PODCAST SHOWNOTES

Nicole Otchy: Okay, so it is that time of year again, when spring has just finished rolling around, we're starting to approach summer. And for the last several years of having styling consultancy, I have noticed an uptick in the messages I get around this time from stylists who are moms, stylists who are burnt out, stylists who are ready to take their foot off of the gas for some period of time in their business and either be with their kids, or go on a trip with their friends, or they just want more time for themselves to reevaluate things before fall. And almost every single one of these messages says some version of the same thing. Summer's dead anyways, so I want to work with you to prep for fall. Now on the one hand, this is great, because I am fully booked out with one-to-one into the fall. However, while I totally understand you wanting this for yourself, I am going to push back on the industry-wide assumption that it's just slow in summer, because it's not. And letting anyone believe that, that I interact with, in this industry, means we are just not operating in reality, or how demand in your business actually works. And that discrepancy between what stylists think is happening in the industry during the summer and what is actually happening, is costing a lot of stylists their best fall in business, every single year.

And so I'm making this a four-part series and we're going to talk about what's really going on in summer, what to do about wanting or needing to take some time away from your business, when you're the one who's doing everything yourself to keep everything going. And what it actually looks like to plan for the kind of seasonal slowdown that a lot of you dreamed of and were told, when you started your business, is going to be possible for you as a business owner. You know, the promises that online business programs regale women with about how much freedom they'll have in their life, when they're not working for someone. Six figures and tons of time to yourself, LOL. And I know that that now probably feels a lot more complicated that you are in a business, it's up and running and you are the one doing everything day to day. And so that dream that you were sold starts to feel a little old and stale by this time of year for most people. And we're going to talk about that.

This is The Six Figure Personal Styling Podcast. I'm Nicole Otchy and this is a show for personal stylists building world class businesses and setting the standard in their industry. We're talking about all things from profitable growth, thought leadership and real client transformations. Because the best stylists don't just edit closets, they shape culture.

So here's the pattern that I see every spring, is that it gets busy for stylists and then you're delivering, you're showing up, maybe even hitting some of your best months of the year financially, head goes down, you start marketing as much. Or you start marketing towards the easy stuff like what you're wearing, you start to rely on the links a little bit more, so that you are showing up, you're not completely phoning it in. But that deeper thought leadership, the kind of marketing that actually gets people to trust you and to hire you, starts to slow down. And that's usually because client delivery gets higher. You have a lot on your plate. So you tell yourself that you will pick it back up, when June hits, or whenever hits. But then for a lot of the stylists I work with, the kids are home, the mom guilt hits hard. So you pull back on your visibility, because being on your phone in front of your kids feels like a betrayal, right? You feel guilty. So you convince yourself it's fine that you're not marketing, because summer is always slow anyways. That's what everyone says, not just in styling but in other industries. And then it's August. You're getting ready that the kids are going back to school, or you're ready to get back into it if you don't have kids. And you start to notice that your inbox is quiet. And then by September, you're starting to feel a little desperate, because you are like, I'm going to have to chase business at this point. You're overwhelmed with your marketing, because it has to do a lot for you, which is a natural consequence of feeling like you've been out of the game for a while.

And it's usually by October that I start getting messages from stylists like trying to figure out what is going wrong. Are people just not buying like they used to? And while that is partly true, it's not that they're not buying at all. That's part of the conversation that we have to really work on today, because, yes, buying behavior is different. I can tell you that as someone who is selling online all times of year. However, it's not the typical interpretation people have, which is, well, people aren't buying. People are buying, they're buying a lot, they're buying differently and they're buying based on different relationships they have with the people they're buying from. So they're expecting different things from you, which is why a lot of stylists used to be able to put their head down and SEO or their website sort of back end was pulling in business for them. But it's not anymore, because that's not how people are looking for experts. There's a lot more competing for people's attention. So if you are disappearing at the exact moment you need to be visible to survive as a business owner and not have those lows, intentional or unintentional. Be as big as they are, you're not going to get that bounce back as quickly as you did before in the olden days, when people Google it all the time, because that's just not how buying behavior works.

