PODCAST SHOWNOTES

Nicole Otchy: Welcome to the Six Figure Personal Stylist Podcast, the ultimate no-BS business podcast for ambitious personal stylists ready to build a six-figure and beyond personal styling business.

You won't hear the typical snoozefest business advice that most personal stylists get told all of the time. Nope. Instead, I'll be sharing business-building strategies that will help you create a killer personal brand, a cult following of loyal personal styling clients, and make a ton of cash while creating lasting style transformations for your clients.

I'm Nicole Otchy, your host and a former personal stylist of 14 years who built a lucrative styling business in three major cities, but only after spending years trying to crack the six-figure styling business code without burning out. And now I'm here to tell you how to do exactly the same. Let's get into it.

Welcome to the Six Figure Personal Stylist Podcast. Today I'm joined by my client Brianna Lamberson, a talented stylist with a very unique journey. Bri's path to styling began with her love for art and beauty, leading her through art school and various creative pursuits before her styling career kicked off officially. She came to styling through working at an upscale consignment shop and has evolved her passion for styling into a full-time business.

In this conversation, we're going to dive into Bri's experiences, including the pivotal moment when she realized styling could be her actual career, her successful use of YouTube as a marketing tool in her business, the process and it was a process of discovering her niche and how she is working to overcome her perfectionism and learning to embrace authenticity in her business.

Join us as Bri shares some valuable insights into finding your voice as a personal stylist, connecting with ideal clients and navigating the challenges of building a thriving styling business. Enjoy.

I am here today with my client, Brianna Lamberson. Bri, thank you for being with me.

Brianna Lamberson: I'm so glad to be here. It's great to see you again.

Nicole Otchy: Why don't we dive in and you share a little bit about your journey to becoming a stylist and just sort of your road to this point?

Brianna Lamberson: Okay, great question. I have always been obsessed with art and beauty. My mom always let me get dressed however I wanted to when I was as little as you can remember. Long story short, I got into art school in Chicago. It was a major culture shock. I just noticed that everybody was dressing so well and so interesting. That really appealed to me because I was always on the fringe and fascinated with style and fashion.

I got several jobs in boutiques, just really pursued my degree in art and photography. When I got married and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, I had no idea what I was going to do with my art degree so I just got a job working at a consignment shop. It happened to be sort of a mid upscale consignment shop in Knoxville and I loved it. I fell in love with it.

I started working with lots of clients, we didn't call them clients but they were essentially styling clients and people started coming in just to see me and then one day, a client came in and she was like, "Hey, can you come to my house and do this? And I'll pay you." I was like, "Great." My boss was very nurturing also and she said, "You know this is a job. This is a real job." From there, I just slowly started pursuing it. I didn't really believe in myself but I have been doing it since I guess you could say 2012 but it's not been full-fledged until I would say the last two years.

Nicole Otchy: Got it. Okay, so many things are running through my mind right now. What did you major in an art school? What was your focus?

Brianna Lamberson: I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and they don't require you to have a declared major. It's interdisciplinary and they don't even have grades, it's just pass-fail, which is a little bit more severe. I guess you can just drop off and fail pretty quickly, but my main focus was photography, but I also did fiber material studies, performance art, shoemaking, and art history. It was pretty diverse, but the main thing I focused on was photography.

Nicole Otchy: What a cool program. I'm aware of that program and it's really good, I know it's excellent, but I didn't know that they were that out of the box in their education style. I love that. I bet so many stylists listening are like, "What? That is incredible. Where was that school?"

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah, it's a portfolio school so that you get judged based upon the work that you produce, and that's high pressure. I remember at my senior thesis show, you have to fully show as if you're showing in a gallery and you're judged, you're critiqued on that work. It is really intense. It thickens your skin.

Nicole Otchy: I was going to say it seems actually like it would be a really good training for being a stylist, including the fact that you now know how to make shoes and know about [inaudible]. That’s awesome. Almost every single stylist I talk to and I think some of it is that it'll be interesting to see as I start to interview stylists who are in the early 20s, if they knew that this was a job right out versus us who told every single stylist I've talked to on this podcast, somebody said to them, “This is a job,” there is nothing more new learning to me.

