What Do You Want? Think It Through Carefully.
Q: "I watched your DVDs and studied your course, and I must admit, it seemed too simple! So I started doing (another) course and am mainly left wondering if the colours are the same in both courses."
A: I was so pleased to read that you thought my approach 'too easy'. That's exactly what I have set out to achieve. My course is meant to cut through the garbage, and make it as simple as possible to do the analysis.
After all, your clients are not coming to you for colour, style, etc. They are coming for confidence. Colour, wardrobe, style, whatever, is just a tool to help them achieve it. Sometimes, it's just sitting listening to a client that will change her day, or her life. Sometimes it will be seeing herself in a truly flattering neutral that will change her wardrobe into a working unit overnight. Sometimes, it's just one pointer that will give her the confidence and set her free to be who she really is - here's a quote from an Improvability-trained consultant, Jane, who emailed me recently:
"Thanks for the advice. It helped to put my mind at rest. The lady is now a proud owner of a new hair colour which she has promised to come round and show me. I was right with Warm Autumn and she now has a deep warm auburnish colour with lots of flashes of warm vibrant red! She is very definitely a Creative so we had to keep it zingy. She commented that the best thing about the day was being given the confidence to change her hair colour so that was great."
I do hope that you find a system/approach that works for you. After all, you're going to have to explain it to your clients, so understanding it first yourself would definitely help!"
What Should You Learn First?
So many would-be consultants come to me wanting to learn the lot - colour, style, men's image, corporate, everything together. Yes, you can go on a course of 5 or 10 days with other companies and learn all these things at one fell swoop. This might sound like a good investment for your money. You only have to travel once. You can get all the information at one time. But will you really remember what you learnt on day 2 at the end of a ten-day course? I certainly wouldn't. How do YOU learn? Think about this carefully because this may determine which company you train with.
Colour Analysis First
I would strongly suggest that you learn Colour Analysis first. This is the first thing that everyone sees. If you're busy explaining to a client that she needs a curvy-shaped jacket to suit her curvy-shaped figure, the first question she's going to ask is, "What colour should I buy?" And if you don't know, you'll look a real twit.
Do colour first.
Modularised training is such a gentler approach and it's also the way I treat my clients; I never do colour and style in the same consultation - it's far too much information at one go. After 27 years in the business I have learnt that women enjoy the journey of discovery.
I have tried running full-day workshops showing ladies their colours in the morning and their style and body shape in the afternoon. It's too much. I've done the same with a 1-1 consultation. It's too much. Women generally only remember the last thing that you tell them, because we multi task.
Make-Up
I don't include make-up in my colour consultation; I concentrate on the colour analysis and sometimes offer make-up as a separate service. You might choose to add make-up classes later in your client's development.
Do you want to work with make-up at all? If you don't, then don't train with one of the big colour houses. They will expect you to include make-up in the consultation and sell it to your clients. Decide if this is what you really want to do BEFORE you pay the fees.
I will show you how to work with or without make-up; after all, it's your business and you can do just what you want.
Ladies' Style
Become brilliant at colour first. To encourage you, I ran a business in colour alone for 17 years. You do not need style, wardrobe, etc. to build a successful business.
If you want to add Ladies' Style later on, then you will already have a bank of colour clients waiting for you to contact them.
This is also so much easier to teach by taking your client on a journey of self discovery, one step at a time. How did you learn to tie your shoelaces? On the very first attempt? I bet you didn't. How did you learn your times tables? Immediately? If you're answering yes to this one, your nose will soon be as long as Pinocchio's. No, you practised over and over again, no doubt with the help of a parent or teacher encouraging you to keep at it. And that's just what you need to do for your client.
Wardrobe Management and Personal Shopping
The course I run assumes that you already know colour and style inside out, and shows you how to run individual wardrobe weed-outs in a client's home, how to run workshops for groups, and how to organise and manage personal shopping trips. You need to be able to diagnose a client's colour direction, style personality, body shape, etc. by just casting your eye over her!