And here is the foundation of this that I talk about on here every maybe quarter. And every time I drop it, people are like, their mind is blown. So I'm going to say it again. What you have in your business today is the result of what you were doing in your marketing 60 to 90 days ago. And for a lot of stylists, just having a light touch, because other times of the year, they're really going hard, they're really providing a lot of value, or maybe they have other outlets like Substack or whatever that they're really giving a lot of good sort of marketing juice to, means that they can have a lighter touch, especially if they have consistent messaging going out, during certain periods when they're busy, for sure. I do that too. And I'm going to talk to you more about exactly how I've managed to keep my business going as someone that takes off three months a year, pretty consistently and makes multiple six figures. But what I think is really important for you to understand is that you just can't do as light of a touch all the time. So a lot of stylists, when they're busy in spring, are showing a lot of behind the scenes. They have a lot more to draw on, even if they're not super organized in their marketing, because they're busy with clients.

So while the selling part of their marketing may be weak, there's at least enough touch points. When you are out of the game, meaning you're not taking clients, it gets really hard to think about what you're going to talk about, because anything and everything feels available to you. But also nothing feels urgent, because you haven't just had that interaction with a human who's actually your target market. And the thing about this, you know, what you have today as a result of what you were doing in your marketing 60 or 90 days ago, the reality of that is that's not my opinion. That's literally how marketing and sales work. That's why if you ever know anyone that works in bigger marketing companies, or people that do campaigns, they're always planning for, you know, the season before, the quarter before. That's literally how this works, because you know that people's attention takes a little while to catch up to what you're selling. They have to hear the name of the product, or the offer they're saying now like 22 times before somebody even reaches out. So that requires a lot from you as a small business owner. I know I also market my own services. And the reality is, while this is definitely a harder pill for some of the people in the online space to swallow. It's always been the case with high-touch, high-trust service providers.

So it's only people that are online influencers or people that are selling Amazon links or doing some kind of a business, where they're selling a product that you need to talk about all the time that this is a surprise to you. It's not a surprise at all to anyone that's done any kind of like personal services. We all know this, because people don't just see your post and book that week. I mean, can it happen? It can, but you shouldn't be basing all your numbers on that. People are listening, they're watching, they're sitting with your message. They're trying to figure out, are you going to judge me? Are we a right fit? Do I need to like her style, in order for her to work with me, or him to work with me? Like, There's a lot of things people are deciding. Will I have the money? Is it the clothes and the service fee? You know, all of these considerations and all of these things. Should I just go to Stitch Fix again? Should I just go to a personal shopper at Bloomingdale's? They have to come to your messaging in a place to be ready. And there's a lot of considerations that go into this. That's why you need to know sales psychology, quite honestly, if you want to speed this up.

When it takes a while for somebody to not just buy your service, but buy into you, which is what's happening as a stylist, 6 years and 90 days later, after someone's been continually taking in your content... And I remind you at this point that most people are only seeing that are following you, like 40% of it at best. So now that's even more watered down. The thing that tips them over the edge, that makes them reach out, isn't something that you can engineer or know. You just have to be consistently showing up so that when they are ready, they will do that. And so when you are quiet in, say, June or July, you are not just having a slow June anymore. When you understand how sales psychology works, you are scheduling and planning for a slow September. And so when you show up in June, or whatever month you're in, you're not actually planting the seeds for that month, unless you're in a situation, where you have already warmed up people, you've already told them all the things that they need to hear to buy, which most people I work with don't even know what those things are. So you're really... Especially if you haven't been talking about your offers that much, you're really... When you start to go hard in your marketing, planting the seeds for the next couple months, not for an immediate sale, when we're talking about people spending a couple thousand dollars on a personalized service.

