Ep 44 How to Dress for Speeches and Media Interviews

What should you wear? How should you dress when preparing for a speech or media interview?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

So this whole show today is devoted to how to dress for speeches and media interviews, because that's what we have on our body. That's a type of body language, what you're wearing. And so it does pay to give some attention to it.

Body language.

I do want to put forth some of the usual caveats that you've heard me say before. When it comes to aspects of body language and what to wear, it's far more important to actually have something interesting to say and to say it in a memorable way than to be perfectly dressed. Because I have seen, as I'm sure you have, countless speakers, where everything about how they're dressed is professional. Looks good, crisp, clean, whatever you think of is great for who they are, and yet they don't say anything interesting or memorable. So the speech was frankly, a waste of time. And what did we do when they were speaking? We checked our phone, we looked at email. So that caveat is always first and foremost, figure out, have something interesting to say and say it in a memorable way. But you do have to figure out what to dress. I can give you 1001 do's and do nots, but here's the number one. Do you need to dress in a way that is consistent with what your overall message is, that doesn't confuse your audience, it needs to augment your message. So for example, those of you listening on the audio podcast, on itunes and Stitcher other platforms, you're not seeing this, but those of you watching this, Vimeo, Facebook, YouTube and other video platforms, you can see I'm wearing a somewhat conservative traditional business suit and tie. The reason I'm doing this is because most of my clients are in government, banking industries, financial services, energy services, and they are also wearing suits. And if they're men, the vast majority of my clients are men, although I do train women. But they are men wearing suits and ties. Therefore, I need them to not be confused about me. So if I'm wearing a tie dye shirt, that would confuse them. It would be too distracting. By wearing a somewhat boring suit and tie, I sort of take the issue of clothes off the table. Now that I think is what most people need to focus on when they are dressing to give a speech or preparing for a media interview. Unless you are a clothing designer or an artist and you specifically want people to fixate on what you're wearing and how colorful and how interesting it is in general, you need to dress in a way that doesn't distract people. Again, there are exceptions to these rules. I'll go through the exceptions, but that's why I'm dressed like this. Now, every industry is a little bit different. So for example, when I'm out in Silicon Valley, if I'm working with any high tech company anywhere in the world, I don't wear a tie. Because if you wear a tie in front of technology people, they tend to think you're an idiot. They tend to think you don't know anything about their industry because it's not considered the norm. It's not considered cool or hip to wear a tie in the tech industry. So you always need to know your audience, what their expectations are for themselves and their expectations for you. Now, the general rule of thumb which I do subscribe to, is it's perfectly fine to dress a little bit better than your audience. So if your audience is wearing a sports jacket and a tie and slacks and you want to wear a suit, that's fine. If you're speaking in Maui at a conference, which I've been lucky enough to do, and everyone is in a T shirt, Hawaiian T shirt, shorts and flip flops or Crocs, you're going to look pretentious and silly wearing a traditional business suit with very conservative shoes and the normal accoutrements. So don't do that. You've got to know the particular setting. Now, what I do want to stress here is there are some subtleties between giving a speech versus speaking on tv. Right now, those of you who are watching the video portion of this show are seeing me on a screen. You might be watching on a TV, you can through YouTube and other platforms like Flickr, but you might just be looking at it on a cell phone. I am dressed in a particular way in that I have a solid shirt. My jacket has very, very fine pinstripes on it, so it doesn't jump around. The tie is a solid tie. The reason for the solids is it looks the same whether you're watching a video on a cell phone or a giant TV screen. It doesn't get fuzzy. Stripes can jump around. Plaids, paisleys, they can get fuzzy. Complex patterns are a problem when people are watching you on a screen. Now, this can relate to public speakers. If you're at a huge conference, you're speaking to 2,000 people. Most people might not be watching you. They might be watching a TV image of a screen image. An imag. An imag Image of you up projected. So they're watching you on a screen. And the problems with stripes, with patterns, with paisleys, is they start to jump around and they can be distracting. So I would avoid distracting patterns most of the time. If you're going to be on any sort of video, white can be a problem. It's too bright and it can darken your face and it becomes the brightest thing on the screen. Again, everything I'm saying, you can find examples of people who are very successful who broke the rule. Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, typically always wore white shirts. Didn't hurt their career. I would avoid wearing bright red. Bright red can bleed. It can sort of stay squiggled on the screen as you're moving. It can be distracting. Black is a problem. Now, this sounds confusing to a lot of people, especially if you're a couple pounds overweight, as I am. People often wear black because it is known for having a slimming effect. That's true in person. But if someone's watching you on video, the arms become a part of your body. Everything can blur into a seat if you're doing a TV interview, and it can actually make you look heavier. So I don't recommend wearing all black if you're going to be speaking on video. If you're certain you're not going to be on video, well, then there's no problem wearing black for a speech or a presentation. Everything you need to do when you're dressing for a speech needs to be looked at through the eyes of your audience. That's really what's most important. I'll give you more tips on that in just a moment.

