one of the most obvious areas for people to actually experience and interact with them.

When you overlook the little things, for whatever reason, then you will miss the big things as well. Adam Hamilton said that when he visits a new church for the first time the first palace he asks to see is not the sanctuary but the nursery, because that will tell him what he needs to know about the church. If the nursery is well done then other things will be well done. But if the nursery is ignored you can also be sure they are not good at other things, especially in receiving guests.