Search Results

When Cosmopolitan Magazine discovered The Shopping Friend Personal Stylists it was because of our website’s stellar SEO. I recently got interviewed by Cosmopolitan.com . They reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to be interviewed for one of a series of articles they were writing and I was like, “hell yeah!” I mean, I said “sure, no biggie.” The writer had reached out to me through my personal styling and image consulting website , The Shopping Friend. The first part of the interview was by phone and I got the chance to chat with her for the good part of an hour. She was super cool. I asked her how she decided to interview me amongst the countless options of personal stylists and image consultants residing in the Los Angeles area. I thought she might say that I just seemed more impressive than everyone else, or my many client testimonials really stood out, or I came highly recommended and she just had to interview me. Nope. Know what she said? Your website has amazing SEO. “YOUR WEBSITE HAS AMAZING SEO!” Ha! That really put me in my place. It had nothing to do with me. But amongst other things, it reminded me that no matter how good you are at anything, if people can’t find you, it won’t make a stitch of difference because no one will ever know about you. They won’t know to hire you. They won’t know to read about you. They won’t know to learn from you. They won’t know to buy from you. They simply won’t know who you are. In some ways, trying to get people to find your business in today’s noisy internet world seems hard, but in many ways it’s much, much easier than it’s ever been. You just have to know what you’re doing. And since SEO has a lot to do with people online finding you, your business, and your website, I thought I’d share some of the SEO tactics I use. These SEO tips, I believe, are part of the reason that The Shopping Friend has been on Google’s first page search results for my keywords for over 8 years. SEO IS A LONG GAME. I want to preclude this with the disclaimer that these are the tips and tactics that I use. I can’t promise that they’ll work for anyone else. SEO strategies are constantly changing because search engines’ algorithms are constantly changing. But I’m pretty sure if you follow some of these tips, especially the obvious ones that have to do with providing valuable content to your readers or creating a great website, just the fact that you’ll be providing value to people is going to lead people to finding you. Remember to be patient when you do this. You don’t just do SEO once and then you’re done. It’s done over the lifetime of your business. Expect that when you add content or make changes to your website, search engines won’t notice those changes to your site instantaneously. Could take days, weeks, sometimes even months. You can help them along by requesting that a search engine re-index your content – I know that Google and Bing have search tools that can do that. Picture SEO as a huge 10,000 piece magic puzzle. You start with zero pieces. It’s up to you to add one puzzle piece at a time. And you have to create each puzzle piece. They’re not all just laying out for you. You have to make them. On top of that, to make your life even harder, sometimes some of those puzzle pieces you created and laid down last year no longer work today in the puzzle. Then you have to figure out new methods of creating puzzle pieces. If any of that sounds confusing, don’t worry. Just keep reading. It will clear itself up. So without further ado, here are the top 5 tips I use to enhance my SEO strategy on The Shopping Friend . You can start implementing these into your website right now! Every business owner must know how to do SEO properly. 1. BUILD A GREAT WEBSITE I read on Quora that “Academic research indicates that 91% of searchers do not go past page one of the search results and over 50% do not go past the first 3 results on page one. Google’s own research supports the finding that the top of page one is where its at placement-wise.” Right. So we can clearly see where the prime real estate is. We all want our websites to show up on that first page of search engine search results. You might be thinking that the only way to make that happen is to pay Google, or other search engines, a boat load of ad money to appear on the first page. Not so. Like I said earlier, The Shopping Friend has successfully hit the first page of Google results and stayed there organically for years. But I don’t rest on my laurels. Remember what I said earlier about having to always create new SEO puzzle pieces? Well, I’m always adding to it. If you don’t, you could very easily lose your ranking in Google, or any other search engine. Plus, I’m always updating, enhancing, and refreshing my website. I check to make sure that links still work and that there aren’t any dead pages. Is your website one of the top ten in your industry? Do you research and see what your competitors have? Be honest with yourself. If you, as a consumer, saw your website compared to your competitors, would you choose it? If you are not easily in the top ten, you need to keep working on it. A well-designed website with valuable, relevant content is a great start for SEO. 2. DISCOVER THE RIGHT KEYWORDS FOR YOUR BUSINESS (AND USE THEM!) Keywords are the words and phrases that internet users type into the search box of a search engine, like Google or Bing, to find the websites and businesses that match what they are looking for. Figure out the keywords that your target market is using, and you can use them in your website to attract search engines’ attention. Using the correct keywords in your website that describe your business and your offer accurately, can increase your website’s visibility to search engines. Which, ultimately, increases your website’s visibility to your target market – the people you want to eventually buy from you. I Googled ‘personal shoppers los angeles’ on 8/31/16 and these were the search results. As you can see, The Shopping Friend is number two on the organic search results. There are some great tools online to find the keywords that people are using and some that tell you how many users are searching for a given keyword. Some keywords have hundreds of thousands of searches a day and some have a couple hundred. Just depending on your niche and what you’re selling, you could still generate a lot of sales with smaller-volume keywords. I use the Google Keyword Research tool, as well as software called FreshKey, for my keyword research. But there are plenty of keyword tools you could use. Some tools are free that come with more functionality when you pay. These tools can give you great insight on the words and phrases your potential customers are using so I would definitely recommend taking some time to do your keyword research. 3. START AND CONSISTENTLY MAINTAIN A BLOG Search engines love a good blog. A blog that puts out fresh, relevant, structured content. The more new content you post on your website, the more Google loves you. Why? Because blogging means you’re updating your site frequently, which communicates to search engines that your site is active. It can’t be any old information though. Create valuable and unique content and then use social media to build awareness for your new blog posts and drive traffic to them. Use links in your blog posts from trusted, authority sites. Good links can help build good SEO. Also use keywords as your anchor text when adding to links to your site or posts. Putting a hyper-link for the text “Click Here” won’t do you any good. But linking to the services page on The Shopping Friend with the text “personal styling services” will help with SEO. Don’t forget to use those keywords in your blog posts. But make sure you use them naturally and for humans. You don’t want to stuff keywords into your post like a kid stuffing his face with candy. Search engine algorithms have caught on to that now and may think you’re spammy, which could be a strike against you.  Make sure you write for your audience and not for search engines. And add in keywords only when they make sense. Keep your content easy to read. Be aware that search engines are continuously changing their algorithms because they care about delivering perfect results to their users. They want to direct their users to the exact content that the user is looking for. So, to show up in Google results now, you need to have that ‘perfect’ content on your website, not just keywords. The Shopping Friend’s blog is my opportunity to show my authority on certain topics and build good will for prospects and buyers. That content is great for SEO. Search engines tend to prioritize blog post titles , page titles , site titles , and headings which appear in browser tabs and search results. This is why you want to write them so they are human-friendly as well as bot-friendly. Here’s how you can write them to be SEO friendly: Use SEO-friendly URLs and titles for your blog post pages and other pages on your website. Use hyphens as spaces. Don’t go overboard though. Just a keyword here or there. For example, http://www.theshoppingfriend.com/blog/personal-stylist-denver-is-a-personal-stylist-right-for-you . I’ve got the keyword ‘personal stylist’ in there as well as the keyword ‘denver’ detailing one of our locations. Looking back, I probably would have been fine without the first ‘personal-stylist’ in that URL. Make sure to use tags and categories in your blog posts along with H1 and H2 tags to label your content. Name your images using relevant keywords. Use alt text with your images. Alt text is the text that viewers can see when they hover over an image. Search engines use alt text to identify the content of a page, since bots can only read text and not images. When you add alt text to your images you are letting search engines understand what the image is about so they can include the image in relevant searches. Make sure to use short terms that describe your image and relates to your overall content on your site. Adding a Blog Page and updating it regularly with relevant content will not only benefit your SEO but will help you build your brand as well.   4. YOUR BUSINESS’S PHYSICAL LOCATION CAN HELP WITH SEO IN YOUR AREA Most personal stylists, personal shoppers, fashion stylists, fashion entrepreneurs, designers, even fashion bloggers (but not all) operate their businesses from a physical location. If that’s you, make sure you list your address on your website. This will help potential visitors find you in location-based services and when they type your city or state into the search engine. You can also sign up for Google’s My Business service which can help with your local search ranking. Visit Google’s Resources page for more info on that. 5. USE SHORT NAVIGATION TITLES AND KEYWORD PAGE TITLES Every page in your site has a Navigation Title and Page Title. The Navigation Titles are the titles on the top of your website that navigates people to different pages on your site – the navigation menu. I title my Navigation Titles really short names, like “About” or “Contact”. But then I’ll name the Page Title something like “About the personal stylists”. Why? Because Page Titles are indexed by search engines and appear in search results and browser tabs. So I use my Page Titles to promote keywords for search engines. And you should too. ……………………………………………… There are definitely more SEO tactics you will want to research and potentially put into play in your business, but start off with these. I say it all the time and I’ll say it again: if you want to succeed as a personal stylist, you must focus on the business and marketing side of your business just as much as the fashion and the art. Oh, and if you want to read the 12 Things You Should Know About Becoming a Personal Shopper article in Cosmo, CLICK HERE TO READ .

