As an entrepreneur, our branding is so important and there are many aspects to branding, but one of them is our visual style, and today I'm bringing on a guest expert, Nina Walder, who is a personal stylist and a style coach, and she is going to share the behind the scenes of her business, how she grew it, because I know that's what you guys love to hear.
And also she's going to be sharing very practical tips for the entrepreneur to feel confident and be more successful in their business with the how they present their style as part of the key to that. So join me in this conversation, I think you are going to love it.
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I'm Jen Argue, I have been leading masterminds for the past five years for six and seven-figure entrepreneurs, and I would love to help you start your own mastermind as well so that you can create a really big impact with those around you and work a lot less and make a lot more at the same time.
I'm so excited to have a guest on the podcast today Nina Walder is joining us and she is a personal stylist and a style coach. Hi everyone! my name is Nina Walder, I am a personal stylist and a style coach. A while back at a university I did a Master's degree in business.
And after my masters', I worked in a corporate for a little while and then very quickly realized this is not what I want to do. I want to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be in an like running my own business, running my own show from very early on. But it's funny now because I did a master degree in a business and everybody would think, yeah, you go and run your business.
You've been educated in business. And it was funny because I wanted to launch a business online and I realized I did not know how to do that. And this is when I found out about Marie Forlio. This is when I found out about the Business school. [laugh] And so I enrolled in the Business school to help me launch my business in the education niche online because it's very different like having the business fundamental and knowing how to position yourself.
How to create your own personal brand. How to start the business online. And it was 10 years ago, so it was not as popular as nowadays. Nowadays, you can learn some things on YouTube and TikTok and stuff like that, but 10 years ago it wasn't such a thing.
So you actually had to do and take a proper course to do that and...I launched at the time of business and the...it was admissions, like education admissions. So it was great. I loved it. It was my passion for a while, but right around the pandemic, I was feeling that it gets running the business is paying my bills.
I'm good at it, but I don't want to do that for another decade or so. And when I had a bit more time in my hand, I was thinking, okay, what it is exactly that I want to do? Where do I see myself? Like in 10 years and 20 years, what could I be doing for a long time? Because I'm really passionate about being true to myself and to my desires and what like how can I help serve this world better and realize that I want to do personal styling?
Because it's been my own journey as well. It's been my hobby and passion on the side. I never realized, I never gave myself permission that I can actually do that as a business. It was like a hobby. I loved it. I felt because it comes so like at some point, natural to me, my friends and family loved it, but it was like such a kind of cute hobby of mine.
But during the pandemic, when I had the time to think about that, to think through about that, I realized I want to do that. It's scary, I have to start everything from ground zero again. I have to exit my previous business. But I wanted to make a success because I thought I could see myself doing that for another, like couple of decades at least.
So that is when I took up all the courage [laugh] and pivoted to start business and personal styling. Incredible! so when you started your business and personal styling, how did you get traction in the beginning? Well, it's a bit of a story as well because when I was formed that, yeah, I want to become a stylist and I, this is how I want, like, to run my business and my show.
I was still scared to put myself in front out there because I thought, okay, I want to run this business in personal style, but I don't want to be the public persona. I don't want to be the stylist out there. And like to be popular and famous on Instagram. I didn't want any of that. So at that point, a friend of mine was also looking to start a business in personal standing and I thought, okay, why don't we join forces and we start a business together.
So I kind of can hide behind the business name, [laugh] so to say, and like we will start it together maybe like we will make it a success much quicker than doing it alone from the ground zero. But in all the same they say- Don't do business with your friends. And it's very true. Don't do business with your friends.
So even though we tried very hard for half a year to take it off the ground, we still had very different vision, very different like work style. And after half a year we realized, okay, it's on going anywhere. We have to take a different path. And this was the moment when, again, I was at stage where I thought, okay, now.
I have to put myself out there. I know more can hide behind the business. I know more can like be behind something. This was a very scary decision because I'm not a person who's very comfortable on Instagram. It doesn't come natural to me. I'm not about like sharing my life on Instagram or anything like that.
So it was extremely scary. I had so much fears about that. I was thinking what my friends and family going to think about me and all of that about my cute little hobby and the things that I'm doing, but they realize that I have a mission like I'm really serious and very passionate about helping women feel better through style, through clothing.
