We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jenilee Samuel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jenilee below.
Alright, Jenilee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
This illuminated to me what I already knew: that our fashion is tightly woven to our souls, and it’s not just clothes we put on our backs.
A new, sweet client was having her first anniversary since her husband’s passing. She was going to be going out with her family to celebrate his memory and wanted to wear a beautiful outfit for the event. She said to me, “I want to feel beautiful, and if you can find something in hot pink, that was his favorite color on me. He always loved when I’d wear it.”
My tears began to spill out as I read on to the rest of her profile, easily deciding to clock OUT so I wouldn’t be pressured by time to find what she needed. Lily Pulitzer was her favorite fashion designer and inspiration, so I carefully chose a black and white fitted dress to flatter her lean figure, with gorgeous classic black pumps, a hot pink over coat & a perfectly “Lily” purse to top it off. I suggested she wear lipstick to match her pink coat, and included a beautiful pair of earrings to finish her look and make her sparkle! I crafted a heart felt note to assure her I hoped these pieces worked perfectly for her special evening and how much I wished I could crawl through the note and listen to her stories about him over coffee. Two weeks later I heard back from her and she swooned with gratitude over how beautiful she felt in the pieces I’d chosen, and that they were just “perfect” for her evening. She said “The whole evening was just perfect. My whole family was together, sharing our special memories from his life. I felt so beautiful in this pink coat, almost like I was floating through the evening. It was as though I could feel him smiling down at me and telling me how gorgeous I looked that night. THANK YOU so much!”
I. Died. I bawled my eyes out and was so grateful to have helped make her evening so memorable with something as “simple” as “just clothes”. Yeah. That’s when it struck me. Clothes aren’t just clothes. They’re our walking billboard to the world around us, sending a message about our mood, our vibe, our personality. They’re physical reminders of deeply personal mile-markers in our lives. And I’m so grateful to get a front seat to so many open hearts and meaningful moments.
Jenilee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I remember standing in my closet, staring defeatedly at the clothes that hung… mocking me in my confusion as I burst into tears. “Stephen!!! **sobbing** Pregnancy isn’t nine months!!! It’s TWO YEARS!!” *Cue more sobbing*. Ok, yes, hormones probably weren’t helping me out in that moment, but I was only a very young 23 and had just had my first child a few months prior and was JUST trying to fit back into my old clothes again … I mean, is that really so much to ask?? I had gotten pregnant only a few months after getting married, already at a young age, and I was just not prepared for all the changes that had happened to my body. I mean, I had barely become an adult and gotten used to my adult body before pregnancy changed it up so drastically. In the years following, I had three more kiddos before my oldest turned six and my body went through every fluctuation possible. Yet I was determined not to “let myself go” just because I had had kids. So I started my journey of learning how to dress my post-baby body, my woman body, my unique body. This led to me helping friends find clothes that fit them better, which led to my working as a Stylist for Stitch Fix for three years and styling 8,000 people, many of which were return clientele.
Eventually I wanted a more personalized one-on-one approach with clients and started my business, J. Samuel Styling, to help the people within my community who might have been suffering from feeling betrayed by their own bodies or lost to their own sense of fashion. That may sound a little dramatic, and not all of my clients feel so discouraged about their wardrobes, but all of them have some level of frustration around shopping, dressing their body, putting outfits together, having stuff for date nights, etc. So, I work with my clients either through personal style coaching, shopping, or editing their closets and helping them learn how to make the most of what they have, shop smart, and trick the “eye” through different style hacks. I love when I hear clients say after a coaching session, “Oh wow, I’m so excited to go through in my closet now, it makes so much sense!” or when my Closet Edit clients say “I NEVER would have thought to put that together, but I love it!”.
For me, the satisfaction is in helping women find a sense of beauty and belonging in her own body and wardrobe. Beauty is part of the God-given female nature… it’s a reflection of Him and it’s inherent to us. And when I can help a woman embrace the unique beauty she possesses by teaching her how to HONOR and dress her body to work WITH it rather than fight against or hide it, it’s a victory. Most women WANT to love their bodies more, and WANT to dress in a way that makes her feel pretty, but she simply just doesn’t know how to do it on a practical level. I love helping build the bridge between “want-to” and “love-to”.
A new project I’m really excited about is my new online course! In order to expand my ability to help women, I hosted a Style Workshop, which I filmed and converted into a short online video course packed with all the essentials to learn the basics of fashion to help her feel great in her clothes. It’s called “Fashion Sense: 3 Hours to A More Stylish You!” and can be found at my website: www.Jsamuelstyling.com .
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
My most effective strategy for growing is using social media (which I’ve been building for years), and using it to show-case before and after situations. With social media, people don’t see everything you post. So, covering the same type of content consistently is important. We think people will get sick of it (it shouldn’t be your ONLY content, but people SHOULD know what you do!) but repetition is important. The psychology that drives marketing is that people need to see something 7 times before they’re motivated to take action on it. So, your friends, followers, and social accounts are an important place to drop valuable content. And not just sales pitches, but micro-content that is helpful and shows your followers/friends that you know what you’re talking about. The 80/20 formula is helpful here too. 80% of your content should be adding value and making deposits in your followers (tips, laughter, info, inspiration, etc) while 20% is you asking for their support, business, referrals, etc. This seems to be a good relationship between the two.
Lastly, asking your clients to post to social media and tag you or recommend you to others is huge. Today’s client I sat with was the result of a mutual friend who had tagged and posted about me working with her.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
MYTH: my belief that no one likes getting email and that social media is the best form of marketing, and my email list is for later on down the road.
WRONG. I’m still building my email list, but I find that social media is such an unpredictable level of exposure, with the algorithm and it’s changes determining who and when my stuff is seen. When Facebook banned me from my own account for 24 hours and has restricted my visibility for 3 months right when I was pushing my first and new Style Workshop, it was a rude awakening how much I relied on social media to get the word out. I decided to start small on the email list marketing (once every two weeks), and it makes me feel so much more empowered to be creating content and even downloadables that people can utilize. Not only that but now I know I have an audience when my new projects go live!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jsamuelstyling.com
- Instagram: @jsamuelstyling
- Other: Pinterest.com/jsamuelstyling
Image Credits
All images taken by me, or provided to me by owners. Lina Ayers, Deirdre Fields, Sarah Simonic, Karla Gregg, Samantha Aguinagua,