Having a conversation over and over with you guys where we all have the same experience because it can make you a little bonkers to not know if the job you're about to launch a business for is a fit, that in and of itself has a weird psychological space so I love that we're keeping the theme.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah. I never even knew there was a difference between personal stylists, fashion stylists. I had no idea honestly.

Nicole Otchy: Nor does the rest of the world at all. This is our world so we know it now. But yeah, that's crazy. When we started working together, you had all this background, all this history. What was so fascinating in our work together was to see it come together in your niche. I think sometimes we don't start with ourselves, we start with what we think the market wants.

I love for you to share a little bit about as we work together, what the process was for you to discover like, "Wait, the people I really want to work with, I already have that inside me. I just haven't tapped into it."

Brianna Lamberson: It was really magical. I'll just say first off, I've never worked with a coach like you before where the subtlety of what you do is so powerful. I've never had a coach just come in and go, "Hey, within just a matter of a few minutes, we're going to completely unlock this part of your brain.”

So I was pursuing styling just with a broad general sense of what my target market was. Keep in mind, I've done DCA, Digital Course Academy, I did B-School, I've done other programs, and they all talk about identifying your ideal client, but it never really occurred to me to look, like you said, to my own background.

So my niche was this general women in their late 20s to mid-50s or 50s and they’re professional, maybe a mom struggling with putting together outfits. That was kind of working for me. I was attracting clients, but I was not really clear on who my ideal client was. Then even when I went back through my roster and started thinking about, “Well, who do I really work best with?” I thought it was women who were more executives, more CEO types, leader types. So I thought for a moment that might be who I was working with.

But then I really, with you, got even more analytical. Well, who is it that I really connect with? It turned out it wasn't just women in leadership. It was writers, authors, public speakers, actors, architects, interior designers, graphic designers, photographers. I realized, “Oh, wait, that's me. That's my background.” Very diverse, very eclectic, and very geared towards the creative, towards the artistic.

Nicole Otchy: Which makes a lot of sense, since that's your world. I know I did this for years, it's probably one of the reasons it took me so long to get out of the program, is we think that how our clients underestimate the things they like as a sign of their style. It's like, “Oh, well, I just like it,” we do that in our business.

Brianna Lamberson: That's a great point. Yeah, I never thought about that, but totally.

Nicole Otchy: The good news is the market's so big now of awareness, the possible groups of people that can hire a stylist because they're aware that stylists exist is so big that you can say, “I want to work with creative professionals.” I mean, to be clear, I wouldn't have been free, free should work with people that are right out of art school and have no job, the right strategy, but the world is so big that you can go into it looking at yourself and then make sure that it maps onto the market. I think it really helps with our messaging when we can relate to the other person.

Brianna Lamberson: For sure. I think something that you helped me with early on is the first call where we did the niche work, I was like, "Great, this is amazing," then the next day I was like, “Oh, my gosh, what have I done?” There's a little bit of a pit and you, I think message me and you're like, “This is totally normal.”

Nicole Otchy: Everything's going according to plan when you want to throw up after your recognition, yeah.

Brianna Lamberson: You're like, “This is normal. What I want you to do is research who your niche is hiring.” I can't believe that it's this simple but all I did was Google “Business coaches for interior designers.” The first person that popped up was a woman selling a group program for $3,000. I was like, “Okay, I'm fine. Things are going to be fine.” There is a pretty big market out there. It's just really about who you can connect with.

Nicole Otchy: Right. So that's why I always tell stylists, “You have everything for established stylists. For brand new, you might need to get some stuff under your belt, but you have what you need, someone just needs to dig it out and you'll put the pieces together in a way that is sustainable and profitable and you definitely have all that.”

We made some changes. What, for you, in terms of marketing and you also had a really big YouTube channel and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what led you to that platform, what did you enjoy about it?

Brianna Lamberson: That's really good. I passively was using YouTube, long story short, you know my back story, but in my pursuit of becoming a stylist because I didn't think fashion was a real career, I got into health coaching and so I was using YouTube to communicate with clients and make little videos about health and wellness.

