The success of any personal encounter begins the second someone lays eyes on you. A professional image—appearance and behavior—helps you start the experience in the right vein since people decide 10 things about you within 10 seconds of seeing you.
The business casual look that really dominates in nowadays workplace has made it more difficult to look as professional and powerful as before. While some compliment the trend, others think it shows less respect for self and others.
Dress depends on what the occasion you are attending. If the occasion is business, then dress as if you mean business.
Women frequently suffer more negative career consequences from business casual dress than men because they have a big choice. Women often choose stirrup pants, leggings, mini skirts and skirts. For men, casual typically means pants and a shirt or sweater. Their biggest fault may be to choose sweat pants or jeans or muscle T-shirts.
Learning the art of impression management—planning how you look and how you act in certain occasion—is sure to impact your career or business more favorably!
You tell others how to treat you. Your business associates or partners and coworkers mirror whether you want to be treated as Number one or Number ten in your walk of life and how much respect you want.
Color, style and fit provide the one, two, three punches in your appearance arena. Color influences people physically and psychologically, and business casual is the same.
■Color
Dark colors—black, navy and darker shades of gray—psychologically connote authority, power, responsibility, knowledge, and success.
Brown implies that you are dependable and stable—however you lack power and authority.
White is a good choice for a blouse or shirt since it shows clean, formal and sophisticated.
Pastels denote softness and femininity.
Every color has a message of its own. That depends on how you put them together to send your own message.