TJ Walker provides guidance on how to dress for presentations, emphasizing tailoring attire to the audience (e.g., conservative suit for banking/management audiences, casual/no-tie for high-tech, creative clothing for fashion events). He warns that inappropriate clothing distracts from the message, recommends asking organizers about dress expectations, dressing a shade above but not conspicuously overdressed, and prioritizing rehearsal over shopping. He also offers follow-up resources (blog, YouTube, Facebook, free online presentation training course).
Chapters
When you're giving a presentation, it's important to dress for success. But how do you know what's going to be successful with your audience? When it comes to deciding what to wear for a presentation, there's no one size fits all. There's no one outfit that's perfect for every audience. So for example, I. I'm wearing a conservative suit tie business look because most of my clients are in top management at huge banks, mutual funds, governments, huge organizations, businesses, and this is how they have to dress now. Not all of them, but a huge percentage. So I'm trying to appeal to the whitest mass audience of my prospects that I can't. That's why I'm wearing this. But I certainly don't wear this at every speaking opportunity. I have to adjust. So for example, I would never actually wear this in real life because this, believe it or not, is a clip on tie. I can get away with this in a video environment. It's quick, it's easy. I have this in my studio and I can just pop it on in a second, take it off for the rest of the day when I'm not in meetings. But I would never wear a clip on tie in front of real customers or prospects or clients because it could be easily spotted and would look ridiculous. I also wouldn't wear a tie when I'm dealing with technology companies. Now, in the high tech world, it doesn't matter if you're the lowest level employee or a billionaire founder, CEO, it's considered uncool to wear a tie. You're considered to be a loser. In fact, some famous venture capitalists have said they would never ever give money to any founder of a company who shows up in a tie. So don't wear a tie just because someone says dress up to impress. That doesn't work. In fact, in many situations in the high tech world, I wouldn't be caught wearing a jacket. Certainly not a jacket with a conservative pinstripe as this is. So the rule of thumb is you've got to dress in a way that doesn't confuse your audience. It doesn't make them wonder, who are you and why are you here? Do you not know anything about us? If you are addressing a major fashion convention, you sure better not have boring, bland clothes like I have on. You need something that really demonstrates your creativity, your design flair. So you need to really think about your audience and there's nothing wrong with asking them. When I go to a new organization to do a training and I'm working with people in varying degrees, of management authority within a company. I'll ask. I'll ask the person who hired me. Hey, by the way, what are people going to be wearing today? Now, if I really don't know if I think they may be formal and wearing suits, but they might just be wearing sports jackets or just shirts and no jacket, I will put on something that's perhaps a little dressier. I will put on a suit and tie. But then if I get in the room and nobody else is wearing a tie, I'll take my tie off last second and it won't be a clip on. So be prepared to make a if nobody's wearing a jacket, I'll take my jacket off. It's not that you have to be exactly like your audience and it's okay to dress a shade above your audience, but if it's seen as dressing up too much, that's as bad as showing up in dirty jeans and a ratty T shirt. So give some thought to exactly what you're wearing now. Don't give more thought to that than what you're saying. And don't spend five hours shopping for a new outfit and no time rehearsing your speech on video. Some people make that mistake. Having the perfect clothes will not make your presentation, but having the wrong clothes will distract people from paying attention to your presentation. So please give it some thought. If you have any questions about what to wear when you're giving a speech or speaking on tv, post them right here in whatever form you're seeing. This. If you have other questions about any aspect of public speaking, post them right here. Or go to my blog@mediatrainingworldwide.com or on the YouTube channel or the Facebook page and and post your questions. If you would like a free online presentation training course to help you with these issues and all the other issues, go to the homepage@mediatrainingworldwide.com and you can get a free online presentation training course today.
