Dress Like A Mess
I only print love, sex, dating, and relationship problems in my column, but I answer all manner of questions via e-mail. Here's one that came in on Wednesday:
Hi. This is a fairly desperate email. I run a small ad agency. Ad agencies are supposed to be on the leading edge of information and the pop culture. My brilliant, kind (job title redacted by Amy) is a gift in these areas of understanding except when it comes to how he dresses. In non-client environments it’s spread collar shirts with the top two buttons undone and occasionally accessorized with a nice wife-beater T-shirt. I don’t care about this as much as I do the client meeting times when horribly dated suits and sport coats come out with ties that near as I can tell were never in style. How do you tell a key person in your organization to go get some new clothes, at least for meetings, without insulting them?
My reply:
You do a seminar for a bunch of people at the agency on how you're presenting more than just the ads. You don't target that person -- biggggg mistake. Also, you make a "consultant" available to talk to each person about their wardrobe. It IS part of the job at an ad agency, just as it is in a Vegas cocktail lounge for girls to wear itsy bitsy skirts and heels instead of overalls and construction boots.
I also recommended:
You might check out EngagementAlliance.com ("More needles, less haystack") for some interesting biz thinking; also, Kerabu.com.
Finally, I recommended a stylist I know in his area; a girl I've known since she was a kid in NYC:
She's diplomatic and kind, as well as talented and cool, and would probably be a good person to do this. Let me know if you'd like her contact information, and I'll send it to you. You shouldn't feel at all obligated to use her, of course -- but you might want to talk to her to see if she's the right person -- or take recommendations from photographers you've shot with on who might be good.
When I asked him, in a subsequent e-mail, if he wanted my friend's stylist-daughter's contact info, he wrote back:
I’ll let you know on your friend's daughter. Maybe I’ll just get him drunk and tell him the truth. Naaah.
Great. The mean approach is cheaper, I guess. I wrote back to tell him it was a bad idea:
No, and it probably won't make an impact, because he'll have no idea how to do what you find second nature.
I don't know for sure that this guy's motivation was not spending money, but too many people in business think getting away cheap in the short run is a savings. Idiots. If they calculated how much it costs to find, train, and retain an employee, they might find the money it takes to do something like this the nice, right way -- at least in the name of the bottom line.
Of course, the alternative here is letting the guy dress like a schlub and running with it -- actually playing up the way he dresses (or doesn't): ie, like he's so brilliant that he can look like crap, kind of the way it went for a while in Hollywood; that the more powerful a guy was, the more likely he was to dress like he was close to homeless.
Amy-- I find that people will quite often ask for professional advice and then completely ignore it. It beats the hell out of me why this happens but it occurs in all arenas.
One of my favorite colleagues has been asking me the same questions for years-- he wants to have a home studio and work setup similar to the one I have. I would write specifics down on paper for the guy and two weeks later, he'd have the same questions. (Maybe he just had to psyche up or something because now he has the gear installed at home!)
The capper happened yesterday: he asked (again) how to get his creative services to the people who need them. I dictated a letter to him. (The one I use that gets results) Three lines for an e-mail to send to prospects-- short, sweet, intriguing. Nearly guaranteed to get the recipient to visit the target website. He later showed me what he had written and he had "fleshed it out" with all kinds of sales bullshit and had re-written stuff so the visit to the website would probably not happen.
What.
The.
Heck.
Deirdre B. at April 28, 2006 3:49 AM
Hey Amy, if you know any good stylists in LA (the type who dress more mature business types, rather than Mary Kate and Ashley), I know someone who's been muttering for years about hiring one.
deja pseu at April 28, 2006 5:52 AM
I don't, actually -- but I bet Kate Coe knows a few!
Amy Alkon at April 28, 2006 7:00 AM
Actually, I just realized I do know somebody - email me if you want her name.
Amy Alkon at April 29, 2006 7:47 AM
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