Make Sure Your Clothes Send the Right Message

• 00:05 Before you can go out and meet someone for a business event, a presentation, a talk,
• 00:10 a meeting, you have to get dressed at home or the hotel room, wherever you are.
• 00:15 Now people don't often think of dress as body language, but it's on your body.
• 00:20 It is communicating, so I wanna spend a few minutes
• 00:23 helping you give some thought to what it is you're wearing.
• 00:28 There's no perfect thing to wear.
• 00:30 The main thing you want is to dress in a way that doesn't confuse
• 00:34 the business people you're speaking with, or you're meeting with.
• 00:37 You don't want them wondering why you're wearing that.
• 00:41 You don't want something that sends the wrong message.
• 00:45 Now some of you don't like what I'm wearing.
• 00:48 You may be in the high tech industry and you think,
• 00:50 well anyone who wears a tie is a loser.
• 00:53 I understand that.
• 00:54 The reason I'm wearing a traditional, somewhat conservative suit and
• 00:58 tie, is that most of my clients are in the business world, and
• 01:03 they wear suits and ties.
• 01:05 And the women wear suits,
• 01:05 they don't wear ties, but they wear somewhat traditional clothing.
• 01:09 Now, when I am working with a high tech executive, I take the jacket and tie off.
• 01:15 I have to adapt what I'm wearing.
• 01:18 When I'm working with dairy farmers, then I'll have jeans and a work shirt on.
• 01:23 I'm not going to have a suit and tie on.
• 01:24 So there's no one perfect thing for you to wear
• 01:30 before a business meeting, a networking event, or a speech or tv interview.
• 01:36 But there is something that you can do that's gonna get you into trouble, and
• 01:40 that is dressing too high, too low.
• 01:43 If you're wearing a tuxedo and it's a pool party, obviously you're gonna stand out.
• 01:48 Now it doesn't have to be that egregious.
• 01:51 But anything you do that's on your body that's distracting
• 01:56 is going to minimize people focusing on your message.
• 02:01 You'll recall at the beginning of this whole course,
• 02:04 I'm coming into this with a premise that
• 02:07 your body language isn't the most important thing you're communicating.
• 02:11 The actual ideas about your business, your service, your product,
• 02:14 what you're trying to accomplish.
• 02:16 That's what's most important.
• 02:19 The body language can either help us keep a spotlight on that message, or
• 02:23 it can distract.
• 02:25 We do not want to distract, and that's the problem with clothes.
• 02:29 If you are selling a really high end product and
• 02:33 you have dirty, scruffy clothes on, that can distract.
• 02:39 Now if you're pitching Steven Spielberg as a wannabe director and
• 02:43 you're wearing a suit and tie, well that's gonna look weird.
• 02:47 Big time directors don't wear suit and ties.
• 02:51 One very famous venture capitalist once said he would never give money
• 02:55 to any founder, or engineer or, CEO who's wearing a suit and tie.
• 02:59 So there's no one set way of dressing.
• 03:04 You've got to really look at your customers, your prospects, your clients,
• 03:09 the people you're speaking to, and ask yourself, what are they comfortable with?
• 03:13 What do they expect someone in your shoes to wear?
• 03:19 Any if you have ever seen Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO,
• 03:22 you know he's fabulously wealthy and just wears t-shirts and jeans basically.
• 03:29 But he was upset when he went to his lawyer's office and
• 03:32 his lawyer was dressed casually.
• 03:35 I can dress casually, but I want you to have that suit and
• 03:38 tie on if you're trying to protect my legal estate.
• 03:43 So you've got to know not just what are the people your talking to wearing,
• 03:49 but what do they expect you to be wearing?
• 03:52 What do they expect someone in your shoes to wear?
• 03:57 Critically, critically important.
• 04:00 If you are a famous avant garde artist,
• 04:04 you don't wanna be in a conservative banker's pin stripe business suit.
• 04:09 If you are a conservative value fund portfolio manager,
• 04:14 then wearing some sort of wild, crazy,
• 04:17 artistic painting on a t-shirt is gonna confuse people.
• 04:22 So, I need you to really give some thought.
• 04:26 It's highly unlikely that anyone's gonna give you new business or
• 04:31 hire you just based on what you're wearing.
• 04:35 But if you wear the wrong thing, you can get scratched off the list.
• 04:39 Most people in business, most of the time,
• 04:43 don't want the people they're talking to to focus on what they're wearing,
• 04:47 other than to say, well that person's put together nicely.
• 04:50 You want them focusing on your message and what you're saying.
• 04:53 So that's why, in general, you may want to avoid a lot of excessive jewelery,
• 04:59 unless you're in the jewelery business.
• 05:01 Again, there are exceptions to every single rule.
• 05:05 You may want to avoid a lot of wild colored patterns,
• 05:09 especially if you're on TV.
• 05:11 Unless you are something in the artistic field, and you want
• 05:16 to really attract attention to your sense of color and what you're all about.
• 05:20 I don't want you to feel like I'm telling you be bland or boring.
• 05:23 That's not the message here.
• 05:26 The message is, think about
• 05:28 what people are going to be seeing when they look at how you're dressed.
• 05:32 What judgements are they going to make?
• 05:35 Are they judgements that set them up even more to listen to your main message and
• 05:41 will compliment your message?
• 05:43 Or are they messages that could confuse people or cut against your message?
• 05:48 That's what you've gotta think of every time you get dressed,
• 05:52 before any business meeting, networking event, or media interview.

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