Public speakers should adopt a signature outfit to become instantly recognizable, like Michael Gerber's white suit or Bono's yellow sunglasses. Consistency builds audience familiarity and strengthens your brand. Self-deprecating humor in your opening, like joking about being mistaken for a bartender, helps break the ice.
I noticed that a lot of people comment on my outfit. I consistently wear a vest with a tie. That is a technique, and any public speaker should do that, is you should have an attire costume. Remember cartoons? You were big into Scooby-Doo, right? They all wore the exact same clothes every single episode. If they change the clothes, we have to kind of relearn who this character is because we're only seeing them for 30 minutes on a Monday morning. So there's a reason you put on the same outfit for familiarity. Well, I met with Michael Gerber. He's the author of E-Myth, and he wears admittedly, well admittedly, I think it's a pimp suit. It's like this white suit with this white fedora. He looks like he's dealing drugs. Have you told him this? No, no, no, no, no. He'd probably punch me in the face. So I didn't say it to him, but now obviously it's very public and I'll probably get crushed for saying this. But he's a unique speaker. And I asked him about that attire. This is years ago. We both keynoted an event and he goes, "Oh, I always wear this." He goes, "This is my costume." It's the first time I heard someone use that word. But he's like, "I'm recognized for it." I saw subsequent pictures of him without that fedora on, almost unrecognizable at first glance. I had to go and kind of calculate, "Oh yeah, that's Michael Gerber." It's like someone who has a beard and then they shave it off. You're like, "Who is that person?" You realize that people in the audiences, they may have seen you on 1 or 2 videos, maybe they saw you on the book cover. The more consistent your look, the faster there's familiarity and you want fast familiarity. I always wear the same costume and people make fun of it now, which is great. That's usually a rapport builder. Like, "Oh, live your vest life, Mike." But I'll go on stage and one joke I tried out maybe about 100 presentations ago, I said, "You're supposed to start the speaking event by sharing a really powerful tip. That's what my coach told me." And then usually I deliver in the first 60 seconds. Here's my most powerful tip. Don't dress like I dress. And people are like, "What?" And I said, "I ride I went to this event a little early and I was in the bar area wearing this outfit and someone looks at me and goes, "Hey barkeep, can you get me a mojito?" And I'm like, "What?" I'm like, "I'm dressed like a bartender." And people get a kick out of it and they tell me, and I actually made them a mojito and came on stage. It's self-deprecation and that's an important thing we need to deliver right in the beginning of a speech. I think a lot of celebrities use that. Bono, we know his identifier are those yellow sunglasses. If you look at Hulk Hogan, the wrestler, his t-shirt that he rips open, there's certain identifiers. And if you're a public speaker, choose your thing and lean into it.
