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. I'm so glad you're here for part two of the positioning series. If you missed part one, circle back when you can. We dug into going all in on who you're here for in your styling business, and today, build on that foundation.

Positioning isn't just about what you do, the fact that you're a stylist or a stylist for a certain group of people. It’s the reputation you build around how you do what you do and why it matters to you and to your ideal clients.

The best news about this is that your reputation—including who you are the best fit for, who you are best meant to serve—is entirely and only in your control. This is why, when we offload our marketing to other people, or we want someone to tell us what to do instead of adapting a framework that has been proven, we don't get results. Because we didn’t start with the thing that is required, our own perspective.

Really, perspective is one of the most overlooked tools for standing out, because it is your unique point of view. Just like our clients, a stylist often undervalues their own taste and their own intuition when it comes to what they want to wear, what they’ll feel most lit up by wearing, you might be undervaluing your perspective in your business. My job today is to help you stop that immediately.

If your content feels like it's blending into the noise and like you're just another stylist saying the same thing in a slightly different font, even if you thought your post was insightful, that you spent hours in Canva designing, but then you started scrolling and saw there were ten other posts on your feed saying basically the same thing, then this episode is going to be for you because we have all been there.

So let's start with the truth we all know: lazy content blends in. It blends in. If it's easy to write and it doesn’t give you a little bit of nervousness when you put it out, it’s likely a little bit lazy. And that’s okay, it happens to all of us, especially when you’re burnt out, unclear about what to say, or you're outsourcing your content to people who don’t really get your work or your clients, your content’s going to start to turn into filler and also like something you just have to check off on your to-do list.

Yes, you will have to have weeks where it feels like that. But I want you to feel lit up and excited about the people you're speaking to, like I do every week, so that while it may be on your to-do list, it’s something you’re enjoying and wanting to do, not something you just have to do.

When we’re just responding to something in our marketing as a to-do list task, we start to get into the area of posts like, “What to wear to feel confident?” or “Here’s the link to my top,” or “Five Spring Essentials” that everybody else has.

It’s not that it’s bad content, it’s just not going to grow a high-ticket, high-trust business either. So the question is: is it worth it? Your ideal clients don’t really want vague affirmations or generic tips. Sure, she’s probably going to click on the link to your top because it’s cute. But we both know that’s not really going to solve the actual problem she has.

Because your ideal clients, they don’t just want to feel confident, they want to feel hot. They want to stop second-guessing themselves around the other cool moms or dads on the playground. They want their partner to look at them the way they used to when they were dating.

That is what gets attention in your marketing, saying what your client actually thinks to herself about how she wants to look and how she wants to feel, or he, during their internal style meltdowns.

One of my clients has nailed her taglines around this, “Helping women feel hot again.” So genius. Please don’t steal it, go find your own. But it’s clear, it’s honest, and it lands with her target audience.

It’s not going to work with every audience, but she’s done the work, and it fits perfectly for hers. Because that is her perspective. That is what her people, that are best fit for her, are looking for.

There are other stylists with the same demographic who believe it’s something else. Like, put-together. Or not looking like a struggling mom. Or not looking like a disheveled 40-something in the pickup line. But they may all technically be talking to the same folks in terms of age, income, status, all of those things, the way they even look at the world.

But the reason they want personal styling, the thought they want to have in their head when they look in the mirror, is different. That’s part of positioning. That’s part of your perspective. That’s what you can give to your clients.

That’s above and beyond a season’s worth of outfits or a really amazing-looking lookbook. Those things are great, but they’re only great if you’re speaking to how that person wants to feel in the clothes once they get the lookbook. That is what gets attention in marketing, saying what the client is thinking in their quiet, meltdown moments.

I'm going to say it again, but it’s hard for us to say those things sometimes, isn’t it? It really is. I get it. I do. When we’re clear and we’re honest, and it lands, and we maybe go out on an edge a little bit, we say something offhand in an Instagram Story, we feel a little uncomfortable, we post it, it’s always the thing people react to the most.

But you almost feel like, “Oh, I don’t know if my nervous system can handle that level of attention.” Honestly, I think a lot of stylists water down their marketing, not because they don’t know what to say when I describe it like this, but because there’s an anxiety around it working more than there’s an anxiety around it not working.

I see a lot of clients sitting in their own confusion. And I see past-me sitting in her own confusion all the time around these things. It takes bravery to show up. It just does. Most stylists are not saying what they really believe because they are afraid of being too much. Because that’s part of the conditioning of being a woman.