So I need to take those steps. I need to overcome my fear. I need to learn how to do that. And this is how I started step by step. After half a year doing this with a friend, then I started doing it by myself. And at the beginning, of course, it was very hard, firstly because it's very uncomfortable.
It was scary. I didn't know what I was doing like putting myself out there in Instagram, I learned a lot. I hired a lot of mentors to help myself because I literally had no idea how to do that and it didn't come natural to me. So the first few months, yeah, it was hard like you have to be persistent. [laugh] You have to be very enthusiastic.
You need to know why you're doing that and where you want to go to have your direction and your vision, and this is what helped me to get to a point where like I'm still posting daily, showing up daily. Crickets not hearing anything until a moment when people start noticing, and then when you start getting clients and then you start getting requests and then it kind of goes from there.
That is so true, isn't it? It's like the consistency always pays off. And when you are struggling, you hired somebody to help you. Yeah. And I think that is such a smart move. I think whenever we are struggling in a certain area that it's important to take stock of who can we hire to get us through that and who, you know, how can we help ourselves move through it faster.
And it's always by getting help, that's always the faster route versus being the stubborn independent, I'm going to figure it out myself, person. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. If you would ask me one thing that would, that helped me to take my business off the ground, that, yeah, learning, but also being in the community of people and women who were doing the same thing, and I could see that, okay, I'm not the only one scared there.
It's like it's natural for everybody being scared, putting themselves out there and everybody taking the same steps. So learning by observing other women doing that. So like being in Mastermind, being in a course in the community, that really, really helps. Oh yeah! Community is everything. Just on a side note, I think that is one of the best things that will always exist that AI can't replace.
AI, I don't believe, can replace community with other human beings who are experiencing similar challenges and need the help to get through it. So yeah, that, I'm so glad you brought that up. Okay. So when you started getting traction, were you offering one-on-one services? Did you start a group program, or how did you start with your offers, I guess?
Yeah, so for me it was very classic. So I was doing one-on-one work at the beginning for the whole first year, I would say I always had the vision that I want to help more women than what I could possibly do one-on-one. But before I can do that, I need to get experience. I need to really work with real women.
So yeah, for a while I was working as a personal stylist, one-on-one. I was doing a lot, firstly in person. But then I moved online because I had more requests and I was becoming more visible on Instagram and TikTok. So right now I work only online with all my clients. I don't do any, any work in person because it's also so much more efficient.
But yeah, I started working one-on-one and this was for a while to get experience, to get traction, to really understand how can I serve my customer better because also when you work online, sometimes it's hard to, when you don't have real-life experience to understand the body, the style, how clothing fits, the color, and all of this kind of things.
So yeah, that experience really served me. But after a year, I launched my first group coaching program. Wow. That is awesome. Tell me about the type of people that join your group coaching program. So it's been an evolution of course, because as you grow, your audience kind of grows and evolves with you.
I would say right now in my signature program, so around the high touch transformative personal styling program style accelerator, this program was actually born out of requests of my one-on-one studying clients. So I would work with personal studying clients. I would have, a lot of clients would come back to me season after season and I would say, okay, Nina loved my capsule for winter.
I looked amazing. Now it's like this other season, I don't know how to get dressed myself. Help me do that. And they would come back to me again and again and again and they would do some shopping in between our sessions. And I would say at some point I would've thought, okay, let's...let's make it differently.
I would love for you to have this knowledge yourself, to have this skill yourself. So yeah, at the beginning, I helped you, but you know how the personal standing works, it's kind of...it's done for you service, but you're not necessarily gaining the knowledge and the skill for yourself. Like, how can I do it myself?
So once my regular clients Would come back to me season after season. I thought, okay, no, I need, I want you to know how to do it yourself. And this is how I launched the program. So I do work with women, I only work with women and I do have a lot of professional women, women entrepreneurs in my program.
A lot of moms as well for who have been going through challenges. For example, their body has changed and they went through different stages of their life. Also, as women throughout our life, we're going to experience so many changes with our bodies, with the change of work environment, with the places, very relief.
So it all affects our style and something that works for you when you are twenties or early thirties is not going to be the same thing when you are 40. So that's why I have a little women who for joining my program. So I do work with a lot of professional women from all walks of life, from lawyers and doctors and nutritionists, and a lot of entrepreneurs as well who are showing up on camera, who are showing up daily on Zoom meetings and present themselves.
