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Casual Friday - Casual Attitude

Written by: Gary Silverman

Article Overview: Who came up with this idea? The level of professional appearance of our employees has deteriorated over the years. A relaxed standard of appearance can lead to a relaxed standard of performance. DRESS FOR SUCCESS is not an antiquated concept. What damage is being done to the self esteem and confidence of your employees? Does this create the possibility that your customer has the ability to intimidate your employees?

Casual Friday - Casual Attitude

What if your lawyer, accountant, or investment banker subscribed to casual dress? How much confidence would you have in them? Are your FACILITIES suffering from “Casual Friday”? Who’s reviewing the appearance and condition of your buildings, offices, signs, landscaping, equipment, curb appeal, restrooms, furniture, and interior décor? Are all of your employees taking pride in their business surroundings? Have you created a culture where they will respect the tools you provide for them to perform their jobs, or do they take their frustrations out on your assets. I once visited the home office of a mid-sized business. All of the executives and support staff had best in class equipment, supplies and furnishings. It was total overkill. The place was immaculate and the coffee was first rate. You would expect this standard would carry over to all of their branch locations which come in direct contact with the customers. That was not the case. There was such a disparity of conditions that you wouldn’t think the businesses were related. What kind of message was that company sending their employees? What was even more insulting was that corporate meetings were held at company headquarters and the personnel got to experience the unfairness first hand. What was the return on THAT investment? As a business leader or upper level management you set the tone of professionalism in your company. There can never be a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude in a business if you expect it to be successful. How you look, the level of respect you command, what you say, and how you act inside and outside the company will surely be reflected in the behavior of others. This magnifies bad habits and will eventually reach your customers, becoming the identity of your company. Today is Friday. I am sitting at my MAC, wearing jeans and a tee shirt. I can barely breathe and my neck looks about a foot long. Effective immediately, I will suspend casual Friday. Maybe I’ll get a tie for Christmas.

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Article Tags: accountant, bad habits, business leader, casual dress, casual friday, company headquarters, corporate meetings, curb appeal, direct contact, disparity, frustrations, investment banker, landscaping equipment, professionalism, sized business, support staff, tee shirt, today is friday, unfairness, upper level management



Related Forum Posts
Clothing Niche - Yasunori, can you dig deeper into the clothing niche? e.g. Business Casual for people 6ft and taller (men only, women only or both). Victoria Secret is big in Canada because they don't have retail Stores here and the only way to get their product in Canada is thru online purchases. They have a great Hassle-free return policy too.
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Yes, you are right Mal. Attitude plays a big role in it. Robert
Ebay: System and method - [quote:1y2ddln3]Unless you wanna spend hours packing your products and run everyday to FedEx to ship them, I would not recomment an ebay business [/quote:1y2ddln3] You don't have to run every day to FedEx...if you have that much volume, let Fed Ex come to you! Yes they charge a fee but it saves you time, wear and tear on your car, and cost of gas. Also, rather than do this every day, set aside one day, for example a Friday, and pack everything on that day and ship it out. If you've got the correct-sized boxes and appropriate packing material, it shouldn't take that long to do. Just specify in your ads that winning bids are shipped on the next Friday, so your customers know what's going on, and you should have no hassles.
Re: What to do at the first roadblock? - Upon first discouragement, dig in and see if things are as they seem. Sometimes, even though there are several products out there that appear comparable, they are no match. Maybe they do don't a good job of what they are intended for, or maybe there are several glitches in their system, or perhaps their customer service just plain stinks. Decide how you can "one up" all of these things and decide that you are going to create a better product that more people would want. Attitude is 95% of the battle. If you feel defeated before you've done any research on any of the other products, you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Give yourself a chance and see if you can be the BEST in every way. This will get you far no matter what the venture.
Re: Who hates cold calling? - About 15 years ago I worked for this sales company that used to sell anything from Kitchen Knives to Dry Cell Torches. The owner was a very motivating guy and he would ask us to get to the office by 7.00AM and we could sing and dance for an hour before we went to sell the products in the streets, stopping anyone and telling them our products were on discount. We used to sell snow to Eskimos, why were we able to do that? because of PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). The key to cold calling is like beauty, in eyes of the beholder. If you have no PMA, you cannot sell. Remember the law of average that states that if you went to a dance and every girl or guy you approached for a dance decline your proposal. What do you do? Do you stop? If you have a PMA, you continue until you get one person who agree to dance with you despite how ugly you look, that is is PMA and that is the power of cold calling.


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