Introducing the New Look Style Coaching Institute®
Hello lovelies, notice anything new around here?
Tracey and I are SO excited to finally unveil our new look Style Coaching Institute® website blog!
We’re overwhelmingly excited, but also slightly nervous because it’s a big change for us, and the process of getting here has pushed us outside our previous comfort zones.
In total, from the drawing board concept in our minds until our big ‘go-live’ day, this new site has taken somewhere close to 7 or 8 months of work. After nearly 15 years of creating and managing our own website, we decided it was time to team up with a local digital marketing company so we could take our online presence to the next level. As with many big changes in life, this decision came about after a period of frustration and discontent. We were having problems with our website that we didn’t know how to fix, and we needed to call on the help of a professional team with expertise we didn’t have. The discussions we had with them, and our vision for what we would like to achieve (in an ‘ideal world’) evolved into what you see on the screen in front of you now.
Since we started the Style Coaching Institute® and began training personal stylists and Style Coaches™ in 2005, this website has been through several major design changes. I wish we had kept a record of each one of them, as they would have told an incredible story of our journey and the immense growth we have been through. The website has come a long way – from our first website which was created by a family friend, to taking the reins and creating all our content for ourselves, to reaching a point where our next big leap depended on us letting go of the reins and placing our trust in a new creative team.
Hello lovelies, notice anything new around here?
Tracey and I are SO excited to finally unveil our new look Style Coaching Institute® website blog!
We’re overwhelmingly excited, but also slightly nervous because it’s a big change for us, and the process of getting here has pushed us outside our previous comfort zones.
In total, from the drawing board concept in our minds until our big ‘go-live’ day, this new site has taken somewhere close to 7 or 8 months of work. After nearly 15 years of creating and managing our own website, we decided it was time to team up with a local digital marketing company so we could take our online presence to the next level. As with many big changes in life, this decision came about after a period of frustration and discontent. We were having problems with our website that we didn’t know how to fix, and we needed to call on the help of a professional team with expertise we didn’t have. The discussions we had with them, and our vision for what we would like to achieve (in an ‘ideal world’) evolved into what you see on the screen in front of you now.
Since we started the Style Coaching Institute® and began training personal stylists and Style Coaches™ in 2005, this website has been through several major design changes. I wish we had kept a record of each one of them, as they would have told an incredible story of our journey and the immense growth we have been through. The website has come a long way – from our first website which was created by a family friend, to taking the reins and creating all our content for ourselves, to reaching a point where our next big leap depended on us letting go of the reins and placing our trust in a new creative team.
RECONNECTING WITH THE PURPOSE OF OUR WORK
Over the last few years, Tracey and I reached a crossroad in our lives for several reasons. Many of you will know that Tracey came through a battle with breast cancer, which was not just a life-changing experience for us as a family, but also a major challenge for us as a small company. Thankfully she is back to good health again now (what an incredible blessing) but as anyone whose life has been touched by cancer will understand, it was frightening for a while and it made us rethink a lot of things. At the same time, I also went through a divorce and embarked on a journey to begin a fresh new start with my two little boys. Those couple of years taught us a lot and when life started to settle back down to blissful ‘normality’, it’s fair to say we experienced new-found energy and determination. We wanted to come back to life and business stronger and more focused than we were before. We were ready to get back in the game with fresh ideas and motivation!
To reconnect with the purpose of our work, we reminded ourselves of what lies at the very heart of the Style Coaching Institute® and its core values. We thought about WHY we first started offering personal stylist courses and what made Style Coach™ training so different to any other kinds of image consultancy courses out there. We thought about what we really wanted (which has always been to empower women with confidence). We spent time reading through the hundreds of reviews and testimonials from Style Coaches™ who studied with us and now run their own personal styling businesses, so we could notice the recurring thoughts that people shared. Why did people choose to study with us? What mattered most to them? What did they appreciate most? What we learned is that most people choose Style Coaching™ because of our holistic approach to personal styling and because they are as passionate about promoting positive body-image as we are. They also told us that empowering women mattered to them. That they wanted to go out an make a difference. We realised that our students choose us because we have the same values. Reading their words means the world to us, because it is a reminder that the Style Coaching™ family are here for us, just as much we are here for them.
