Dress For Success: Powerful Techniques To Dress In The Corporate World With Robyn Balsley

Wouldn’t it be great if you had no stress when you’re getting dressed on a daily basis? For this episode, I have Robyn Balsley, who is going to share with us some techniques on how to dress for success, how to take the stress out of dressing, and what people are doing these days when it comes to dressing for a virtual environment in the corporate world.   Let me tell you a little bit about Robyn. She says, “How we show up each day matters.” With Robyn’s many years in sales, she understands too well that it takes seven seconds to make a first impression. Women’s lives shift through job changes and life events and it is so important that we dress the part. As a style expert image coach, she takes the stress out of getting dressed so that you can step into your confidence each day and be energized to achieve your goals. Stay tuned for this awesome conversation with Robyn.

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Robyn, thank you so much for being here on the show. I’m excited to talk to you. I know that it takes a few seconds to make a first impression. Do you know why it takes so few seconds to make a first impression?   First of all, thank you so much, Rosie, for having me. It’s who we are. As human beings, that’s how we are and we quickly make judgments. It’s the way our minds work and that’s how it happens. It’s very simple. Would you call yourself a stylist or what is the primary title that you would give yourself since you operate in helping women dress for success essentially?   I call myself a professional personal stylist because I do gear towards the professional woman. There’s such a niche there. That’s why I even got into this business, to begin with. It’s seeing that as women as we elevate in our careers and up-level. Things change and we need to show up differently. I found that people weren’t doing that. Being in sales for so many years, I know about how we show up makes a difference. The show primarily caters to women in the corporate world. Many companies have experienced hybrid or even remote work. One of the things that is stressful these days is trying to figure out how to still make an impression over video. Can you tell us a little bit about what your recommendations are to still show up as an individual that wants to be successful, yet still have that stigma of working from home and sometimes working from your couch and pajamas? What would you say to the person that’s trying to advance in their career and has that situation?   During COVID, I did a lot of research on this because most of us were in our sweats every day and our mental attitude was struggling. Clearly, the world was closed down, so it was a lot to take on. I found that when those days that I got up and got dressed, it made a difference. I shared that a lot in my social media and a lot of my clients were doing it and they could tell the difference. There’s a mental phenomenon called enclothed cognition. What we dress in is how our mental attitude and how we approach the day. A great example of that is when we put on our workout clothes, our mind knows we’re going to go workout and it has that mindset. If we’re in sweats, our mind thinks that we’re going to be relaxing and taking it easy. It shifts a little bit but when we get up and get dressed for work. Even if you’re working from home, get up and get dressed as if you’re going to the office because your productivity and how you approach the day will be so much better and you will feel so much better. That is so interesting that the way you dress impacts your mood. You’ve done a lot of research and stuff like that but do you know any statistics or anything like that points to how productivity is correlated with how you dress?   There are some numbers and it goes anywhere between 20% and 40% of what we are showing up as makes a difference and how we get through the day. I not only work with individuals. I work with teams. We see that teams approach it differently when they have a dress code or know how they’re supposed to show up every day. there’s a 40% in that with teams. What would you recommend to someone? A lot of people are not doing their full hair and full makeup. Are there any simple tips or strategies that you use with your clients that will help women in the corporate world to advance in their careers but not have to do the whole hair and makeup thing, especially every day over the camera?   It’s not necessary. I do say, “Always be ready to turn your camera on.” If you get that last-minute call and someone wants to jump on a call and get on the camera, be ready for that. You don’t have to have your hair made up and you can still look decent. It’s doing simple things that you can wear a more fitted jogger on the bottom but wear a nicer sweater or even a blouse with your joggers. At least, you’d feel a little bit more elevated. You still have to put a top on, so it makes it very simple. That’s a very easy way to do it. You can wear glasses that can help hide if you don’t have a lot of makeup on that. That’s a tip that I use. You can even do your hair from the front if you want to be that simple with it. You can put a few curls in your hair or however, you wear your hair. You can make sure the front is framed and looks nice, and a little lipstick. It’s good if you can get all dressed but some days, we don’t want to do that and that’s okay. At least, we’re up-leveling. As we are advancing in our careers too, we got to dress up for the roles that we want and who we want to be as well. Showing up in sweats and we want to go for this new promotion, you’re not going to feel it. You’re not going to feel it or it doesn’t correlate to what I always say, act, or do the job that you want to have even before you have that job. How do you think people have changed the way they dress over the last couple of years because of the pandemic?   