Cosmo.com interviewed me on advice I would give to aspiring creatives who are considering becoming a personal shopper and stylist. Below is the article from the interview. As told to Arielle Pardes by Michelle McFarlane     September 06, 2016 It can be easy to trivialize a job like this, but you can change someone’s life. 1. You have to learn the basics of fashion — you can’t just “wing it.” I didn’t go to style school, but I was a model and learned from my stylists on photo shoots why certain clothes worked and others didn’t. I’d ask, “Why this length of pants and not that length of pants?” and my stylist would say, “Well, you don’t have a very defined calf muscle, so this one works better.” I tell stylists that if at least 85 percent of what they’re pulling doesn’t look fantastic on the client, they need to work more on perfecting their style, fit, and fashion skills. 2. Besides styling people, you’re also running a business. You can be the best stylist in the world, but if people don’t know how to find you, you’re not going to be styling anyone. In the beginning, I spent about 25 percent of the time working with clients and the other 75 percent of the time doing other tasks related to my business — working on developing my website, figuring out my accounting, and so on. The business side is not glamorous, and it has nothing to do with fashion, but if you want to make a living doing what you love, you have to think like an entrepreneur and a salesperson. You can get styling jobs at department stores, but most personal shoppers are independent entrepreneurs like me. 3. You have to be prepared to take on a client of any age, body type, and lifestyle. We once had a male client with narrow shoulders and wide hips. It was challenging to find clothes for his shape because unfortunately, most retailers just don’t cut clothes for that body type. In his case, we chose to do custom-made clothes, but we had to figure out a way to make that affordable. You should be just as good at finding clothes for a 45-year-old heavy-set lawyer who lives in suits as you are at finding clothes for a 25-year-old, statuesque model looking for date outfits. 4. You have to encourage people to be vulnerable with you. Clothing is really intimate! People bring all kinds of insecurities and hang-ups with them when it comes to their clothes and their image, so you have to be adept at making people feel at ease. Part of it is just having a kind, friendly, and understanding personality; the other part is prepping things ahead of time so the shopping experience goes off without a hitch. 5. Shopping for other people isn’t as fun as shopping for yourself. People aren’t paying you to leisurely stroll through Bloomingdale’s like you would with your friends. When I’m shopping for a client, I have to be super efficient. I prep ahead of time so I have a mental blueprint of the stores we’re visiting. By the time I walk into a store with my client, I already know where everything is, which salesperson I want to help us out, and what styles I have in mind for the client. If you don’t know what you’re doing, why are your clients paying you? 6. You’re not just picking out clothes; you’re giving someone an experience. I like to treat my clients like VIPs when we’re shopping. I’ll pull a rolling rack to hang pieces and make sure we have a really nice fitting room. Some stores, like Saks Fifth Avenue, offer complementary champagne, so I’ll make sure my clients have that if they want it. Basically, anything to make them feel like a million bucks. 7. You need to have excellent relationships with salespeople. I like to scope out my salespeople way ahead of time to find the ones who are going to be most upbeat and helpful. If I’m working with a moody salesperson or a salesperson with attitude, that does not make my client feel good. In certain stores, I go to the same salespeople every time, and those relationships means I can always count on my clients getting the best customer service and attention. I’ve also built great relationships with makeup artists and hair stylists, because many times clients hire us to do an entire image overhaul. 8. You shouldn’t work on commission. Then your client can trust that you’re not just trying to sell them something so you can make a percentage off of it. Instead, you can either charge hourly or a set a package price. I originally did package prices — for example, a wardrobe consultation plus five hours of personal shopping might go for $800 — but I found that structure to be extremely inflexible. Some of my clients’ closet consultations took six hours; some took one hour. Some clients wanted more time to shop, while others wanted less. So I switched to customized packages where I charge hourly, which allows my clients to do whatever works for them. 9. You can’t expect consistent income . There have been periods of three or four months where I’m not seeing any clients. And then the next month, I’ll get slammed with people trying to book sessions. There’s no consistent ebb and flow, which makes it really difficult to plan ahead financially or figure out when to go on vacation. To offset unstable revenue, some stylists sell retail on their website, some sell advertising, and during quiet months, you can even reach out to corporations and suggest events, like teaching employees and staff proper presentation skills. 10. Don’t be afraid to keep in touch with clients. When I first started out, almost all of my clients were one-offs, meaning they’d come in for one session or a series of sessions all in one week, but that was it. Then I started personally following up with some my clients, offering them discounts, and maintaining the relationship. I might remind people that it’s time for seasonal updates, or that the holidays are approaching and it might be a nice time to get a new outfit. Now, about half of my clients are repeats. 11. You should learn how and when to say “no” to certain clients. There are two reasons I’ll choose not to work with someone: One is personality. I usually chat with people on the phone before I start, and if we don’t vibe, I won’t take them on as clients. I’m spending hours with each client and if our personalities don’t click, that’s just going to be miserable for everyone. The other reason is if it seems like the client isn’t ready for a real change. In order to work with a personal stylist, you have to be open to a certain amount of the transformation that we’re going to bring to your life, and sometimes it’s obvious that someone doesn’t actually want to change their wardrobe. I reject about 5 percent of would-be clients, and although it’s hard to turn down money, I would rather do that than risk someone not getting value out of the service and asking for a refund or giving us a bad review down the line. 12. It’s truly amazing how much an outfit can change someone’s life. It can be easy to trivialize a job like this, since it seems like it’s just shopping for clothes. It’s not. I’ve witnessed major transformations inside of fitting rooms, where you can just see someone’s confident building and their surprise at what they see in the mirror. If you want to read about how Cosmo found The Shopping Friend Personal Stylists and how you, too, can implement these SEO strategies so your business can be found by influencers and clients, CLICK HERE TO READ .

