DECEMBER 2022

COVER STORY- Louisiana Shop Stays Customer Focused –

WEST MONROE, Louisiana – Jeff Smith says you only have one chance to make a first impression, so the building his dealership is housed in packs one heck of a punch. From the sheer size of it, to the paint colors, to the suspended zero-turn mower over the front door, it is hard not to notice Twin City Outdoor. Having purchased the land off a service road adjacent to Interstate 20 in 2015, Smith sat on it a while. Then after a brief meeting with his accountant, decided to expand the dealership from its old location of 8,000 sq. ft. more in the town of West Monroe proper in 2019.

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Twin City Outdoor

Article by Jessica Johnson, Managing Editor, Power Equipment Trade

WEST MONROE, Louisiana – Jeff Smith says you only have one chance to make a first impression, so the building his dealership is housed in packs one heck of a punch. From the sheer size of it, to the paint colors, to the suspended zero-turn mower over the front door, it is hard not to notice Twin City Outdoor. Having purchased the land off a service road adjacent to Interstate 20 in 2015, Smith sat on it a while. Then after a brief meeting with his accountant, decided to expand the dealership from its old location of 8,000 sq. ft. more in the town of West Monroe proper in 2019. He drew out the plans he wanted, headed to an architect to put in the beams and the bathrooms and got the ball rolling. Twin City Outdoor has 45,000 sq. ft. under roof, 38,000 sq. ft. inside, including a 20,000 sq. ft. showroom and 3,000 sq. ft. of parts with 30 ft. ceilings.

What’s perhaps one of the most noticeable things about Twin City Outdoor is not the size, but the color. Whereas most buildings are grey or tan or some combination, which Smith admits is what he had initially chosen for the dealership, Twin City Outdoor is a combination of leprechaun green and orange. It is very loud. It is nearly impossible to forget and not notice—just the way Smith wanted it to be. The color scheme was born after a road trip with his wife where they noticed a bright colored building. It stuck in their minds so much that on the way back they pulled off the road and looked at it, taking pictures and marveling at how much a bright green building, that housed storage units, could stick in their minds so much.

Well, come to find out, the storage building’s color was selected because it was eye catching and backed by neurological studies about colors and memories, an internet search revealed. That was all Smith needed to know—Twin City Outdoor was going to be a giant green and orange superstore on the side of the highway, impossible to miss.

Smith laughs as he tells the story of an older man in town who stops him every time he sees him to comment that Twin City Outdoor has the ugliest color of a building he’s ever seen. “I ask him, ‘do you notice it?’ and he says every time. Well, that’s what it was designed to do,” Smith explains.

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SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO COOPER!

Cooper has been a loyal shop dog at Art’s Lawn Mower Shop, Florissant, Missouri, since March 2020.

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