“Given that we use most of our time communicating non-verbally, how I present myself in terms of my body language and presence is crucial.”

suit – if you are over-dressed then it is very easy to take it down quickly to a more casual and appropriate level of the audience that you are working with. However if you walk into that room under-dressed, then it is impossible to dress it up to an appropriate level. “I’m always talking to my clients about the fact that it is very easy to take it from a dress- up to a dress-down but impossible to take it from a dress-down to a dress-up,” Sarah comments. Another issue that Sarah points out is that people don’t pay enough attention to what she calls ‘subtle brand breakers’ – these are nervous tics, clicking a pen, tapping our feet or something we do that we are not aware of, but which distracts other people. These kinds of things can frustrate or break the brand message that we wish to communicate. She says, “So what I like to help people to do, is to think what our own mistakes are, and work on them by building skills that makes sure that we don’t do those mistakes, or at least not very often.”

On the topic of fashion trends, particularly for

businesswomen, Sarah says, “I think the thing here is because we are a global world (although wherever I travel abroad, people know the latest trends), the challenging business is how much of those trends to incorporate and where.” She always talks about accessories such as glasses, phones, laptops, pens or bags being a great place to be very fashionable and to communicate your brand. It also depends on where in the world you are - in France or Italy, people tend to overspend much more of their income on clothing and fashion, so our European colleagues in that part of the world are much more “fashionable” than what you might find perhaps in the UK or even in the US.

it is very important to consider your behaviour and communication. “Given that we use most of our time communicating non-verbally, how I present myself in terms of my body language and presence is crucial,” says Sarah. We should also consider how we can be authoritative, compelling, persuasive and influential with our language.

August 2011 | Management Today 63 Besides our dress-sense,