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.

One of my clients, Bari, started working with me in September. By January, less than four months later, she had a waitlist. It was on track to hit six figures. Here's what she did. She didn't niche by taking a demographic. She niched by deciding what kind of participation she needed from clients to do her best work. Then she priced to filter for exactly that.

So what is the difference between what Bari did and what you're doing? After all, you're committed to your niche. You even have it in your Instagram bio, probably something like helping working women feel confident getting dressed every day. You post about your niche. Sometimes you add it in your caption, but probably not as much as you should, you think, because you don't want to leave anybody out. You could probably describe your ideal client in detail if I asked. You often are attracting people who seem like a perfect fit on discovery calls. You're not really sure how they got on that call, but they're showing up. Then the follow-up rate, the chance that they actually book with you, 50-50. Or they're signing up, but they don't always follow through and seem as engaged as you want them to.

Here's what's happening. You niched by describing a person. Describing a person is not the same thing as filtering for someone who is actually ready to participate in a transformation. So today I'm going to show you the difference and why your pricing is doing most of that filtering work, whether you realize that or not.

Bari's story—we'll get into it more. But many of you already know Bari and her story because she was one of the first guests on this podcast, and her episode is one of the most downloaded. But more about that soon. So let's get into this.

Transformational stylists don't niche by describing a person. They niche by describing a participation profile. A participation profile is a capacity, standards, and an attention threshold. Okay, stick with me here because this is really important, and it's going to change the way you think about niching.

Capacity. Does the potential client have the money and the calendar space to do this well? Not just what most stylists are filtering for—can they afford it? But do they have the room in their life to show up? Not is their schedule empty? Do they have nothing going on? Do they have a need high enough to make the time to show up, to make decisions when you need them to, and to implement what you are recommending and suggesting to them?

Standards. Do they want excellence in guidance, or do they want cheap and fast? Are they hiring you to lead them or to validate choices they have already made about clothes or about themselves?

Attention threshold. Do they need a price point that makes them take this seriously? Because people don't just pay for transformation with their money or because they can afford it. They pay with their attention. If your prices are too low, they will allocate the attention required for the transformation to happen elsewhere. They'll pay you, they'll come back, but they will outsource that attention and focus somewhere else, or they'll expect you to be a mind reader.

When you start thinking about niching this way, it stops sounding like excluding people, right? Because it's really not about who you're leaving out. You'll take anyone as long as they are filtering through those standards. It starts sounding like choosing the conditions where you are the expert and you know your work actually works. Because that's what a niche is. It's not a demographic filter, an age filter, a job filter, whether you're a mother or not filter. It's a readiness filter.

Here's what happens when you don't have a filter in place for client readiness. You attract people who want transformation but don't have the capacity to participate. They are stretched thin financially and attention-wise. They are mentally overwhelmed, and you cannot create transformation inside that container, no matter how good you are. Ironically, when you don't have these filters in place, the same impact—financially tight, mentally overwhelmed, stretched too thin—also ends up applying to the stylist.

The other side of this is you can attract people who say they want transformation, but actually they just want options. They want you to show them things so they can pick what feels safe. They are not looking for an expert or a guide. They're looking for a menu.

When your pricing doesn't match the level of participation you need, something very specific happens that most stylists aren't aware of. Your styling gets positioned as a fun experience, not as a necessity. That mismatch makes client acquisition harder and cuts your repeat client rate in half at best. If someone can buy your services with the same level of deliberation that they use to buy a T-shirt or a random pair of jeans when they're in a bad mood, then they will give you the same level of follow-through that they give to a pair of jeans.

People pay with attention, not just money. The higher someone's life complexity, the higher the entry cost needs to be for them to allocate real attention. If your prices are too low, it gets treated like a casual purchase. Casual purchases get casual follow-through and casual amounts of attention.

I have realized recently that my own attention threshold is growing. If someone charges an amount that doesn't force me to care, I will not care with how busy my life and my business is. So if I buy a $30 online course, I might watch the modules or listen while I'm folding laundry or doing the dishes. That's totally fine. But if I invest $50,000 in a program, as I most recently have, I will show up incredibly differently. Same person, same goal, different attention allocation.

The price changed my behavior, and now my threshold is even higher because let's be totally clear with each other: you're going to treat a designer bag you paid in full for differently than you did one you got on sale at Zara. We both know that. Don't even start kidding me here. We both know that.

But when it comes to your pricing, you have made this so personal that you're actually forgetting it isn't all about you. My dear, that is fine. It is the most human of behaviors. We have all been there. But my job today is to show you that you're making it so personal that you're leaving not just things on the table for you, but possibilities for your clients.

