PODCAST SHOWNOTES

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 back to the podcast. Today, we are kicking off something special, a three-part deep dive into positioning. This series is going to unpack what positioning is, what it definitely isn't, and why it might be the critical missing piece between where your styling business is right now and where you dream of taking it.

This first episode is all about going all in on who you are here for. If you listened to my last episode, which was not technically part of this series, you heard me talk about really standing for your people, really being in love with them. It's specifically for stylists who are feeling stuck in a frustrated place—not because you're lacking talent, which is rarely the case with the stylists I work with—but because you and I both know you're great at what you do.

You're just spreading yourself too thin by pumping out marketing all the time and not getting where you want to go. Maybe it's not connecting with the clients you actually want to work with, even if you are signing clients. Or maybe it's not doing anything at all.

If you've ever felt like you're working harder than you should be to attract clients, if you find yourself taking on work that doesn't feel so good, or working with types of clients that don’t feel great, or offering services you feel like you have to put out just to make ends meet, this episode and the episodes that follow are really going to be a game changer.

So, go grab your coffee, find a quiet spot, get on a good hot stylist walk, and let's dive in. I want to start by addressing one of the major misconceptions that I see when I work with really talented stylists who are very driven. That is: positioning is not the same thing as a niche. I want you to hear this distinction because it is so critical.

A niche isn't always, but it can be, your demographics. But positioning is identity. It is your identity as a stylist combined with your client's ideal identity, the person they want to be. They might not be there yet. They might be there. But it's mostly about you combining your magic with who they want to be.

You will include their demographics in that, maybe in your Instagram bio, but more than anything, positioning is about speaking to identities. Think about it this way. A niche might be working with female executives, but positioning is being known as a stylist who helps powerful women command the room before they say a word. See the difference?

It's still speaking to working female executives, but it's speaking to the type of female working executive that wants a certain experience of herself. Positioning is your business's reputation within the broader market, which is why it can be hard for us because we look at other stylists’ content and we compare ourselves. We don't compare ourselves favorably and say, "What makes me unique? What makes me interesting?"

It is what you want to be known for and what your client wants to be known for. It is the emotional and intellectual space you occupy in your ideal client's brain. So without solid positioning, your services become forgettable. You're just another stylist offering a wardrobe edit or color analysis or a spring refresh.

But when you have strong positioning, your offers become irresistible to the right people because they don't even care about what the offer is. They care about what you are selling because it's you. I'm going to share a story that really illustrates this type of transformation and difference between niching and positioning.

I work with a mother-daughter styling duo team who are incredible, and I'm really looking forward to having them on the podcast. They came to me from the color analysis and image consulting world. They initially started working with me after listening to my Transformational and Transactional series because they had really realized this kind of frustrating situation that was happening in their business.

They could easily get clients to pay for one-off color analysis sessions, but those same people were not willing to invest in larger packages. They weren't ready. This is a pattern I've seen repeatedly with stylists that come from the image consulting and color analysis world, and it's something that can be fixed, but it is kind of common in that culture.

Yes, they were also undercharging, to be fair, but that's just a small part of it. The deeper issue was that they weren't speaking to an audience who fully valued their expertise because their positioning wasn't where it needed to be, so it wasn't drawing in those people.

During our work together, we restructured their packages. We raised their rates, for sure. That is important, but honestly, that's the easy part. What was more powerful was the process they went through of paying attention to which clients felt energizing and which ones felt draining. It really wasn't about forcing themselves into a niche, I don't believe in that. It was about discovering the patterns and the connections they had with their favorite clients. That can take some time. It's not something you can rush.

They were still getting clients in the meantime, but I would say the reliability rate that their marketing was actually hitting strong enough to know that when they said this, they got a client, that wasn't there yet. So you can still have okay results, but those results will keep you under $50,000 or $60,000 without great positioning.

Then came this breakthrough moment for them. After working with a doctor on a branding photoshoot, something really clicked for them. During our next strategy session, they sat with me, and we worked through their positioning. We worked through how they would begin to pivot with the ways they would speak to this group, what the true challenges were, what the things were that kept these people up at night. And—this is the important part—what their view, their perspective, their unique point of view was on those challenges.

