Why are we still met by clothes, or How does appearance influence professional success

Colleagues! Today we want to share with you the translation of Neil Patel's article. Yes, this material is quite ambiguous, if only because it sounds truly astronomical for many of us sums. But, anyway, nobody ruled the rule that they were met according to their clothes, no matter how sometimes it was offensive. That is why we decided to share this material with you. Largely because we are waiting for the feedback expressed in the comments. Have you encountered difficulties due to the insufficiently “glamor-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 - 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 ordinary t-shirts and shorts because they are very comfortable.
If everything depended only on my preferences, I would have gone to them all day without filming, including working meetings.
But over the past year I have noticed such an amazing trend: when I looked particularly stylish and elegant, I was able to conclude much more lucrative deals . Basically, this happened because people thought that I was a better off and more successful person, since I looked so smart.
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No matter how a funny paradox this situation did not seem, but the fact remains a fact, and I understood this clear interconnection in the last 12 months of attentive attitude to my appearance and its influence on my work. I always dressed with dignity, because I realized that the official image forms the ability to instill confidence and reliability. And it was good clothes that helped me raise the rating in consulting from $ 100 to $ 1000 . Now I am no longer engaged in consulting in its usual sense, so I decided to conduct a funny experiment and see what results a million dollars investment in clothing could lead to.
Before I tell you about the results achieved, I want to note that it is possible to achieve such 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 never would have thought that clothing could cost such a lot of money.
Basically, I only shop at 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 I get from clothes and accessories is perfect for my endless official meetings. Most of all I have to spend on pants, jackets, tuxedos and briefcases.



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

Costumes like those in photos cost from $ 2,000 to $ 7,000 ...



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



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



And that's not all my expenses. Add more accessories (belts, suspenders, cufflinks), count all the necessary stuff.
Even my undershirts T-shirts eventually cost $ 750.

So now you understand why some people spend so much on clothes. And now let's find out how this clothing helped me make 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 more to charity.

It may seem strange, but now I have a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes that I try to wear wherever I go. And almost every day I get compliments, and some ask me who I work for.
Unfortunately, none of these conversations led to the official deal. Just imagine yourself: an ordinary person who you encounter on the street is unlikely to write you a check for an impressive amount. Not all people own business and it’s not so easy to meet the director of an international corporation on the street.

But the image, which is stylish and thought out to the last detail, still 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 signed agreements, my chances for a successful transaction were 1 to 4. In other cases, the interlocutors did not like the price for the services I called.
I analyzed every meeting I attended in the last four and a half years. I have a large Excel document in which I carefully record my own rating of the 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 elegant and expensive, my interlocutors had the impression that I was doing very well and 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 are completed for me in the best way.

The difference is huge! So huge that it was expressed in a reward equal to $ 692,500. And, what is most surprising, except for clothes, nothing in me has changed - neither my professional level, nor the price of services, nor the profile of the companies I met with.

How to build relationships with clothes

In general, I rarely go to the store for clothes, because I hate it. But once I was at the Dolce and Gabbana in Beverly Hills, and a few basketball players came into the store.

I did not know them, and what they did there, too, did not know. It seemed to me strange that they go shopping in groups of 2-3 people. One of them came up to me and said that I looked just unreal. 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 promotion 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 find out more about the Internet, and I was given a corporate code for a discount at any Starwood Hotel, so that I could save a few hundred dollars wherever I went. Maybe this is not 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 chose a sweater that cost about $ 2,000 and asked me what I think about this sweater. I said that I liked this sweater so much that I had already bought one for myself. And when I was asked what I was wearing, I replied that I would choose sport shorts for him and 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 free invitations for NBA games worth $ 4,000, tickets for the championship games Miami Heat and provided some good business opportunities.

So it could only 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 doesn’t have much money, experience or business contacts.
My friend Mike Kamo decided to join my experiment. And he had the same amazing results. But before I tell you what Mike has achieved, I will show you how he looked a year ago ...



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

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



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

He worked on the principle of income distribution, and it 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 true. He has always been a confident and sociable person. But when he approached a man on a technical presentation in a T-shirt and jeans, they spoke politely to him, but no one was going to work with him. Why? Because people had the impression that he was not successful.

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



He always went to Mazda, but one of his buddies, the owner of the Lamborghini dealership, asked him to buy a car on very favorable terms for both of them as a mutual service. Mike did not intend to buy such a car, but the salon needed to sell this model in order to beat its monthly sales rating. This sold car will bring to the salon a huge bonus for further business development.

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

Like any of us, he decided to take a ride on a new car and post a couple of photos online. And can you imagine what happened next?

107 business owners have sent him a friend request on Facebook. 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 advice. Mike developed 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 get by with less financial expenses. Clothing should not 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 well the chosen clothes fit you.

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

And if they do not sit well or do not fully fit, take them to the tailor for a thorough fit to your body shape.
The inevitability of modern reality lies in the fact that people really appreciate us by what they see in front of them, and thus makes their opinions about us. Clothing is an integral part of our image. And from 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 to updating my wardrobe and bought brands that can now send my employees to my home for an individual fitting because I don’t want to be distracted from my important matters.

So are you going to change your style?