How To Dress When Meeting A Politician - Dressing Sharp To Influence - Men's Style Tips
Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, I'm going to be talking about how to dress when you're meeting with a politician.
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Okay, so this is the question that came in.
"Antonio, quick question.
Next week, I'll be speaking at my state capitol in Mississippi about a possible bill.
I was wondering what colors are appropriate for meeting with a politician.
It might not matter, but any advice is much appreciated.
Thank you."
Well, I wanted to take this a little bit step farther and actually talk about the styles
of clothing that you should wear.
I know there are some of you guys out there who are thinking, "Okay, if I'm going to go
meet with a politician, I'm going to wear a rain suit because he's going to be flinging
mud and stuff is going to be flying."
Jokes aside, definitely when you're going to your state capitol or you're going to the
national capitol, or you may go to your country's capitol, depending on where you're at in the
world, you want to dress appropriately because at the end of the day, you want to think what
is your goal, what is your purpose.
If your goal is to influence, then you want to come across as credible and nothing screams
credibility as much as a suit or at least a blazer or a sports jacket.
You want to have some type of jacket on which signals to these guys that you are one of
them.
Again, I know I'm going to get some flack for this, but you want to, in a sense, mimic
the way they dress.
So when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
I know you probably don't normally wear a suit, but look at anyone that testifies on
Congress or anyone that goes to the capitol.
They dress a bit better because you're in their world and you want to be able to get
your message across.
That's the whole reason you're going there.
Now, there are cases in which you would perhaps if you want to really shake things up or if
you want to draw attention and use a visual, you could dress a bit differently.
Let's say you're here in Wisconsin.
We have a very strong Dairy Farmers Association.
If you're running into a really big issue and if you don't feel anyone's listening to
you -- I know we've had issues where farmers will show up in their overalls.
Was it here in Wisconsin that some farmer basically flew over and dropped a whole bunch
of manure on the capitol?
That's a way of getting their attention and I don't think he was dressed in a suit.
If you want to get someone's attention, occasionally you can do that with a visual, but in your
case, as a student, as a young man, you want to come across as credible.
You want to come across as trustworthy.
You want to come across as someone that they can be okay listening to and get your message
very quickly, and it's not just the politician who you're trying to get to listen to you.
There's going to be men and women surrounding him or her and those are the people that you
really want to influence because they're the ones that are going to be more open to your
message.
It's probably going to stick with them.
And since they have the politician's ear a lot more often than you do and they've got
a greater sense of trust, they may be able to influence.
So the meetings that you're going to be having not just speaking to the politician, but the
ones that come before and come after in the follow-ups, in those cases, you always want
to be presenting yourself in the best possible light.
The colors, getting to your specific question, I would go with -- because of your age -- charcoal
grey or medium grey.
Those are going to be the best colors for a young man because they're going to help
you look a little bit older.
Let's say you're in your mid 20s and you've already got a navy suit.
That's going to be perfectly fine as long as that suit isn't too blue and doesn’t
make you look like a teenager because that's something you don't want.
You don't want to go in there and look so young that they think, "Okay, this is somebody
that can't even vote, so I'm not even going to listen to him."
Other things you can do.
At the end of the day though, you want your suit to be very simple and conservative.
You're not looking to ruffle any feathers.
You're not representing the Wisconsin Fashion Guild, which I don't even know if there is
one, but if there was one -- actually, you're down in Mississippi, so maybe Mississippi
has a fashion guild, but in any case, you're not representing them, so you're not going
to be going in and trying to strike a chord with, "Hey, look at my fashion sense."
Simple, conservative, classic, but if you want to have a little bit of fun with your
style, if you're wearing a navy suit to bring in a very dark pair of brown shoes, that works
fine.
Maybe wear a very simple pocket square.
I wouldn't go for anything outlandish.
You could go with a simple square fold with a white pocket square and that would look
nice, look classic.
Everyone's got a little lapel or a little pin here.
If you don't wear an American flag here, you're obviously not American.
Yeah, that's a joke.
I like little things like that simply because when you find that you're behind closed doors
or you're going to be meeting with people outside when you're speaking, you're going
to need little conversation starters and something like that is always a great little conversation
starter.
Last but not least, and this is not really related to style, but make sure you've got
plenty of business cards and that you collect as many cards or people's contacts.
Again, you want to be going and meeting the people around whoever it is you're trying
to influence because those people are going to have a greater influence, are going to
be more open to your message, are going to probably have more time, and at the end of
the day, are going to be the people that are probably going to make things happen with
what you're trying to do.
Best of luck to you and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.