So the visual aspect is very important. But I also have moms who like have three kids and they don't really do any work on camera, but it's important for them to feel great and cute on a daily basis and their casual wear. So yeah, that's a range. [laugh] Uhhuh Uhhuh. Ooh, I love that. So what do you feel like once you've pivoted and you found, you know, this grasped, this area that you love, you know, the fashion, the helping women feel beautiful, or helping them feel confident, what has been.
The biggest challenge other than showing up, you know, and not hiding anymore with a business partner, but like showing. Other than that, what has been like a big challenge for you that you've overcome? Hmm. But honestly, like just still going back, the number one biggest challenge, it was really mastering social media.
Yeah. Like building my own personal brand, becoming invisible online and with intention because yeah, at some point you can become comfortable like talking on camera and stories every day, but it's not necessarily the thing is going to bring you traffic and clients. So you have to be very intentional and strategic about that, how you do that.
Also, not to be like a slave to social media. Because you don't have to do 20 stories every day and post every single day. You also can be very intentional and strategic about that. So mastering that part was, I would say, one of the biggest challenges. But, so at different stages there are obviously different challenges, but I would say nowadays it's.
Kind of like juggling, being a stylist, being a style coach, like serving my clients and also have the other part of the business running because yeah, of course I have help, but still making sure that my program is run. Like the bills are being paid, like we are growing, we are producing, very evolving. So I would, I would say like juggling as a business owner, juggling like all the hats, all the roles.
Even when, like at this stage I do have help, but still, because you want to grow, because you, like, I have so many ideas as a creative interpret and you're like, I want to do this and that. And every day it's a new thing, like being very strategic about that. Really thoughtful, like which direction I want to take.
So that is, I would say, like a constant challenge. Everything else, everything else is figure out. Well, yes. I love that. That's so true. And, and I don't think people talk about that enough. You know, about the, all the hats that, that are being worn by an entrepreneur and the hats are changing and you hire someone and that's even a process to like, Yeah, take off that hat and let them wear it.
That's like, it's hard for us to give up hats sometimes, even though we want to. So yeah, that's such a good point. I love that. So thank you for taking us through the evolution of your business. I am curious, what would you have to say to my audience who is listening to my audience are mostly women entrepreneurs.
And like you said, there is this element of visibility for most of us and brand building. What would you have as some tips for us to be more successful in our business when it comes to what you provide as far as style? Yeah, sure, of course. Um, it's my favorite topic. How do you style, like, as a tool?
Because I see it exactly like that. How are you going to use style to like, to every advantage to yourself as a tool to achieve whatever you want to achieve? So, a few things. Firstly, I would say dress with the intention, dress with the impression that you want to make, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you, the face of your business, your personal brand.
In nowadays, our wall is so fast paced and people make snap decisions when they see you. So before you, they even get to like an idea. Okay, let me check her out. Let me see if I want to work with her. Let me see what she offers before they get to that point. They make the decision about you. Yeah. This is a nonverbal communication, which is like 70% and clothing is a big part of that.
So make sure you know, okay, what kind of impression you want to make when you show up on social media, for example, when you're visible, it doesn't mean just the brand photo shoot, but on daily, like when you show up daily on stories on IG, live on Facebook groups. Like what kind of impression you want to make?
Is it something that you want to be perceived with, like as a confident, powerful leader? Do you want to be perceived that you are like very creative? Maybe you work with creative and with your clothing, you want to sound certain cos. Okay, I am, I understand your wall. So look at me. I'm using color pattern and like I do, I use a creative way of styling my clothing.
Or maybe your tribe is a very casual tribe and you also want to be part of them. So dressing in a very formal wear, even though it looks cute and put together, but your client is very casual. Mom, for example, there is a dissonance. There is a mismatch. So you want to be very intentional about, like very strategic about.
What kind of message you want to send without with your clothing. So it helps you to bring this person who is checking you out. Okay, I'm looking at her, I'm getting the right impression. Let me check out how she can help me. So I would say this is the first step. Secondly, think about again, when you are dressing up, when you are presenting yourself, when you show up on social media, on Zoom calls, when you're training your clients.
How you can shop more consistent manner from a visual perspective, because your visual identity is also very important. People read you like your visual, it's like your visual business card. So maybe you can use a certain color and use it consistently. So for example, myself, I do wear a lot of color and the style, who doesn't wear just.
