• Your personality
• Your degree of self-awareness
• Your attitudes
• Your social background
• Your level of self-esteem
• Your associations
• Your intentions
• Your financial circumstances

These things are subconsciously determined from your clothes. What you wear, how you wear them, their quality and how well you wear them. So if a professional representation is what you want to visually portray,  then it is important to get it right the first time. The adage “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” certainly rings true for professional image. In addition to that, psychologists tell us we make these judgments and assessments in less than a minute!

Take a moment to think about the image presented by Colin and Cheryl in their first guise and then how different we may think of them in their second guise after a professional makeover. The only element of change about them is their appearance and yet in the first guise we may make all kinds of dispersions about them.

By appreciating the messages your clothes are sending out  about you and realizing that you are in control of those messages you will have made the first step towards achieving your professional image.

Whether we like it or not people who care about their appearance are seen to be more credible and capable than those who don’t care. A well dressed and groomed woman will be seen to have a higher level of intelligence and motivation plus a higher level self-esteem and confidence. She will also be assumed to be more likely to care about, value and be capable of taking on tasks and managing other people than someone who is poorly groomed.

Remember, judgments are made about people based on the professional image they display as a result of appearance and behavior. This occurs even before the individual’s level of competence or performance is determined. In the words of Lauren Morgan Roberts “If you are not managing your own professional image, others are.”

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