Looking Good on the Platform

Presenter: Sharon Connolly

Reviewed by Shirley Taylor

Did you know that an average woman wears only 30% of her clothes, and over 3,000 hours in her lifetime deciding what to wear?

Sharon Connolly was full of interesting anecdotes in this eye-opening presentation. We all want to wow our audiences with our presentations, but how many of us think about wowing them with our appearance too? Sharon pointed out how important it is to do so, as she gave us tips for guys and girls on how to dress for success in front of our audiences.

The thing we must all ask ourselves, Sharon said, is do we want to be Fabulous or Fish? (The 'Fish' is something that Sharon jokingly slaps her clients with when they want to choose something totally not Fabulous! I don’t mind admitting that I got the Fish a few times when I had a personal shopping experience with Sharon!)

Here are 5 of the key points we all need to remember if we want to look good on the platform:

1. Information goes into our brains faster through our eyes than our ears, so your audience will judge you visually before they hear you.
2. Extensive research shows that more attractive people get paid more, get promoted faster, and are generally more successful. This doesn’t mean we have to be movie star beautiful, but we must consider how to make ourselves look as attractive as possible so that we give ourselves the competitive advantage.
3. Every day the clothing choices you make should be strategic in facilitating more successful rapport with your client or audience.
4. Even if you are not interested in what is in current fashion, your audience knows and will be judging you, particularly if they are largely Gen Y.
5. We communicate our personal brand through our online communication too, so Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are also important. Does your online brand match your personal brand?

I was personally hooked on every word as I watched and listened to Sharon. The audience was also obviously very interested and engaged. Sharon showed everyone, through her presentation style as well as her content, exactly how to do it.

By the way, kudos too to the other two speakers in January – Christian Chua and Andrew Chow. What a line-up it was. I reckon these three speakers in January really raised the bar very high. Thanks to all three speakers for showing us how to be totally Fabulous instead of Fish!