Welcome to our Blog

Are you concerned about the way you look and the image you portray? At last week’s Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce meeting the subject of the presentation was ‘what to wear’. Nobody has ever praised me on my dress sense and if I wear something that doesn’t look right my wife or one of my teenage children soon put me right. So I thought I would get some help from the ‘so called’ experts on ‘what to wear’ which included Gresham Blake who has a reputation for ‘suiting and booting’ celebrities.

One of the speakers claimed that, unconsciously, we make a judgement about someone within seconds of meeting them, based primarily on what we see, in fact over 90 % is based on what we see. On meeting someone your fight/flight response is on alert so that if what you see is a potential threat you can run away. Unconsciously, you are taking note of sex, age, race & build.

Colour is also very important and can say a lot about a person or their business and therefore matching colours with skin colour, personality types and types of business are very important factors to consider. For example, someone working in PR might be advised to avoid wearing drab colours and dress with a certain flamboyance. Some advice for anyone attending a job interview, is to spend some time observing people leaving the office prior to your interview to see what most people are wearing. You can then match that type of clothing when attending the interview.

This is just one of many ways to help develop rapport with the person you are communicating with. It is often stated that communication is based on 55% of what you see, 35 % of what you hear and 10 % of what you say.
Matching and mirroring is one of the key communication skills taught in NLP training. The principle being that if you match and/or mirror the person you are communicating with. IE you mirror their body language, tone of voice and the words they use, you will have a much better chance of being in ‘rapport’ with them.

Mirroring is often something you do unconsciously. Observe peoples body language and you will notice that those people who are enjoying each others company are likely to be mirroring each others body language.

If you want advice on what to wear you might be better off contacting ‘Trinny and Susannah’ or Gresham Blake but if you want help and advice on how to develop rapport and improve your communication skills we may be able to help you.