To succeed as a stylist you have to operate like any business and here are my 8 Must Haves to succeed as a profitable personal stylist She looked at me expectantly…then a little shocked…and I knew that my answer was far from what she was expecting to hear. I was having lunch with another personal stylist who had been styling for about a year and she had begged for a meeting because she was stuck. Her business was stuck. She had emailed me, maybe 7 or 8 times prior, asking if she could take me out to lunch to pick my brain. I had said ‘no’ each time because I just didn’t have time and had so many other priorities to take care of. But she finally caught me on a day when I had some breathing room…and the fact that a mutual friend of ours stepped in and asked me if I would mind meeting her also convinced me to make some time. So I said okay and met up with her… “HOW DO I GET MORE CLIENTS?!” We met for lunch at a cute cafe in Westwood Village. I hadn’t even had a chance to pick up the menu when she was right on it – “How do I get more clients?” she blurted out. She didn’t waste any time. Which was fine, I got it. She was desperate for more clients. She’d been asking me for weeks to meet. Apparently, she had quit her day job three months earlier and she was not making enough at this point to cover her bills. So I told her, “I’m going to reveal to you the 8 best friends of any stylist or interior designer (and, quite frankly, any business owner) that will do wonders for your business.” She pulled out her smart phone and was ready to type. I think she was expecting some kind of style hacks or insider networking group that she was unaware of. Nope. I wasn’t going to tell her – and I’m not going to tell you – that your ‘must haves’ are shoe tape, tape measures, bra strap cinchers, or some velvet rope group. Those are ‘good to haves’ in the fashion industry, but if you’re a personal stylist with a business , and you want more clients and more money, THESE are your must haves: 1. A WEBSITE This one seems obvious but you would be surprised how many business owners, especially stylists, even in this day and techie age, are either relying on old fashioned referrals, their agencies, or social media platforms for their business and marketing. A website is your storefront and your own real estate. Which means you own the content. My personal styling business’s website – The Shopping Friend You don’t want to have to rent or borrow from real estate owned by others (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, Ebay, etc…) because you will always be subject to the landlord’s rules. What happens if they change the rules? Or shut down your account? Or start charging you money for something that was once free? Can they do that? Of course! They own it. Whenever you put content on Facebook or Pinterest or any other platform that is not your own, they effectively own it. The more content you create for free on Facebook, for example, the more valuable you make Facebook, not your own asset. It’s called digital sharecropping . ‘Sharecropping’ refers to old farming practices in the 1800’s, which is basically the same as feudalism. A landowner allows many individual farmers to use his land to grow crops but he gets the majority of the profits from selling the crops. That’s what Facebook does. It owns the land and lets you put content or marketing ads on it. But it controls everything and has now made sure that if you want any eyeballs on your content or ads, you have to pay them. Sure, you might have a page for your business on it, but you’re still renting that server space from Facebook, Facebook only allows like 10% of your followers to see your posts organically, and they could shut it down at a moment’s notice. Just look at the recent controversy surrounding Facebook: an ex-Facebook employee revealed they had been suppressing popular conservative news stories from making their news feed. Facebook has a liberal bias and if your brand was in any way viewed as conservative by Facebook, who knows how many people should have seen your content but didn’t. You just don’t know what Facebook, or any of these other platforms, could do on any given day that could affect the content that you publish on it. Having your business and some marketing on social media platforms are definitely valuable eggs to put in your marketing basket. But make sure you also build your own assets that you always have control over – so you don’t have to worry too much when social media or search engine platforms keep changing their terms of service. A well designed website with your own URL and hosting is an asset you want to own. It’s the best way to publish your new media content. Then, you can use social media news and networking sites as your methods to get exposure for your content. 2. A BLOG Most customers aren’t going to know who you (or your brand) are the first, second, or even third time they hear about you. You are a total, unknown stranger to them, and we are all taught, from very young, not to trust strangers. So you will want to slowly court them, to offer them the equivalent of a drink or a coffee, before you ask them to buy anything from you. Your relationship with your customers is no different than your personal relationships. People want to get to know you first before they commit to anything (or buy anything). Your blog is a perfect line opener. It allows you to give value for free before they even know you have something to sell. That immediately garners trust and excitement (if your content is good). The Shopping Friend’s blog is an opportunity to show your authority on a certain topic and build good will for prospects and buyers. Your blog should include all that valuable media content: articles, videos, audio, etc. that will promote your brand, offer value to your audience, and grow your business’s reputation. This is the content that you want to have control over and why you want your own “land” (website) to house the content on. Your blog is another asset, just like your website, that you want to own and have control over. For the first five years of The Shopping Friend (my personal stylist business) I didn’t have a blog. I don’t even think I knew what a blog was at that time. And no stylist I knew at the time had a blog. But then all of a sudden, out of the blue, every business, stylist, and expert had a blog . And poof! I had to figure out, fast, how to incorporate one into my website. Producing free content can be time consuming, I get it. I have spoken to many personal stylists who complain that they don’t have time to create content but I have to say that they are doing themselves a massive disservice if they don’t do it. Free content will pay for itself when you have something related to sell, whether it’s a service or product. My blog now generates over 65% of my daily traffic. I think with those numbers you might say that creating and growing my blog was well worth the time. Write a blog with content related to the styling services/solutions that you provide for your customers. More people will discover you and trust you because they’ve gotten to know you by reading your blog. This is called content marketing and Google loves directing people to websites that are filled with valuable content. Years ago it was easy to game Google by stuffing your website and blog pages with keywords. But Google has since caught on and you can no longer do that. They are continuously changing their algorithms because they care about delivering perfect results to their users. They want to direct their users to the exact content that the user is looking for. So, to show up in Google results now, you need to have that ‘perfect’ content on your website, not just keywords. Most stylists, not just personal stylists, but all stylists, have pretty in-depth blogs now. It might take some time and thought, but try to find an angle that no one else is coming from. There are too many stylists who create blogs that mimic fashion magazines, and let’s be honest, most readers out there are going to prefer reading a well known, fashion magazine like Vogue over your unknown blog. Offer content that’s different and valuable, that readers and viewers can’t easily get anywhere else, and you’ll find yourself with more readers and, eventually, buyers. If your content is shareable, even better! When people share your content with their friends; or other bloggers want to publish it on their sites; they will drive more traffic to your site leading to more leads, more sales, and ultimately, more cash for you. 3. AN EMAIL LIST The money is in the list. The money is in the list. The money is in the list! This freaking elusive email list! Before I knew how to start growing my email list, I kept hearing this statement and it drove me crazy because I didn’t know what it meant! When you start hanging out with marketers and businesses, the email list is talked about frequently. People really want to know your email list numbers. It’s almost like overly machismo guys comparing their Lamborghinis. The number seems so important! But why? Because it’s another asset and it’s one of the most important assets your business can own. IF you know how to use it properly. Email is the most powerful way to communicate with your prospects and ideal clients online. Social media gets a lot of love but, again, you’ll never own that audience. But you will always own your email list. Plus, email truly is king. Because it’s personal, direct, and private, it’s by far the best way to build an engaged audience, sell a product or service online, or create hype around your next big event or service project. Without an email list, you will really struggle to maintain a relationship with current and prospective customers or talk to them when they are ready to buy from you. The fact is, most people, even your ideal clients, won’t buy from you until they have heard from (or about) you 7+ times. You could have millions of visitors to your website every month but if you don’t capture their contact info – their email address – then all that traffic will be wasted. When you build an engaged email list you can build real relationships with your potential customers. It’s a medium that helps get your message into the hands of the right people, shares your important ideas, and truly fosters change. You can grow a sense of community and truly help people before they even choose to buy from you. This helps you create more influence, more impact, and ultimately more income for your business. That’s the power of building an engaged email list filled with your best customers and potential customers: the ability to use it to sell more and grow your business. Most people will not be ready to buy from you when they first discover your website and brand, and it’s unlikely they will return to your website on their own. So make sure you capture their contact info on that first meeting so you can continue to communicate with them, and grow that relationship with them, long after they have left your website. When people give you their email address, they are giving you permission to communicate with them, to contact them in the future. And that’s HUGE. That’s like the girl giving her number to the guy who wants to ask her out on a date. That means there might be a future. Your email list creates an easy path for you to follow up with potential customers, it’s the fastest track to scalability, and it gives you more control over your income cycles, being able to contact your potential customers at will. If you’re a newbie stylist or business owner, one of the first steps you will want to take, maybe even before you start building your product or website, is to start building your email list. If you’re a seasoned pro and you don’t have an email list, start today. I use Get Response to help me build and segment my email lists. 