Black, but wears a lot of color. But among all the colors, I wear fusia most often and a lot of people would tell me like, oh, Nina, whenever I see fue, I just think of you straight away. So this brings the recognition. So when you have certain element, maybe it's a clothing piece, maybe it's the way you put things together, maybe you have a like style uniform.
Maybe it's the color. Maybe it's an accessory or something, maybe it's a lipstick color. Like it could be like many different things. You can just pick one. And when you are consistently showing up with this item, it brings recognition. So you bring, you are building a very strong personal brand, which is recognizable.
And it also. Creates trust, because when people know that, oh, I can expect her to do this, or I can understand, she's always showing up in this way. It brings trust in people. So as an entre entrepreneur, as a personal brand, you want that as well, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Another perspective, so we talked about how you want to dress.
Like outwardly to bring the right impression. But also clothing is a very powerful tool that can help you feel a certain way. It's not me a stylist trying to convince you that you have to. You have to pay attention to how you style yourself, how you dress up every day. But it's scientifically pro proven.
There is a study, which is called Enclosed cognition, which has proven that certain clothing can alter your mood, your productivity, how you show up, how you feel about yourself, so you can use. Styling as a tool to influence how you feel yourself. Especially a lot of us are working from home, and sometimes we may feel like, oh, I'm too cozy, cannot get very productive in my pajama.
So you can think about, okay, maybe you can try something else. Because sometimes I hear from women like, yeah, but Nina, nobody's. Seeing me today. I'm not doing any calls today. Can I still stay in my pajama? Of course you can, but I would challenge you to try something different and notice if it does anything to you.
And I, I know myself that for a lot of my clients it does, it does bring a difference. So if you feel that, oh, I have my focus time, I want to bring this project to life, okay, dress up in a way that makes you feel confident in a way that makes you feel cute up or together, like what? However you want to feel.
Think about what kind of elements it is for that. Again, there is no one recipe fits all. I'm not going to tell you, you have to wear a blazer and jeans on this kind of uniform. It's different things for different people. So maybe you are, you are wearing shorts and jeans, and maybe you don't like jeans because they're too, start it for you.
So develop your own recipe, but dress up to feel your best and to bring this energy when you serve your clients, when you show up online. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow, that I can so relate to. Especially the last point with how you're talking about, there's actually studies done about clothes making you feel a certain way, and it was totally that for me in the pandemic, so.
Mm-hmm. When quarantine started, you know, and the rest of 2020, I still had one-on-one clients. I still had a mastermind, you know, of. High end entrepreneurs that I was leading, and in a sense, I kind of considered myself as a role model for as well. Mm-hmm. You know, like how to keep your sense as you are running a business, a profitable, successful business through.
This crazy time that we are all in and you know, everybody's kids are home and you're having to homeschool now. And I had college kids that all came home and so my house was full. And you know how grocery shopping was during that time. It was just like, are we just making it? Are, are we really doing great?
You know, that and this. This was the mindset and it was totally close for me. Like I, first of all, I'm not really a sweatpants person to begin with, um, you know, unless it's like Saturday morning or something, but I would typically, Non pan pandemic wear normal clothes. I would wear jeans in the top, you know, or whatever it was.
And so through the pandemic, it was really important for me that I stayed in that for my mindset and that I still, I'm a makeup wearer, so I still would wear my makeup, you know, and do my hair, because that's the way I always did life. And it was important for me to keep the normalcy. To feel that just through my normal clothes and makeup and hair time, and I feel like what you're saying.
Yeah, so true. Yeah, so true. Yeah. Yeah. And I think especially on those days when you feel like, ugh, like I feel tired, I don't have the energy, I don't want to take extra effort to dress up or do my hair and makeup. This is exactly what I need to take the time to do that because it'll help you with your energy and feeling better.
That's so amazing how that is. And then I also love your point about brand recognition and how if there is something. That we can create through our style that creates that consistency, that trust through brand recognition. I think that that is such a great point. There's, I read an article not too long ago about this actor, Terry Cruz, I don't know if you've heard of him, but in all of his roles, he's always bald and in this article, They wrote about him or he said to the person interviewing him, I actually have a full head of hair.
