Career As An Image Management Consultant – Ever thought grooming someone’s personality and helping them portray their best selves can also earn you money other than being gratifying?
Do you think you can provide a customized approach to people making them help appear poised, polished and styled thus turning them into dynamic personas?
Do you possess a strong understanding of what comprises style and fashion and know all colours by names?
You may be well suited for a career in Image Management.
While it is a natural human tendency to analyse others through what they appear externally and being conscious of how we appear as to others, few of us know the analytical process involving the grooming-the grooming of both body and mind.
With India mushrooming in the fields of media and management or the computers, there is an innate urge to prove oneself and bag that high-profile job or growth opportunity. You can make people project the right desirable image by your evaluation of their personality, behaviour and the image they want to portray. Not forgetting the difference between their current image and the desired image.
The Indian government too has introduced several ‘soft skill programmes’ even in rural areas, understanding this urge and the need of the hour.
As Image consultants, you would need to scan through your client’s lifestyle, accomplishments, experiences, professional and personal goals and the roles s/he is fitted in or wants to fit into. The wardrobe may require a complete makeover along with the mind-set of the client. Understanding what kind of clothes, hairstyle and make-up would make the client more presentable and attractive as well as working on their body language and mannerisms will entail your job agenda. You may even have to be prepared for taking your clients for a cluster shopping experience, to make them relate and reckon with the new image they are going to portray henceforth.
The Image Consulting Business Institute and certain other Image Management institutes like First Impression Pvt. Ltd. have come up with a course curriculum in India to train people in image consulting so that they can become the pioneers in aiding people project their desired images effortlessly. This career opportunity can be particularly of interest to women who can now make a difference and work in flexible hours to shape up someone else’s life, career and self-image.
Not only individual but even company desire the benefit of being noticed and hence look for creating an image for themselves in the market which employees too can reckon with. The personality of an organization defines the reputation it carries, its revenue and the results it delivers in the job market. Image consultants can surely come to their rescue to help make the employees and teams make a statement and present the most appropriate professional image.
The field of Image Management has not only come to be known among the job-seekers preparing for interviews and corporate associates but also gained popularity with doctors, lawyers, politicians, celebrities, models, air-hostesses, socialites and even a layman. A sound image comes in handy at all times – be it just to boost confidence, feel good about oneself , attracting high-end/ high net worth clients, landing jobs, getting promoted or finding a suitable life partner.
Image consultancy requires you to give a customized viewpoint of your clients where even their body shape, size, facial features are taken into account along with their demographics and personal sense of style. You may recommend different colours and materials of cloth or various types of jewellery and make-up styles that you think would be better suited to their body frame, age and profession. Consistent work is required to help them improve their grammar, diction, posture, interpersonal skills, and their ability to assert themselves, et al. Good networking with personal trainers, nutritionists, plastic surgeons, dentists, make-up artists, voice coaches and hair stylists will help you build more clients and make the whole personality grooming process become all the more successful and engaging. You may need to understand the business requirements of the corporate clients and advise them on their professional etiquettes, stress management, decoding depression, appropriate business skills, dress codes and image maintenance.
Though India gives limited options for such training centres, you can always take guidance from home study courses, books, workshops and training programmes and learn about various image styles and fashion in general in a span of few weeks to months. You can get the first hands-on experience by styling some of your friends or family members and promote such acts through word-of-mouth or social media to attract more clients and build a strong portfolio for yourself.
A course in hospitality, fashion designing, counselling, etc. can add more feathers to your cap as you might already have developed good communication skills and have learnt to be people-oriented. Image consultancy can not only make you feel complacent but is also a lucrative career, keeping in mind its possible exponential growth in the country in coming years and people becoming more and more interested in attending seminars and workshops to enhance their dressing styles, communication techniques, phone etiquettes and table manners for corporate dine-outs or luncheons. It is you who decides to have a part-time job at an image consulting firm or make a full-fledged business career out of it.
The more high-end clients you get, the more the moolah is! Lead the path for people to help them achieve appreciation, recognition and success by bringing them close to their true colours and identities!