4. AN AUTORESPONDER If you don’t know what an autoresponder is, be prepared to meet a new bestie. Autoresponders can save you thousands of hours and hundreds to thousands of missed sales if you use them correctly. Autoresponders are automated email services that automate the emails you send to your leads and to your clients. You set it up once and it will deliver a sequence of emails on auto-pilot for as long as you desire. You can deliver drip campaigns, drip e-courses, an email series of content, automated welcome and thank you emails, it’s up to you. You can automatically collect leads and nurture them into your ideal clients. It’s a beautiful thing. If you haven’t discovered the magic of automation for your business yet, it’s high time you invest some time and figure out how to do it. It will be sooo worth it. Once you discover the magic of an autoresponder, the days of writing your newsletters  and emails every day/week/month, and having to come up with new content continuously, will be the digital equivalent of the horse-drawn covered wagon. 5. A MARKETING FUNNEL Your leads, prospects, and buyers will take different steps in their buying journey towards ultimately becoming a buyer of your products or services. You’ll want to have a marketing funnel that easily takes them through each appropriate step until they “convert” into buyers and evangelists of your brand. So why am I calling these steps a ‘funnel’? Because at the beginning of the process, you’ll have a lot of people who will take the first step into the funnel. As they go through the next steps, however, not everyone will take those steps and so the crowd will get smaller, hence the funnel gets narrower. This a great visual from Kissmetrics of how a marketing funnel works. When people successfully move through each step, they “convert”. So each step has its own conversion. Ultimately, you want as many clients as possible to end up converting into a buyer of your core offer (your main product(s) or service(s)) at the end of the funnel. The people who do go through your entire funnel are your ideal clients and hopefully will become repeat buyers and will evangelize your brand to other people. If you track your funnel properly, you’ll be able to see where you’re losing people and where you’re getting great conversions. By tracking conversions at each step, you’ll have the opportunity to tweak and improve each step. A good, detailed funnel report will show you the holes in your funnel, where people are dropping off, and you can take action to plug in those holes. You don’t only have to use funnels for your sales conversions either. You could place funnels all over your website to observe the website flow of your visitors. Making business decisions based on data, and not your guesses, is very important. Your marketing funnel gives you vast amounts of data about what your prospects and buyers are doing on your website. This allows you to constantly improve each step your prospects go through, give your customers exactly what they need, and increase your conversions and sales. 6. A MERCHANT ACCOUNT or THIRD-PARTY PAYMENT PROCESSOR When I teach about building businesses, I always stress that making your customer’s journey and experience as hassle-free and efficient as possible should be a number one goal. And that definitely includes how your payment processor is set up. When your customer is ready to purchase, the last thing you want is some kind of roadblock to occur that would change your customer’s mind or even just annoy them. Fluid. You want everything to be fluid. From the moment your buyer has decided that they want that ‘thing’ you’re selling, they selected it and put it into their shopping cart, you want every step of the checkout to be smooth and seamless. And one of the best ways  to do that is allowing your clients and customers the option to pay for your products and services with a credit card on your website. Without the ability to process credit cards, you will definitely be missing out on some sales. Don’t lose sales because you haven’t made your buyer’s journey simple and easy at the checkout process. Make sure your business can process credit cards. Merchant accounts can help you do that. Unfortunately, the downside of merchant accounts, especially if you’re a new business, is they can be a bit costly, which isn’t great if you’re not raking in the dough yet. If that’s the case, then start with a third-party payment processor like Paypal or Stripe. They basically just charge you a percentage of each transaction and that’s it. There are no recurring monthly fees. However, these platforms typically require that you send your customer over to their websites to process the transaction, forcing your customer to leave your website, which isn’t smooth if the checkout page looks nothing like your website. But now many web builders have payment processors integrated into them so your customer doesn’t have to leave your website. I personally use Paypal and Stripe for my different businesses and they came integrated with the web builders that I used to build my websites. So that was a super easy, no brainer decision for me. With Stripe integrated into my website through my web builder, my clients and customers experience a seamless transaction and it never looks like they leave my website, which can sometimes jar the customer and make them feel suspicious. If your business has a lot of revenue, you will definitely want to consider a dedicated merchant account. The difference in processing rates between direct merchant accounts and third party solutions are significant and can add up, even for smaller businesses. 7. SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS You probably already have social media halfway figured out if you have private accounts set up. But you’ll want to make sure you create social media accounts for your business, as well, if you haven’t done so already. There were some who thought that social media was a trend or a fad. Nope. It’s here for the long haul. It is the everyday reality for billions of people around the world who live an online lifestyle and, so, has become a very integral part of marketers’ strategies. As a business, you want to connect, engage, and promote your content where people are hanging out and social media is where they are hanging out. Just take a look at these two images from SearchEngineJournal.com , you can see that social media platforms are massive. There are BILLIONS of active users on social media platforms. Facebook, alone, has 1.55 Billion active users PER MONTH. If you know how to find your target audience in the crowd, you will get ROI. Image from: SearchEngineJournal.com Facebook has 1.55 billion monthly active users YouTube has 1 billion monthly active users Twitter has 316 million monthly active users Pinterest has 100+ million monthly active users Instagram has 400 million monthly active users Reddit has 200 million monthly active users Google+ has 343 million monthly active users LinkedIn has 97 million monthly active users Tumblr has 230 million monthly active users Snapchat has 200 million monthly active users 1.7 billion people are active on social media. Don’t let your business miss all those eyeballs. Image: SearchEngineJournal.com However, not all social media platforms are equal. You have to know who your audience and potential buyers are and figure out where they’re all hanging out. Are they connected to groups and events on Facebook? Or engaged on subreddit communities? Are they tweeting? Or getting visual inspiration on Pinterest? Or all of them? You want to determine not only where your audience is hanging out, but where they’re actually active, where they search for things, and what social media site niches they use. Knowing these factors will help you discover which social media platforms are best for your brand and business. Every social media platform has a unique way of communicating with followers. Once you figure out the right social media platforms for you to promote and market your brand, learn the best strategies for that social media. None of these social media platforms will work for you unless you have a well thought out, strategic plan. Each one is different and has different techniques and formulas that work for them. 8. A FREEMIUM! A freemium is also known as an opt-in offer , an irresistible offer , a lead magnet , an ethical bribe , content giveaway , etc. it goes by many different names that I’ll use interchangeably in this post. Your freemium, essentially, is how you’re going to get most of your leads and prospects onto your email list and at the top of your marketing and sales funnel. There is a formula to giving away value. Learn how to do it right to maximize your leads and increase the number of customers you are attracting to your offers. Image source: reelseo.com The term ‘freemium’ marries the words ‘free’ and ‘premium’ and is becoming a dominant business model for online businesses. Although, many physical brick and mortar businesses have actually used ‘freemiums’ for decades. You know those delicious free samples you get while shopping in Costco on a busy Saturday afternoon? That’s one kind of freemium. They give you a taste, a sample, encouraging you to buy the entire product. Digital Marketer defines the freemium or lead magnet as an ‘irresistible bribe offering a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.’ This is your irresistible giveaway, and you want to make sure that it’s so irresistible that it would be super difficult for your ideal customer to pass it up. In order for them to get this irresistible offer, your prospects will give you their contact info and you will, in turn, give them their freemium. Your freemiums should be free (obviously), valuable, and actionable. A well designed freemium will align with your core offer and guide and encourage the purchase of your core offer later on. You want your freemium to solve a problem quickly, be easily consumable by your audience, and attract the people who will genuinely be interested in your core offer. But before you start, you need to really know what your audience wants from you before you can create an awesome freemium or lead magnet for them. Once you have figured that out, even if you don’t have your core product or service ready to sell yet, still set up your lead magnet to start building your email list. Offering your prospect a solution that saves them time, money, frustration, and teaches them new knowledge will warm them towards you and help you start building a relationship with them. It sets you up as an authority in your niche plus opens you up for, what Amy Porterfield calls, the Giver’s Gain. When you give something of great value to your audience you will, in turn, gain respect, authority, and trust. This strategy of giving away value in exchange for contact info is the most under-used marketing strategy by most businesses; yet it’s the most effective way to connect with your ideal clients and grow a relationship with them. It not only gives away value, it’s the first step to generating revenue for your business. ……………………………………………… There are definitely way more marketing elements you will want to put into play in your business, but start off with these. If you want to succeed as a personal stylist, you must focus on the business and marketing side of your business just as much as the fashion and the art. The personal stylist I had that lunch meeting with only had two of the eight on this list – her website and a couple social media accounts that had no definitive strategy and were just sitting there gathering dust. She didn’t even know how to consistently get more followers to her business page. She left that meeting with so much enthusiasm because she was glad to know there was so much more she could do. She thought she had hit a wall. It took her awhile to learn how to do some of these things because she had never even heard of a few of them. I know that by the end of the year, she had quadrupled her business, so implementing these ideas took her about 10-11 months.

Learning how to become a personal stylist is so much more than learning how to style. You are running a business. You have to learn how to become an entrepreneur too. “How do I become a personal stylist?” I get this question about 2-3 times a day. Usually through email. And I honestly don’t even know where to begin in answering that question. Why? Because I think I took over 10,000 steps, if not more, to get where I am today. So how do I explain that to someone in an email? I put together these 6 essential tips for people who’ve been asking how to become a personal stylist AND be successful. Obviously, this article isn’t a complete step-by-step on how to become a personal stylist – you can actually get that here, but they give you the broad stroke ideas of what you’ll need to run a styling business. The one thing that so many personal stylists, and artistic people in general, forget about is the business side of this endeavor. So I’m not going to tell you that you need to know how to style and create a fabulous image for your clients. That goes without saying, especially if you’re looking to become a personal stylist. 1. Your education is ongoing. Forever. I know that sounds like a very long time. But it’s true. For your business, and in life really, you will be forever learning, if you’re a savvy little go-getter. It is not just about keeping up-to-date with styles, trends, designers, and fashion in general, you also will have to keep up with the latest business and marketing trends. Like Mark Zuckerberg said in “The Social Network” movie, Facebook will never be finished “the way fashion won’t be finished.” Same with you. Fashion is always changing and business is always changing. You will be a forever student having to keep up with it all. What’s Google doing with their new search algorithms? How do you advertise with Facebook? How do you advertise with Facebook when they make changes to their rules? How do you advertise with Facebook when they reject you? What are the new, up and coming platforms to market on? To make videos on? To write guest blogs for? How do you hire employees? Or outsource the right people? You get the picture. You should be learning new skills, sharpening your existing skills, and continuously discovering what skills your customer base needs from your service. You will forever be learning and having to figure out the next level of your business. 2. Be authentic with your brand and live it. Branding. You might have heard of it. You may be a little in the grey area about it. I certainly did not have a clear idea of what it meant for years. And because of that, my marketing, my advertising, even my website didn’t serve to communicate what The Shopping Friend was really about. What I was really about. And that made my bottom line suffer. The consequences of not being clear in my brand was attracting the wrong types of customers, clients I didn’t necessarily want to work with, and confusing the people I was actually trying to target. I made the mistake of trying to serve ALL people, when there were very specific demographics I was skilled at working with and preferred to work with. Your branding does double duty. It conveys who you are, as well as attracts the customer that you would best serve by letting them see some of themselves in your branding and relating to you. Take the time to get clear about who you are, who you want to serve and what experience you want to deliver. Every single encounter with your styling business: your website, a social media picture, an ad, an email from you, someone else’s comment about you, a review about you – leads to people developing an opinion of your brand based on those experiences. So make sure every touch point of your client’s experience embodies your unique branding.   3. You must figure out your Procedures and Systems for your business Set up a system? That sounds like a lot of work for a personal styling business. If you’re thinking that, be prepared to not make very much money. You are running a business. The most successful businesses have systems and processes in place because you can’t possibly do everything yourself. Especially when you’re hopefully going to be spending most of your time styling clients. What are systems? A system is a set of processes that can run without you. Setting up automated systems and processes for as many elements in your business will be a beautiful thing for you in the future as your business grows. Depending on how big your business will be and what you intend to sell (you might also sell physical products along with your services) you  might need to build accounting systems, hiring systems, distribution systems, inventory systems, customer acquisition systems, marketing systems, payment systems, outsourcing systems, etc, etc… The bigger the company, the more systems will come into play. Some corporations have thousands of systems in place that all figure into their one huge system. The more you can figure out how to automate all of these so they can run independent of you, the more chance you have of scaling your business successfully. Your systems can consist of people or automated software helping you out. You most likely want to be able to spend most of your time personal styling. Not dealing with website issues, bad customer reviews, social media strategies, financial planning, accounting, taxes, legal stuff, and much more. During your first couple years in business, you will probably have to wear almost all the hats in your business and your success will be determined on what you personally do and the services you provide. After you have set up your system in the first couple of years, however, you definitely want to stop trying to do everything. Hire smart people and assist them in setting up your systems so that things can happen when you’re not there. 