I never, ever, ever thought that it would lead me to what I'm doing now. But I just always had a burning desire to be on YouTube. I don't know why, but if you have that same gut feeling to start a podcast or to start a blog or write a book, I think that's something you should definitely listen to because I sat on that feeling for about a year, started the channel in earnest in January of 2018, more so pursuing my career as a health coach, but there was always this component of fashion in there so I would talk about sustainable fashion and sustainable style.

Then when I started really feeling this call to move more and more towards style, I just completely swapped what I was talking about, and on a dime, made all my health and wellness videos private and just started pursuing talking about fashion and style.

It's been hard. I'm not going to lie, it's been a big challenge, it's been a big time commitment and I've had lots of self-doubts, but it's one of those things that I'm never really going to give up, I don't think, and I might evolve what I do and how I do it, but I love the community I've built, I've gotten clients from YouTube almost right out of the gate from starting.

Even though my styling business wasn't just wholesome or secure, fully fleshed out as it is now, there were people always interested in what I had to offer from YouTube, which is a great marketing tool. It's amazing. Yeah.

Nicole Otchy: A lot of stylists don’t use it because it's so, I mean, myself included, there's just a lot of technical understanding, it's just harder and I think the stakes are it lives there for a long-- I mean the reason why [inaudible] because it lives there for a long time and it's a search engine, and if you can figure out that part of the game, then you can do really, really well and just goes one video week and you can even make money from it. You can even make continued money just from the videos being up for the audience.

And people are savvy. The quality has to be good and your quality is excellent. You clearly have that technical skill, which is amazing. I think a lot of us just don't think to use it, but it is an incredible, incredible tool.

Brianna Lamberson: I think now, especially with the introduction of Shorts, I think more stylists can break into the platform because if you're already familiar with what's going on on TikTok or you use TikTok or you use Instagram, just move over to YouTube because it's going to live there. I've seen people who get on YouTube just doing shorts initially and they completely blow up.

Nicole Otchy: Really?

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah. It's still search engine-driven. You still have to log into the backend and put your keywords and your title and description. So it's still very, very useful for that. If you don't want to make long-form content, just make Shorts and get started.

Nicole Otchy: Okay. I'm going to start that. Also, I'm thinking ChatGPT might be a real good help in getting those keywords.

Brianna Lamberson: Oh, my gosh ChatGPT is like a gold mine. Just side note for those who are really genuinely interested, I highly recommend vidIQ and then there's another one if you just Google “keyword search tools for YouTube,” there's one that's free, vidIQ is not free, but it's so helpful.

Even if you just go into YouTube and you start typing in, I don't know, a keyword or key phrase that your niche audience might be searching, Google will auto-populate it. You're like, "Oh, my gosh, that's a great idea. I will make a video on how to style a bell or something."

Nicole Otchy: Yeah, totally.

Brianna Lamberson: I've noticed a huge trend on YouTube, just final note on that. I don't want to get hung up on it, but about six months ago, I would say there was a massive wave of YouTubers that were quitting, so-called quitting, or taking a step back, because the way in which we've been creating content for the last 10 years, I would say, is just not working anymore. That's good news because we can just be a little bit more relaxed and real, and I think that performs way better than a highly produced piece of content.

Nicole Otchy: Since we've figured out your audience and made these changes, what do you think the biggest ahas have been in terms of your business and what the future holds?

Brianna Lamberson: Wow. Well, I think walking away with the knowledge of how to speak to my client, my ideal client, not that I'm doing that perfectly, I still have a lot of work to do, I've been paying attention to your stories lately, what are they struggling with in the moment? That's really key for me.

But I think the biggest aha was just realizing, “I know this woman.” If I just take the time to sit down and think about the struggles that I have, the struggles that some of my past clients have had, I really can speak to this woman so powerfully, and I actually don't have to hold back what lights me up inside.

I think after one of our niche calls in the program, I got on Stories and just started posting gangbusters, just this series of slides about being a creative entrepreneur and it was the most responsive I've ever gotten in DMs. People were literally messaging me saying, “Wow, your content's amazing right now.”

