Why we are still greeted by clothes, or How appearance affects professional success / Witget Blog

Colleagues! Today we want to share with you a translation of Neil Patel's article. Yes, this material is quite ambiguous, if only because it sounds truly astronomical for many of us. But, whatever one may say, no one has canceled the rule that they are greeted by clothes, no matter how offensive it is sometimes. That is why we decided to share such material with you. Largely because we are waiting for feedback expressed in the comments. Have you ever encountered difficulties due to the lack of a “glamorous chic” look? And what do you pay attention to when you first meet a person, communicating with him on personal and professional issues? So the word is to the author.

Over the past year, I have a new passion ... buying clothes. And it's not that I like to dress beautifully. I don’t care what I look like. At home I wear regular T-shirts and shorts because they are very comfortable.
If everything depended only on my preferences, I would go to them all day without taking off, including working meetings.
But over the past year I noticed such an amazing trend: when I looked especially stylish and elegant, I was able to conclude much more profitable deals . Basically, this happened because people believed that I was a more wealthy and successful person, since I look so chic.

No matter how funny the paradox this situation may seem, but the fact remains, and I understood this clear relationship in the last 12 months of careful attention to my appearance and its impact on my work. I always dressed with dignity, because I realized that the official image forms the ability to inspire confidence and reliability. And it was good clothes that helped me increase my consulting rating from $ 100 to $ 1,000 . Now I no longer do consulting in the usual sense, so I decided to conduct a funny experiment and see what results in a business can lead to an investment in clothes worth a million dollars.
Before I tell you about the achieved results, I want to note that you can achieve similar heights for less money. At the end of this article I will share with you tips on how to do this.

So let's get started ...

How did you spend $ 162,301.42 on clothes?

Good question. To be honest, I would never have thought that clothes could cost such a huge amount of money.
Basically, I go shopping in only three stores: Tom Ford, Dolce and Gabbana, and Burberry. The fact is that I adhere to the classic official style, so I prefer to wear black, white, blue or gray.
Another feature - I do not buy extravagant and flashy wardrobe items. Everything that I get from clothes and accessories is perfect for my endless official meetings. Most of all I have to spend on trousers, jackets, tuxedos and briefcases.



Moreover, I often meet with the same people, so I try not to repeat myself in images and not to wear the same thing.

Such costumes, as in the photographs, cost from $ 2,000 to $ 7,000 ...



And the prices for such bags start from $ 3,000 ...



Similar shoes can be found for at least $ 1,790, and the maximum price reaches $ 5,500.



And this is far from all my spending. Add more accessories (belts, suspenders, cufflinks), count all the necessary little things.
Even my lower T-shirt shirts ended up costing $ 750.

So, now you understand why some spend so much on clothes. Now let's find out how such clothes helped me earn more money.

How elegant clothes can bring you big income

People believe in what they see. If it seems to a person that you are successful and happy, you will be a successful and wealthy person for him.

This dependence seems strange to me, I would rather spend $ 162,301.42 for charity and not for a wardrobe, but I know that in the long run such an investment will significantly increase profits in my business. And in the end, I can donate even more to charity.

It may seem strange, but now I have a full closet of beautiful clothes that I try to wear wherever I go. And almost every day they give me compliments, and some ask me who I work with.
Unfortunately, none of these conversations led to a formal deal. Just imagine: an ordinary person whom you come across on the street is unlikely to write you a check for an impressive amount. Not all people are business owners and it is not so easy to meet the director of an international corporation on the street.

But the stylish and thoughtful to the smallest detail image helps me a lot at business meetings. I had so many official negotiations in different companies last year that, according to the statistics of the agreements signed, my chances of a successful deal were 1 to 4. In other cases, the interlocutors were not happy with the price for the service that I called.
I analyzed every meeting I attended over the past four and a half years. I have a large Excel document in which I carefully record my own rating of concluded contracts, the average cost of the service that customers are willing to pay, the name of the companies, people who attended the meeting, their positions, etc.

And I realized that when I began to dress particularly elegantly and expensively, my interlocutors had the impression that I was doing very well and that I was a successful businessman. For this reason, they wanted to associate themselves with me, which helped me increase the percentage of signed contracts from 25% to 40% . This means that 4 out of 10 meetings end for me in the best way.