The potential for expanding your business and your income is very high when you have the relevant experience.
Men's Image
The Men's Image course is only one day and is based on the assumption that you already understand colour analysis thoroughly. The language and presentation skills are completely different from those you will use with ladies.
Men will not pay an image consultant to find out what colour T-shirt to wear down to the pub! While they are consulting you on how to increase their income in the workplace, they will probably ask which colour is best for wearing down to the pub but you need to be able to diagnose a man's colouring, style, body shape, etc. in a nanosecond - and it has to be spot on! You cannot practise colour and style skills on men. Practise on women first and learn all about women's colouring, style, shape, etc and then take on men when you're good and ready - if you know what I mean!
Corporate Image
Q: I want to do the Colour Analysis training and follow that with the Corporate Image
A: There's no way you can do corporate work without understanding style and fit for both ladies and gentlemen. In the corporate arena, no-one is going to pay for colour alone; they expect you to give advice on professional dressing, and you have to be very quick and extremely knowledgeable in these situations. Business people (men, in particular) expect you to know your subject inside out and will show their disdain if you don't know your stuff. Companies will be paying you a premium rate so will expect a top-notch service.
Colour Analysis followed by the two-day Ladies' Style course will give you a leg up into the corporate world; once you are confident working with individuals and know your subject in depth, you could take on women-only business events.
I would also strongly suggest that you do the two-day Colour Analysis course first and become really proficient at that before training in Ladies' Style for another two days. Four days back to back will addle your brain anyway; quite how you're going to remember what you did on day two is beyond me. Build your business one step at a time; in that way you will have a database of colour clients ready and waiting for you when you train in style.
Be Unique
Just because every other consultant out there seems to offer everything under the sun to everyone and her mother doesn't mean that you have to.
- If you don't want to include make-up, then don't
- If you don't want to include style, then don't
- If you don't want to run workshops, then don't
- If you don't want to work with men, then don't
- If you don't want to work in the corporate sector, then don't
Decide what YOU want to include in your portfolio. You might be utterly brilliant at shopping for a client; you may be an absolute whizz with colour. Build your services around what you love and what you're good at (they're usually the same thing), and your business will grow.
Build a Long-Term Business
The question that has plagued me since I got into this business:
- Why is it that most image consultants show their clients colour, shape, style, everything in one fell swoop and then throw them out onto the street and expect them to put it all into operation overnight - on their own?
And yet, that's the history of image consulting the world over. See a client once. Find a new client. What a waste of energy for the consultant, and what a waste of time, money and effort for the poor client. You need to build a rapport with each client, build a relationship, even a friendship, so that this lovely person can enjoy the new discoveries about her/himself with you in the background to encourage and support them.
And from a business point of view, this makes good sense. It is more expensive to find a new client than it is to develop an existing one. When a lady has spent money with you and had a fabulous experience she will be desperate to repeat that fabulous experience. So give her the opportunity to repeat it. Create follow-on services to meet her needs, and those don't need to include style if you don't want to. Improvability training courses in colour analysis, style, etc. show you exactly how to do that.
Will The Self-Study Approach Work For You?
Q: "One slight doubt that I have concerning the home study course is how I would know for sure that I had analysed a client's colours correctly. If I were face to face with you, I'd be able to ask questions and perhaps go through a few photos or something to check I had the hang of it, whereas with distance learning, I am not sure how this would work. I'm sure you will have met with this sort of question before, so perhaps you would tell me how my skills would be assessed - how will you know when I've got it right?"
A: I will not assess your skills, unless you ask me to. There are no assessments or exams to take. More information
Instead of completing assignments and me marking you as right or wrong, I offer full email back-up. I want to help you with YOUR questions, which could be completely different from anyone else's. Your particular questions will reflect your own business needs and how can I cater for those until we start talking it through?
And, in any case, there is no right or wrong in the world of colour. There isn't a scientist in the world who can categorically prove that you and I are seeing the same shade of any colour! Colour is subjective and anyone who tells you otherwise should be ignored.
