It’s the three fundamental principles of business: location, location, location. The right location can make all the difference in your success. But there is more to it than just looking for a high-traffic location.

First, I have to point you to this National Public Radio story that got me thinking: “Girls Auto Clinic Owner: I Couldn’t Find A Female Mechanic, So I Had To Learn.”

A quick summary of the story: There was a time when Patrice Banks avoided taking her car in for routine maintenance. Now, she’s a trained mechanic and the owner of a garage that caters to women. And she opened a nail salon next to it.

I was following my wife as she went to drop off her car at the carwash. She didn’t want to wait the hour or so it was going to take to wash the car. She wanted me to take her across town to get a pedicure while the car was being washed.

Bingo! It hit me.

How much more business could that car wash do if there were a nail salon or hair salon next door for women to wait while their car is being washed? And vice-versa. (And how much time would it save me from having to drive her around and wait to pick her up again?!) What if there was a barbershop or even a sports bar on the other side for men to wait while the car gets washed?

People who care about their cars enough to get them washed regularly more than likely also care about their looks. They’re willing to spend money on both. If you can make it easier to do both, that’s synergy.

I’ve seen places where there’s a restaurant close by, or it may even be part of the car wash. In these cases, the businesses take advantage of the traffic they each generate separately or even together. In those cases, it was likely just a convenient coincidence that those businesses wound up next to each other.

People who build commercial centers or strip shopping centers often build with the “build it and they will come” attitude. If I were a building owner, rather than see who shows up, I’d try to recruit matching businesses that could benefit from the shared traffic more directly. If I were someone trying to open one of the types of businesses I mentioned above, I’d try to find others who could match the needs of my clients. There are business networks, both formal and informal, that could help me find those matching businesses. Otherwise, I’m leaving a lot of money on the table. I’m letting it walk away somewhere else.

Of course, I’m not going to rely just on the neighbors’ traffic. I’m going to work on generating my own traffic. Being located in a compatible location just gives me a jump start. If the other businesses do the same, we’ll all benefit. The truth is that no one wants to be located next to a low performing or – even worse – a boarded up one.

It has always struck me that businesses that share the same or “adjoining” markets don’t locate close to or next to each other: bridal shops, tuxedo shops, cake shops, DJ services, limousines, etc. What about business services: accounting, printing, marketing, banking, cleaning services, insurance, payroll, office supplies, personnel staffing, etc.? How much more convenient would that be for their customers? How much more traffic would each business get from each other?

So, the take away is, if you’re interested in starting a car wash, locate it next to a nail salon or a barbershop, or both.

And one last piece of advice – don’t locate a donut shop next to a gym!