I was thumbing through images on iStockPhoto.com the other day, and while looking for a generic photo of a professional photographer I noticed something interesting. The vast majority of the photographers were dressed in all-black. A quick search of Google images confirmed my suspicion: most of the (admittedly male) photographers were also clad in black.

In the public’s eyes, is an all-black outfit the official uniform of a professional photographer?

While it is at first easy to dismiss the idea of “dressing like a photographer” as a gimmick, it is at least worth considering. What if the average consumer equates someone in all-black outfit as an artist, of which a photographer is a specific type? Don’t we automatically have a different level of respect for a soldier in a tee-shirt and jeans verses one in full-dress uniform?

Which leads to the question, if black equals artist and artist equals photographer, could wearing black have an impact on your sales?

It’s an interesting experiment, and one I’m sure everyone reading would like to read about if you’ve tried. Alternatively, have you ever changed your wardrobe and found it changed your ability to make a sale?

Would you be willing to wear all-black for a week or a month and see if it makes any difference? Add a comment below and let me know. It could be the simplest way to increase your sales you’ve ever tried.

Tags: selling

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 3:01 pm and is filed under business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.