Recently I read an article written by someone explaining the ideal way for people to present themselves to their clients and prospects. The article discussed how one should dress, how they should sit during a face-to-face appointment with someone, and how they should interact with the client or prospect during the meeting, too.

But what I really found intriguing was that the author believed the description she was giving on how to interact was something that should universally be utilized for all clients and prospects. That may work in some sales environments, but not in real estate.

There is no "one size fits all" approach that can be applied to one's presentations to all clients and prospects. What the author was actually doing, though, outside of her conscious awareness, was describing how someone should dress and act to achieve maximum success with her when she is their business prospect.

If you're making a presentation to someone who's dressed in a business suit, wearing a business suit yourself would probably be very appropriate for the meeting. You always have a great opportunity to initiate rapport with someone whenever you're dressed very similarly to how they're dressed also.

Contrast this now with meeting with an owner of thousands of acres of land who's dressed in jeans, boots, and wearing a cowboy hat. Can you see how wearing a business suit to this meeting and behaving prim and proper may put you completely out of touch with that person?

Being in rapport with your clients and prospects means having them feel that you're someone very similar to who they are themselves. This means ideally that you need to vary both your style of dress, and your style of presenting.

When I was leasing and selling industrial real estate in Los Angeles, I began my career by wearing a suit and tie all the time. But there came a time when I realized that some of the important business owners I was meeting with were dressed very casually at work, so I then learned to change my style of dress appropriately. Oftentimes entrepreneurial business owners take pride in being different than the corporate suit and tie people, so I wanted to make these owners feel that I was someone just like them.

On the other side of the coin, any agent or team of agents wanting to work with corporations whose officers wear suits and ties, had better wear suits and ties themselves to all of their meetings with these people. Any agents not doing this are almost guaranteed to be out of the running for doing any business with these companies on an exclusive basis. That's how important one's choice in clothing can be in our profession.

So make sure you dress appropriately when meeting with your clients and prospects, and make sure you vary your communication style appropriately when interacting with them, too. Vary the speed and tonality of your voice to match theirs, and match their body language also.

When you learn how to become a master at doing this, you'll then hold the key to having a far greater percentage of your clients and prospects working with you exclusively.

Published: August 13, 2004

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Jim Gillespie, Ph.D., is America's Premier Real Estate Coach℠. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and is a past president of three different real estate companies. His FREE real estate E-newsletter with tips and creative ideas to help agents make more money is now read by over 35,000 agents nationwide. You can subscribe to his FREE E-newsletter by visiting RealEstateSalesCoach.com or contact him at Jim@RealEstateSalesCoach.com.