4. Selling isn’t optional, it’s necessary. Whenever I say to someone they have to be good at sales, I get cringes, shrugs, and outright shrieks of outrage. “I hate selling!” is the common response. But the image of the slick and smooth-talking sales guy is outdated. Today’s modern, successful salesperson barely does any “selling” at all. If you ‘live your brand’ like we discussed above, that will help you with your sales as well. I know. You’re a stylist. You don’t want to sell. You want to dress people. You want to improve people’s confidence. You want to help people with their dating lives. You want to maximize people’s wardrobes. You want to help them get the job of their dreams through the right image. You want to shop. You want to style. Okay, I hear you. But without the selling, you will have no one to style. I’ll give you one tip that will help with your selling. It’s all about listening and connecting. And getting to know people for real. Making your client feel heard and understood. In fact, you probably don’t have to say all that much with your clients, as long as you know the right questions to ask, and then sit back and just… listen. Then offer your best solution, based on what they’ve said, in an authentic way. 5. Marketing. You MUST engage in marketing that gives you ROI. Personal stylists, fashion stylists, hair stylists, interior designers, all these people I know who work in the styling industries often tell me that they don’t have a real grasp on marketing. How do they do free marketing? Should they spend money on paid ads? Does any of it work? Where should they spend their money? Should they advertise online or offline? How do you know what kinds of ads reach your target audience? How do you even know if you’re getting ROI on your marketing? HOW??? As a stylist, you are also a small business owner. So you must think like a business owner. Start in places where you can market for free and it’s easy and simple to set up. A good place to start is to network with local businesses and business owners who work in your related field. I get 3-5 emails a day from designers and retailers  that are located in the cities that The Shopping Friend is in. They introduce their businesses to me and offer ways to collaborate. The Shopping Friend has been around for awhile so we are fortunate now to have great partners reaching out to us everyday. But in the beginning, if you don’t have that, you might want to introduce yourself to local shops, hotels, and concierge services who can partner with your services and help market your brand. You could even network with other personal stylists but many are lone wolf businesses and don’t really want to share their market with other personal stylists. You will, of course, have a website. This is your digital storefront and it’s a must. Use your website and Google Analytics (don’t worry, it’s free and very useful) to discover how people find your website and where they are. Whenever clients contact you, ask them how they heard about you. That will give you insight on where you should market. 6. Become great friends with data management. To know what marketing promotions are successful you have to be able to measure the results. That means tracking data. Aaaaah! Don’t panic. When you advertise, you must figure out how to track the advertisement, otherwise you will have no idea on the ROI. Do not spend money unless you know how to track the results! The more you know how to track data and use that data to make better business decisions, the better your results will be. You might feel like you can use your gut feeling but you will be surprised at what actually resonates with your clients and what doesn’t. There have been promotions I have run that I was certain would generate tons of traffic and conversions. Crickets. Then there have been ideas that I just wasn’t sure would work because they didn’t appeal to me , and the numbers just rocketed skyward. So you just never know. You need the data to keep you on track. Are you ready to pursue your personal styling career? If you are just starting to build your own thriving styling career or business, you can have a booming business without years of struggle with proper business guidance and education. Unlike most style schools that only teach you the fashion and networking side, Stylist School Online teaches the business and marketing side as well. And not just in one or two lessons. Half the course is dedicated to Marketing and Sales. So you can grow your styling business and make a living doing it. When I was first building The Shopping Friend, internet-based online courses were not around yet. Business education wasn’t so easily accessible. Today it is. And it’s a phenomenal thing. Pursuing a career that embraces both your artistic and practical talents can be rewarding and lead to great success. Live your dream and love your life! Learn how to become a personal stylist now. Our personal styling courses can walk you step-by-step on how to quickly and efficiently get your personal styling business off the ground.

Do you have a morning ritual that empowers your whole day? Morning time for me is such a light, hopeful, motivational time. I truly get the sense that it’s the start of something new and fresh every day. Especially when I’m in California or Colorado and the morning sunshine streams in through the windows like bits of heaven. I make sure to do affirming activities in the morning that energize me for the rest of the day. When I set myself up right in the morning, I can ensure that I’ll be productive and efficient all day long. Daily Habits of Successful People I have morning rituals that I move through fluidly because I have incorporated them into my routine, so I don’t have to think about them, I just do them. When I wake, I do look at my phone, but not for the reasons most look at theirs. I like to pray and read my daily Bible passages for 20 minutes that are delivered on my phone daily. I then rise, make the bed, put on exercise clothes (that will ensure that I’ll exercise), wash my face, prepare tea, fruit, and breakfast, and then review all my goals (short-term and long-term) and vision boards. Most of the time, those few, quick steps start off incredibly productive days for me. You may not have a routine yet that helps you discover and produce the best out of you every day. I encourage everyone to find their quick, meaningful morning routine to lead the day with. If your life is hectic with kids and deadlines, wake up 20 minutes earlier. If that means going to bed 20 minutes earlier, do it. For most people, the morning hours bring so much more to your life than the nighttime hours. Read what these other 10 successful women do at the start of their days. From editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington, to Vogue’s editor-in-chief, to CEOs, to entrepreneurs, to fashion designers, to actresses…you might find some inspirational habits that you’d like to incorporate into your routine to motivate you daily. READ: 10 Successful Women Share Their Morning Routines Morning time is precious time, those few brief moments before the outside world bleeds noise into your day. Building a routine that gives you a calm, efficient, and fulfilling morning can take some serious trial and error. If you haven’t nailed down your own productivity-inducing routine yet, don’t fret. We’ve rounded up the morning routines of 10 successful women from different industries to inspire your mornings. All of the women mentioned below have figured out how to make family, exercise, and “me” time priorities in their first waking hours. Katherine Power, Co-Founder and CEO, Clique Media First Thing: Exercises. Routine: “Exercise wakes me up and gets my juices flowing. I get my best ideas working out or on a drive back from the gym to the house,” Power tells Self guest editor and Honest Company CEO Jessica Alba. Post-workout breakfast usually consists of “one egg on a piece of toast and some avocado.” Power puts her sweat session ideas to action immediately. “Well I obsess on them the whole class. And then I get to my car and I open my Notes on my phone and I either type it or make a call to somebody who will listen to me at 7 in the morning.” Read the entire article now >>>

Actress & model, Michelle McFarlane (Liberman), turned entrepreneur shares her story on becoming a personal shopper and stylist Find out what made model and actress, Michelle Liberman (now the face of The Shopping Friend ), switch from ‘getting styled’ to ‘styling others’. Shopilist’s Community of Insiders chose our very own Michelle McFarlane (Liberman – yes, she got married!) as one of their Los Angeles Insiders. They sat down with her to get some insight on her and find out how she became a personal shopper-stylist and built the super successful personal shopping business, The Shopping Friend. Read on, there’s something for everyone here. If you’re an aspiring personal shopper and stylist, there’s some great advice on what makes a good stylist and how to become a personal shopper. You might want to read some of the Q&A’s from the other personal stylists on the list too. If you’re a client looking for personal styling services, read about Michelle and The Shopping Friend’s Team of Personal Stylists to see if they might be a good fit for you. If you’d like some other options, there are other personal shopper stylists on the list, as well, to read about. Read the interview below: Meet the Insiders – LA – Michelle Liberman Wanna know more about the insiders who style you up or give you tips on how to dress better? We had the chance to sit down with Michelle , our insider based in Los Angeles  for a quick Q&A! What did you do before becoming a stylist/personal shopper? I was a model and actress in New York City and Los Angeles. Working with hundreds of professional stylists and designers was my fashion and style school. They taught me everything I know. And they knew A LOT. What inspired you to become a stylist/personal shopper? I was modeling for Glamour Magazine one day and became friendly with the producer of the shoot. She was looking through my modeling portfolio and asked who had styled one of my shoots. It turned out that I had styled that particular shoot and we started chatting about image and style. She felt comfortable enough with me to ask if I would help her go through her closet and go shopping for some new pieces. I said sure. We ended up spending 10 hours, a week later, going through her closet and then going shopping. I taught her what the other stylists I had worked with taught me. She was super grateful and I found a job that I really enjoyed! Do you have any tips for aspiring personal shoppers? To be a fantastic personal stylist/shopper you need three key elements: The ability to give incredible customer service. The session is about your client. It has nothing to do with you. It’s about your client and their personality and their needs and their wants. Too many people with too much ego have tried this profession and failed miserably. If you don’t know how to make people feel good about themselves, find a different profession. The skill to dress all body types, all personalities, all genders, in a beautiful style without letting your own style impose on theirs. I once had a stylist work for me who dressed really funky but told me she could dress other people according to their tastes. She couldn’t do it. And I ended up with two dissatisfied clients who didn’t like HER outfits and didn’t like the pieces she pulled. I had to set them up with a different stylist to make it up to them. You need to remember this is a business. Understanding sales, marketing, and accounting is important if you want to continue to build your client list and grow your styling company. Knowing how to scale your business is essential to survival long term. Surprisingly, there is a lot to know about this business and profession. This is why I started Stylist School Online. So that more aspiring stylists would have access to the styling education they need in order to build a successful personal styling business. Read the rest of the article here >>>

