How do you represent yourself? When you aren’t there, who is representing your company, store or brand for you? Here’s a quick and easy question….how do they look?
Many people have taken the expression business casual and pushed it to the next level. Jeans and a polo may be fine for grocery shopping, but is this the business person and image you want to represent you? What used to be a trend, dressing down at the office, many big companies are tightening their policies once again.
When you dress nicer, often your attitude goes right along with it. Don’t get me wrong, my working style didn’t change when I’d dress down at the office, versus dressing up, but it would be easy for a client to assume it did, had they seen me. I worked in an office where there were no customers with us. I was behind a locked door, and didn’t represent to the clients. It still makes a difference, because when your coworkers look at you, and you have a neat, clean and professional appearance, they also see you projecting yourself differently.
What about at a retail store? If you’re selling trendy clothes, you want your business staff to wear trendy clothes. A suit in this case on your salesperson, is going to look out of place.
When you know how you want to appear, or your staff to appear, you should draw out clear guidelines. Whether people want to believe the clothes we wear make a difference in how people perceive us, they do…and your reputation might be on the line. Before you ever open that door to your business, consider what you want your employees to wear.
Even something as simple as scrubs in a doctor’s office, in your mind, you expect to see them. You expect your doctor to appear a certain way. If you walk in, and he/she is wearing shorts and a tank top, you may be thrown, and subconsciously, your opinion may change. They are only clothes, but the question becomes, do you feel you’re in a professional setting, and do you start to doubt the ability of the person in front of you. It’s a simple thing, dress the part.
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