What’s interesting about it is we’re all out here trying to decondition other women to not worry about being too much in how they show up yet we’re all doing it to ourselves because it’s so ingrained in us.

Which is why I talk the way I do. Which is why I deliver messaging the way that I do. It’s not necessarily natural to me, but I do understand that doing it this way will cut through a lot of the noise and because I’ve been in the position my whole life of feeling like I’m too much. I’ve attracted clients as a stylist who felt like they were too much. Now it’s my job to try to break the cycle at the very top, through stylists and for stylists, so they can do it for other people. I have a higher responsibility.

My positioning now requires me to speak at a level that is different. And some days that feels harder than others. But that’s also true of you, when you really lock in on the right people for you. The people you actually care about. The people that sure, maybe you’ll take anybody in your business as a stylist that’s reasonable and okay to work with, but if I told you that you could only make millions of dollars working with the type of client you’re most excited about, so you had to figure out who that is, who would it be? And how would you talk to them?

Because here’s the thing about safety, it is very expensive. Safety is so expensive, and we don’t talk about it enough. It’s expensive in your clients’ lives. It’s expensive in your life. And it’s very expensive in business. Why?

Because sitting in safe messaging, with no positioning, with no perspective, costs you traction. It costs you time you can’t get back. It costs you visibility with the people that matter to. And at the end of the day, it costs you sales.

But what’s most expensive about safety in marketing is that it costs you the belief in yourself. And that, to me, is more expensive than anything else. You can always make more money, but you can never get back the time that you didn’t believe in yourself. I’m saying this as someone who took a long time to get where she wanted to go.

So let’s get clear on this: not locking in your positioning is an expensive problem that you have before you have a marketing problem that then becomes expensive. Because so many of us spend money on marketing solutions, but this positioning problem would clear up 90% of our marketing problems.

But we have to be willing to do the work in our positioning so that it can show up and be expressed in our marketing. You have to tap into your perspective before you can go out and speak to people consistently in a way that resonates with them, that makes them trust you, that makes them open their bank accounts and pay you thousands of dollars, and then continue to trust you through the process as you guide them in showing up at their next level. You have to do that. Or else you will blend in.

So let’s start from the top of how this all works together in your business. Your positioning comes before marketing. Your perspective informs your positioning. And your positioning shapes your marketing.

You’re going to come back to this again and again as you grow as a stylist, as you raise your rates, as you go through hard things in your life, and as you evolve as a person and as a professional. Your perspectives and your values will shift if you are someone that is committed to self-growth, to transformation, and just being better.

This is not a newbie problem. Lots of people get to hundreds of thousands of dollars without perspective and without positioning but they get there miserably. Miserably. So this is ongoing work. The more you learn how to listen to yourself and to allow your perspective to inform what you say and who you say it to, the easier this gets and it becomes second nature.

A lot of you have probably done SWOT analysis when you started your business, especially those of you who love a good system and love a good process. But what’s missing in that, and why it often doesn’t get stylists what they need when they look at the marketplace and say, “Oh, there’s not that many people who work with this person,” or “There’s not that many people who serve this population,” or whatever is that we miss that once we get that information, we still have to check in with ourselves and make sure the thing we’ve honed in on actually resonates with us. Because if it doesn’t, it’s going to be very hard to move forward.

As a matter of fact, most people do much better in big and wildly saturated spaces that they’re passionate about than in unsaturated ones they don’t care about. Because all that matters is movement and momentum. There’s only so many people you can actually serve one-on-one in a year as a stylist, or even in a group program. So at the end of the day, there are billions of people on social media. It’s not bad that’s the problem. It’s the fact that you need to speak to just a small portion of them.

So it’s fine to be in a saturated market, as long as your perspective within it is unique and yours. That’s it. That’s the secret that everyone’s charging people tons of money for. This is ongoing work. Period.

Nobody is ever above it. Nobody’s income makes them outside of it. Because you can wake up one day, just like in any relationship, and not be in love with it anymore. That will mean you have to sit down and figure out your positioning all over again.

So if you’re not getting the sales you want, or you’re getting sales, but you’re not getting them from the right clients that you want, it’s time to revisit your perspective and your positioning. Because it is what gives your business a soul. It’s what makes you magnetic.