The thing is, your clients aren't disrespecting you when they don't follow through in the container. They are literally, 100% of the time, responding to the container that you sold them, even if you are unconscious of that. So when a stylist charges $500 and expects life-changing participation or an ongoing relationship with that person, they are setting everybody up for a mismatch. They are trying to run a premium process inside a low-stakes container, and that means they will never get the client's attention long enough to get high-stakes processes out of them—decision-making, change in their behavior, change in what they reach for every day when they go into their closet and feel overwhelmed with what to wear.

So here's what you need to know about Bari, who we talked about at the top of the episode. She was truly and continues to be one of the most creative, thoughtful stylists I have ever worked with in the last almost 20 years. Her content when she came to me—next level. That was just for her vintage store that she was running. It wasn't even for her styling business. Her intuition of her process, and how it has even transformed since we worked together, was deeply transformational at its core.

When I asked her how she keeps that creative edge while running a business, she told me in the earlier episode she was on that she wakes up early every day to meditate, journal, and recharge. Two hours early, to be exact. She can do that because her pricing means she doesn't need 12 clients a month to hit her income goal. She needs four or five high-commitment clients who respect her process and pay her well in any given four- to six-week stretch.

That's what having the right pricing does. It doesn't just determine how much money you make. It determines the quality of life you get to live while making it. Many of you have forgotten you have a right to that. It also determines the quality of transformation you actually deliver as a stylist.

So when you're scrambling to fill your calendar with volume, you have the space to still be creative. You have the energy to lead people. You have the patience to handle a client who's going through something difficult and not completely collapse your boundaries in the process. Underpricing doesn't just contribute to your burnout. It sabotages your client delivery.

If you want to hear more about Bari and what she did in those first few months, you can go to the link in the show notes and hear more yourself. But let's get back to you and I.

The clients you actually want to work with, she's not insecure. She's busy. So she makes time for the things that get her results, which means she works with experts. She is not confused. She is selective. She's not bargain hunting. She's risk-managing her time. That is something that I wish more stylists also did.

Because when you are bargaining with your own value as a stylist, you inadvertently attract the same person. So you create this loop where you think you're attracting bargain hunters because that's what the market actually has. That's just the reality of life. But it's actually the lens with which you are looking at and valuing your own process. Once you change the lens, the world looks different and new people show up because you show up differently.

See, what a lot of stylists don't get is they are in savior mode. I need you to get out of it, or else literally nothing is going to change in your life or anyone else's. Because the client that is the best fit for you, if you want to step into a transformational process and have longer client relationships, have full lives, high standards, and limited patience for sloppy processes. She isn't just looking for a stylist. She's looking for an expert who can drive the decision-making for her so she doesn't waste time. A low price point doesn't just feel like a deal to her.

It literally feels like a liability because she's going to waste time on someone who isn't showing up as a leader. This client, of whom I am one, just so you know, when she sees a low price or he sees a low price, their brain doesn't think, "Oh, great, this is going to be an easy yes." Their brain thinks, if this person charges this little, then they're inexperienced, desperate, or underbooked. If any of those scenarios are true, I'm going to end up managing this process instead of being led through it, and I don't have the capacity for it. That's why I'm hiring an expert. I want deep change, and I want it in a very constructive way. They don't necessarily want it fast, but they do want it in a way that isn't wasting their time.

These clients don't want to manage you. They want to be managed. I'm not even kidding when I tell you this. That is what they are paying for—leadership, clarity, and a process that works without them having to troubleshoot it with you because they've already done that in stores and with online orders for years. They're done.

Low prices tell people that are the right fit, that have things that are actually going on that they need to show up for, real for, that you are not that guide for them, even if you are. So what happens is you end up getting these sales calls with people that seem like the right, "demographic fit." But then they say, "I need to think about it. I'm not sure the timing feels off." They ghost you, which is totally out of integrity, or they hire someone else. You sit there wondering why your marketing isn't converting.

The thing is, your marketing might not even be bad because it might have been the thing that got them on the sales call. But your pricing is the problem in that situation, especially if your marketing was great and then they heard you were charging $500.

Because when you're in a higher-tier one-to-one container with me, I will often listen to a client's sales calls when they're struggling. I'm telling you right now, I have worked with some of the biggest stylists in the industry. I've listened to the same things over and over. A stylist gets on the call with someone who they felt like was perfect. They have disposable income, they're in the same networks that other clients were in, so they've realized they're going to be a good fit. They're articulate about what they want. They seem like they're decisive. As soon as the stylist names the price, the energy shifts. Not because the price is too high, but because the price is either too low or because the stylist has tried to oversell it. The conversation just goes flat. They start to think, "Let me think about it. I need to check with my partner. I don't know, maybe next quarter."

You can feel not just that the price was the problem, but that they are checked out. It's because somebody in that situation who really has a life that this is the right fit for doesn't want to be working with people that are in survival mode, and your price dictates survival mode. These are people that understand capacity. So when you oversell, regardless of your price, you immediately signal that you are in survival mode. When you start adding things on, when you start taking things away in your process, when you start saying things like, "I can make anything work for you," or "We can customize this," all you're doing is losing that person and trying to justify your own insecurity. All that does is confirm that person's fear—the fear that this is going to require that client to manage you.

