{"id":78,"date":"2010-09-02T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.sarahshah.com\/index.php\/2010\/a-tale-of-two-images\/"},"modified":"2018-06-21T14:37:35","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T14:37:35","slug":"a-tale-of-two-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/a-tale-of-two-images\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale Of Two Images"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>With more people working from home and business casual becoming the dominant dress code in corporate America, there\u2019s a tendency to dress more and more casually for business meetings and interactions. Does what you wear really make a difference? Aren\u2019t results really based on your capabilities and performance in business?<\/p>\n

Recently, I got to be a \u201cguinea pig\u201d and experience the power of image first-hand. Through some fluky circumstances during an audit of a tax return, my information was reviewed twice by the auditors and I had the opportunity to be represented by two separate CPAs. Both CPAs had the same documentation to work with, responded to the same audit requests and each conducted separate meetings with the auditors. Both CPAs had years of experience and a track record of resolving audit issues. One CPA\u2019s negotiations resulted in disaster and the other\u2019s in amazing success.<\/p>\n

What was the difference? My image at the CPA meetings. Here\u2019s a summary of what happened\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

CPA #1<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

CPA #2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Outfit For CPA Meetings<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Casual and fashionable. Jeans, fashion t-shirt, cardigan, funky jewelry, sandals, very little make-up<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Professional and fashionable. Tailored dress, platform heels, formal makeup, fresh manicure and pedicure. (The image represented my business)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

How The Clothes Felt<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Comfortable. I dressed down because I had lots of materials to carry and we were friendly and knew each other for several years through networking. And besides, there\u2019s no need to dress when you\u2019re the client, right?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Empowered and professional.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

What Happened<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

CPA communicated with me in a casual way, saw my business as more of a hobby than as a \u201creal\u201d business (even though we\u2019ve been networking together for years), prepared for 1 hour for the audit meeting, represented me from a position of weakness, and failed to support the expenses.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

CPA communicated with me in a professional way, saw my business as a growing small business, prepared for hours for the audit meeting, represented me from a position of strength, and demonstrated the validity of expenses to the auditor.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

The Results<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Disaster. The inquiry turned into an endless inquisition.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Success. The inquiry was resolved in one meeting to the satisfaction of all parties.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What\u2019s the moral of the story? Whether you like it or not, what you wear does<\/i> matter. The world does<\/i> judge your professionalism, capabilities, talents, success, and honesty based on your image. The ramifications of those judgments trickle down through every aspect of your business and affect all your communication. The results you get really are influenced by your image. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

For image to really work and support you, it must be authentic, be practical for your life, flatter your body, make you feel empowered, AND represent what you do. When you have an image that does all that for you, then your expertise, experience and talents shine through.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With more people working from home and business casual becoming the dominant dress code in corporate America, there\u2019s a tendency to dress more and more casually for business meetings and interactions. Does what you wear really make a difference? Aren\u2019t results really based on your capabilities and performance in business? Recently, I got to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[100,4,1192,1160],"tags":[175,144,142,1081,68,10,143,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}