It’s been a real struggle because so many people are working hybrid. One day you’re in the office, one day you’re at home, and it’s very confusing. A great example is I have some clients that are in the financial world. Know your audience and who your clients are and how they’re dressing, so you want to mirror them. That’s important. Clearly, if they’re a real casual and they’re all wearing jeans and T-shirts, you don’t want to do that. You always want to be a little bit step up from your client but not too much. It’s much more casual, so it can be very confusing. That’s where a lot of my clients are. I’m working through that with them because it’s so confusing. Your specialty is to take the stress out of getting dressed on a daily basis. What are some things that you do with your clients to go through that process of taking the stress out of getting dressed every day for the office or even virtually now?   What I always say is that my work with a client always starts in your closet. How many of us open our closets every single day and say we have nothing to wear? It’s false that we have nothing to wear. that’s the best place to start. It’s clearing out some of that clutter so it’s not so overwhelming. Things have shifted. Maybe you don’t need those suits anymore. Maybe you remove those from your closet or keep the blazer that you can add to the pair of jeans. Simplifying your wardrobe is huge. It makes a huge difference. A tip that I share with a lot of my clients is to put a little basket in your closet and if you wear something you don’t feel good in it, put it in that basket and don’t hang it back up then donate it after a couple of months. We tend to keep putting things back in our closets. They don’t serve us, feel good and we don’t feel better when we’re wearing them. It all starts in our closet in simplifying. I do have that basket in my closet, Robyn, because as you said, sometimes I wear something and I’m like, “I hate this.” I wear a lot of cardigans. I’m warm-blooded and so I want a little cardigan but with the cardigans, they get pitted after like 1 year or 2. I always have to replace them and on one side, I’m like, “I don’t like the way this feels anymore. I’ll wear it and I’ll throw it in that basket,” because you’re right. If I don’t feel good in a piece of clothing, I’m self-conscious and who wants to be self-conscious? When you’re home and you’re like, “I don’t like this top or whatever.”   You pop on the Zoom and the camera goes on then you’re like, “I don’t like the way this looks on me.” That’s a big difference too now. We see ourselves a lot more than we used to. We used to look at ourselves in the mirror, leave the house and that’s probably the last time you look at yourself all day. Now we’re seeing ourselves constantly throughout the day. We’re more critical of ourselves and even more so important to wear something you look and feel good in. That is a good point because you’re right. I’m remote every day now but when I would go to the office, I would put my lipstick on. I put it on in the morning and I never reapplied for the rest of the day because I don’t think about it. I go to the bathroom in the afternoon, I’m like, “That’s what I look like? I swear I put makeup on this morning,” and throughout the day, you get tired and you can see the difference between your makeup at the end of the day and the beginning of the day. You’re right, you are on camera and yourself all the time.   It’s such a huge confidence boost. When you feel good about what you’re wearing, your confidence sores. I say that all the time, I help my clients step into their confidence. “When you feel good in what you're wearing, your confidence just soars.” – Robyn Balsley Click To Tweet It’s just how comfortable you are. When you say, “Go into your closet,” that’s very easy to say. What are some simple, streamlined strategies? We all know about Marie Kondo. If you have something and you love it, keep it and if you don’t, toss it out. What are some simple streamlined strategies that you use with your clients? By the way, do you consult with your clients online or is it in person?   I do both because of the world we live in now. I do a lot of virtual styling and I can help you get in your closet like this on Zoom. We can go together in your closet. I’ve done a lot of that but then there are clients that are local that I work with face-to-face. The simplest thing to start with and this is an easy thing to do, is to turn all your hangers backward. It’s on the rod and normally, they’re facing this way but turn it backward where the open face of the hangers at looking at you. When you wear something, you turn it around. Very quickly you will see what you’re wearing because if the hangers turned around, you know you’ve worn that. It’s the 80/20 rule. We wear 20% of what’s in our closet. That’s a simple way to see what you’re wearing and another way to try to start streamlining as well. You put your pants together and your shirts together and your jackets together and keep it all organized but even still, it’s still going to feel overwhelming. We don’t have ten hours to go in our closet and clean it all out. If we start taking baby steps, you’ll be surprised how quickly you start moving things out. My son graduated from college and he moved to Arizona. Now I have his whole closet. I did think about taking all of my clothes and putting them there. As I use them, then hang him in my closet and everything over in his, that’s what I should donate. I was like, “I could use his closet,” but we need those simple strategies to figure out what we wear and what we don’t wear. I don’t know if I’m the only one to do this but I still have stuff in my closet with tags on it. It’s like something that I’m like, “I’ll wear it.” It was a cheap deal. I was like, “I could probably use that.” I’m so bad at having stuff in my closet that still has tags on him. It’s terrible.   