PERSONAL APPEARANCE
Everyone who has had occasion to come in contact with numbers of people of different classes, as have all shoe salesmen, has been impressed with the fact that men of affairs, those who are successful and those who are most highly regarded, are invariably well groomed. They have hands that are well-kept; not necessarily dainty, soft hands that look as though they had never been used, but regular man’s hands capable of doing an honest day’s work. The nails are clipped and they are clean, but if they shine too much we might get the impression that he spends too much time in the manicurist’s chair.
The successful man always has clean shoes, and of course, a clean collar. He makes a special point, as part of his daily program, to watch these things carefully. He knows that they are important because they are noticed by everyone he meets, and he cannot afford to run the risk of losing a point because of a false impression given by slovenly appearance. We give more credit to a person of good personal appearance, because we naturally associate the quality of their work with the kind of care they give themselves.
A successful business man from the West recently attended a play in New York in which one of the leading parts was that of a young, aggressive business man not yet thirty years of age. The part was played well; the man was well groomed but not overdressed. He looked every inch the American man of affairs. The business man, who happened at the time to be in New York to engage a sales manager for his company, later remarked that the part played was the exact type of man needed in his business. In other words, he had in his mind the picture of the man needed and, relying on his past experience, he associated ability with the man’s own respect for himself as shown by his appearance.