… (or what not to wear) at your next business presentation.

In any situation you have only 90 seconds to create that a good first impression. Research shows that 93% of the impact of a first impression is formed on non-verbal communication i.e. how we speak and how we look and behave. So as you stand in front of your audience you need to ensure you are giving the right signals.

What to wear for your next presentation

We get asked a lot what should be worn for presentations.

"All the world is a stage and we are just players on it" said Willaim Shakespeare. When you are on stage people will be observing you closely. You need to create the right impression.

Here are some of our hints and tips about how you can chose what to wear.

1. Polish your shoes. If you are up on a stage – your shoes will be at their eye level. We hear a lot of articles about being half dressed. A lot of people dress up well and don’t clean their shoes. Fatal.

2. Smart or casual? The modern trend for dressing down makes it very difficult to know what to wear. Our advice is simple – it generally it always pays to dress on the smart side. If all the audience is going to dress down – dress down yourself, but be on the smarter end.

3. Take a spare outfit. Take a spare tie or even a spare shirt (blouse) or even a spare suit (dress). If you are presenting after dinner you don’t want to get caught out by a bit of gravy or sauce falling onto your tie. If it can go wrong it generally will.

4. Check on the colour of the background. Lots of conferences dress the set up in a particular colour. Find out what colour the background id and wear a complementary colour. If you are a woman you do not want to wear a red dress on a purple background. Men have less to worry about – mainly just the colour of the tie.

5. Empty your pockets. You don’t want coins clinking in your pockets while you walk around on stage.

6. Don’t dress like Buford P Fuddwakker.
If you do not know who Buford is
then I suggest that you visit his web site
www.fuddwhacker.com