At MinistryCOM, I was different from most of the other speakers and workshop leaders in one key way:
I tucked in my shirt.
There is a certain cool factor in not tucking in your shirt. I don’t have it, and don’t know how to get it. I sit here typing with my shirt properly tucked in. Hopeless.
On the other hand, consider Tip Number 5 from Guy Kawasaki’s “11 Public-Speaking Pointers“:
Overdress. My father was a politician in Hawaii. When I started speaking, he gave me this advice: Never dress beneath the level of the audience. That is, if they’re wearing suits, you should wear a suit. To underdress is to communicate, “I’m smarter/richer/more powerful than you. I can’t take you seriously, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” This is hardly the way to get an audience to like you.
On the other hand (says Tevye the Milkman), Tip Number 4 is “Understand the Audience.” And the audience at MinistryCOM consists largely of laid-back, unpretentious, tech-savvy, often irreverent laypersons. The untucked shirt befits them.