Now, if you contrast that with what happens when your pricing matches the level of service you deliver and is attractive to the right person, they see the price, they pause. Instead of them being checked out, you'll see them start asking more thoughtful questions. Then they'll either say yes or no. But most typically, if it's a no, you will get this very specific tell that they are the right person, but it truly is the wrong time. They'll say, "Right now is not good because X, Y, Z." They'll give you a really specific answer, but "Would it be possible to do this next quarter or next month or whenever?"

That's how you know that the price got their attention. It wasn't too high, but they are saying, I need my attention fully focused on this. Not your price is too high. They don't ghost. They don't drag you through follow-ups and keep on getting on calls with you. They just tell you either way. If it's a no, it's usually what I just described because the price got their attention in the right way. It required a decision because it was a serious price, and they gave it serious thought. That's what pricing does. It filters.

If your filter is set wrong, you will keep attracting inquiry after inquiry from people who are not ready, while the people who are ready assume you're not the right fit because your pricing is just too low.

So I want to close this by talking about something that I actually just got off of a discovery call with a new Income Accelerator client talking about, which is the real reason why you're clinging to low prices. Because again, if you've been here for a minute, you know that this is my story too.

Underpricing is not generous. It is trying to help you feel safe. I'm not saying it to shame you. I've been here for a long time in my career. I'm saying it because once you see it, you can actually change it. You keep your prices low because you want everyone to say yes to you, because you're afraid that if you don't, you won't be able to do this thing that you love, and you're still acting like you're just happy to be here despite the fact that you're actually an expert and you know you're an expert.

But when you underprice yourself in a container that is meant to show people their own worth, the transaction isn't clean. I know that you didn't mean that when you underpriced, but that is the reality. You can't facilitate other people's transformation to being bigger and greater if you're trying to stay as small as possible. You can't help someone step into their worth when you are pricing like you are just lucky to be here.

Your business is not a public service. It is a professional practice. Transformation requires standards. So when you're undercharging, you're forced into volume. Volume means when you're doing one-to-one and you have to be present for that volume that you cannot be mentally present enough to actually lead. You are just moving people through because you're in survival. Moving people through means that you're managing more personalities, more emotional labor, more logistics than anybody should be managing all on their own and in their own head.

When you're in this position, you need so many clients to hit your income goal that you are never in control of your lead flow. So you're always scrambling for your next client, always worried about next month, always at the mercy of whether referrals come in or not. You're tired. You are so justifiably tired.

When you get tired enough, eventually delivery suffers. Your leadership weakens. Your clarity dims. So marketing becomes even harder to do because you don't even know what to say anymore. So you're working harder than you've ever worked, delivering weaker results than you're capable of, and wondering why you don't feel like an expert. It's not because you're not an expert. It's because your pricing is putting you in a position that would kill anybody's sense of expertise because survival mode and expertise can't live together.

You are depleted. Your clients cannot get the best of you inside a survival-based pricing model. You think the problem is you need better marketing, better messaging, better systems, and maybe you do. But I can tell you right now that the real problem is that your pricing is forcing you into a version of your business that doesn't work. Even if we got you better messaging, better systems, better whatever, and didn't address your pricing, you wouldn't have the energy to carry them out. You would still have that moment on the sales call where maybe it's the right person, but it will always be the wrong time. There is no amount of marketing that will fix that.

If you are realizing that your niche strategy and your pricing have been working against each other this whole time, here's what I know tends to happen at this point. You're going to listen to this episode. You're going to feel clarity for about 48 hours. Maybe you're going to phone a friend or tell somebody that you just had this big aha. Maybe you're going to put it in your notebook and you're going to save this episode. Maybe you'll raise your prices a little, and then you're going to go back into your head questioning everything. "Did I put the price too high? What if no one says yes? Nobody liked my last Instagram post. Uh-oh. What if I was wrong? Maybe she doesn't know my market. Maybe she doesn't know my experience. Maybe what she said doesn't apply to me."

You can't validate your own positioning. You are too close to it. That's why my Accelerator program is a small group container with one-to-one feedback. It's why it's eight weeks because stylists at this phase of business need to stop thinking in isolation. They need a partner here to help them see themselves clearly.

I'm going to look at your business model, your messaging, your pricing, and I'm going to tell you exactly what's filtering wrong and what needs to change so you can stop attracting people that seem like the good fit but never actually follow through or are only half-heartedly there.

The next round of Accelerator opens March 23rd, and there are only 12 spots total. So if that's what you need to get to your next level after listening to this, it's super clear to you, head to the show notes and apply right now because once you apply, I'll send you a link to book a call. We'll chat it through. We'll talk about if it's the right fit. You're going to be on your way to not making these mistakes anymore and not wondering why nothing is moving. 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.