Too often we underestimate the power of the right outfit, a confident smile, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest acts of self-care, all of which have the potential to turn a life around and challenge the way we see ourselves! It is a great motivator to know that every time a Style Coach™ works with a new client, the positive message we have to share is energetically passed on to others.
“The meaning of life is to find your gifts. The purpose of life is to give them away.” – Pablo Picasso
IT’S ABOUT BEING TRUE TO THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF & LIVING AN INSPIRED LIFE THAT MAKES YOU FEEL PROUD…
Over the years, the Style Coaching Institute® has grown and evolved, but some things never change. For instance, we’ve stayed faithful to the values we share with our students, and we haven’t given in to the pressure to be like any other image training companies out there. We’ll always care first about helping people live happier and more stylish lives that are an expression of their authentic personality. We’re totally devoted to helping people find ways to be true to themselves, to celebrate what makes them unique, and to find beauty in the things that count the most. There has to be a ‘why’ behind your work, otherwise it won’t move you to get out of bed every morning and keep on going even when times get tough!
But as time goes on, it’s natural to look at parts of your business and ask yourself how things could be improved, lovingly distilled, and clarified. This is an important skill for any entrepreneur with their own personal styling business – the ability to keep moving onwards and upwards depends on our ability to reflect on what we’re doing well and what we can do to keep stepping up to the next level. Really, this is why so many expert image consultants, personal shoppers, personal stylist and colour consultants choose Style Coaching™ for the next stage of their professional journey!
Moreover, Tracey and I wanted the Style Coaching™ brand to reflect where we are now and what we’ve learned over 15 years of mentoring up-and-coming personal stylists. The Style Coaching Institute®, like everything on this earth, is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, perfecting, enhancing, adapting… we never stay still and we want to make the best of it! We want to feel proud of our work, which means striving to always be the best we can be and never settling for anything less!
“For what it’s worth… it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald
SHOWCASING & REBRANDING
Showcasing our work at the Style Coaching Institute® is actually quite a difficult thing to do. Unlike companies that sell specific physical products, ours is a primarily a service-based business. If you’re selling a product you can have photographs taken that showcase your product from every angle. But how do you capture and share all those intangible things that make Style Coach™ training so special? How do you communicate the value of Style Coaches™ going out into the world and turning their dream jobs into a reality? When we receive a student’s enrolment form, they often say things like, “I have always dreamt about having a job where I could help women to be more confident”, “My first love has always been style and fashion… now I’m ready to leave my old job and make it happen”, “I quit my old job to start a family, but now I’m looking to get back into the workplace doing something I love”, or “I’ve been an image consultant for several years, now I want to learn how to give my clients a more in-depth and meaningful service”. We hear about each student’s own personal vision for their career and what they’d like to achieve by studying to become a personal stylist or Style Coach™, and then we support them to reach their goals so their vision starts to become a reality. It’s an incredible and very powerful process that we have the honour of being part of every day. It reminds us that every great achievement starts with having the courage to dream big, and to visualise the life and business you deserve.
Sharing what we’ve learned about Style Coaching™ and building a personal styling business from the ground up needs to be broken down into lots more specifics – that’s why we wrote training books all about it that can studied during our online Style Coach™ diploma course! We believe that the success of any personal stylist training company should be judged on the success of its graduates. The proof is in the pudding! So, an important feature of our new website are the sections dedicated to the amazing women (and men!) who studied with us and are now living the dream with their own personal styling, image consultancy and personal shopping businesses. Each one of them has incredible entrepreneurial spirit, self-belief and determination. They inspire us every day and the Style Coaching™ community would not exist without them. Every Style Coach™ deserves to be celebrated and we are hoping to do precisely that when writing our new blog posts! This is a place where we will proudly celebrate the real success stories of Style Coaches™ all around the world.
The rebranding of our website also reflects of our love of a good makeover! After all, nothing feels more rejuvenating than a complete image overhaul, a clean-out and declutter, a seasonal refresh or a brand new start. Hopefully, you’ll agree that our new look combines all of the above in one awesome reveal.
