PODCAST SHOWNOTES

Nicole Otchy: Almost every launch I have done in this business has come with a significant life event that was usually negative that has happened to throw me off balance during that time. One time my daughter was out of school for over 10 days, sick with something that nobody could figure out. During my last accelerator launch this past spring, I got a pretty serious health diagnosis that, to be honest, was pretty scary. But they caught it early and handled it right away and I am fine. But I wasn't really fine in the middle of it, while I was dealing with that uncertainty and trying to launch my program. And I was sitting with this uncertainty and trying to show up for my audience at the same time. And not only was it not easy, it didn't go great. But here's the thing, I ended up actually closing six of eight spots for that launch and signing multiple one-to-one clients right after it, from the content that went out during that time. But I knew that I wasn't doing the most. I was fully clear on that. I was doing the bare minimum and it was working. And I was able to pull back during that launch, because I had been showing up consistently before that moment. And I had been showing up consistently on the days, when it wasn't comfortable, it wasn't convenient and I most certainly did not want to. But it wasn't actually hard. And that is an incredibly important distinction that the last launch of Accelerator gave me. That I now could see that there were genuinely hard days that I would have to navigate in this business and pull back legitimately. Not completely out of the game, I still marketed, but not at the level I knew I needed to, if I was really going to pull out all the stops. But the reps I actually did when I was not feeling my best, but didn't tap out, are what brought me the ability to step back, when something real was happening in my life and I did need to genuinely take a beat. And that is what I want to talk about today, how you can build that capacity.

This is The Six Figure Personal Stylist 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 all things profitable growth, thought leadership and real client transformation. Because the best stylists don't just edit closets, they shape culture. Every summer, I tend to hear a version of the same conversation that then repeats again in late fall. Clients, prospects that I talk to, say things like, it's been really slow, but I'm sure it will pick up again in the fall and it often does. And I get why we think, oh, things are slow. The kids are home. A lot of clients are traveling or they're away. And the rhythm of life during different seasons does genuinely shift. But here's what I also see. September comes. There's an uptick. And I hear from many of the same clients and stylists saying that the same thing's happening. It's slow. There's a downturn in their sales calls, because they think it's the holidays, but then it's Q1 and everybody spent all their money. Then kids are back on spring break. And what does this pattern tell us? That there will always, always be a season that explains why now isn't the time to be consistent, to market your business, to learn the things you need to learn, to figure out how your business is going to operate, so that you don't have to wonder what it is that actually drives sales, when you need them.

And there's a real difference between a strategic pause and waiting for conditions that are never actually going to arrive, because most of us understand that the meme online about friendship is like, yeah, when things slow down again, we'll hang out, right? And then life never slows down. But we forget that in our business. And the truth is, is that a strategic pause, or pulling back is a decision. But waiting for the conditions that are never going to arise, is actually a habit that our brains get very comfortable with. And the pattern of waiting for the right conditions, in order to do what you need to do, to actually get the business to where you want it, ends up having a lot of impact, but some of it is impact we don't always see up front. Of course, there's the revenue impact. You know what I mean? If you don't know how to market, or you don't know how to confidently talk about your offers as a stylist, if you don't know what gets your ideal client to actually buy, what you need to say to do that, there's a real cost to your revenue. But there's a deeper cost, in the form of the data that you need, in order to even get to that point. I know data is not the sexiest term, especially from my target audience, but I want you to think of it as just information. So every time you market, every time you send an email to your list that gets replies from people, every time you have a discovery call, or somebody opens up and tells you where they are in their life, every time you show up on Instagram stories and you pose a question to your audience and they actually answer genuinely in your DMS, you are collecting information about what is going to work with your specific buyer to create the relationship and the conditions for them to buy. And you can't get that data, unless you are in the conversation and in relationship with the people that you want to work with.

And the truth is, is that I work with a lot of stylists, who take off and are home with their kids in the summer or over the holidays or whenever, but they don't tap out. They just show up imperfectly. And when they come back, not only do they have wait lists and people that are ready to buy from them, because they want to buy from them, not just hire a stylist. They are now three months ahead on their data, versus the stylist who completely taps out, who's in the same place that they were in June or whenever they last were fully in their business. And often even further behind, because when we are so disconnected from the conversations we need to be having with our ideal clients, we don't even know what to say in our marketing. Because again, we're disconnected from the people we're actually trying to help. So it's not just that you're going to lose some money. You might lose money. You might not lose money, because you could make it up later, right? If you take time off. I don't actually think that's a good argument. I think the bigger point is, how long I see people trying to get back into the saddle of their marketing, of the flow, because they completely walked away from it and now it's a skill that they already didn't have developed enough, because they don't know what to say to get people to buy. And now they have to also start from scratch again trying to feel connected. And without that information, without that data, it's very hard to know what the right marketing message is going to be, to start to generate new clients.