So let me give you an example that I’m seeing a lot right now to illustrate this point and help you see what I mean when I say adding your positioning to your marketing is essential.

I’ll see stylists posting things like: “We should all buy sustainable and ethical clothing. It’s really important for the planet.” Like, some version of that. Obviously, they sexy it up more than what I just said.

Yes, I agree. Your ideal client though? She’s trying to survive the week. She is not here to figure out how she’s going to save the planet with one sweater. If she’s a working mom, say, in a male-dominated field, she is stressed, she is managing two kids in daycare and trying to figure out how she’s going to pay that bill, she’s barely eating lunch. She probably wants to care about ethical fashion, most of us do. But what she really wants is to wake up and not stress out about what to wear, especially before she presents to a boardroom full of men for an incredibly important presentation that could take her to the next level. She wants to feel powerful, not frazzled, not like the mom trying to keep it together, powerful.

So if you’re the stylist who very much cares deeply about sustainable fashion and you serve a client that is in that demographic and in that headspace, you would say something like this. When you buy ethically made clothes, you’re more likely to find unique pieces that no one else has. So your style will stand out more at work and you can be acknowledged visually as the expert you are before you say a word. I’m going to help you source those pieces without the headache so that you can look amazing and feel good about your wardrobe at work and outside of it.

Same value, same value, different angle, now that client cares. Because you’re asking people, when we ask them to care about these big topics that so many of us care about, we’re asking them to do more emotional and mental labor that they barely have right now. It’s not that they don’t want to do it, it’s that we’re not helping make it easy for them to do it by explaining that in our marketing.

Your job as a stylist is not to abandon your values. This is a big one I have conversations about. “Well, I want to work with this person, but I don’t think they care about sustainability.” “I want to work with this target market, but this isn’t going to matter to them.” The world is so big, and the overlap of the Venn diagram is enough for every stylist to make plenty. But they have to learn how to translate what they care about to the people they want to work with so that those people care.

Because overwhelmed people tune out when you pile on details or problems like, I don’t know, environmental collapse or global labor issues. They don’t know how to fix those, and they don’t see the connection between their outfit that they need to wear to survive or to look good or to be accepted or to be loved or to like themselves again and the issue that we’re bringing up about environmental and global labor impacts when they shop. They get it on an intellectual level, but you want them to get it in their heart. You’re going to have to make it easier for them to understand how you’re going to help them bridge those two things.

There are two problems when we talk about our styling services and these larger sort of global issues, and neither is getting solved when we don’t learn how to speak directly to our ideal client through our positioning. Because let me be really blunt and really clear about this. People are out here spending thousands of dollars on Gucci raincoats for their dog. Is it everybody? No. I understand that’s not the majority of Americans or people in general. But those people exist enough that Gucci keeps making the rain jacket, okay?

So the problem isn’t that people don’t want to spend money on your services or spend money on things they care about. The problem is that you haven’t helped them see why it should matter to them. So please, whatever you do, do not walk away from your values because this is part of the thing that will make your business feel like a dream for you. Instead, reframe them for people who are busy, are overwhelmed, and they’re not steeped into this world like you and I are. They don’t have the time, but they want to care.

Let me address another very popular chorus line in the styling space. I am sure this one’s going to get me some DMs and comments, and I’m okay with that because somebody needs to tell us all the truth on this. I’m not saying that I’m right about everything, but I just want to give you a look in from the outside about this specific discourse that’s happening about influencers.

So let me just give you the quick and dirty of how I hear this happening in terms of in-stylist messaging. “You’re not going to get great style from influencers and from ordering every single link that they post.” Or some other version is like, “Fast fashion and influencers are ruining everyone’s style.” Or, “My clients struggle with their style because they’re ordering everything from influencers.”

Look, here’s the thing. I get it. I agree. I totally agree. We are all on the same page, but the way we are saying it to people that are not in our world, that do not understand the things that we understand, that do not know what it’s like to work with a stylist, don’t know how many hours goes into this, it ain’t working. It’s not translating.

It’s looking a little bit like the mean girl at the dance that’s getting everybody to gang up against that other girl over there in the corner. It’s not a look I like for us, okay? I get it, I get it. But it’s really not having the impact we hope.

Because when we complain about influencer calls, it sounds less like leadership and more like insecurity. That is not the vibe we want for your brand. I even hear bigger brands that do software for stylists, I hear different brands talking like this, kind of pitting influencers and stylists against each other. It just doesn’t feel right.

