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.

Today, we are going to talk about something that has thrown a lot of very talented stylists off when it comes to their confidence, ghosting after a sales call. But not just any ghosting. I'm talking that "gut-punch" moment when someone who seemed like your dream client vanishes after multiple follow-ups or tells you that actually it's a no. They're not ready to work with you.

This is the kind of sales call where someone is quoting your content back to you. They seem totally lit up on the call. They said things like, "I feel like you're exactly what I've been needing for years." There are no objections, there's no money drama, there doesn't seem to be any shame hang-ups about their body.

You think this one is a done deal, and then radio silence. Or a no.

Today I'm going to break down exactly why this happens, what it really means about your business, and how to turn this moment into your next level of growth and income. The first thing I want you to understand is that ghosting doesn't mean what you think it means in most cases.

So here is the scenario in terms of how you know that ghosting isn't about pricing, body, etc. You already have your prices somewhere that they can see. You have asked them if they've seen your prices. You've asked them if there's any reason that would be holding them back before you got off the call.

You've done your vetting. You know how to run a sales call. This is why having sales skills is so critical, because it allows you to not second-guess yourself. Because you're like, "No, I know the things I need to do. I know how to lead this conversation. It wasn't me."

I used to have a lot more head trash around sales calls and being worried if I did something wrong before I understood how to run one. So that alone is like money in the bank in terms of your own clarity.

But when someone is on this call and they're nodding along and they're describing your content to you, like they're quoting it back to you like they have it bookmarked somewhere, they aren't seeing anything or, in fact, are seeing the opposite of what would make you think that they're having some kind of a body anxiety issue.

Maybe they're saying, "Hey, I accept myself how I am now. I know I've been talking about that last 10 pounds. It's not going anywhere, so it's time to just make a change." Like, they're saying things like this.

It's not just, they're like, "Okay, thank you," and walk away. They are saying all the things they would need to say, including something like, "So when is your availability opening up?" "When can I work with you?" They're ready for you to open the calendar.

Then you tell them, and they're like, "Okay, let me just go check that out. I'll be back in touch." Then they ghost.

Or later on, if they don't ghost you, they do follow back up to say they're going to move forward either working with someone else, it's less money, which I've heard stylists say, or they're just not ready right now. Or, "No thank you, it was nice to talk to you, but I'm good."

But they keep watching your Instagram stories. They're opening your emails, sometimes multiple times. They're liking your content. They are lurking. Hard, hard, hard. First of all, congratulations. Honestly, this is a big deal. You are not a failure. This is actually proof that your marketing is doing exactly what it's supposed to.

You have become the stylist who is no longer just offering a service. You are sparking identity transformations. That kind of a shift, the shift from "Here’s a few outfits, I’m just going to shop for you," basically transactional styling, into transformational styling, it takes some time for some people to emotionally prepare for.

So if that client is still watching you, still circling you, that means your content is not just marketing anymore. It’s medicine. They are not gone. They're just not ready yet.

I want to tell you exactly why this happens psychologically. We're going to break it down. This happens to me and has been happening to me since I was a stylist for a long time. So I have just really learned that relational selling is the critical piece here.

Because if you conduct sales calls like they're just the beginning of a relationship—as I've talked about a lot on my Instagram feed—you will find that people come back to you.

This is another reason why I think sales training is important. Because sometimes we think of sales training in one way, but actually the best sales trainings I have ever taken are: keep the relationship open while also vetting the client.

It’s not just, "Is the client ready?" But, "Are you a good fit for them?" Do they have the qualities and the psychological capabilities and the room and the temperament that you actually want to call in? So it's a two-way vetting.

When a potential client engages with you at that level—meaning they consume your content and they're able to repeat it back to you—they actually get on a sales call and it seems like they're a dream fit, they're connecting deeply with the identity your brand is presenting of your ideal client and is offering them to potentially step into.

But during the sales call, something real happened. This will happen the more and more you get good at sales and the less you are in any way attached to the outcome.

