Are you a Jack of all trades but master of none?

Many image consultants are trained in colour, style, wardrobe and personal shopping. When they start out, they provide all these services to everyone- men, women, corporations – anyone who is interested. They take this approach because they want to get experience and clients.

The thought process is that if I cast my net wide, I will surely get lots of clients.

Most have invested a lot of money in training, probably left a well-paid job and took a huge leap of faith to start their business. They work long hours spreading the word about their style services and marketing themselves despite the fear of rejection and judgement. Passion keeps them going for the first year or so but when exhaustion sets in and their diaries are still almost empty, they start to wonder if this career is really for them.

The problem with the ‘cast the net wide’ approach to marketing is that, in your efforts to serve everyone, you’ll end up serving no one! While it is tempting to think that everyone needs your services, in reality, working off this assumption will invariably take you down what I call the path of  ‘no paying clients ’.

It’s a costly mistake – I should know, I took this approach in the first two years of my business before I wised up and niched down.

Once I decided to niche down to small business women entrepreneurs, who needed help with their colour and style, my business took off. My marketing efforts became effective and I started getting clients who were a perfect fit for me. I was finally enjoying my image business and making enough money to stay in business and buy the things I wanted.

This worked great for a while but I realised after a few more years that I wasn’t enjoying work as much as I used to, the clients were starting to dwindle and I just wasn’t that motivated anymore.

I had an epiphany to niche down again after another image consultant asked me if I would train her in colour. The idea really appealed to me and once I got my head around what I needed to do, I was once again excited about my work. I started my image consultant training programs in 2010 and loved working with like minded image consultants simplifying colour analysis and helping them to grow their businesses.

What I learned is that niching down/ ideal client work needs to be done routinely as we grow and change. It is usually not a one-off exercise. I had to do a similar exercise when I restarted my business after taking a break for a few years.

Ideal client work is a must if you want a profitable and fun business. While I find myself resisting doing the work, I have found that it pushes me to expand and grow. I have more fun with my clients, and they have an amazing experience because they get the best of me. Guess what they do then? They go out and recommend me to everyone they know.

In my mind, there is no option but to identify your ideal client and niche down as early as you can in your business. Have you done the work?

I am running a FREE 5-DAY IDEAL CLIENT CHALLENGE starting on 12^th Aug.

JOIN MY FREE IDEAL CLIENT CHALLENGE HERE

Now that I had more time on my hands, I wanted to get back out there and give my image business another go. We had settled in France, after 18 years in Singapore and the boys were getting bigger. I love everything colour and style and my work would allow me the flexibility to still be there when the kids get home from school.

While it sounded good in my head, it became clear fairly quickly that getting clients in a non-English speaking country was going to be a major challenge. Additionally I had no way of helping all the clients I had built up in Singapore over the years. All my hard work was lost and I had to start from scratch.

I am sitting here 30 minutes after my colour presentation was supposed to start, feeling nauseous, disappointed and fed up. Not one person has turned up despite several confirmations. One by one they had all cancelled over the last 24 hours. I was left with two people who were definitely going to make it.

No show. Not one single participant! I feel fed up, sick, angry and want to cry but I have to put on a bright face as the event host is looking on anxiously. She is coming over now, reassuring me that everything will be okay and I smile and nod and agree its not the end of the world. It feels a bit like it though! How excruciatingly embarrassing?

So how did this happen? I’m not a rookie. I had been in the image business almost 10 years before I took a break and restarted in France.

After several frustrating and self-esteem killing events, I decided I had to go back to the drawing board and really think about what would work in this new country. I knew 100% that I wanted to work in colour analysis so that was at least clear. I also realised that I had been teaching in one way or another almost my whole career and I loved that too.

The big epiphany came when I realised that I had all the skills I needed right there in front of me (Don’t we always!) – Online Colour Analysis was the new opportunity for me. It made so much sense. All of a sudden my client base became the world, rather than the English speaking community in a small village in the South of France. I could also get back in touch with all my Singapore connections and let them know that I was available for business. I was so excited and my adrenaline was through the roof. I could ‘do colours’ every day to my hearts content from anywhere in the world with all the flexibility I wanted. It was the ‘a-ha’ moment Oprah talks about🤗

However once I calmed down, the doubts started to creep in. Does online colour analysis really work? Would I excommunicate myself from the image consulting community as online colour analysis is a new frontier and there is a lot of negativity and naysayers around the topic.

After lots of research and establishing an online process to conduct online colour analysis, I set about putting a plan together to get my first clients. I quickly realised that working from pictures was just not enough. It was missing the human connection and communication. The client missed the experience of talking about their colours and to be honest, I was bored to death looking at pictures and not connecting with people.

At that point I decided to introduce a one hour online consult with the client and there was an immediate turn around. I loved it and more importantly the client loved it. The testimonials started to roll in and I knew I was on to an absolute winner. It felt so good to finally be doing what I loved every day and also to finally have a steady flow of clients!