When we wait and we train our brain that waiting is a valid strategy, we are reinforcing this idea that we are only capable of working in quote perfect conditions. But the reality is there, there are no perfect conditions. And I understand how tempting that is as a recovering perfectionist. But if we're using the summer example, though I think there are many examples of this throughout the year, if you're slowing it down or you feel as though things are slow in summer, whether you're taking time off or not and you're not trying to actively turn it around, because you're waiting for fall to show up, by late October, you'll find another reason because now it's the holidays, right? And then it's, that's the issue now, no one's buying because it's the holidays. I mean, that's not true, right? People are always buying. Transformations are not seasonal. Our interest in style as stylists is seasonal, but people aren't thinking that way that hire you. And that's important, because when we train ourselves to think that waiting for perfect conditions is a valid strategy and that outside conditions are determining our business success, it never feels like avoidance in the moment. It feels like being logical. Hey, it was Christmas, everyone spent their money. No, everyone didn't spend their money. Maybe the people you know spent their money, but the reality is, your ideal clients, that's not how they think. Because for your ideal client, for example, the way they think is my style makes me money in the right context. And so they can't afford not to spend money on a stylist. But if you're not messaging to those people, you're not going to find them.

The truth is, is that no slow season will take years of success from your business. The habits we build during slow seasons is what takes years of success from our businesses. And I want to say that consistency alone doesn't always solve this issue, because I work with and see plenty of stylists who are incredibly consistent, posting regularly, showing up on stories, sending out newsletters, doing the quote work, but they're still not getting the clients they want. And what I actually see is that they're being consistent about the comfortable things, the safe things, the style tips, the seasonal hauls, the outfit ideas, the educational content, the things that feel like showing up without being fully seen, as the expert they need to be seen as, to move the business forward. Because the thing that converts clients isn't what you do. It's not how many rounds of shopping, or how long the closet edit is. It is what changes in people's lives, because of how you do it. How they walk into a room after you work together. How they see themselves differently. What becomes possible for them after they experience your process.

But that's a hard thing for many stylists to say out loud, or to write in a carousel, because saying it means you believe it and believing it means that you then have to be responsible for it. And that responsibility often feels like the biggest risk of all to the people that I work with. But it's also the only thing that's going to make someone stop scrolling in the oversaturated, very loud world that we live in right now. The stylists who are not worrying about where their next clients are coming from, many of them are people that take off significant amounts of time in their business, but they're not where they are, in a position to not need to chase clients, because they somehow got braver in some like general way. Or because the conditions of their life just started to become easier, or because their clients aren't hard to reach at certain times of the year. They're the ones who are convicted enough about their work and what it actually does for people's lives that they're saying it out loud and attracting people that are like, that is what I need. And the more they do that, the more it's a reinforcing cycle.

The more you are sold on your own abilities and services and the transformation you create, the more you attract people who will then be sold on it. And then they tell people and it becomes a cycle. But you have to be bought in first and you have to show up, when it doesn't feel easy or convenient. It requires showing up on the uncomfortable days, so that you don't have to show up on the genuinely hard ones, because you're going to have them as a business owner. But just the uncomfortable ones, you got to show up during those days, just like I did, because I had to bank that trust when my spring launch got hard, because of unexpected health news. And what I didn't even realize at the time, but I can see now, is that I go into my launches kind of feeling like I'm starting from zero, even though I have a lot of data about what my clients care about for those offers. They were built specifically to my clients. But I still kind of go in with fresh messaging. But my audience didn't go in, starting from zero, because of all the work I had put in before, because of all the trust I had built, irrespective of that actual offer.

And the stylists who are really thriving, despite all the same things everyone else is dealing with, aren't operating from like an uninterrupted stretch of calm that's allowing them to generate that income. They also deal with kids that are sick, hard seasons, health scares. But what's different is the question that they ask themselves about their business. Most of the stylists who I work with, who stay stuck or people that come to me and are trying to figure out if they're ever going to get off the fence and actually invest and do what they need to do for their business, ask this question, what do I need to have in place before I can start? What are the conditions that are going to set me up for success? But that is the wrong question. Because the clients I work with have a very specific pattern that don't chase clients. It's given what I already have going on right now, what am I willing to do to get where I want to go? Notice I said given what's actually going on right now. Not what has to be perfect, but what are the conditions that are going to need to actually work in and how am I going to make this reasonable for myself? They have PMS and don't feel like showing up on the internet. They have marriage troubles. They have kids that are sick. Some of them deal with things that are very chronically difficult, kids that have ongoing disabilities. Parents who they are full-time caretakers for in other countries. But they take that into consideration and then they strategize accordingly. They don't wait for those things to go away.

So here we are, summer's wrapping up and the window for many stylists who are waiting for the right conditions is about to open up. So my question to you is, what did you find out about yourself, the last time something hard happened in your life and you kept going anyways? It doesn't have to be a business thing. In fact, I encourage you to think about other life experiences that you've experienced that have been hard, because everyone listening has and how did you get through it? What kind of strength did you borrow? Apply it to your business. It is not separate. Because the stylists who create momentum are not waiting for better seasons or better conditions. They are building it right now.

Thanks for being here. 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.