Because I've done this for so long, it's fairly easy for me to say, "Yeah, that's a good idea, but it's just a little bit too generic. We have to sharpen that perspective." A lot of the work of positioning is sharpening okay ideas into magnetic ideas. That's why it can be hard to do it ourselves, because we are so close to ourselves, like our clients are, that we often don't really take seriously, or with the authority that we should, the things that we think or feel about styling. Because to us, they're too innate.

Then, when we do take them seriously and talk about them, we talk about them in a way that's a little bit too bland. Because, hopefully, you're not all looking at each other's marketing all the time, you don't even realize, "Oh, everyone's saying this. This isn't that unique." That's fine. You don't have to be the most unique thought leader in the world, but you do have to learn how to say things that everyone else is saying in a way that catches people's attention.

So we had that session, we worked through their messaging, and then two weeks later, I got a text. It said this: "We feel like we have fallen back in love with our business again over the last two weeks. Who knew talking to one group of people would take such a weight off?"

And that is the power of positioning. Sure, technically, they niched down to visible business owners. But what really made the difference was doing the harder work of infusing their beliefs, their values, their authentic tone into every aspect of their business.

They rewrote their packages. They changed their Instagram story themes. And that created momentum. That's what transformed client attraction, but more importantly, rekindled their passion for their business.

When you position yourself clearly, something really magical happens. You don't have to convince people to work with you. You start attracting people who already know they need exactly what you offer because now you are speaking in the same language.

So let's break down why positioning matters so much, specifically for personal stylists. Because, of course, I'm not making up something that people don't know about, positioning has been in the marketing space forever. But I want to get very granular on why it matters to personal stylists.

First, it seems obvious, but we gloss over this, styling is inherently personal. When clients let you into their closets, their insecurities, maybe you see them in their underwear, they are making themselves vulnerable. They need to feel an immediate connection with you, a sense that you get them. Strong positioning creates that connection before they ever meet you, which is why it speeds up the sales cycle so much and why you don’t really have to have real sales calls. You're basically just having a check-in when you master this.

Second, it is increasingly crowded in this market. By virtue of that, there are more stylists than ever before. But also, by virtue of the fact that a lot of people are confusing the public, because they are actually fashion influencers, and people are not educated enough to know the difference, positioning is how you stand out. Positioning is how you make that not even a problem. Positioning is also how you don’t have to worry about the algorithm because you don’t need to blame the algorithm, you’re doing the work you need to do.

There is a very low barrier to entry and to visibility in our profession right now. So without clear positioning, you will just get lost in the sea of many.

Third, positioning directly impacts your pricing power. When you are positioned as a specialist rather than a generalist, you can command premium rates. Now, if you take yourself out of this equation and think about somebody else, you understand that, right? You get that an anesthesiologist probably charges more per hour than a general medicine doctor. Even if you don’t know exactly what they charge, you get the point, they do. They bill insurance higher.

That doesn’t surprise you. That first thing they do is go through more training to get that level of specialty. You're not any different. We just forget it when it’s us.

Now, I can already hear some of you thinking what my clients say to me: "But won’t positioning limit my options? What if I turn away a potential client? I'm not making the kind of money I want."

While it’s a valid concern, it’s not a true concern. Those are two different things. You’re welcome to have all the fears in the world, it doesn’t mean they’re true. When you get that about yourself, your whole life’s going to change.

The clients you lose through strong positioning were not your ideal clients anyway. Most likely, you were going to lose money on them because they were not going to come back. They were not going to get with the process. They were not going to be the appreciating asset that an ideal client is.

When you are willing to take anyone—and I get it, I’ve been there—but when you’re willing to take anyone, but you’re also not willing to step up your game, sometimes you have to be in that middle ground, right? You have to take the client you don’t really want, but then you have to work as hard on your content so that you’re starting to attract the right people.

