Polished Professional Image Blog

Recently I had lunch with a friend. We were celebrating a big promotion that she had earned and finally gotten. This promotion is going to give her great exposure to the top 10 key managers at her company. She is always dress nicely for work and this day was no exception.

Her work environment is business casual and she tends toward elegant business casual. So, I was thinking (as an image consultant I am always checking people’s professional image), ’she has the right look for this position. Good for her!’ Then we left and, still assessing her ensemble, I looked down at her shoes. SCREETCH!! “What have you got on your feet?”, I asked. “Oh, I just walk around the office in these”. They were dull, scuffed and the back looked liked her dogs had been fighting over them. “Okay, you are going to be playing with the big kids now! You are going to be scrutinized, put under the microscope until you prove that can handle this new position. You cannot walk around in those shoes”.

Having a polished professional image does not end at the outfit. All of the details are involved, including your shoes. We women sometimes forget about our shoes, but they should be cleaned and polished regularly. Don’t think that shoes aren’t that noticeable or that they are just a small detail. Just think, how often have you admired the shoes that you have seen on someone’s feet? How often have you checked out someone’s shoes and thought ’she should throw those away’? Well, your colleagues do the same thing. What will they think when they look down at your feet.

Don’t let old, scuffed up shoes derail your professional image.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 1:59 am and is filed under Image. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.