The starting line, and the room above it
Across 2,604 businesses, the average is 1.38 of four doors open: Google Business Profile, website, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Most businesses are already through at least one. Only 3.6% have all four open, which means the upside is still on the table for almost everyone.
That is the headroom worth reading carefully. The distribution shows 29.0% of businesses with exactly one door, 25.9% with two, and 14.3% with three. Most owners have already started. The real question is which door to open next.
Each door multiplies the rest
The reason the next door matters is that the doors compound. They do not simply add up. The clearest evidence is the relationship between doors open and the reviews a business gathers on Google.
A business with zero doors averages 0 reviews and a 31.9 readiness score. With one door, that’s 62.9 reviews; with two, 116.8; with three, 179.7. At four doors, the average is 218.3 reviews and a 60.6 score, close to double the one-door figure. Each new channel gives customers another way to find a business, and a customer who arrives through one door often leaves a review that strengthens another.
Zero doors means zero reviews and a 31.9 score. Four doors means 218 reviews and a 60.6 score. Each door opened makes the others count for more.
Why this works in the Bahamas
The compounding fits how Bahamian commerce actually runs. Customers research online and buy offline: they find a business on Google or Facebook, send a WhatsApp message to confirm, then visit in person. Each door covers a different step of that path (discovery, evaluation, contact), so a missing door is a break in the chain rather than a missing extra.
A business easy to find on Google but unreachable on WhatsApp meets the customer at the start of the journey and loses them at the close. The doors are strongest when they connect.
The next door, not every door
This is not an argument for opening all four at once. It is an argument for opening the next one. For a business with a Google profile, adding a WhatsApp Business number (free, about ten minutes) connects discovery to the moment a customer is ready to act. The first door already does work. The second one makes it count for more.