I'm not going to tell you to say no to people if you need to pay your rent. I'm always going to say yes. But then you have to live in that in-between, where you're helping the clients you don’t love, but you’re working behind the scenes to get the clients you do.

What happens when you do that is, when you start getting that person, they stay with you longer. So you make more for every client. They’re willing to pay your prices without hesitating. More than that, they are so good with you and with the process that they are a billboard for your work. You make more from them because they refer you. People ask them, “What’s going on with you? You look different.” They’re actually wearing the clothes, which some of us have experienced clients who don’t.

Now you just made more from that one client in multiple ways. But most of us don’t think this way, which is why I’m here to remind you that it’s not that you’re excluding people in your positioning. It’s about speaking clearly to people and having them feel like you get them.

So here’s a simple exercise to start refining your positioning. Think about your three favorite clients, which ones energized you? Who would you clone? What connects them? Is it their lifestyle, their values, their challenges, their goals? Look beyond the obvious demographics, that they were stay-at-home moms, or they had kids, or they had a dog, or they made this much money, and identify the psychological and emotional patterns.

Those are not, "They just listen to me," okay? This is not about you. This is about them. Then ask yourself, “What do I believe about personal style that these clients resonate with?” And it might not be something you talked about in your marketing. It could be something they told you during the closet edit, or during the styling session, or when you delivered the lookbook.

“What transformation am I truly passionate about creating? Which one? What is the circumstance that, if I could wave a magic wand and help somebody see themselves differently while they were navigating that life circumstance, what would it be?”

The answers to those two questions are the beginning, just the beginning. But it’s something to start thinking about to get you to authentic positioning in your business, which again, you need a niche, maybe, or maybe you just need really strong positioning. This is sort of a case-by-case basis because everybody stands for something different in their business. But this is what a lot of stylists miss because, again, we're so close to it, we can’t see our own superpowers.

So if you’re listening to this and you're thinking, "I’m good at what I do, but I’m not in love with how I’m doing it," that is a clear sign that your positioning has not caught up to who you are and who you're becoming as a stylist and a business owner.

This is a problem for stylists at every level. There are stylists that just kind of go along for years and never find their positioning. Then there are stylists who had good positioning—and I can say I was the stylist many times in my career—but I outgrew my positioning.

So if you're listening to this thinking, “I’ve got people on my list, I’m good," the next question for you is, good, you're booked and busy. Are you booked, busy, and happy? Because that’s a critical thing.

This disconnect, no matter where you fall in it, whether you're more established and you are marketing and getting clients, but you're not in love with the process of marketing, or the clients you're getting, or you're just like, "Nothing’s really working. I don’t know how to get this to be a reliable situation," either way, this disconnect is fixable.

It’s exactly what I’m about to start addressing in my newest service. It’s a one-to-one positioning intensive. That is how often I see this problem and how fixable it is and how I see my clients who have great success, they take this on seriously.

So this is a 90-minute focus session with me, and we’re going to dial into precisely who you're here to serve, how to articulate that clearly, and how to build a sustainable messaging practice around that.

You’re going to walk away from this call with me with a custom plan, clear messaging that resonates, and a week of Voxer support after you get your plan to help you put it all into action, ask questions, pick my brain. I don’t do a lot of Voxer unless you’re in my highest packages.

So I am only opening up very limited spots each quarter for these intensives. When they’re gone, they are gone. There are 16 total for 2025. That’s it. That’s not false scarcity. There are three other programs that I am running. So I want to be able to have more of these one-to-one connections with people at an entry point so that I can help more stylists. It just is what it is in terms of time.

But if you're ready to fall back in love with your business and get crystal clear on your positioning, get to the show notes, book your spot, and next week we’re going to continue to fill out this positioning series by exploring how to translate your positioning—what we talked about with those two questions—into magnetic messaging. And you're not going to want to miss it. It’s a really good one.

Until then, remember, your unique perspective and your voice are your greatest assets. They are. When you position yourself clearly, your ideal clients will start to find you. That is going to change everything. So I’ll see you next week where we’ll dive in more.

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.