In business and in life, some people are natural showmen and women and love curating their brand presentation as meticulously as possible.
For many other people, though – including a good number of entrepreneurs – paying anything more than superficial attention to appearances can seem fake, shallow, meaningless, and a waste of time.
If you’re an entrepreneur, however – or for that matter any sort of professional – there are plenty of good reasons why you should actually pay attention to things like wearing a sharp suit.
While they may not admit it outwardly, most hiring managers place a great deal of importance on how the candidate dresses for an interview. Remember what they say, you only have once chance to make a first impression. If your dress isn’t as sharp as your brain during the interview, you are hurting your chances of being hired.
Here are a few professional reasons why it’s worth paying attention to appearances and how looking good can help get you hired.
The direct impression it will make on prospective clients
Although we are all told not to judge a book by its cover – and while this is certainly good advice in certain contexts – the simple fact of the matter is that prospective clients and customers always judge a business largely on the basis of its visual presentation, before deciding to use that businesses services.
Appearances have a direct psychological effect on your prospective customers and clients, but also help to signal that you are at least somewhat serious and trustworthy, as well.
For new businesses, in particular, the fact that you are willing and able to put in the effort to “look the part” will immediately seem to set you apart, in the eyes of many would-be customers, from insincere and unscrupulous competitors.
The things it will tell you, and reinforce to you, about yourself
To get hired it starts with self-belief.
A major part of the reason to pay attention to appearances in your professional life isn’t actually down to the effect it might have on your prospective employer at all but is rather down to the story it will help to reinforce to you, about yourself.
In order for anyone to be successful, professionally, they need to be able to approach things with a certain baseline degree of confidence and self-belief. Suffice to say, if you work from home in your pajamas every day, you will probably struggle to maintain a serious image of yourself as a professional with real prospects.
Present yourself as if you are trying to make a positive impression on yourself – because, largely, you are. That confidence will carry over into the interview.
Set standards and quality expectations
When you pay attention to presentation and appearances, you begin to establish the habit of excellence, in general.
Not only will your confidence and sense of pride grow via the exercise itself, but you will find it more natural to go the extra mile in the other areas of your professional life, too. In fact, you will quite likely be significantly more disappointed with yourself if you don’t.
Even on a purely psychological level, it’s difficult to go from presenting yourself in a way that makes you feel a degree of pride in your professional credentials, to then slacking off in other areas of your professional life. “The way you do anything is the way you do everything,” as the saying goes.