More than that I also realised that I could help other image consultants avoid all the pitfalls I encountered by showing them how to take their colour business online and shortcut their journey to success!!

This gets me excited every day and this has now become my mission. I am helping fellow image consultants have a profitable and sustainable business doing what they love.

How did you arrive at where you are today? Did you also have a similar epiphany somewhere along the way?

If you are a colour consultant or an image consultant and you do not have a consistent flow of clients, then here are some things that may be distracting you and keeping you from being where you want to be in your business. I know all of these distractions intimately as I have been there myself in the past and I learnt the hard way that these things will not get you more paying clients.

1. The Serial Drape Buyer: Most colour consultants I know love their drapes and they faff around endlessly rearranging them and buying new ones. Clients don’t care about your drapes; they just want to look good. I know how warm and fuzzy it feels to buy that new drape stand and select more beautiful drape colours but this will not help you get more clients in the door.
2. Rewriting your website: A website is not necessary to get paying clients. If having the perfect website is holding you back, then forget about it and come back to it later when you actually have clients and you can afford to pay for the domain, the hosting and to get help writing it.
3. I don’t know enough: This is common among consultants as they start out and often causes a business to fail before its starts. If you have taken basic training in colour and style, you know more about looking good than the majority of people on the planet. Start booking clients, show them what you know and your confidence will grow. There is no book or course that you can substitute for taking action.
4. You struggle with your own image: I am blue in the face from telling consultants that it is extremely hard to be objective about ourselves. As an image consultant, you can also reach out to get help with your own image. If you struggle with your own colours, I am not surprised. This is common after training and before you have integrated your learning by practising your skills. Reach out and get help. I do online colour analysis for just €99 and your struggle with your own colours will be no more.
5. You have little or no business skills: This is common with image consultants in the first 5 years of their business. Most image training courses focus on the technical skills of colour and style and teach very little about having a profitable business. I ended up having to learn by trial and error and it took me years to build my business. This does not have to be the case. If you want to learn how to make your image business profitable and scale it up, message me.

In the meantime, here is a free download that will help you get more paying clients now.

Free Download: HOW IMAGE CONSULTANTS CAN BE FULLY BOOKED IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS WITHOUT HAVING TO DO FREE TALKS FOR AN AUDIENCE THAT YOU HAD TO PRACTICALLY BEG TO BE THERE!

I believe online colour analysis is the colour analysis of the future.

People are spending more time online and are more time strapped than ever. What could be easier for them, then an online consult taken from the comfort of their home? I have listed 6 ways that you can use online colour analysis in your business here but I am sure there are countless other ways it can be used.

1. Show people their best colours: Learn how to conduct an online colour analysis and you can show people their best colours and provide them with a personalised digital colour palatte that they can open on their phone for shopping or for putting an outfit together.
2. Mens Colour Consulting: I know very few men who want to be draped or made to sit in a consultation for several hours. How about analysing them online and sending them a personalised report? I think most men would be delighted with this. What a great gift idea for your clients husband also?
3. Build a capsule wardrobe: Once you have determined a clients colours, how easy is it to create a capsule wardrobe for them? All this work can be done online and you can send them out a beautiful report personalised for their unique needs.
4. Online Shopping for your client: Using the clients personalised digital palatte, how about doing an online shopping service for them? I know many busy corporate clients who would pay handsomely for this service.
5. Makeup Consult: Sell makeup? Brilliant. Determine if someone is warm or cool in minutes and send them a personalised makeup kit that will have them coming back to you over and over again.
6. Hair Consult: Do you know anyone who wouldn’t love a hair consult?? It is one of my biggest sellers. Advise people on their best hair colour and explain to them how to speak to their hairdresser to get the colour that makes them look fabulous. You will have a client for life.

How would you use colour analysis in your business? I would love to hear. For online colour analysis training, read more here.

I must admit this was my first thought when I heard about it. How could colour analysis possibly work if I don’t see the person in person??

I had spent 10+ years doing colour analysis the good old fashioned way with drapes when I first heard of online colour analysis so I was rather fixated on the idea that you needed the drapes (cloth fabric swatches that a colour consultant uses near the clients face).

I was sceptical about being able to do colours online because I know that colour analysis is a science and an art. It requires technical skills and an experienced eye to determine a clients colours. I have yet to see a computer program able to do this, though technology is improving everyday.

When I provide online colour analysis it requires that I meet you on video and spend time talking with you.

Colour analysis is not as simple as putting you into one of 4, 12 or even 16 boxes. It requires taking the whole person into consideration – Your natural colouring, your personality, your style personality, your lifestyle and your preferences. All this cannot possibly be deciphered by a computer program or even from a picture.

To do online colour analysis, I need to see and work with the full living, breathing human being. Certainly, I spend time building my knowledge and getting to know you before I meet you through pictures and questionnaires but the meeting online step is critical to fit all the pieces together.

What questions do you have about online colour analysis?

Book an online colour analysis here.