
Daymond John
Where Image Matters
Colour Meanings
Black – formal and intense. Black suits are good but dark navy and charcoal are better.
White – Professional and formal. With white shirts buy the best you can afford in a thick rich fabric. A flimsy white shirt will always look cheap.
Red – Powerful – Wear a red tie to be taken notice of.
Light blue – Friendly and approachable. blue collar shirts stand for someone who is a team player.
Dark blue – A good navy suit will make you look professional, trustworthy and respectable.
Yellow – is a fun ad playful colour. It is also a colour which connects men and sales.
Orange – Another fun colour – nothing serious here folks.
Pink – When you want to communicate with women, pink will have them listening. It is soft communication colour.
Purple – So you might chose lilac or lavender in a shirt or purple stripes in a tie. It says you are modern, fashionable and progressive.
Green -Deep greens are old worldly, bright greens are fun and creative. Deep greens are OK for knits and polos, not ties.
Brown – What are you thinking of old man. Get some colour. Brown will work in a leather jacket or rugged jumper…not in the office.
Grey – Can be exciting as you rise above the mainstream or really dull as you hide away. Greys must be in great fabrics for suits, the darker the more serious. Light grey will work in summer, and when worn in a tie, it had better be really good quality to make you shine.
Don’t let colour scare you. Consider the event, the people you are meeting and the impact that you want to have. It can be the difference of supporting everything you have to say and winning that contract or competing with your words and losing credibility.
Should you want to know more about what colours suit you call Clare to organise your own colour analysis session. these can be done in person or via skype. Discover for yourself the colours that will ensure you win that contract, that promotion or that girl.
If you would like to know more about your clothing style and personality do the quiz here.
Your face is like a palette, but instead of being speckled with brightly coloured paints, it is a tapestry of signs and signals. Our mouths have a lot to say, even when they are closed. Smiles can range from lips pressed together and corners barely turned, to the open-mouthed, uninhibited laughter of children playing.
Downward turns of the mouth are often perceived as negative, while upward turns are seen as positive. Some people however, don’t move their mouths much. In a sales meeting, it’s not unusual for the prospect to try to hide their feelings about your product, meaning you have to work harder in order to see what they are not saying.
Look at their lips. Are they relaxed and soft, or tense and anxious? Are they pursed as though the person is thinking, or are they holding back an objection?
What about the client’s head? If it is straight up and down and their eyes are focused, it may seem like they are listening. However, when someone is really focusing on listening, they will often tilt their head slightly to one side, almost as if they are trying to help the sound get into their ear more efficiently. You can also tilt your head slightly to indicate you are listening to them and to mirror their behaviour (more on that later).
People often make unintentional gestures, even when they think they are keeping a poker face. In many years of studying human behaviour and deceit, Dr. Paul Ekman and his contemporaries have isolated many small, involuntary expressions (called micro expressions) that can help spot a lie. (These include very small muscular changes.) While they can denote deceit, they can also be the result of nervousness, so they have to be interpreted very carefully.
Some of the facial gestures include:
By understanding your client’s signals, you can adjust your presentation, provide more information, or simply learn when to stop talking. This way you can redirect your energy to relationship development and building trust, rather than coming across as pushy or overbearing.
Tips to Try
Identify your most frequently used gestures. Do you do anything that could be perceived as negative or intimidating to your prospects? Eliminate these gestures from your approach and see what happens to your results!
Facial expressions that demonstrate happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, and anger, seem to be consistent around the world. When we see those expressions, we know what we are seeing. There are some differences, however, when it comes to how often happiness is displayed. It doesn’t mean that the smile is different from one region to another, but it means that some communities express happiness more often than others.
Smiling is a great sales tool because it is easy to produce, although people who are skilled in reading body language can read a false smile quite easily. The false smile is characterised by the following:
The Eyes Have It
The eyes are often referred to as the most expressive part of our face. We often talk about people who smile just with their mouths as less attractive than someone whose smile extends up into their eyes. It is the telltale nature of our eyes that leads some poker players to wear dark glasses. It is also a good reason for sales people not to wear sunglasses!
