Dress for Looking Like You Already Have Success.

Anytime you are giving a sales presentation, you must be concerned with not only your verbal message, but your non-verbal messages too. How you dress is a significant part of the non-verbal message you are communicating.

Every industry has its own standards of dress and dress for success—there is no one way of dressing for people. For example, the higher you go up in the world of high tech, the tackier you will seem if you wear an expensively tailored, hand-made suit.

However, for most people in most industries, there are 7 key principles that should always be kept in mind:

1. People are noticing and judging you based, in part, on what you wear.
2. People are judging how successful and how much money you make, based on your clothes.
3. People do not want to buy your product or service if they feel you “need” their money in order to improve your lifestyle (I’m not talking about situations where you are buying Girl Scout cookies from the kid next door).
4. People want to buy from you only if they feel you can improve their lifestyle, business, or other situation more than they can help you.
5. People like to hire and buy services and products from people they already perceive to be successful.
6. People are attracted to people who hold themselves up as attractive people—and this includes dressing attractively (this doesn’t mean sexy or traditionally handsome or good-looking, it just means looking your best and holding yourself with confidence).
7. People can pick up on any insecurity you have if you feel you are dressed poorly or inadequately.