Learn how to become a personal stylist and give a great personal shopping experience. Image credit: www.thegoodlifefrance.com Sometimes when you’re working as a personal stylist and shopper, you can lose sight of how your clients are perceiving your styling services. One of my personal stylists, who had worked for The Shopping Friend for years, was shocked when she found out that one of our clients had a complaint against her. She completely thought the session had gone perfectly. It’s a good reminder to read or hear how clients perceive what you’re doing for them and get a peek into their thought processes. It can help you remain sharp and on-top of how you’re fulfilling the needs of your clients. As a personal stylist, or any kind of stylist, understanding the needs of your clients and knowing their fears and what excites them, can only improve how you interact with them and style for them. If you’re new as a stylist, knowing where your clients are coming from will really help you learn how to become a personal stylist in the best way possible. I found this cute article by Lisa Buros-Hutchins. She is a Paris expert and runs a company called Your Paris Experience. She had always wondered what it was like to hire a personal stylist/shopper and finally decided to find out. Below is her experience with her personal shopper in the gorgeous city of Paris! Read her comments below on her personal shopping experience and her personal shopper. Personal Shopping in Paris The Art of What Makes a Terrific Personal Shopper What could be more glamorous than booking an afternoon with a personal shopper in the City of Light? I admit I have often wondered how it all works; what is the process of reserving and working with a personal shopper? And I would be lying if I said it didn’t intimidate me a bit as well. The entire process of personal shopping at Galeries Lafayette is much more relaxed than I was expecting. Before meeting with my personal shopper Sophie we connected via email, as well as on the telephone, which was one very nice touch. Of course there are the obvious questions as to dress and shoe size, but there was also a nice exchange about my life and career, my style influences, how I view my current wardrobe and what kind of look I am trying to create through the shopping experience. When I arrived the day of my rendezvous I checked in at the VIP kiosk and was warmly greeted before being ushered to one of the very private shopping suites to meet Sophie and get started. There were five ‘looks’ prepared for me in the suite,  complete with shoes and accessories. When I walked in and saw all of the beautiful clothes I felt just like a celebrity. Read the entire article >>>

Common sense tips every personal stylist needs to know. When learning how to become a personal stylist, these are fundamental. When you work as a personal shopper or stylist you are working one-on-one with people. And there are certain, proper ways to engage with people that usually are successful in making them comfortable and happy with you. But sometimes, when you’re tired or you’ve been doing it for a long time, you can forget the simple manners and common sense behaviors that attract people to you and inspire them want to work with you again and again. Here’s a great post on the five tips that can bring us back to basics and help create a simple but lovely experience for your image consulting clients. Read the tips below: Five Tips on How to Become a Better Stylist There are many names and variations for what we do; stylist, image consultant, or wardrobe consultant being a few. However, there is one common objective we share—to help our clients look and feel better about their appearance. The profession may sound superficial, and maybe even a little vain. Besides, beauty is supposed to come from within, right? In a lot of cases this is true. Yet, there are still some folks who need help with allowing their inner beauty to filter through, and they look to us for our expert advice. People trust us with something extremely precious and valuable, and that is their self-esteem. Therefore it is up to us to not only deliver the best results, but also to treat our clients with the utmost care. So here are five tips to help you become a better stylist and keep your clients happy. Listen One of the biggest mistakes I’ve witnessed in this business is when stylists don’t listen to the needs of their clients. Instead, they have their own preconceived notions or ideas that they may have developed from current trends or from a previous client with a similar body shape, and then they impose those ideas on the current client. This is a BIG NO-NO. Yes, we are professionals and we have some insider knowledge and expertise about what the going trends are, and what’s fabulous in the fashion world today. However, the client has to live with the results, and therefore, he or she has to be satisfied with the results. Read the entire article >>>

Team up with these lifestyle professionals and you’ll have a complete team that can service all your clients’ needs Tomorrow, I have a husband and wife that The Shopping Friend is providing personal styling services for. They are from Australia and hired a concierge service in Sydney to set up their whole package. The concierge service called me. The wife wants personal shopping for her and her husband, her hair done in a luxury LA salon, and her makeup professionally done so she can go out tomorrow night and look amazing. All in one day. This is where The Shopping Friend comes in. These are one of the typical services that The Shopping Friend sets up for clients, especially overseas clients who don’t necessarily know where to go when they are traveling to places like Los Angeles, New York, or Denver. Even reputable, international concierge companies don’t know all the best of the best places or professionals and turn to local experts (personal stylists and shoppers) to fill the holes of a premiere package that they are providing for their clients. To be that expert that concierges turn to, you have to have resources that go beyond yourself. Many personal stylists are one-woman shows. That can work for some, but it has its limitations. Personally, I like to have several stylists with strengths in different areas working alongside me. It helps with client overflow and I can match clients to a personal stylist that is best-suited for them. If you know how to become a personal stylist with options, resources, and packages to offer your clients, you’re on your way to building a personal styling business that can scale. But aside from working with other personal stylists, here are the four other lifestyle professionals that I think every personal stylist should have as part of their team. 1. Concierge Services Concierge services are awesome. They tend to work with clients who like to use personal styling services. And there are tons of concierge services. All over the world. If you live in a city that attracts many tourists with its shopping, reaching out to concierges and introducing yourself to them couldn’t hurt. And make sure you put together a package that represents your company well. Most of these concierge services deal with quality and luxury so they can satisfy their clients. Make sure you meet the standard. 2. Makeup Artist Female clients tend to hire personal stylists and image consultants because they are looking to improve their image. And their image goes beyond their clothes. We have many women who either want a professional makeup artist to do their makeup for an event, or they want to learn how to do daily makeup that helps them look naturally gorgeous on a daily basis. Either way, having a makeup artist that you can refer your clients to not only helps your client and the makeup artist who gets the new business, but it helps you in various ways. You’ve improved the experience your client has with you, leading to them either hiring you again, referring you to others, or writing glowing reviews about your service. The makeup artist will definitely appreciate your referral and give back to you when the opportunity arises. Giving to others always come back to you. We all know this. It’s life. Whether you believe it’s God or karma, it’s how the world works 3. Hair & Coloring Stylist Partnering with a great hair stylist and colorist has pretty much the same kind of benefit as having the talented makeup artist in your back pocket. Everyone benefits. Your client, your hair team, and you! 4. Dating or Relationship Coach The relationship coach is the only professional on this list who is not part of my clients’ experience tomorrow. But partnering with one is no less valuable. It’s totally beneficial on all sides. Many personal styling clients hire personal styling services because they want to improve their image for the dating world. But a good number of those clients also desire professional relationship help with navigating through the dating Building your team grows your business If you’re a personal stylist, finding quality partners in these fields can be mutually beneficial for all involved. Discovering symbiotic relationships with skilled partners who compliment your service not only improves your customers’ experience but also leads to growth. Not only can cross promotion with your partners expand your reach to new clients who wouldn’t otherwise have looked for your services, but you will be bringing new business to your partners. And there is nothing more positive and blessed than productively and economically spreading the wealth through references. So partner up with talented people and help each other out. Do webinars together, write guest posts for each other’s websites, hold a class together, throw an event…the opportunities are endless.

