Polished Professional Image Blog

You don’t have to abandon your personal style to create a polished professional image. Each style can be dressed up or down to make it appropriate for your professional image.

In her book “Looking Good”, Nancy Nix-Rice has described four different Style Personalities and each one has its own challenge in creating a best professional image. The Tailored Classic is an understated, refined and elegant look. The challenge is to not look too conservative, too boring. To refine her look without sacrificing her sense of self, the tailored classic woman may need to add a touch more fashion to her look. A colorful scarf, a beautiful pin for her jacket, maybe even a bracelet that adds to the look without being distracting.

The Sporty Natural style is very easy-going, a casual person who is not willing to suffer for the sake of fashion. This style prefers comfort to style. As you may have guessed, the sporty natural’s biggest image challenge is to avoid looking too casual. This woman can refine her image by adding a few classic touches to her look. The addition of a blazer will give even the most casual ensemble a more professional look.

The High Fashion Dramatic style woman closely follows the latest fashions and changes her wardrobe often. Her biggest challenge is to not look too flashy. The high fashion dramatic may need to tone down her make-up, just a tad and add a classic piece to her wardrobe to tone it down for business.

The Feminine Romantic has a delicate, soft appearance and consistently prefers soft, flowing silhouettes, soft colors and rounded detailing like scallops and ruffles. The Feminine Romantic’s challenge is to avoid looking too little girlish. She will need add a few classic pieces to her professional wardrobe.

If you are unsure as to what your style personality is, send me an email  and I’ll send you the  short quiz. Complete and return the results and I’ll send you a more detailed description of your style personality and the professional image challenges that you might encounter with a few ideas to help you improve your professional image.

You don’t have to sacrifice your personal style to have a professional image, perhap just tweak it a bit.

Unless you are a dancer, leggings are not appropriate for the workplace – period. It doesn’t matter if your work environment is business casual, casual or weekend casual, ladies. No Leggings. You might not aspire to the executive suite, but you do want to be taken seriously, right? You do want to be promoted (once that raise and promotion freeze ends), correct? The message that leggings send is “I’m not taking this very seriously”; not the message that you want to convey to your boss.

And my entrepreneurial sisters, you are not off-the-hook on this just because you are the boss. That same message will be conveyed to your clients, potential client and vendors. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity because you don’t appear to be serious about the job at hand. No leggings.

Is this bag too big?

This is one of those, seemingly, minor details that can throw off an otherwise polished professional image. Imagine: The fashion gurus tell you that the latest trends in purses is the big gigantic tote bag. So, you run right out (fashionista that your are) and pick up the biggest, brightest (which, of course, makes it appear even bigger) tote that you can find, 24″ x 24″ x 6″ with a 20″ strap – huge! Problem is you are under 5 feet tall and weigh just over 100 pounds! That bag is swallowing you up and getting all of the (negative) attention.

Flip side – The gurus tell you that the latest trend in purses is the minibag. Your favorite designer has one that measures 6″ x 4″ x 1″ with a cute litte handle that barely fits your wrist. Problem is you are a BBW (big beautiful woman) and that little-bitty purse just accentuates your plus size.

Proportion may seem like a minor detail, but the operative word is detail; not minor. So be mindful of it when trying to maintain a polished professional image.

Spring is here. It’s my second favorite season because it always brings a sense of renewal for me. The trees start to bud, the grass turns green and flowers start to bloom!

Speaking of flowers, the fashion world is showing flowery designs on everything from blouses to shoes and bags. Those prints are a great way to add interest to your professional wardrobe. But, try not to get carried away. A flower print top with a flower print skirt and a big flower on the shoe just might be too much flower-power, especially for work. Tone it down with a neutral skirt, pants or jacket.

There is a new poll on the Can I Wear This to Work page. Do print or bold colored skirts, dresses and suits professional emote professionalism? Take the poll, then come back to the blog and share which Spring trends you like most for your work wardrobe.
  

This year, I decided to amp up my accessories. Nothing fancy; a classically style watch with a metal mesh band, rings (just one at a time) and bracelets (again, just one at a time). The compliments I have gotten just because of these few additions. Typically, people ask if I have a speaking engagement “or something”. Mind you, I have on my same clothes that that I’ve been wearing. The only thing different is the addition of the accessories. But, before you throw on all of your accessories at once in an effort to give yourself a professional image, remember what Coco Chanel said, “Before you leave the house, take one thing off”. 

Follow the 8-14 rule. Count everything that you have on; earrings count as one each, bracelets, rings, necklaces, pins, visible clothing (if you have on a matched suit, count one; if it is contrasting, count as two), tops, scarves, non-fleshed toned hosiery, shoes, nail color counts as one unless you have embellishments on them, makeup counts as one. If you count more than 14, start removing some of your accessories (how many rings did you put on?). If the number is less than eight, adding an accessory (or two) could really add polish to your professional image. You’ll be surprised at how just a couple of accessory items will enhance your professional image.    

