How to Dress for Success: Buying Meeting

Section: Dressing for the Occasion - Blog

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You know how important your clothing is career wise; first impressions count big! However, do you attach the same value to your attire as the customer? Whether you make a small retail purchase or a major investment in vehicles or real estate, are your clothes shouting louder than your words? Lure those lucrative bargains your way by dressing appropriately for buy meetings.

What impression do you want to give sellers when you are the buyer? If you're like most, the message you want to convey may depending on the buying situations. Some typical buy meetings include:

• Purchasing vehicles
• Asking for discounted rates on advertising
• Negotiating with a contractor for home renovations

In each of these scenarios, your goal is to acquire financial concessions from someone else by using non-forceful means.

dressing for negotiating power

On some occasions, you might want to attract as many sellers as possible. This is usually the case when you want to analyze the available options so you can persuade the sellers to reduce the price.

For these meetings, you might want to signal your willingness to negotiate by dressing in a manner that conveys feelings of solidarity or a willingness to buy. Casual dress will convey the impression that you are also feel casual and laid back about your negotiating strength.

However, if you want to deal from a position of power, dress as you would for a sales or business meeting in a business suit, shirt and tie, but feel free to exercise some individuality in personal touches like your choice of accessories.

Since you have multiple offers to consider, you are already dealing from a position of strength, and you want your clothing to reinforce that image.

Camouflaging Your Agenda

On the other hand, you might employ subterfuge in some cases. For example, this might allow you to avoid being taken advantage of or to manipulate a meeting's outcome to your benefit.

In these cases, your clothing should evoke sufficient levels of trust to open communication lines without revealing too much about your lifestyle, time or resources. If your goal is hiding your negotiating power, avoid wearing expensive tailor made suits, branded clothing, or expensive accessories. Dress in a simple and clean fashion.

The Chameleon Effect

In this scenario, you dress in a similar manner to the seller. This creates an impression of a common cause and solidarity between the seller and yourself. So, if the seller wears a suit and the appropriate accessories, so do you. If his dress is casual, your clothing should also be casual.

No matter what you plan to purchase at a buy meeting,Montagio Custom Tailoring is positioned to help you put your best foot forward for any occasion. Book a fitting Appointment to check out all your available options and give us the chance to make you look good - at any meeting or event.

Original idea for article from Antonio Centeno, author of the internet's most actionable men's style guide. We recommend a read!

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