The difference is huge! So huge that it resulted in a reward equal to $ 692,500. And, most surprisingly, apart from clothes, nothing has changed in me - neither my professional level, nor the price of services, nor the profile of the companies I met.

How to build relationships with clothing

In general, I rarely go to the clothing store because I cannot stand this. But once I was at Dolce and Gabbana in Beverly Hills, and several basketball players came into the store.

I did not know them, and what they did there I did not know either. It seemed strange to me that they walk around the store in groups of 2-3 people. One of them came up to me and said that I look simply unrealistic. And I took his words for a compliment.
He asked me what I was doing, and I gave a standard speech about my work on promoting on the Internet. And he said that he is the financial director of many popular athletes. He teaches them to save money and make profitable investments.
He took my number because he wanted to know more about the Internet, and he gave me a corporate discount code at any Starwood Hotel, so I could save a few hundred dollars wherever I went. It may not be such a big savings, but I spend on business trips at least 200 days a year. For me, this is an impressive amount.

While his colleagues were hanging around the store, one picked up a sweater that cost about $ 2,000 and asked me what I thought of this sweater. I said that I liked this sweater so much that I already bought one for myself. And when they asked me what I wore it with, I replied that I would choose sports shorts for him and I would wear it for a run.



The guy thought I was crazy. And to some extent he is right. After this incident, he and his friends sent me $ 4,000 NBA free invitations, Miami Heat championship game tickets, and provided some good business opportunities.

Only this could happen to me?

When I first started my experiment, I wanted to conduct it with a friend to see if this tactic could work in the case of a person who does not have much money, experience or business contacts.
My friend Mike Camo decided to join my experiment. And he got the same amazing results. But before I tell you what Mike accomplished, I will show you what he looked like a year ago ...



Mike spent almost $ 10,000 on clothes, and now he looks like this ...

Mike used to work as an agent for the sale of cars, he specialized in the sales themselves and sales management. After he attended several technical presentations in a suit such as the photo, Mike discovered that people themselves began to get to know him and ask what he was doing.



The more often he attended presentations, the more compliments he was told, and several people invited him to help build a sales team in their companies and adjust work processes.

He worked on the principle of income distribution, and things went so well that Mike began to earn a million a month.
Of course, you can say that Mike could have achieved the same results in old clothes, but this is not so. He was always a confident and sociable person. But when he approached the man at a technical presentation in a T-shirt and jeans, they spoke with him politely, but no one was going to work with him. Why? Because people got the impression that he was not successful.

To make our experiment even more exciting, Mike recently bought a Lamborghini.



He always drove a Mazda, but one of his friends, the owner of a Lamborghini dealership, asked him to buy a car under both conditions, which were very beneficial to them, as a mutual service. Mike was not going to buy such a car, but the salon needed to sell this model in order to beat his monthly sales rating. This sold car will bring the salon a huge bonus for further business development.

The salon management was already ready to incur some losses from the sale of this car at a low price, so Mike bought it. Although the car is depreciating, he can still sell it and get a net $ 13,000 after taxes, which he is going to do.

Like any of us, he decided to ride a new car and put a couple of photos on the network. And can you imagine what happened then?

On Facebook, 107 business owners sent a request to friends. Most of them asked to become his investor, but 5 people offered Mike to become one of the owners of the company in exchange for his consultation. Mike had a partnership with one of those companies that earned him $ 50,000.

Not so bad for a single photo in a beautiful car.

Conclusion

If you want to conduct a similar experiment, you can do with less financial cost. Clothing does not have to be very expensive. I got a more extreme option with spending, because I tend to do everything to the maximum. The most important thing is how much the chosen clothes suit you.

You can go to stores like Zara and H&M and pick up very attractive kits that will suit you, for just a couple hundred dollars.

And if they do not sit well or do not fully fit, take them to the tailor for a careful fit to your figure.
The inevitability of modern reality lies in the fact that people really evaluate us according to what they see in front of themselves, and thus make up their minds about us. Clothing is an integral part of our image. And according to Mike's experience, it turns out that we are also evaluated by car.

Regardless of whether you spend $ 100,000 or so on clothes ... I chose the most effective approach for updating my wardrobe for myself and bought brand clothes that can now send their employees to my house for an individual fitting, because I do not want to be distracted from my important matters.

So, are you going to change your style?