So instead, I want to ask all of us to just slow down. Just slow down for a second. Just sink into this question: What is the real problem here? It’s not the influencers. It’s not. It’s the lack of strategy in how people are buying, including your clients, maybe, before they hire you.

Because here’s the truth. We have always had influencers. We have had celebrities peddling things. We have had Oprah’s Favorite Things for those of you who recall that after school like me. We have had magazines that are no longer doing that well, but that’s how most of us were ordering things and getting to know about things that people recommended back before they went under. TikTok hauls and Instagram influencers are just the latest version of this.

So if you’re saying, “Stop buying crap from strangers online, it’s ruining your style,” try reframing it a little bit. “If you’ve ever panic-ordered a haul from someone you don’t know because you’re stressed and you need something to wear, let’s talk about what it’s doing to your confidence. Because fast fashion isn’t just bad for the planet, it is bad for your personal style. The faster we discard clothes, the less time we spend figuring out what actually works for us.”

See how that hits different? We’re not judging the influencer. We’re not judging the client. We’re just educating them. We’re showing our audience how that quick fix is costing them more than they realize. Sure, environmentally, absolutely, but also because it’s impacting them emotionally and practically, they can’t even see the fact that it’s hurting the environment. They’re not there.

They are in a place of just completely autopilot, clicking, clicking, clicking, trying to solve a problem. They haven’t analyzed the problem. So the fact that that problem is also being compounded by the fact that it’s creating environmental waste is something they are not in the headspace to even get. Like me trying to explain advanced math problems to my toddler, on top of that, trying to do it when she’s in a tantrum.

That’s what we’re asking people to do that are behaving this way a lot. They’re not in that space. So we, in these moments that we’re talking in our marketing, and they’re not activated, need to explain to them, just really get it clear on why it’s not working for them. Because it’s not. But if we don’t point out why, and we make it about the influencer, they lose the teachable moment. And then they lose the connection. And then they lose that maybe you’re their solution.

This is why we have to start thinking critically about things in this industry. Because our ability to change things is so massive. It’s so massive. We command so much spending power as stylists. We influence where we bring people that are actually up to things in the world, that are actually making a difference, with what we recommend, with how we present things to our clients. We can create huge boosts for independent makers and for ethical brands.

But we got to look at this problem more deeply. And we have to make the people that we serve care about the same problems as we do. That’s how you create a business that changes things. That’s what many, many women that I talk to every day in the styling industry—and I’m sure men too—want when they get into this business. But then they start marketing in this really shallow way because that’s what they think they have to do to keep up.

What I’m trying to tell you is, uh-uh. No way. That’s not it. That’s not it. Because if you care about ethical sourcing, fair labor, size inclusivity, amazing. You can actually do something about it. So don’t stop talking about it, but make sure you are getting the skills to champion the brands and the movements that are doing it right and give people hope, so they want to engage and so that we can show them what is possible.

Because your clients are not coming to you often from a place of total empowerment. Even your most confident styling clients still want your reassurance. They want to know that they’re doing it right. So how can we help them take action that supports bigger causes and makes their life better? How do we do that?

That is your job as a values-led stylist. Even if these are not things that you are spending your time thinking about a lot, if you’re just a stylist that got here because you wanted people to feel good in their body and feel like they have a right to show up, that is something that is countercultural. Whether you realize that or not, you have to make the argument that they deserve that.

And then you maybe have to also figure out ways to help them understand that they may have to go through some discomfort to get there. Because the people in their life might not like them showing up bigger. You don’t have to say that in marketing, but you and I both know that’s the case.

So whatever your values are, I used two examples of not buying from influencers, or the environmental impact, those are just ones I hear about all the time. But there are all the other ones about accepting your body, and not listening to what other people have told you to define your identity.

Your job as a value-led stylist, whatever those values are, is to turn that into your power. Turn those beliefs that make your perspective yours into something that catalyzes people to take action and to work with you so they can get that result.

Because positioning isn’t about demographics. It is about psychographics. What are your clients thinking and feeling? And how do you get them to think and care about the things that you care about? What do you believe about style? What do you want them to believe about style? What do you want them to believe about themselves?

One of my clients recently shifted from posting like, really generic kind of outfit inspo, just like on her stories and stuff, to anchoring everything in a very specific belief that we kind of honed in for her. Here it is. It was really, really deep compared to where she was before.