I think I've never had that kind of experience working with a coach before except for when I was in a mastermind for four years with Jeff Goins. That was a unique experience for me to work with you and to get that like, “Wow, this really does work.”

I think just not disconnecting yourself from who you are, yeah. Then the framework, that was a huge aha for me. That was a huge draw for me and wanting to work with you initially too was, “Okay, what is this behind-the-scenes framework she keeps talking about?”

When you talk to me about the life cycle of a client, the service menu that you can offer them behind the scenes, that was something that I really needed and just how to open and close the container.

Nicole Otchy: That's a big one. I want to talk about that a little bit.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole Otchy: One of the things that so many of us struggle with is the opening of the experience for the client and the closing of the experience. I think that it comes from the best possible place, which is our own anxiety, like, “Are we going to do it right? Are they happy? Was this good enough? Did I leave anything out?” If you're a neurodivergent like me and you forget things.

I know the reason why I have so many of the things I teach you guys is because I struggle with these things too, and I get it. I'm still not perfect. I'm sure I left nine things out of the Bri’s, after our conversation [inaudible]. I have a million post-it notes too. I get it.

When you say that, it's so relatable, I'm sure, to people listening because we all want to create this great experience, but sometimes because we want it so bad, we get in our own way and we just shut down or we don't follow up because we're so afraid of the judgment. Share a little bit about what your realizations have been because I know that so many people can relate.

Brianna Lamberson: Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, the thing that I really loved about you and I think you've even mentioned this in some of your content, is that, “Okay, she's running this mega-successful business that she's built in 15 months and she's still human.”

I think what's so valuable that you modeled that's maybe unintentional is that you can't be perfect in anything that you do as a business owner. I've always associated success with perfection like, “I have to fit myself into this perfect behavioral box and then I'll be successful.”

I can't forget emails. I can't forget birthdays. Not that you want to slack. But it's taking the pressure off of saying, “Okay, you will drop the ball.” You're human, but it's not about you dropping the ball, it's about you just responding back to that person and saying, “Hey, sorry about that. I'm here again, let's reconnect, let's move forward.”

Sometimes clients will respond and sometimes they won't. I've had to learn that that's just part of business. There's always going to be more clients that come into your world. It's an opportunity to learn from my past mistakes because I have made them. But the opening and closing of the container are really important because I always felt like I was leaving, you know in music when you have that resonance at the end of a song?

Nicole Otchy: Yes.

Brianna Lamberson: I always felt with a client like, “Okay. Is this over? Are we done?”

Nicole Otchy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know so many stylists like that that are just mind-blown by the concept of onboarding and off-boarding as a way of giving everybody a sense of boundaries and completeness and excitement when they're onboarding and just managing it both because it's a system that you don't have to rethink every time. That means that one thing is left off. It's one less thing for you to have to feel you're responding to, which means sure, you could forget this in the email, but if it's automated in some way, you won't.

There are all these different things, and then that gives you more space to try to remember the other things you mentioned, but I want to go back to something, there's these two things you said that are connected that are really interesting. You showed up on social media and you were yourself and you got the most reaction. Then you said again, like, “Oh, I felt I had to be perfect all the time, and I fit myself into this box,” with respect to how you dealt with clients.

I think that I want to share that my modeling of that comes from years of doing the same thing. Almost every stylist I work with is a perfectionist. I am a perfectionist in recovery and it comes from self-acceptance.

My ability to do that publicly, my ability to be honest about those things comes from years of trying to be okay with myself by myself, which meant that I had to take a step back sometimes or I didn't market as much, and I will tell you all day long how important marketing is.

Sometimes you have to do that in your work before you get there. What you're saying is everybody experiences and I'm sharing that for the group because Bri and I already had this conversation.

I think that it's easy to think that somebody gets to this point where I am through making the right decisions but what I have found is that it is the wrong decisions and accepting them and coming to terms with them and accepting that the people are going to judge me no matter what I do, whether I send the PDF later or not, they're going to me or they're not, is been probably the thing that made me the most money, oddly.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah, that's so true. It is hard because as a consumer of courses and programs and coaching, I'm thankful that I learned this early on that it's really, really, really easy to blame the thing that you bought for your lack of success. I think that's maybe where if you haven't worked that out in yourself, then you're fearful that your clients are going to do the same thing with you.

