Q&A: Feng Shui for Shop Owner
Posted by Terah Collins on Oct 31, 2010 in Bagua | Comments Off on Q&A: Feng Shui for Shop Owner
Q: I recently did a Feng Shui consultation for a Consignment Store business. The store is in the helpful people gua of the bigger building, and you enter the actual store through the helpful people gua. The door is slanted across the corner, so that a small piece if the gua is missing. She has a beautiful fountain by the door, the name if the business above the door with a swag of autumn flowers and gold beading below it, a large mirror on the left of the door and artfully displayed clothing at the entrance. It Is ver inviting. As you enter the room a brown antique couch welcomes you with a fountain on the counter above it. Sometimes she displays purses and shoes on the couch. This couch sits at a slight slant facing the from door and the cash register.
Her splinter is that, although business is booming this year, she has noticed that customers love to stay and talk to her telling her their problems, which she finds draining. Sometimes they stay a long time. They move the displays and sit on the couch.
I told her to hang a round faceted crystal over the door by her business name to close off the corner, and drape a white throw over the couch to add metal to the gua, adding to the displays so that people wouldn’t sit there.
Any other suggestions?
A: From Karen Carrasco
Your client is obviously a caring nurturing soul, and it has been her passion to create a safe sanctuary for people in need. Her customers pick up on that vibe, and linger in its glow. So, to move them along into purchase and exit, she must first refine her INNER intentions. She can intend that the store itself hold the compassion, along with a fresh spark of delight, to inspire all who enter to find their new treasures for their homes. Suggest that it is the items in the store, and the ambiance there, that satisfies each customer’s need for support, rather than herself. She can affirm that the store’s grounding vibrantly centers each entrant into their own wisdom and guidance. The goal here is to transfer her intentions for creating sanctuary and support into the store rather than feeling that she herself is the only holder of those intentions.
Next, she can anchor her new intentions with a few OUTER Feng Shui changes. If at all possible, she can move her cash register/exit counter station out of Helpful People and Travel gua, to place it more in the Career area. This moves her out of the very Yang energies of HP&T, into the more mysterious Water qualities of Career. The result can be that she activates the Ch’i of personal identity and business goals, while allowing other “for sale” objects to hold the Helpful People energy, instead of herself. It may serve to concentrate her personal clarity about her business, and what she wishes to create FOR HERSELF rather than for OTHERS.
If she can not move her work position, then she could create a protective “berm”, or little hill, of objects between her and the doorway, so that people entering and leaving do not have direct over-the-counter ability to talk, but must go further into the store to see her and access her at the counter. Display objects on the countertop, a large plant, a screen….any of these things between her and the doorway (while still allowing her to view customers coming in and out, for shop lifting prevention, of course) will direct the customer ch’i correctly into and out of the store like an impersonal, yet welcoming, foyer, allowing her to disconnect from customers after they purchase by sort of ushering them out to the “foyer”, and pointedly turning her attention back into the store and the other customers.
Finally, the objects near the doorway need to be cleared away a bit, and become a little more yang–hard, stream-lined, smooth, less detailed or textured–to allow the ch’i to flow in and out more swiftly there. The antique couch, no doubt very yin, with curves and cushions, slows the ch’i. And its placement by the door, in the HP&T gua, makes it a perfect of match for sitting down to tea and conversation. Of course her customers react as they do! Also, using a couch as a display surface seems to be a cluttered mixed message to customers….if it is for sale, she can move this couch to the furniture section of the store. Or, if it is meant to be a unique display object, she must use it somewhere else away from the doorway.
Of course, your idea of a crystal hung over the doorway, a few feet into the store, can always assist in bringing ch’i in and circulating it out, but it may not be enough to counteract the loud invitation to “set a spell and talk” that the couch is giving to all who enter!
Blessings on your endeavors to bring balance and greater business success to your client, and keep us posted as to which remedies work!