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I want to give some tips specifically for women. Let's talk about jewelry. First of all, earrings. If you have big looping earrings and they're off the ear and they dangle when you move, they may look great in person. But if you're doing anything on tv, that dangling can capture light, can capture reflection, it could be the most distracting thing on the screen. Now, again, you'll see some of the top broadcasters, highly paid news anchors in the world, wearing dangly earrings. So this is not an ironclad rule. But all things being equal, I believe if you're going to wear. And this could apply to men, too. If you're going to wear earrings, it's far better to have them sit on your ear as opposed to longer, dangly ones. It will be less distracting. If you're a woman wearing rings, having one ring on each hand isn't going to be that noticeable. If you have more than one per hand, then I think a lot of people are going to try to figure out what is that. Now, if you're a ring designer, great. But if you're a CEO of a bank, maybe that's distracting for men. Most of the time, you're safest just wearing one ring. And then it doesn't arouse much curiosity because in some circles, having a pinky ring is interesting and standard and the sign of class. In other circles, other circumstances, it could be seen as tacky and sort of goofy. I'll leave that up to you. Again, they're wildly successful people who have pinky rings didn't hurt their career. But I want you to give thought to it. If you only wear a ring half the time, maybe you don't want to wear it in this particular speaking situation. Let's talk about brooches. Some women like to wear and men can wear boutonnieres, too. Big, colorful brooches. In general, I would say if you don't always wear that and it's not firmly a part of your identity and your brand, don't wear it when giving a speech because there's going to be or doing a media interview because people are going to be focusing on it, thinking, oh, where did that come from? That's interesting. What's the story behind that? If they're focused on that, maybe they're not actually listening to what you say. So you got to be careful about that. Again, there's exceptions. Madeleine Albright was the first female Secretary of State in the US Always wore, and to this day wears big, colorful brooches. Obviously didn't hurt her career that much. So please keep in mind there are very few hard and fast rules other than in general. You don't want to confuse your audience. You want them to focus on what you're saying and your messages. You don't want to distract them, and you want what you're wearing to be consistent with who you are. If I am trying to appeal to a young, hip, millennial crowd selling artwork and I'm an artist, then wearing what I'm wearing now, a conservative business suit, a conservative tie would be ridiculous. Don't do it. Now. I want to give you sort of a more advanced tip and one that I use regularly. In just a moment.

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When you are about to give a presentation, you do need to check the audience and sometimes make last minute adjustments. There are times when I go to a venue and I assume everyone is a conservative, traditional business person will be in a suit and tie for the men and conservative suits for the women. But then I get there and people are very casual. There's not a tie in sight. So what I will do, not in front of people, but I'll just step out for a moment and I will do this. Now, for those of you who are listening, what I'm doing is I'm taking my tie off and unbuttoning my jacket while I'm speaking to you. Now, the other thing that those of you watching this on video have noticed, I actually had a clip on tie. Now, I would never in a million years be caught dead in public in a business meeting at a speech using a clip on tie. Because when you see them in person, they can look really cheap and tacky. And then you have people wondering like, why is he wearing a clip on tie? Is he 5 years old? Is he too poor to buy a real tie? But the reason I wear a clip on tie when I am doing TV shows and producing video segments is it's just much, much faster and easier. I have the tie right next to my computer screen and my keyboard. I clip it on, I can look and I don't have to spend 30 seconds tying the tie. So again, you've always got to adjust and adapt to the specific needs you have and what works in that particular environment. You also, when it comes to how you're dressed, need one last thing. You need a spotter. What I mean by that is you're, let's say, traveling. You're in a different part of the country or the world. You're giving a speech, you're about to go up in front of 500 people. What I recommend is you befriend somebody in the audience if you're there and no one else from your organization is there and ask them to do a look over, look you over from top to bottom and tell you, is there anything that stress that is jumping out that is distracting? Because I have started speeches before where my microphone cord was sticking way out of the back of my jacket and it made my jacket stand up like I had a tail. Distracting. Fortunately, someone caught it and I didn't look like I was a tail once. I had a tail once going out on the stage. You might have a pant leg rolled up and sticking into your sock. Somehow awkwardly, you might have. For those of you with more hair than I have, you might have some hair sticking out in the back. A microphone may have pushed something in the wrong place. So it's very nice not just to look in a mirror, although you should certainly look in a mirror, but to have someone else look at you from top to bottom to let you know, is there anything distracting? Because what we want when we're speaking, when we're on stage or anyplace else, we want people to focus on our ideas, to remember our ideas and act on it to help them. You do that and the dress will become secondary and you'll have accomplished your real goals, which is to communicate. I'm TJ Walker. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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