That, like, “Oh my gosh, is she sitting here wondering where the hell her lookbook is for.” Or, “Okay, we bought those pants and they ended up not working even though she washed them and took the tags off. Is she blaming me for that?”

Nicole Otchy: Yes.

Brianna Lamberson: It is kind of scary, but to let go of that responsibility of holding that responsibility for my clients because I still want to make them happy, I think that the onboarding process that I'm still working on refining, and will continue to refine—at least I have version one down—but I think what I really want to start focusing on is just saying from the get-go, “This is your personal style.”

Nicole Otchy: You're hiring me to be your guide, but you are still responsible for the journey there. I'm glad you're bringing this up because this is probably a conversation I should be having more but never even occurred to me, so thank you, but it's so easy to sit and be afraid.

I have great founders in my business as a stylist, and I still am like, “Nothing's working.” But I'll say that one of the best ways I've learned to deal with it for people listening is to literally say to the client, “Hey, I'm getting the sense. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we're not. This is not going the way you hoped. Can we have a conversation about it?”

Just saying the elephant in the room thing tends to get them to feel safe because ultimately everything Bri's talking about is about the client feeling safe. If someone feels safe in the interaction and in the container, they can express whatever needs to be expressed to get over whatever the issue is.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah, for sure. There has to be room to express that, otherwise, they're going to ghost you or they might make a passive-aggressive comment, which could rub you the wrong way or deflate you or something, which I've experienced all of those things.

Nicole Otchy: Same and yet, you could still be successful, right?

Brianna Lamberson: Yes.

Nicole Otchy: I was thinking the other day about what I would consider to be my worst client experience ever in 14 years. I realized the other day that I finally don't have a sting to it. That was only in the last year. I haven't just done this for a while. This stuff can sit with you. It's funny how we noticed the people that weren't happy, but we don't remember all the people that were.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. I try to remind myself of that. Thankfully, I think I've attracted a lot of clients who are so sensitive, sweet, and just tenderhearted. They're so patient and just so understanding and forgiving.

Again, not that I want to not deliver a good service for them, but I try to work with people who are similar to me in the sense if I'm going to mess up, they're going to be understanding, but still maybe bring it up, but not putting all the responsibility on me to make this completely new woman.

Nicole Otchy: Well, I also think your marketing has never been anything around the fact of like, “I'm going to save you.” It always had the tone of partnership. I think how we market, even unconsciously, even to these things that you don't necessarily speak out loud, people get a sense of the accountability that will be expected based on how you market.

I think that's really important is you can train people to be your clients by how you market. I think people can sense with you that you are sensitive, you are soft-spoken, you are patient, you are gentle, so it attracts that person, even if you're not intentionally doing that, that is how energy works.

Brianna Lamberson: Totally. That's why I think that even if you have a similar niche, it's completely non-competitive because I have a lot of friends who are also stylists and we have similar niches, but I never, ever worry about them taking business from me or me taking business from them because they have a whole different thing going on.

It's who they are as a person or maybe it's just one unique random thing about them that a client will look at and be like, “I want to work with her versus Bri.” That's fine. I would so much rather there were more stylists, more opportunities for more people to work with and get help with because there's a huge demand, I think, for it.

Nicole Otchy: What are you most excited about in this new chapter of your business as you start to refine it even more?

Brianna Lamberson: Oh, my gosh, I finally feel like I have all the pieces coming into place. You said to me a couple of times during our work together, “You need to sit with this plan for about a year, these methods, these tactics.” But I feel like I have things written down. You were so generous with your notes and creating a plan that I know it's there. I know I'm going to refer back to it. I know I have something to fall back on and that is what is most exciting to me. I know I'm not going to get lost again. I know I'm not going to just start peering out into the void of internet marketers again and be like, “Where do I go? What do I do?”

