How virtual styling can give your business a boost

I’ve had a good handful of conversations recently about the expectation of work being continual through every 12 months of the year for personal stylists, so I figured it might be a good idea to write about this and help stylists manage their expectations a little differently while also offering an ideal solution.

A Month-by-Month Look at a Typical Stylist’s Year

Jan – Sometimes a quiet month, things just getting off the ground. People are willing to try new things, looking for positivity and renewal. A good time to run workshops / networking / talks & events.
Feb – Diary is filling up, people are more willing to buy.
Mar – Busy month, renewal of wardrobes
Apr – Busy month with the exception of school holidays
May – Summer wardrobe incoming
June – Things start to slow a little but people are focused on holiday wardrobes / summer / vacation and are generally more positively minded.
July – Starting to get slow, people start going away, busy for school parents.
August – A quiet month!
September – Takes people a little time to come back to working life, starts to get busy after the first week
October – Busy month
November – Busy people thinking about Christmas; starts to slow a little
December – A quiet month

Is this familiar to you? Maybe you’ve set your business up for consistent/passive income, and you’ve got the balance just right!

If not, read on.

What to Do During Quiet Months in Your Styling Business

As you can see, we’re approaching a time of year many people choose to take a break, maybe a few weeks or the entire summer off, so it might be a quiet time of year for you, even if you want to find work. If you want to find a solution that works for you, whether you want to take summer off or not, let’s get your business set up without you
worrying about the finances.

Things you can do during quiet times (that helps your business)

Rather than downing tools and forgetting about your business until September, try this:

– Work on your back office / future plans
– Create something that will bring you income during quiet times
– Plan your next year
– Set something up that might usually take your time away from your clients (i.e., templates, downloads, automation)

The best way to avoid quiet times—or take advantage of them—is to plan ahead. Track your highs and lows monthly, evaluate what’s working, and use that information to shape the year ahead.

Manage your expectations and plan ahead

The best way to avoid quiet times—or take advantage of them—is to plan ahead. and manage your year differently. I would always advise that you work on your annual plan a year prior; you can start now. Take note of how each month is going for you – the highs and lows, what’s working, what’s not – and use this information to plan what you want this month in the next year to look like. Do this with every month, and you’ll have a better idea.

When you have that information, for example, you know that July & August are quiet months, you can plan around it.

Consider something like this for productivity…

1. Increase your income in other months to account for the quieter times. Rather than considering your finances month to month, look at your annual income and work out your average month. When you’ve had a good month, rather than thinking, ‘yippeee, I can buy the shoes I wanted’ (no, I didn’t just buy another pair of trainers), think about rolling that money over to the next month and again and again. Investing it into things that will help your business grow and perform at its best. Your average income is your
annual figure divided by 12. What does this figure look like compared to what you might take in over summer?

2. Take bookings in advance for these months, finding a group of people who might not be taking time out (if you are willing to work through) and tell your audience about it in advance. Just because they have kids home doesn’t mean they don’t need you.

3. Do things you might not usually do – for example, workshops/networking/back-end work, etc.

4. Create a passive or semi-passive income stream – creating things in advance for purchase, pulling together shoppable mood boards, delivering an online short course etc.

5. Work remotely for freedom and flexibility – not just in summer, but all year round.

One of the ways you can do this is by styling your clients online.

“Argh! How do I do that?”
“I can’t see how it can work”
“People don’t want a stylist online”
“I’m not set up for this”

Comments like this I observe often, from stylists who are not willing to expand their potential or grow their business, or perhaps simply don’t have the target market or passion to do it. But for those who do, I want to let you in on a secret – it is possible to increase your income and have more flexibility and freedom by styling your client online. Perfect for quiet times of the year, perfect when you want to travel, and perfect if you need to stay home more often. Let me tell you that there is a market for online styling, and if you’re not doing it already, you could be missing out.

To answer the question ‘how?’ I invite you to explore our virtual training course that will guide you step by step on how to style your clients online, whether it’s with colour, their wardrobe or shopping. It includes helpful videos of me working with a client case study, guiding you through the entire process along with templates and resources to help you thrive.
You’re not left alone to figure it out either, me and my team are here to support you along the way and make sure you feel fully confident in your abilities to style and thrive online.

Business support and the growth of your business are what we’re here for, so never feel alone in your styling business or that you’re doing things ‘wrong’ when everyone else seems to be busy or doing things ‘right’. Pop me an email here if you feel that way, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

If running your business for profit is something you’re focused on for the year ahead, join my business mastermind program in September for bigger growth than you
thought possible.

Enjoy your summer, whatever you’re doing!
Emmeline