What I Learned About Business Consulting from Style for Hire

This past weekend feels like a hazy, ethereal experience. By way of quick background, my daily attire consisted entirely of jeans and a hoodie prior to the advent of the TLC show What Not to Wear. I didn't buy my first pair of heels until the age of 24. While I don't consider myself anything close to a fashionista, I no longer wear hoodies outside of the house (or the walk to the gym).

A few weeks ago, a post appeared on Twitter announcing that Style for Hire was looking for some volunteers to participate in their upcoming stylist training workshop. As a volunteer, you would bring your wardrobe into the conference and be subject to a wardrobe makeover. Not thinking there was any chance I would actually be selected, I sent in my info. Not only was I able to take part in the workshop, but my sister who had booked a last minute flight to come see me was also able to join.

Without going into all of the amazing details, I will share a few of the highlights from the weekend:

• Digging into a Sylvia Weinstock cake at the end of the workshop on Sunday. (it was from a wedding at the hotel; in my defense, I didn't realize that it was a $20,000 cake when I stuck my hand in to grab a piece)
• Walking out of the hotel and waving to a big crowd of paparazzi and autograph seekers, only to discover that while in the hotel, I'd been two feet away from the actor who plays Thor in The Avengers.
• Seeing my sister positively light up from the experience.
• The last one will take some background: The training convention was both about training and selecting stylists for the Style for Hire network. As part of the evaluation process, the stylists had to go through my wardrobe, put together an outfit, and present it to me (in front of Stacy London of What Not to Wear fame). After a particularly awkward presentation which involved a loose, flowy top and some boot cut jeans (during which I definitely began to reconsider the purchase of the aforementioned top), the wannabe stylist turned to me as an aside and asked "would you actually wear this?" "Well, I actually tend to wear that top with skinny jeans," was my reply. Stacy apparently overhead and said, "did you say you wear this with skinny jeans?" She then proceeded to explain to all the stylists why the top would work for me with skinny jeans. So, even without two days of style training, I got it right!

Anyway, though I went in with the attitude of "I have no idea what to expect, but what's the worst that could happen?" I was exceedingly delighted with the experience and actually learned a lot that I can apply to my work as a consultant. So, here are some of the takeaways:

1. Know your client and their needs: One of the best stylists that put together an outfit for me could not only mirror back everything I'd told her about my needs in an outfit, she also incorporated it into her recommendation. The outfit she'd put together was for a date, and she remembered to give me flats because the guy is only moderately taller than me. Another one remembered me saying I won't wear anything less than a full suit to an interview and put that together. By contrast, another stylist put together a great outfit, but had forgotten that I said I wouldn't wear heels while shopping in Boston because of the uneven sidewalks. Unfortunately for her, Stacy turned to me and asked "would you actually wear this for shopping on the weekend?" and I had to say "no."* In consulting, there are so many frameworks and precedents that it can be easy to put together a client recommendation based on what I think is best for me, but if I don't take the time to ask them the right questions and then thoughtfully incorporate them, they won't be as happy with the solution.
2. Be sensitive to where your client is at: One of the more exciting things about this weekend was seeing my sister's transformation. While she will be the first to admit that her closet needs an update, it's still something that can be hard to hear from someone else. While the fabulous Lisa Dontzin was demonstrating a closet audit today, she worked some amazing magic in reading Becky's responses to her suggestions. In doing this, she was able to get Becky to start with some small changes and slowly work up to cleaning out a few items from her closet. I've been in client meetings where we've come in with guns blazing ready to make suggestions without really considering what the responses would be, then ended up dealing with some of the emotional side effects. (yes, corporations can be emotional... Or, rather, executives at corporations) In subsequent meetings with that client, we were significantly more careful with how we worded the headlines of our slide decks and presented our recommendations. I suspect that as I grow as a consultant, I'll be able to know the hot button issues without even having the client tell me what they are, just as a good stylist can intuitively sense a reaction.
3. Challenge the stereotypes: I have to be honest that the thought of coming into a room full of stylists was more than a little intimidating for me, especially as I had left all my "good clothes" in my closet for the stylists to play with and had shown up in jeans and a way-too-big cardigan. I had made a pre-judgment on the fashion industry and was prepared for, as the waiver form stated, "stylists with no tact." As it turns out, these stylists are some of the sweetest people I've ever met! I think that, thanks to Office Space, consultants probably have a similar type of reputation in the corporate world. I do have a mug that says "Consulting: if you can't be part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem." So when interacting with clients, including their admins and data managers, be genuine, be kind and be courteous.
4. Surprise and Delight: The final part of the workshop that I participated in consisted mainly of experienced stylists. One of the phrases that I heard continually as they discussed how they handle various client situations was "surprise and delight". We have a similar phrase in consulting: under-promise and over-deliver. It is so important to appropriately manage expectations, but still find ways to work in bonuses!

 In closure, I just want to give a big shout-out to Style for Hire!  My weekend was amazing.  Back in September, I'd considered hiring a stylist, but wasn't certain whether it would be worthwhile.  After seeing the complete magic that the stylists worked on my wardrobe (like putting together a dozen new outfits from clothes I already own!), I'm definitely going to get a stylist.

*Confession time: I actually decided to wear a pair of heels to go shopping yesterday and I confess that I enjoyed the fact that I looked totally fabulous.  I also did not sprain an ankle.  That said, the bottoms of the heels of my new Cole Haan pumps have been overly beat up, so I'm not likely going to start wearing heels all the time.

