Dress to Impress

Earlier in the year I was in a meeting held by three of the most senior people at a client of mine. In the meeting the potential future managers within the business were being considered.

Various names were put forward and the last name presented was that of a particularly talented and successful individual. A conversation was then had about that person and one of the three people present, the managing director, was particularly negative about the person.

When asked the managing director said “Well for a start it would help if they looked like a manager. I don’t think I have ever seen them wear a suit jacket. When they improve their appearance then I’ll consider them as a potential manager. That’s their first step.”

To date that person has not been put on the management program that I designed and am now delivering for the company. And yes they have had the advice that they need to improve their dress code however they are choosing not to follow it. The company in turn is holding to its position of needing to; literally, see something better from the individual.

The truth of the matter is this – your colleagues, your superiors and your clients will all judge you, to some degree, on your appearance. The deeper truth is more shocking – you will judge yourself on how you look.

A business person who doesn’t care about their appearance will not care about their work. A business person who fails to consider how well presented they are for business will often fail to consider how professionally they act, talk and work.

Certainly that is the view that other business professionals will take of them.

A positive consequence of this is that you can develop your potential in business and thus influence your own career and earning potential by motivating yourself through your own dress code.

If you really are a business professional then show that to the world and most importantly . . . dress to impress yourself.

Until next time;

Stephen

Coach, Trainer, Public Speaker

www.edenchanges.com

(0) 1757 249 380

PS In case anyone is worried I checked with my client before sharing this story! All work done by Edenchanges is done in the utmost confidentiality.

Photography by Ksenia Korneychuk with thanks.

Career Polish

Career Polish

I rather like it when advice you get from your parents turns out to be true. It gives me a warm feeling to know that it was from my dad or from my mother. It puts a smile on my face and it makes the sharing of the advice that much sweeter.

And today I would like to share some career advice that I received many moons ago from my dad…

When I was growing up my dad, who worked in pensions and investments, would always tell me how important it was in business to polish your shoes.

He would recount stories of eager young sales people who would come in for interviews with expensive suits and firm handshakes. He would tell in great detail the exact moment when those people failed to make the right impression. The moment that the interviewer looked down and saw their shoes…

When I think back to when my dad first told me those tales I remember being inspired to polish my school shoes and more than that I believed that he had given me an advantage over my peers and that I must remember the lesson for the years ahead.

Well the years passed and as a typically cynical teenager I rebelled against a lot of good advice yet somehow I could never quite shake my faith in the polishing advice. Not that I did it all the time of course but rather the feeling that it was good advice was always in me, even when I failed to act on that feeling!

Towards the end of my teenage years I did wonder if the advice was a little old school. Whether in this modern age something like polished shoes would really be taken into account when considering the suitability of a talented young person.

That was quite a few years ago now and the millennium has come and gone and now I’m a business professional in my own right with, amongst other experience, almost a decade in the recruitment and headhunting world. And you know what…my dad was right.

I’ve heard from countless CEO’s and MD’s of multi million pound international companies over the last decade who tell me that one of the signs of a true business person is a pair of well polished shoes.

And it’s not only the ’silver haired’ brigade who thinks this. I know several wealthy entrepreneurs aged under 35 for whom polished shoes indicates an individual who is both serious about business and has an eye for detail.

It has also been said to me by several managing directors that polished shoes in a candidate is a mark of respect towards the interviewing company, a way of saying ‘I respect you and your business enough to make an effort to look my best.’ and the message the interviewers read into this is ‘if they can make an effort like that about their appearance probably they will make a great effort about their jobs.’

I think the reason that my faith in my dad’s advice never truly wavered during my teenage years was that it always felt so good, so diligent and just so right when I did actually pick up the polish and a cloth and shine my shoes. The proof was in the pudding as they say.

So if you are not moved by my retelling of my dad’s advice let me set you a challenge. Tonight go home from work and polish your shoes.

Polish them really well and leave them out by the door that you will leave your home from tomorrow. In the morning see how it feels when you go to put them on and then, even more importantly, see how great you feel once you have put them on.

You see what I have learnt is that people notice when you have polished your shoes and people react positively to the signals that effort sends out. And one of the most important people to notice will be you.

Until next time

Stephen

Stephen Hart