There are some mental parts to that though. We all have a lot of stories and there’s a lot in our closets. It’s a different life we lived or possibly that we bought something that was too expensive and maybe it was expensive but we never wore it. Not that it was too expensive but every time you see that, you feel like, “Why did I buy that?” Take it away. If you’re not wearing it, give it to somebody else who can wear and love it or take it to consignment. The other big piece to that is I feel like we hold on to things like if we’ve gained weight or we’ve lost weight. We think, “We’re going to lose that weight.” Every time you see those pants that you don’t fit in, it’s a mental game. You’re like, “I still haven’t lost the 10 pounds from COVID.” Embrace the body you have now and love it because we’re so hard on ourselves as women. “Embrace the body you have now and love it. ” – Robyn Balsley Click To Tweet I love what you said because you’re right. Not even necessarily weight but I have some nice blazers and jackets that were heavier material. Now because I am in full-blown menopause, they’re too hot. I’m like, “They’re nice jackets. Maybe I’ll wear them eventually,” but I’m so warm-blooded now, so you’re right. I generally have wooden hangers in my closet. For some reason, I have now plastic hangers, wood hangers, and dry cleaner hangers and I hate those dry cleaner hangers.   I told my daughter, I’m like, “I’m doing an episode and the closet is a mess.” I’m usually better about purging like every 3 to 6 months but this time has been a little bit longer. I can tell when I haven’t taken the time to purge things that I don’t like. It’s not just my closet but my drawer dressers are deep. The pajamas that I wear are all on top and then there’s all this stuff on the bottom line. I don’t know what’s under there. I did take that stuff out and go through it.   The closet seems so overwhelming. Are there any suggestions that you have? What are some techniques that you recommend to your clients when they think, “I need an entire closed closet overhaul?” I know you said about the hangers but are there any other techniques that you use? Maybe do the pants one day or do all the shirts one day. What else do you have as far as the tricks about that?   You touched on what you’re talking about doing with your son’s closet. You can start with your pants and take them all out of your closet and look at them one by one. Try them on. Maybe block out 30 minutes or an hour. You’re going to just work on your pants and anything that’s too tight or it’s pulling on you, do not put it back in your closet. You could do it by category. That’s a simple way to start tackling it. It’s not so overwhelming. When I work with a client, we take the entire closet out then we start putting things back in. We have to donate and that’s the other thing too. You can have a donate pile. Some things are trash and they’re not worth saving and then there are some things that maybe need to go to the tailor or need to be ironed. I sound very dated when I say iron. They need to go to the cleaners, let’s say that. You’re not dating yourself as far as ironing. To me, ironing is one of those things that I anomaly know because I love ironing. I have ironing parties with myself. I have a basket of all the stuff that I want to iron and then once a month, I’ll iron all my clothes. I’ll put 2 or 3 movies on. It’ll be like a five-hour process but I’ll iron a few things and I’ll sit down and watch the piece of movie. I iron some stuff and I sit down. My husband knows that I’ll be ironing all day but it’s more therapeutic than anything else for me. What about someone that doesn’t think that they have a style? Do you work with people that think, “Robyn, I want to do something with my closet but I don’t know what my style is?” What do you say to somebody like that?   This is what I found and I’ve been doing this for a few years now. Whenever I get in someone’s closet, everyone has a style and they don’t even know it but they do. They always have gems in their closet that they love and picked out themselves. I’ve never seen someone not being able to do that. The best thing you can do though is to go onto Pinterest or online and you’ll see people’s styles that you like. You can start gravitating toward that. Let’s say you like the way Jennifer Aniston dresses. You can see elements of her style. She wears jeans with a blazer or whatever it might be. Start looking and noticing what you see. Pinterest again is a great place to do that to look at different styles. Let’s say you have a red jacket in your closet and you don’t know how to wear it. You feel like you don’t know your style with that. Type in Pinterest, outfits with a red blazer and you’ll get a ton of ideas on how to re-wear something. I’m a big believer in shopping your closet. We have those gems in our closet that we do have style around. Let’s embrace that and start building around that.