Back in the Saddle

So I am alive, as it turns out.

My last blog post was over a month ago, but life has been crazy since then. I spent the first three weeks of August settling into Boston and entertaining guests.

On Sunday, I flew out to Chicago for my first week of training. It was intense. Like, 7:30am-until-6pm-social-activities-starting-at-6:15 intense. The important thing, though, is that I can't wait to get started! This whole week made me think I needed to pinch myself because I'm at a place where I've wanted to be for a long, long time.

I could go into details, but I'm exhausted.

Of course, my life took an interesting turn today.

You may have heard of Irene. She's heading toward New York as I write this, and she stopped all air traffic heading to the East Coast tomorrow. Since I have to be in Princeton on Monday morning, and there's no telling what Irene is going to do, I was scheduled last minute on a flight out of Chicago and get to spend the weekend in Princeton, NJ, where the power is most likely to go out tomorrow. I am celebrating the occasion with chocolate cake and cava. My original plan was to stay with a friend in Manhattan for the weekend, but since Manhattan is pretty much getting evacuated, that fell through.

What an adventurous first week of being a consultant.

Anyway, if you still read my blog, please leave a comment and let me know if I should keep blogging. I enjoyed blogging about my life at Darden, and if anyone out there would enjoy reading about my "exciting" life as a consultant, let me know!

Internship Bliss

Internships probably have honeymoon periods just like everything else. If that is true, I am still in mine.

The internship search was filled with tears, stress and anxiety for me. I never started counting my rejections (or "dings"), but some of the highlights included a rejection mere hours after I submitted the application and a rejection from a company that I never actually even submitted an application for. All in all, there were many, many moments during which those who were close to me had to remind me that things WOULD work out, and I would find the right internship.

Five days in, I couldn't agree more. Besides the fact that it's very convenient to stay in Charlottesville for the summer, I am finding the more I discover, the more I like this great town. Even better, I am working out of the Charlottesville Technology Incubator this summer (no room to work in the warehouse!) and it's located right on the Downtown Mall, which is by far my favourite part of Charlottesville. I spend my lunch and coffee breaks people watching and sampling some of C'ville's great restaurants. Perfect!

But all of that is cosmetic.

When I started my internship search, I was very focussed on consulting. I wanted to do consulting because of the ability to gain experience over a variety of functions and take on new challenges every couple of months. Anyway, Relay Foods excited me because it would give me the opportunity to work across functions, make an impact, and be part of a growing company. As it turns out, my internship is being constructed like a consulting project. I am working with a project manager who is a Darden professor who was a partner at a consulting firm pre-Darden and has already taught me a LOT about strategy, operations and marketing. In addition to getting the consulting experience that I really wanted, I get to use a lot of the skills I learned in my favourite class - Decision Analysis and Optimization.

All that said, it's also going to be quite an intense summer. I can't believe a week has already flown by! Given how much I want to accomplish yet, I know there are going to be many long days in the future.

Opportunity Consultants, Inc.

Today, I took a rare opportunity to get out of the Darden bubble in the middle of a weekday to go and meet with a client for Opportunity Consultants, Inc. (OCI)

OCI is a Darden-run organization that puts groups of volunteer students together to help small businesses and not-for-profits with small consulting projects.

Sitting around the boardroom table today, talking with the executive director of a program that runs programs for children and youth, felt good. It was nice to get out of the me-focussed-space and think about what I could do to help this organization develop the best possible program mix for its new center. Though we won't really dig into the project until next semester, I'm looking forward to applying my business skills in the not-for-profit sector. My background consists of a lot of not-for-profit work and there's always a sense of familiarity and nostalgia when I visit offices of social sector organizations, despite the fact that I only know a little about the organization and I'm in a new city.

Virtual Coach

The last few blog posts have more routine and newsy than thought-provoking and introspective, but nothing that's been on my mind lately has seemed particularly blog-worthy. Instead I am wrapped up in all of the details that come with saying goodbye and moving and pursuing a slightly different career progression.

There is an organization called MBA JumpStart that offers a program pre-MBA called "Virtual Coach." As it seemed like a great opportunity, I hopped on board, and while sometimes it felt difficult to make time for the assignments, it's been a great learning experience. They've helped me with my resume, given me interview tips, and asked questions about my network and my brand. Just now, I turned in my second last assignment, in which I had to examine a recent business decision made by a company/CEO and discuss whether I think it was the right decision or the wrong decision. (In case you're curious, I dicussed the launch of Microsoft's new search engine, Bing.) The last assignment is to re-do my resume for an updated resume score. As I was quite disappointed with my first score (I had never really seen a consulting resume before...), it will be good to have the opportunity to have it re-evaluated.

In addition to all of the other assignments, I had to pick out 5 companies that I wanted to work for, and Virtual Coach is looking into finding contacts as those companies for me! As someone who is coming from a small, privately-owned company, whose contacts are virtually all also from small, privately-owned companies, this is a huge potential boost for me. After all, finding a job is based so closely on the ability to network.

So, I suppose this is a plug for Virtual Coach. MBA JumpStart also has a conference in the middle of July (and they pay your expenses if you are accepted!), but as I have other commitments, I am unable to go. If you are looking to start your MBA program in 2010, and especially if you are a career changer, I highly recommend the program.