The restaurant's sign promised "Homestyle Cooking." But when I asked a customer about that, he was dismissive. "If you can't touch it, it ain't real!" he said.

The customer's name was Percy. The restaurant was a struggling buffet brand. Percy ate there because it was affordable--but because he couldn't see any "homestyle cooking" happening there, he doubted the company's claim. That's the kind of insight I love.

I'm an architect and cofounder of a design and strategy firm that specializes in "visual storytelling"-or how business, social science, and design intertwine to build physical places that bring people together. My team has designed spaces for companies like Harley-Davidson, Whole Foods, Kraft, and Nabisco. On average, we increase foot traffic by 25% and sales by 18% to 86% without changing the product, prices, quality, or service levels-just the environment.

When we were hired to help this buffet chain, we redesigned it and we launched five beta stores-where expected weekly sales more than doubled, going from around $40,000 to $90,000.

How did we do it? The answer is all there in Percy's comment. We created an environment that customers could see-and touch, hear, smell and taste. Their senses told them what they were experiencing was real, and that made them excited to be there.

The first part of our job is always to listen. We talk to customers, hear their problems, and design solutions. When I worked on the struggling buffet chain, I talked a lot with Percy. He had worked in a textile mill for 35 years and was skeptical of consultants like me; he called us "pointyheaded marketing suits." But I didn't mind, because he intuitively understood what this restaurant needed.