Dare to be different.

Dare To Be Different

Henry Ford once told his production staff: "Make the cars any color you like as long as it's black."

Well, they did and now, thank goodness that's all history. Cars are made in a multitude of colors and styles and that's

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It's pretty much the same with salespeople. I walked into a restaurant one day and what do you think I saw? You guessed it. I saw a room full of men and women dressed alike. I'd swear the men all had on the same tie.

Now don't get me wrong. They were all neat and clean and you couldn't say a bad word about their appearance. But then neither could you remember their appearance when they left the room. Why? Not a one of them dared to be the least bit different in appearance and my guess is that their prospective customers didn't remember them any more than I did.

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Remember the male model who gained a huge following for his product by wearing a patch over one eye? The advertising firm that thought of that sold a lot of shirts for its clients.

It's good to be a bit different. People remember you. Remember the restaurant full of salespeople I told you about? Well, there was one exception. I vividly remember one salesman who wore a turtleneck shirt instead of the buttoned-down look and clone look of all the other men.

I was interested enough to ask who and what he was. It turned out he was a wealthy insurance agent. And when he got up I noticed one more thing. He wore western boots.

From time to time since then I've run across some of his clients and each of them tells me that he made an instant impression ... that he was different and that interested them. People seem to like other people who are unique.

Most of us were taught as businesspeople just how to dress, what accessories to carry right down to the pen and pencil set used, even what kind of attache case to carry. A quick glance in any gathering place of businesspeople will tell you we all read the same books.

Really successful people, people who outdistance the pack in sales and life or in whatever they undertake have one distinguishing characteristic. They stand out from the crowd. They will not be typecast.

The successful person should set himself apart by acquiring or developing some characteristic that sets him or her apart from the other people competing for his customer's attention.