People always know me as bald, so I shave my head every day because mm-hmm. That's part of my brand. That's how people recognize me. Oh wow, that is amazing. But once you have that recognition, I would imagine actually if you did have that actual brand style, like you with your bright colors, you would have to prep your audience if you were going to change to, yeah, muted colors.
Totally. Yeah, totally. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But I kind of also, yeah, bring a lot of meaning behind what I do and like share with my audience. Okay, why do that? Cuz sometimes people say, Nina, why don't you wear black? And I explain to them, why don't I do that? And why you can do that and you can, as a stylist, my philosophy is that you can do anything you want as long as you are happy with it.
If you want to wear all black outfit, all gray outfits all day every day, you can absolutely do that if you're happy with that. Mm-hmm. The challenge though, is that for majority of women is that I do that by default, not by choice, and I don't know how to do differently. That's why it's been, I've been stuck in this gray outfit for so long or whatever, and.
Yeah, but you can do anything you want. So that's really good to hear though, because if somebody is in that mode and they're doing it without thinking, and it's just kind of their habit, but they would like to do something different, you are the person that they should reach out to then to help them do that successfully and to feel more confident in that transition.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Help women with all aspects of style, and I truly believe in the transformative power of style and what it can do for you, for your confidence, for how you show up for your business as well. So absolutely. Ah. I love that, and I love that you are doing it through a group coaching program.
I think that helps make it accessible. I would imagine for a lot of people who would like that as well. And I love that show, what Not to Wear from a long time ago. Yeah. Did you ever see that? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You could just see the transformation in people and I think, oh, if just everybody could have that experience, that would be incredible.
That has been my passion and motivation from, from the very beginning. Yes. Bringing this transformation and change and seeing how women rise up just through the power of clothing and style. Yeah. Do you think that your program could even be for people who have a sense of style, but feel like maybe it could be upgraded or maybe.
You know, are maybe concerned, like, I wonder if my style is getting outdated, you know? Mm-hmm. To help people stay on top of trends too, or how to keep up with the times in a sense. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I do have different, um, different clients who come. Some come and they, for example, they bring in, they building their style from the ground up.
Maybe there have been a lot of changes in their life recently. Maybe it's like post-pregnancy, your body has changed different size, maybe even location. I had a client who moved from Chicago to Miami and she would tell me, like, I, my out, my wardrobe was all black when I was in Chicago and I'm in Miami like, It does not work.
Yeah, it does not work at all. So I need to complete a new type of wardrobe and I don't know how to do that. I have no idea how to do that. So I do have clients who come and they like build in their wardrobe and style from the ground up. I do have some women who already come with like pretty polished style and they have an idea what they like, what they don't like, what works for them, but they want to develop it fewer and a lot of times also, Them, even though they have a polished style, but it's usually kind of what they say themselves, very predictable.
So it's very typical outfits. So I know how to wear a blazer and like a suit for work and I know how to look cute when I go to work to the office. So like formal wear. But now, for example, I need more casual wear and I have no idea how to dress for dates for casual errands and like stuff like that. But I want to look cute.
As well in other parts of my day. So yeah, I do work with women in different stages of their style journey. Yeah. That's awesome. Oh, I'm so glad that you joined us today. I loved hearing about your business journey and all about the offers and how you help people feel more confident and entrepreneurs to be more successful.
Just through these different aspects that you brought up of branding and how you feel and the impression that we leave on people because. Everything is moving so fast and to have that recognizable or something, something impressionable as people are scrolling is so valuable. So thank you so much for doing that.
I love that you came and. Hung out with us. Yay. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Jen. It's been so much fun. I love, I love talking on this topic and it's been, yeah, it's been a lovely conversation. I hope it's been helpful for your audience. Super helpful. So how can people stay in touch with you or get to know more about what you're doing?
The best would be to go to my website, which is ninawalder.com And um, you can also find me on Instagram, nina_walder I do have different programs and services and yeah, you can hang out with me on Instagram to, to get a feel and vibe of what I do, what I stand for, but my trip.
Believe and passion that every woman can look and feel their best no matter where you show where you live. What is your style? What is your height, weight, or shape of size or anything like that? So I absolutely hope that every woman can take charge of their style. I love that. Thank you so much, Nina. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much for listening today. I hope that if you found value in this that you would subscribe to my podcast and share it with a friend and leave a review.
Thank you so much!
