Mom test for company dress codes, The

Electrical Apparatus, Apr 2003

"Your customers possess a secret scale," writes Ellyn Spragins in Fortune Small Business. "This is the mechanism that allows them, with a single glance at one's appearance, to instantly calculate that person's affluence and compare it with their own.

"Use the Mom test," Spragins says. "If you're tempted to be creative with personal grooming-skip the shave, load up on cool jewelry, or saturate yourself with cologne-ask yourself what your mom would say as you walk out the door. And she's probably your most forgiving customer.

"It's a sad fact, that unless your clients are adolescents, to most of them your pierced nostril and funky tattoo are testimony to your business acumen.... [but] look however you please and your employees will follow suit and before you know it, you'll be serving customers who don't have much in the way of expectations. They're easy to please. There just aren't very many of them."