So, just general outfit inspiration. General, “Here’s a link to my top.” General, “All my clients love these shoes.” That too. Showing the outfit photos and then using that space to create some sort of messaging that reinforced this value. Style is how women reclaim their value after years of feeling unseen. That, my friends, is a niche. That is a niche.

Sure, she’s still sharing the outfit, but now her content is rooted in storytelling, emotion, and belief. And her business is thriving because of it. Now, it’s not that she went out there easily and thought, “This was so super simple.” It’s much easier to say, “I work with women in their 40s that are working.” So simple.

Technically, this probably would fit that demographic. But when she started with the thing that made her show up to styling to begin with—which was the question I asked her, “What got you here?”—it was that style allowed her to reclaim her own value after years of feeling unseen.

Because it was the first exercise she took to listen to herself, and then take action for what she wanted and not from what other people want. Let me tell you, there are a lot of people out there that will relate to that, that can see themselves in that, outside of any demographic information you could give.

Most people will resonate with that over being a 40-year-old woman who works in a corporate office and has kids. That’s too many identities for me to walk in with when I’m looking at your marketing. It’s not doing anything to my heart.

And that is the power of psychographics. People buy from shared feelings, not just the shared birthday or the years that all of your clients have, the decade that most people are in that hire you.

So how do you sharpen your perspective like this client did? Here are the three questions that I want you to use to guide yourself: What do you believe about style that your clients need to hear and you are not saying to them? What are you tired of seeing in the industry? What feels like white noise now when you scroll through content?

That frustration is a clue to your positioning and your perspective. It's not, obviously, an invitation to bash people. It is an invitation for you to think more deeply about what you want to be saying that you're not hearing enough of.

What do you stand for that makes you different? And it's not—PS—I want women to feel confident. We all want that. That's the bare minimum. You need to go deeper. What is the hill you will die on about style? What is the one problem you desperately want to solve for your people, the people that are the right fit for you? What is the problem they desperately want to solve? That makes them the person for you. That's another way to look at this question.

Finally, I’m just going to remind you of this: if your content bores you, if you are unclear on what the takeaway is from your content, it is absolutely boring your audience and they’re also unclear. Take a walk. Get inspired. Think about these questions.

Then, I want you to hit publish on something that gives you a little flutter of excitement, which you may mislabel as nervousness. But that jolt, that jolt you’re going to get when you post something that’s not vanilla, like, “Five pieces to wear for spring” that doesn’t talk to anyone and we’re all supposed to just think we’re going to wear those things, but we’re not, to be honest but you have the links in your bio, so maybe you’re telling yourself you’ll do it because it’s a smart business move because you’re going to get a little bit of commission, if your business is going well, eventually you will laugh at that amount of commission just for the record.

So if you’re creating content for commission, you’re being an influencer. That’s all. That’s all I have to say about that. That is not you being in integrity with the work we’re here to do as stylists.

So I want you to think about what you would be sharing right now when you hit publish on something, it gave you that little “oof, oof,” like a little bit of nervousness. And when that flutter starts to fade over time, because you start to use your voice more and trust yourself more and are there for yourself more because it’s also self-acceptance work. When that flutter starts to fade, then I want you to raise the bar again and I want you to sharpen your perspective again.

That is growth and that is what positioning is ideally. Not saying you should walk around with your nervous system all jacked up all the time. But I want you to lean into more and more levels of honesty, not reckless disregard for people's feelings, not sharing vulnerability from an unprocessed place. Not that.

I want you to sharpen your perspective and be better and better at telling the people that are right for you what they need to hear.

If this resonates with you and you really want to get clear on your positioning for who you really are right now, I have a few opportunities inside my new Positioning Intensive to work with me. It is a rare 90-minute one-to-one call with a week of Voxer support, and you're going to walk away with a custom plan that makes your marketing flow with more clarity and more ease. And you're going to walk away lit up and clear on who you are in this industry and what you stand for. The link to get more about that is in the show notes.

Next week, I want you to tune in, because we're going to cover what to do when your marketing is technically working—you’re getting clients from it—but it's not the ones you want to work with. It's not the people you’re lit up by. Because that’s way more common than you think. It’s actually a great sign that there’s some exciting stuff ahead for you.

So we will unpack that shift together. And until then, keep sharpening your perspective and chasing that jolt when you hit publish on your content, because the right people are listening. You just have to figure out how to say what it is you want them to hear.

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.