Eyes will react to a variety of stimuli and some of these reactions are involuntary. If you ever wondered how, as a youth, your parents caught you in a lie, it might have had to do with the size of your pupils, which can dilate during a lie. (Of course, there are plenty of other reasons for your pupils to dilate, including an adrenaline event.)
Even a slight squint can impact what the listener sees on your face. Are you lying? Or do you need glasses?
As a frame to our eyes, eyebrows are also very expressive. Eyebrow expressions mean different things in different places, however. You might be used to both eyebrows going up when someone reacts with surprise. However, the Inuit in Northern Canada use the same movement to indicate “yes.” (They do not nod up and down as we frequently see in Australia, Europe & North America and other areas.)
In fact, the idea of nodding to say yes is NOT universal. In some countries, like Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines, the non-verbal signal for “yes” is tossing the head backward. In Greece, nodding your head up and down means “no” (as it does in several regions in the Middle East). Make sure you know your client’s customs and check with a travel guide to get things right.
If you or your staff would like help with presenting the perfect image at work. Contact us to see how we can help you.
Do our business etiquette quiz to see how well you know your stuff.
Dramatic Male Clothing Personality Style
General description
You won’t be accused of being shrinking violet. Your presence will be visible and you won’t be overlooked in the crowd. As long as it makes a definite statement you will wear it. Anyone can be dramatic by simply using the strongest colours in their palette in the highest contrast afforded them.
Challenges – having to blend in, wearing low contrast
Perceived Personality Style – Full of life, strong individual, desires attention, needs to be wary of intimidating
Hair – Your style is short and sharp. You won’t have a hair out of place. You will spend the time to ensure your image is flawless.
Dramatic pieces
At Work – Your suits will be firm fitting and sharp. You will have the latest accessories and the latest of everything
At Play – You are a designer’s dream. Casually you won’t be seen dead in the off the rack pieces that everyone is wearing. Your weekend wear will be designer inspired, and again it will be sharp fitting.
Dramatic Colours Black, white, red, cobalt blue and yellow. Strong geometric designs more so than patterns. Plains and stripes are preferred.
Fabrics – Simple design and plain fabrics, crisp and sharp finishes. Super fine merino wools and crisp cotton shirtings are favoured. Leather rather than suede, vinyl for the less, well off dramatic. The dramatic will even put up with linen in summer mind you his won’t be crushed. If you can afford Saville Row fabrics and tailoring you will.
Dramatic fit – The ‘dramatic fit’ has belted in waists, stand up collars, wide spread collars, high shine shoes, tight trousers and body hugging shirts. Anything over-scale is exactly what the dramatic is looking for.
Footwear – High shine leather and sharp pointed toes. You will love the look of Loakes or the luxury of Church’s shoes.
Accessories – These men are most likely to have their ears pierced as well as other bodily parts. They will wear big watches, ornate cufflinks and anything bright and shiny that they can find. Rolex have the cache that you are after. Never settle for a folex (a fake rolex) the difference can be told.
Business Accessories
Their briefcase, whist not large will be very smooth; their pen is likely to be a Mont Blanc again avoid getting a copy. Many other brands have a smart look without an exorbitant price tag.
Variations of Dramatic
Classic Dramatic: You will live in suits classically tailored and in strong rich colours
Creative Dramatic: Lots of big coats, big patterns and over the top accessories. This can be a daunting combination
Elegant Dramatic: Simple bold designs will feature here
Gallant Dramatic: Welcome to Brideshead Revisited – if you don’t know it google it.
Natural Dramatic: Inspired by nature you will favour strong pieces of natural accessories and dark earthy colours, or easy fit comfortable clothing
Rebellious Dramatic: You are the Rock God of this world. Lots of leather, studs and showmanship.
To understand your own personality. Do the Men’s Personality Quiz here For the women’s yours is here.
Introducing yourself in a public event. Let’s say a networking event or a large group situation can be extremely nerve wracking.