Nicole Otchy: Because maybe that's a coping mechanism many of us have then you know where to carry yourself back on track.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah. exactly. I think there's always room to learn and grow and continue to invest in education. But at least for the time being, I'm so excited that I have this system, this plan in place that I know I can go back to. I'm really excited about the opportunity to keep showing up differently.

It's something I'm still trying to push myself to do. It's hard having not allowed myself to show up very powerfully in the past, it's hard for me to switch gears. But I'm just saying, “Okay, if I can't post every day on Instagram, I'm going to try to show up in Stories.”

Even if my Stories aren't always geared toward my business or my niche, I'm still going to show up and just keep pushing forward. I'm just really thrilled to connect with the women that I have connected with in the last three months, who I never even knew existed, but they live in my own town and they're excited to work with me. I'm just like, “How did this happen? This is so exciting.”

Nicole Otchy: You’re not even showing up perfectly to the people because that's not a thing. But just for the record, since I know you're thinking it in the back of your head, you created that with what you consider to be less-than-perfect marketing. I think it's fantastic, but you have to consider it that way and you're creating opportunities when you feel the muscle more, because it's just a muscle, that's all it is.

Brianna Lamberson: It is. It's a skill that can be learned. That's what I teach. I mean, we say to our styling clients, “Style is a skill that can be learned. You just have to immerse yourself in it. You just have to practice it.”

It's the same with marketing and using your voice. I do want to share, in my world, I'm a Christian, so we say these silly things, “Praise report, I have a praise report.” You helped me work on a pitch for a local architect, a female architect. She wanted to do a photo shoot rebrand for her company of six women. You helped me with a pitch and I sent it to her and she replied, “This is exactly what I was looking for. You answered all of my questions. I can't wait to do this.” I'm pretty sure we're going to end up closing that deal, but it was just thrilling to hear the words, "This is exactly what I'm looking for."

Nicole Otchy: I'm so excited for you. Congratulations.

Brianna Lamberson: Thank you.

Nicole Otchy: You had the words. You had the vision. I just have to put it together. I'm so proud of you. That's amazing. Congrats.

Brianna Lamberson: Yeah. I needed the training wheels, though. I needed the wax on, wax off stuff that you provide.

Nicole Otchy: We all do. We all do. You don't get to your next level without them. Awesome, thanks so much for sharing that awesome win. Thank you for being with me today, my dear, it was such a great conversation.

Brianna Lamberson: Likewise. Yeah, working with you was really scary to make that big investment because I have to say it was one of the biggest investments I've ever made. But I really, really genuinely don't regret it. I wish I had a lot more money to keep working with you because you're just that good.

Honestly, someone said to me, “It doesn't matter how you come about that money.” If you get a loan, not that I'm encouraging people to take out money they don't have, but the person's point was they worked with you too. They said, “However you can do it, do it because she's worth every penny and more.”

I was like, “I know. It's so true.” Your content and your marketing are so powerful that even if I'm not an active client of yours, listening to your podcast, I never miss a podcast, I never miss a post on Instagram, I'm always like, “That was valuable. Such a kick in the butt, just what I needed to hear.” It's always so motivating.

So thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for how serious you are about marketing because it helps people and it's a good lesson for me to learn that. It can be very, very, very helpful for people to be marketed to in the right way.

Nicole Otchy: Thank you for that. I received that. Thank you very much. It means a lot. I know all these things because I struggled with them all so I feel like I come by it honestly, which is the biggest thing is being in integrity, which I know is important to you too.

So thank you so much for everything. I'm so excited for the future for you and a reminder to you and everyone listening, that you do not get to your next level being perfect. You got there taking one step at a time imperfectly. So thank you, Bri, for everything today.

Brianna Lamberson: Thank you.

Nicole Otchy: Thank you so much for hanging out with me. It turns out that social proof is actually pretty important. So if you could help me out, I'd so appreciate it. If you just had a quick free moment and could leave me a rating or review on the podcast app, that would be killer. And even better, if you wanted to share this episode on Instagram and tag me, that would totally make my day and it would bring so much more awareness to the podcast and would help other stylists just like you who are looking to build lucrative styling business because the better each of us does, the better all of us do. Thanks for hanging out with me and I'll chat with you next time.