How should a telesales person dress for work?
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, May 25, 2009 @ 01:19 AM
Every day I monitor my website to see what search terms people used to arrive at www.alextrain.com Today, someone searched on "how should a telesales person dress for work". I've never addressed the issue, but this comes up sooner or later in virtually every telesales department. So here's my answer, with an important caveat (see below):
A telesales person could dress in a clown suit or be nude (some at-home workers do this, I'll bet), and as long as he or she is a producer, it doesn't matter. One of the perks of working in inside sales is that you don't have to "dress for success," like you would if you were in outside sales. There is no extant data of which I'm aware that links professional dress with telesales success, so if you're an inside sales manager, I'd give a lot of leeway to how your inside folks dress, and prioritize productivity challenges instead. One of the best telesales people I ever worked with was John Dee, and I don't believe I ever saw John wear anything but shorts to work. John's management was smart enough to recognize that John was an all-star, and John responded by making great numbers and treating his customers really well. So there's an example from the real world in terms of how little dress really means to telesales success.
Now here's the caveat: if you're an inside salesperson, and you have a goal of eventually getting into management, you will have to dress for success, from day one. A good rule of thumb is to dress like your executives dress, whether it's business casual or in suits. It's an unwritten rule that execs always notice the good dressers in the work force, and if you dress well, you will be noticed. And when it comes to getting promoted, superior dress habits are definitely factored in, although not always explicitly discussed. So if you're a telesales rep that's on a mission to run your own department someday, please consider investing in a professional wardrobe if you haven't already. It's never too late to start dressing professionally, so if you don't, and want to get considered in the eventual management picture, why not start tomorrow?
The subject of dress rarely comes up in my telesales courses, although once, as we were returning from a break, the class was engaged in a spirited discussion of naked telemarketing from home. I put the kibosh on it, returned to the curriculum, and suggested the class take up the subject in off-hours. I've got a lot in my telesales curriculum, but nothing on that!
So bottom-line, dress any way you want as long as you're making your numbers, but do keep an eye to professional dress if a promotion to management is something you see in your horizon.