I would find myself spending the whole time I was waiting for my ‘turn’ to come scribbling notes and then, without knowing what I had said, my moment would have passed with kind hearted smiles my way. The kind of kind hearted smiles that say, good on you for trying – no idea what you do though.
My mouth would go dry and I stopped listening until after my turn. If you are not confident when introducing yourself, no one will have confidence in you. If you keep repeating the same standard stock response each time you introduce yourself people will stop listening. You have to engage people and talk to what it is that is concerning them, their friends, or their clients.
Once I had discovered the formula, it changed everything!
It allayed my nerves as I had a process which didn’t rely on my being witty, being verbose or being pushy. Just talking to my audience in a language which they understood. The other amazing outcome was that when I returned to the same group, I was not spouting the same message again and again and again. I could share a different insight to what I did. It allowed me to capture a different client’s needs every single time.
I have shared this method with entrepreneurs who are looking to capture a new market and to business executives who are constantly meeting and making new connections. In both instances the individuals were able to craft their introduction to the needs of the person they were meeting and it opened up many more doors and opportunities for them.
Do not let fear or anxiety of meeting new people hinder your golden opportunities to excel at what you do.
So go ahead try it.
Read the transcription here.
Hi I’m Clare Maxfield and I’m going to share with you today a really quick tip on how to get around those “Oh my god I’ve got to introduce myself in a networking event” fears and shudders. All right, first thing you’ve got to do is to not work with the one elevator statement/elevator pitch works for everyone because frankly it doesn’t. Everybody out there has a different need and until you share with them how you can fix their problem they’re not interested in you.
So.. here’s what you do firstly look at your audience, get a gauge what their problem is what is that keeps them awake at night and then address that so here let me run three very quickly of mine past you I bet you could work out the different audience to each.
First one “Hi, I’m Clare Maxfield you know how you’ve got a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear? Going shopping fills you with dread because you shop shop shop and you can never find anything that works for you? Well what I do is I come in, I get to know you, your personality, your lifestyle, your budget and I help you put together a wardrobe. I help you teach you what suits you. I go shopping for you”. One of those three. “In fact at this moment if you book a color and style consultation with me, I’ll do a free wardrobe audit for you” and if you’re watching this video I’ll still do that for you here’s another one I might do for another audience.
“Hi I’m Clare Maxfield, guys do you find that shopping fills you with dread? You’ve got no idea what suits you? It’s so much easier when had your wife, your so much easier when had your wife, your girlfriend, your mother doing your shopping for you. But they’re not around anymore. You need some clothes, you need to look good for work. You need to be confident. Guess what? What I can do is come in, get to know who you are, what you do and go out and get those those clothes for you and bring them back to you. Or if you’re not around guess what we can chat to each other by Skype and I can make recommendations for in fact you can even have me in your pocket so if you’re interested in that come and chat to me after the event and I can tell you more about how that works.” or let’s say I’m looking at an audience and it’s all corporate and they’re all businesspeople small large and actually not even corporate business people and all turn around go right.
“Hi, I’m Clare Maxfield, how many of you have a brand and a workforce but they don’t quite meet? In fact you don’t know how to get your staff to look the part it’s kind of all hit miss in fact sometimes you don’t even know if you’re looking the part? Well guess what? I can come in I can do some workshops with your staff and make sure that your brand and your staff all end up forming one so that that way the message you’re giving out is one message. It’s going to raise your bottom line. It’s going to make you start feeling better about what they’re doing is going to make you feel better about what’s happening in the office so if you find that’s interesting come and chat to me later and I can tell you how all that works.”
So there you go it’s really simple all you need to do is say “You know how..”, “What I do..”, “In fact..” and I reckon those three little steps are going to make introducing yourself in any situation whether it be to one person or one hundred a lot easier go on go out there try it. If you want to get small by tips you can get them at my website ClareMaxfield.com.au Bye for Now
If you want help with presenting yourself well in any situation. From what you wear, to what you say to how you Act. Please give me a call.