Any job that solves people’s problems and people are willing to pay you for that solution is a “sensible” job “Get a sensible job.” “When are you going to face reality and get a real adult job?” “How are you going to pay your bills doing that?” Have you ever heard these questions? It might be what your family or friends say to you when you mention your dream job of being a stylist, or something else that is artistic and not traditional. It might be what you say to yourself when you think about it laying in bed at night. Being a personal stylist, however, can be a very “sensible” job. If people are willing to pay for it, it’s a sensible job. The truth is, if you are skilled and passionate for a certain line of work and someone is willing to pay you for that skill to add value to their lives, then that job is sensible. Personal styling, commercial fashion styling, interior design…these professions definitely fall into that ‘sensible’ job category. There are plenty of people and companies willing to pay for those services. So you, my friend, are on the right path if you have the skills and talent and are willing to do what it takes. Sensible jobs benefit you, your customers, and the economy. Every job that adds value to someone’s life and they are willing to pay for it adds value to the economy. And that makes that job valuable in the world and in your community. As long as the job you’re pursuing is a valuable, viable career in an economy, then it is a “real” job. So how do you tell that to Grandma, or Aunt Joy, who won’t get off your back for not being a lawyer or doctor? In order for a job to be sensible for you, you need to be good at it. Great at it, in fact. That usually results from a combination of natural talent, study, and training of some kind. For example, if you faint at the sight of blood, being a doctor would be a foolish choice. Or if law puts you to sleep faster than an Ambien, you might want to pass on law school. You want to pursue a path that you at least have a natural interest or talent in. Then you can move on to studying and training for it. So is personal styling a ‘sensible’ job for you? Make sure the dream you are pursuing is not a ‘dream’. First, you’ve got to be real with yourself. When I taught acting classes, I remember the first day of one of my classes. I asked my students what acting role they believed to be the ideal role for themselves. They were all delusional in their answers. When I made the choice even simpler and asked the girls, Juliet or the Nurse (from Romeo & Juliet)? All but two of the girls said Juliet. They all firmly believed they could be Juliet. Now, I don’t want to steal any little girl’s dream of being the ‘sought after maiden’ in her story. In her life story she very well may be. But in her pursuit of a career in acting, she must know that very few girls can pull off Juliet. Many more girls will be able to play the Nurse way before they’ll ever be offered the role of Juliet. Even if you’re not the Juliet type, you can still have a fruitful career as an actor, but only if you know what you can realistically perform. I told my students to really think about this. Their archetypes, their physicalities, how others perceived them, their energies, etc…and how they would cast the role if they were the casting directors. I still got the same delusional response even after all that analysis. The reason I bring this up is because, much like the acting world, I meet dreamers in the styling world who are impractical about their real ability to be successful stylists, personal or commercial. Again, this is not meant to squash anyone’s dreams, it’s meant to save you time and heartache and to motivate you to find your real dream if this one turns out to not be it. But first, you should first discover if it is or not. Is this the right career path for you? “You want me to hold it??!” “But, can’t the sales girl do that?” “When are we going into the high-end designer section?” “Can’t she get it herself?” “Sighhhh…my feet hurt. When can we take a break?” “That dress looks amazing on you, why aren’t you getting it? What? What do you mean you can’t afford it?” I gave this woman a chance to work for The Shopping Friend by having her start off as my assistant. Our initial emails and conversations were very nice. Our first shopping trip with her in tow, I had the silly expectation that she was actually going to help me. Above is just a small sample of the questions and comments I got peppered with by her all afternoon. Her “help” became my mega-headache. And my amused client just stood there and watched the comedy of a ‘woman living in delusion’ unfold. My assistant’s dream of what a stylist was did not line up with the reality of what a stylist is. Even in the midst of an actual styling session, she was not willing to let go of her vision of what a personal stylist did and embrace learning reality. She then became the biggest pain in my butt for the rest of that afternoon. I got rid of her the second my client was out of view. Make sure you know the truth of your dream job. What I have learned about “dream jobs” is that they are rarely what you expect. The reality of a dream job is usually not so dreamy. To be sure that you’re not blindly jumping into cold, harsh, icy reality, do your homework. Ask around, research, even reading this article is a good step towards figuring it out. Once you know for sure that you know what the job entails and that you are more than prepared to do it, then you can take the next step. Is it all about the ‘talented artist’ in styling? Do you need to know all the brands and designer labels to be a good personal stylist? Doesn’t hurt but isn’t always necessary. Do you need to love fashion to be a personal stylist? It helps. Do you need to understand style and how to create an outstanding look on every body type, shape, size, color, gender, and personality? Absolutely. Do you need to get along with people of all different personality types? Hands down, yes. Do you need to understand that this job isn’t about you, it’s about the people who you’re adding value to their lives? Yes! If you don’t get that first and foremost, get out now. Run. Fast. Being a stylist is not about your talent, it’s about your help. Do you need to understand human psychology and empathize with people’s problems? Of course. You don’t need a psych degree but understanding your clients’ predicaments and issues will help you better serve them by solving their problems. You can’t solve a problem that you don’t understand. Notice that “being an artist” and “having a fabulous red carpet persona” are not on this list. Don’t get me wrong. Artistic talent is essential. Essential. You cannot succeed as a stylist without talent and skill. Talent is what you develop out of pursuing your passions and interests. Talent is a skill you already have, or have learned, cultivated, and practiced until you’re expert. Talent is what makes you able to add value to someone else’s life. Talent is what will allow you to make styling a fruitful career with longevity. Talent is not what the job is about, however. The job is about your clients and adding value to their lives. Talent is a necessary tool to have in order to do the job. Once you recognize the distinction, you are ready to move forward and prosper as a stylist. A goal without a plan is just a wish. Know the business. When I started The Shopping Friend, I learned everything the hard way. Growth was excruciatingly slow because of it. I didn’t understand all the components of running a business. I was all art and style and very little business planning and marketing. That does not make for a successful personal styling business. Years into it, I finally created a system for my business. The process of creating that system, I’m afraid, would have tortured any seasoned entrepreneur or business person had they been forced to witness it. Learning on my own and crawling through pockets of understanding was unnecessarily slow. I found business coaches and mentors over the years who taught me different aspects of building and maintaining a business, but no one who ever helped me just see the big picture. And after collecting all these different pieces of info from hundreds of different sources, I was finally able to piece together the big picture, myself, of how to successfully run a styling business. Pieces, like how to market effectively. How to utilize resources. How to create partnerships. How to provide consistent and excellent customer service. How to grow our customer base. How to deal with all the legalities of America’s tax system. If you are just starting to build your own thriving styling career or business, you can have a booming business without years of struggle with proper business guidance and education. There are many places to get it. Stylist School Online is one of them. When I was first building The Shopping Friend, these internet-based educational businesses were not around yet. Business education wasn’t so easily accessible. Today it is. And it’s a phenomenal thing. You are ready to pursue your styling career! You know your passion. You know your dream. You know the realities behind them. And you still want to pursue this path. Great! Pursuing a career that embraces both your artistic and practical talents can be rewarding and lead to great success. Live your dream and love your life! Learn how to become a personal stylist now. Our Ultimate Personal Styling Business Program can show you how to live your dream as a ‘sensible’ job.