Now, the reality of the industry is that most people have a busier fall, because the industry has always had the benefit of the marketing agencies and budgets behind the fashion industry. So there's always going to be a little bit of an uptick in people searching for clothing solutions in the fall and in the spring, because that's what people are being marketed to by the bigger companies, right? And so stylists have often done really well as a result of it, even if they were pretty quiet in their own marketing. But because of how noisy it is and because of how much is being sold all the time, constantly, through social media ads, through influencer marketing and secondary sorts of sources, not directly from the brands, you are seeing this change completely. People aren't really paying attention to what's happening at Bloomingdale's. The commercials aren't just coming on. Everyone's using streaming. A lot of the benefits stylists were seeing from those big fashion budgets and that marketing, is no longer available to them, because of the way people are being sold to 24-7 constantly from their next-door neighbor, a stranger on the internet, to maybe a random Instagram ad, right?

And so you have a couple other things that happen that, again, I feel like stylists are really lucky with. And this is why when people complain about, you know, it's so hard, it's like, it's not, you just don't know how to sell. Like, it's just really not. It's because kids go back to school, the seasons change, men and women look in their closet during, you know, coming back from the holidays of summer, going away on trips with their families. And usually what's happening is like now everybody's getting serious in the office again, right? It's not that people don't spend money in summer. It's that they spend the money in the spring for the summer, because they're planning their vacations, right? And most of you know this too, like you have a family. You're shelling out the money for your kids camp, not in July or August. You're doing that in April, right? This is where we forget people's spending behaviors. So if you're not marketing in April to people for the summer, they've already blown their budget on a vacation.

And again, this is where sales psychology is so critical. So yeah, you can get a little uptick, if you get lucky and you're in the right places from the seasonal shifts that we just talked about. People's offices are starting to get a little more busy. So people are starting to, you know, think about, OK, now I got to really be in the office and pay attention. The weather changed, oh, crap, I need a couple more blazers. Right. My clothes aren't that good. All of a sudden, they're kind of back into it. They're realizing, they're starting to center their professional life again, the kids go back to school. Same thing as many of the stylists I talked to. But when you factor in the fact that so much of that seasonal uptick is gone from the way buyers are and the fact that people expect more touch points from you, in order to trust you, because they're so skeptical from being sold all the time, you no longer have the ability to just coast and completely do nothing. Unless you're running ads or something, which most stylists aren't. And quite frankly, the stylists that I know that have tried that method haven't gotten great results, because they haven't tested the marketing well enough, to know what is worth putting spend behind to get a result.

So if you have someone who is ready in the fall, for whatever reason, the kids are back at school, they've built up their reserves from their big summer vacation, the weather's changing and they want to buy new clothes, who are they going to find? They're going to find the stylists, who were visible all summer, not the ones who were visible in May. And I really want you to take in this part, because I think this is where the math gets really hard, but is also a necessary reality that you need to understand as a business owner. If you disappear in June, July, most of August, you're not just having a slow summer, you have erased your pipeline for fall. And again, even those little minor upticks that could be helping your business are going to be erased, because people are going to be ready to spend the money with the people, who have already been in front of them. The reality is also that this is not a summer problem. This is an industry-wide problem multiple times of year and it usually happens right after stylist's busiest seasons. It's a very clearly behavior-induced slump in income, meaning the behavior of the person who should be marketing is creating the slump.