The person on the other end of the call, who seems like they are obsessed with you, they have to work with you, will see a gap in that conversation between where they are and where they want to be. And that gap can feel very confronting, even terrifying for some people, depending on what has happened in their life.

Because you are not just offering something that sounds nice, okay? You are offering something that felt like a mirror. That mirror made them realize, "If they say yes, they're going to have to show up differently. They're going to have to stop hiding. They're going to have to start dressing for the life they say they want. Maybe even be seen in a way they have been avoiding for years but secretly long for."

That is the good stuff. That is your transformational edge. You have just hit it. If you don't know about this, you will code it as rejection. And this is why I'm saying it's a very specific setup for this type of call—meaning they're aware of the price, you've gone over possible objections, they're fine with their body, you have vetted them. All of the possibilities that you could do—of course, we can't 100% know—have been handled.

They're not just polite on the sales call and they're like, "Okay, well, I'll get back to you," right? They're like, "When can we start? I'm so excited. Let me just get a few things in order. I'll be in touch," right? Very different energy.

So what do you do next? Let's talk strategy. Because this is where a lot of stylists shrink down and they question their sales call. They think they missed the mark.

They obsess over the follow-up. "How many times should I follow up? Is it something I said in my follow-up?" Don't do that. Instead, I want you to sit down and take that energy and document what happened.

What exactly did that client say? What part of your process, your positioning, your messaging felt like a light bulb moment to them that they shared with you on the call? After you outline that, you're going to use that to create content.

One of the things I say religiously to my clients is a sales call always makes you money, whether the person buys or not. It either brings in income now because they convert, or it brings in income later because you learn from that call what makes your content sharper. Even hesitations, even things that people say that they were surprised by or took them off guard or that they were even confronted by.

Even things like, "I've been following you forever, but then the other day you said LMNOP." That language right there is going to mirror to you exactly what more people need to hear more of. This is why I say likes are not that important. This is why this is not what we should be guessing if we can't tell for sure what gets people on a sales call.

Don't assume that it's your popular content you should be making more of. Assume you should be making more content based on what you hear on sales calls. This is why we have to run our marketing like business owners and not like influencers or content creators because that's not the same.

I'm having a lot of these conversations with my clients that are already at multiple six figures and have hired marketing agencies that are just not, they're like, "Well, this got a lot of likes," but it's not lining up with what is being said on sales calls that converted people. So we're having to redirect the plan away from popularity to the depths of the type of work stylists do.

So what you need to understand is you're not trying to convince the ghoster who's watching all of your stories and your content anymore. But you should be using their words, the things that they talked about as circumstances in their life that led them to you. You should be using them as almost like a template to create content too.

You shouldn't be triggered by that watching. You also shouldn't be in proving mode either. You're just going to use them as inspiration for more content. You're using their responses to attract ten more people who feel exactly the same way that they did but are actually ready for the transformation you offer.

They're just further along in their personal development work. Maybe they're less impulsive. Maybe they've thought this through for longer. Maybe they've followed you longer, whatever. Maybe they've tried more things and it's not working for them. So you're going to use the content that this person who never came through, but is now ferociously watching you online, to create more sales.

Because here is the truth: if one person got scared and decided they weren't ready for the transformation, there are dozens more who are feeling the same thing but haven't booked the sales call yet. And if you speak to that fear and show them how your service bridges the gap between where they are now and their fear of where they're going, but they also do want to go in some part of them, they will lean in.

So if someone ghosts you after what seems like a dream sales call but still watches your every move, take it as a milestone. Take it as a compliment. You are officially a transformational stylist. You are not here to close every lead. In fact, that is not going to be the best thing for your future profitability.

You are here to activate people that are ready and nurture ones who are almost there. They just need to hear a little bit more of your perspective. When your messaging and your positioning is doing its job, it will store something in people before they are ready to act sometimes. That is not a problem if you are unattached to the outcome of sales calls. It is a superpower.

So keep showing up. Keep sharing. Do not shrink just because somebody couldn't rise to meet your offer yet. They'll either come back when they are ready or your content will call in someone who is ready. Either way, you win. I'll talk to you next time.

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.