I recently saw a sweater dress ensemble similar to this one on a young lady who was on her way to work. It was this fitted and this short. I wondered what her co-worker and her boss would think of that outfit. On a date or afterwork, this outfit is fun and sexy. On the job, it could jeopardize her professional image.

What makes a woman think that this is appropriate for work? Even if she has a great figure, and the young lady that I saw did, how does she convince herself that the dress will help her to reach her career goals? I blame the media. The magazines tell us that we can wear most anything on the job. Even if that is true, shouldn’t we be a little more discerning? We might not want to be CEO, but most of us want to earn the most that we can, right? This outfit screams, “I’m not really serious about this job”. So, even if your work screams that you are serious, there is a good chance that perception will overcome reality and you will be compensated based on perception rather than reality.

There is one rule which never fails: If the question, “is this okay to wear to work?” pops into your head when you get dressed in the morning, pick something else. Don’t let an inappropriate outfit jeopardize your professional image.

The Give Yourself a Boost workshops were created to give you, the woman professional, an edge in climbing the ladder of success. The first section of the series is the goal setting workshop. This was included to help you develop a focus on your career goals. What does this have to do with having a professional image? Well, the definition of professional image varies according to where you want to be in your career. But how will you know that you have a professional image for where you want to be if you don’t know where you want to be? That is why writng down you goals is so important. Your success depends on your ability to turn your dreams and visions into reality. Yet, less than 15 % of the population takes the time to write down their goals. Conversely, close to 100% of successful people do take that time.

Why write them down? The everyday influences of the world can take your focus off of your purpose. The media tells us that we need to focus on having blue-white teeth, platypus lips and eyebrows that don’t move (how many of those commercials feature men?) and that’s okay, if that’s for you. However, you also need to keep your focus on your career goals and the only way to keep that focus top-of-mind is to write them down. Writing them down gives them credibility to your brain and provides you with something physical to refer to.

If you need to jump-start your goal setting, email me and we will set up your half hour consultation. To go through the step-by-step plan, visit the Give Yourself a Boost site at www.giveyourselfaboost.com and sign up for the online workshop.

Okay, I feel compelled to address customer service. I know, I know, this is an image blog. I promise not to stray too far and tie it in to having a professional image (somehow). Let me first tell you what prompted this diatribe. I was in my favorite McDonald’s listening to a conversation between a couple of the employees. They were lamenting about another co-worker who refused to let a regular customer “slide” for two cents. I know that you’re thinking every penny counts, and you’re right, it does. But it is the policy (according to the employees) of this particular McDonalds to make this type of allowance. Even if it wasn’t the policy, what was said next is what is appalling from a customer service standpoint. The customer was told to look on the floor to try to find the two cents! Wow! 

An hour or so later, while I was sitting at my desk at work (I work temp as I build my empire), I heard a co-worker tell another co-worker that he wrote an email to one of their vendors, telling them that while they (the vendor) is one of their largest contracts, they (the vendor) is not the only one that he (the employee) has to deal with, and that he can’t just drop what he’s doing for them. Wow, again! 

It is one thing to feel this way – in fact, if you deal with the public often enough, you will from time to time feel this way – but, it is quite another to behave this way. Trust me, no customer wants to be told to scrounge around on the floor looking for two cents and no vendor cares that they are not your only vendor. They both want to be treated as though they are the most important person in your life at that moment.

The customer may not always be right, but part of behaving professionally is to always treat the customer right. The impact of doing anything less is, at best (and this isn’t good) your professional image is diminished; at worse your company loses a valuable customer or vendor; at worst your company decides the customer or vendor is more valuable to them than you and puts your name on the list for the next group of layoffs!         

A recent blog on the Wall Street Journal talks about women star analysts on Wall Street. It seems that, unlike their male counterparts, they are able to retain their star status even after they switch firms. Harvard Business School professor, “Boris Groysberg, whose work focuses on organizational behavior and management, spotted the performance gender gap while studying earlier research into the work of star stock analysts”, according to the blog. He attributes this disparity (in our favor, for a change!) on women’s tendency to build relationship outside of their companies. They are building relationships with their clients and with the companies that they analyze. Networking at its finest and most fruitful.

Networking is as important of a success tool as having a professional image and setting goals. Yet, most people would rather do public speaking than walk into a social setting with a room full of strangers (and most people would rather face death than do public speaking). But networking is about building relationships and these relationships can blossom into opportunities. If you are hesitant about getting out there and meeting potential clients, employers and colleagues, think about the benefits that those Wall Street analysts have gotten from networking and go out there and build your success. 

To read the full blog article, Why Wall Street’s Top Women Rarely Lose Their Star Power, click here.