So the same pattern happens every January and February for stylists who go quiet over the holidays. People spend all of their money at the holidays. And so lots of stylists say things like, well, of course, it's slow in January and February. You know, people just spent all their money in the holidays. And here's what I need you to understand as a business owner. You're not selling to your friends and family. You are not selling to the people in your town. You are not selling to the people you know, who behave that way after the holidays. My answer that I think that people need to hear, if you want to run a real business, is the world is filled with people, who don't have those limitations, or that mentality about spending. They're not like, well, I had Christmas and so now I don't spend any money till March. Like, what? That's not how people act. That's just not how any of you probably act, right? But we make up these stories and then we act like we don't know why we get the results we want. If you want to be empowered in your business, if you want to have a business that looks the way you imagined it, you have to deal with reality. And the reality is that are there some people that spend a lot of money at Christmas and then have plenty of money after? Yeah. And those are your clients. It's not the people in your town that are still, you know, panicking, because they put all their money into Christmas presents and now they have no money till June. Those aren't your clients anyway.

I highly recommend you get acquainted with the world of people who don't think that way, because that's what it takes to be successful. That's not how most people actually think that are hiring stylists. And so the stylists that I see that have in the past several years specifically had really brutal falls, are not lazy. There are stylists that are trying the same tactics that they used to try before and they just don't work anymore. Right. It's not like, oh, the industry is getting so big and saturated that like you're just not good anymore. That's not how this works. There are talented stylists all over, who make at the moment completely reasonable choice in June to slow down and be with their family, or take some time off to be present, because, again, they were promised that that was totally doable. And it's not that it's not. It's just they were never given a strategy for being able to do that sustainably. And didn't realize it would come at a cost that lasts them all the way to October, because people aren't using search behavior the way that they used to. People are making different types of decisions. They have not educated themselves on buyer decisions. S

o as a stylist and as a business owner, so this is the natural consequence of something that is reasonable to want, but you still have to have a strategy behind it, in order to achieve it. So I'm not saying in this conversation you can't have it. I'm just saying you need to go into this educated, which is why we're having this conversation. And I want to have it now, at the beginning of the season, because it is not too late to fix this mentality and to reframe how you think about taking time off. And the reality is, is that most stylists that have really good seasons are actually, you know, about consistent. They're not necessarily working harder than other stylists who aren't. They're necessarily more disciplined or more talented. They just do a few specific things that require planning for sure. You can't just like make this up as you go, in June and July, that you don't see, or that you're not aware of. Because they're not posting things like, look at me, I'm out at the pool with my kids, right, they're not saying I'm out of office all the time. They're not announcing it, they're just quietly showing up lightly and giving light touches that doesn't take over their life and putting the systems in place, in their business that once you do once, you have forever to be able to do that. And I say this as someone who has gotten many, many stylists ready for their return and leave. Many. It's now like a little weird subspecialty that I have.

So over the next three episodes, I'm going to walk you through exactly how this behind-the-scenes engine in your business works. And then we're going to talk about in the next episode, how to stay visible without being online all day. This is something I have really mastered. I personally take about, like I said, three months-ish off, total, in a year, spread out And my business doesn't really slow down, even though I have the same business model as most of the stylists I work with, meaning there isn't some passive revenue income coming in and paying all the bills. I run the calls in my groups and my one-to-one. I do all my own launches. I do all my own marketing. I am going to show you exactly how I have managed to do this. I also did it, when I was a stylist and I just brought the model over. So I think it will be very helpful and completely applicable to what you're doing.

Then in the third episode of this series, we're going to do a little business audit. The two or three things in your business that you can do this summer, that if you clean them up really easy, really strategically, will completely change what September looks like for you and probably change the way you're relating to your business, which I think is a really critical piece of all of this.

And then in the final episode, I'm super excited about this, we're going to talk about what it can look like for fall, when you've actually planned for it. Because while I know it's exciting when all of the inquiries start coming back in again, when you start marketing, but it can also be overwhelming and hard to then also make the time for your marketing, because you're busy, you've been out of the game for a while. And then you kind of can create the same pattern all over again that January, February period after the holidays. And we don't want that.

So we're going to really talk about some concrete and specific ways that your business can be set up to look very different in the fall and going forward. So I'm excited to have you with me for this series, so you can change your relationship to your business and the summer months and set yourself up for your best fall yet. I will 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 a 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.