The Colour Of Care by Thelma van der Werff

Each day you use the universal ‘language of colour’ to colour your world, colour your day and colour your business! The colours you select through your clothing choices reflect your inner most emotions which in turn communicates to others your feelings, strengths and struggles.

The majority of people are blissfully unaware that not only does colour influence emotions on a personal level, but just as importantly, colour can be used to influence the emotions of people around you. It is for this very reason that the power of colour is used as a clever and seductive marketing tool to effectively influence your buying behaviour!

Think about your business. Are you using colour effectively? Whether your business is very small, a franchise or multi national, to take full advantage of colour you have to determine the type of image you want to convey. What is the essence of your product, what is the service you want to give, how do you want to portray your business? How do you want your clients to perceive you?

Your business may be in the ‘care’ sector, a place where people will walk into your business and immediately feel relaxed and at ease and be confident that they are going to be pampered and nurtured. There are several colours that can give this sense of warmth, care and kindness but one colour in particular encompasses all the caring and nurturing emotions and is symbolic with the colour of the womb; the first completely safe and protected environment we all experienced. This colour is soft pink.

Through the use of uniforms and internal décor, the colour pink can communicate to your clients relaxation and caring. However it is important to understand that too much pink (or any colour for matter) could convey completely the wrong message! The atmosphere and your business, would be tipped from being calm and nurturing, to silly, childish and not one to be taken seriously. The addition of ‘intellectual grey’ or the ‘corporate navy blue’, will, in this case, help balance the soft tones of the pink and create exactly the type of atmosphere needed for the ‘nurturing’ environment.

Alternatively, imagine a male dominated business wanting to create a macho image. The use of red may be a good choice, but too much red would over emphasis the macho image and without the addition of another ‘balancing’ colour that business would soon find itself with aggressive, power crazy staff and equally aggressive customers!

Colour is a language, and guess what, we ALL speak it!! It really doesn’t matter where we were born, what language we communicate with, because we all understand, subconsciously, the messages we give each other with our colour choices. Look at colour choices in clothes, businesses, homes, furniture and you will begin to understand how successfully we speak this wonderful ‘language’!

Use colour wisely in your business and the colour will communicate the message for you. Behind every colour is an emotion and a message!!

Copyright 2009 Thelma van der Werff. Thelma trains colour coaches in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The training course is especially suitable for practitioners of the wellness, coaching and beauty industry, covering what colour is, the effects of colour, how to practise colour coaching and how to implement this service in your practice. For more information visit www.colourcomfort.com