It is without a doubt that we consequently spend most of our time in the virtual world. Especially at the start of the pandemic, the reality for us all has been spending hours with our personal gadgets. Video calls have become our new channel in order to stay connected. We shop with just one tap and follow other people across the globe through the use of social media platforms. Whether you use it for school, work, business, or entertainment, it’s undeniable that the virtual world has been our refuge amidst all the uncertainties.
With that comes the aesthetics and appearance that all of us should maintain online. Even business owners have no excuse for this one. It’s important to step up our branding by showcasing creativity and uniqueness so that we become noticeable. Today’s guest is an expert on that matter. Shelly Golden from Shelly Golden Style Zoom Makeovers, will walk you through her tips and tricks on how to look your best. Shelly helps you attain better results in both your professional and social life so be sure to catch her in today’s talk.
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Importance of Virtual Appearance in Your Everyday Business With Shelley Golden
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One of the ways that I envision a lot of you out there listening are going to get to the level you want to be at, achieve the life that you really want, is identifying a need that wasn’t previously there or few people were really thinking about, identifying something new, forging a really, truly new, unique path. Identifying new needs and taking action on it is a fantastic way to really live a life that you really want to live, something that my guest today, Shelley Golden, of Shelly Golden Style Zoom Makeovers has done fairly recently.
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Shelly, welcome to the program.
Thank you. Super glad to be here.
Definitely. Let’s start out with Zoom Makeovers. What does this entail because even though a lot of us have spent a little over two years, spending more time on Zoom than we ever imagined ourselves doing? I’m sure a lot of people are not familiar with the idea of what a Zoom makeover
Lighting is the most important factor. What color clothing works best on you in your space? Your real background — is it a virtual background? Are you in your garage? Are you in your kitchen? Says so much about you.
For those who wear makeup, this is crazy, what I call Zoom’s specific makeup techniques. It’s the way you put it on, which is not the same way you would put it on if you’re going on the street. People are looking at you on a two-dimensional platform, but you’re trying to create a three-dimensional look and work everything that you see in the box. It’s almost like creating a new painting. Where does your eye go first, which of course you want to go right here to the other person’s eyes, and eliminate distractions. Increase engagement, trust, and credibility, and eliminate distractions.
Obviously, a Zoom makeover takes on a different form than a standard makeover, where you’re making over primarily what’s on your body. Now, we can talk about the concept of an emotional makeover and all these other types of internal makeover. When people think of makeovers, they usually think of what they’re wearing on the face, makeup, clothing, everything like that. A Zoom makeover is the overall purpose, how you present yourselves to people — the same or is there a different purpose because of what people do on Zoom versus what people do, say when you’re out in public, at a restaurant, or somewhere else, and you’re going through the regular makeover process.
Look at what story you're telling yourself and then look for places where you could reframe the story. Share on X
“Hey, if I’m not good enough with this, I’m okay with it. I’m learning to be better.” Anything that’s going to stop us from moving forward is limiting. It’s a limiting belief or disempowering story, a negative assessment, all those things.
Is there anything about certain times of day or certain specific situations? Do you have a lot of clients that realize that every time I’m around this type of person, or every time I’m in this kind of an office, it tends to be associated with my mid-afternoon energy crash or something like that, where people need to be more mindful of that negative story seeping into their minds?
If you’re conscious that it’s going to happen at 3:00 P.M., at 3:00 PM, somebody is going to walk into your office, and you’re going to be so upset by them. There’s some things you could possibly do before 3:00 P.M. Get up and walk around. Instead of having them in your office, take them for a walk outside or change the environment a little, change what you’re talking about. Start in a different way and center yourself, deep breathing, before that 3:00 P.M. You can really handle it.
It's different because it's how people see you in a box. It's the Hollywood Squares. Share on X
That’s all they see. Do they see you as engaged or not engaged? All I’m doing is moving one foot forward, one foot back. Can they see you, or can they not see you? I turned my lights on. I turned my lights off. It’s not even so much as your hair, your makeup — yes, that’s it. Can they see you? Can they engage with you?
I’m also working with attorneys who are doing depositions. It’s not the attorneys. It’s their witnesses, their deponents. Do they come off looking trustworthy? Do they come up looking credible? People that are deposing witnesses, they’re not used to being on camera. Where are they in their house? Are they in their kitchen? Are they in their bedroom? Tweak everything so that a witness can look credible to a jury.
I’m a costume historian. I used to create costume at a fashion design school in Chicago, as a matter of fact, since we were talking about Chicago before we came on the show. I also lectured on it around the world, because I lived in Europe, in the Middle East, for 15 years. As I say to the attorneys, do you want me to create the girl-next-door look? I’ll create the girl-next-door look. I can create whatever look I want that people will engage with, and appear credible — a transformation for your Zoom space.
One thing I’m wondering is that, as you work with people, imagining people’s professions, people’s work being one of the primary things people are doing on Zoom, does what someone wants to do in a Zoom makeover or in how they’re presenting themselves on Zoom vary from profession to profession what you would advocate for people to do?
Sometimes, I’m actually working with people who are yoga instructors — very different need than an attorney. For example: a yoga instructor, they need their space to look zem. They need to be able to be heard. There needs to be good. How is the music coming through? What’s their lighting? An attorney, not that I’m only concentrating on attorneys, somebody who’s in sales, sales teams — they need to not only feel confident that they look good in the Zoom box/ When they go to a sales call, they need to know that they look good. In a sales call in Zoom, they need to feel confident. They need to be engaged.
They need to look credible and trustworthy. Different people have different needs Share on X
How often are the needs multiple needs for the same person? What I’m envisioning is the idea that when you’re on a sales call, you need to present yourself like this, but then when you’re working with your team, or when you’re coordinating with other parents in the neighborhood, but some other particular situation, you want to tweak things up a little bit. Maybe you have another room setup where it’s more that appearance.
I organize the person’s room. Sometimes, we are actually rearranging the furniture.
Wow.
I actually had a couple of calls that I got in with a couple men as it happened. One gentleman was in the insurance business, and he wanted to start doing podcasts. “Let’s do something new. Let’s do podcasts.” His room was, what you saw, like an old man’s insurance office.
Yeah.
I always have people send me a video of their space. What does your room look like? When I saw his room, I said, “You really need to get an extra desk in this office.” I drew a little room plan on the back of a piece of white paper. I’ve sent it to him, “Okay, move your furniture over the weekend. It looks like in this setup, and then we’ll continue next week.”
I had another gentleman, actually, just a couple of weeks ago. We’re looking through the bathroom door. “Okay, this is just networking.” We had an hour and a half at point. I’m giving him directions to move things in real time. “Move this over here,” he had to move boxes and books, and move furniture and bookshelves. He did it, and he looked so much more professional. People weren’t distracted by people walking through the hallway, the bathroom door behind him. Not only that his lighting was better, he was able to see the room and also really conscious that having people move furniture don’t get on a call with me thinking that they’re going to have to rearrange the furniture in their room. What I’m doing is I’m not just making it better for Zoom. I’m also making it better for them ergonomically in the space that they’re in.
It sounds like what you’re saying is there’s a component of it that’s how you’re being perceived by other people on the call. There’s also a component of it that regards how your setup enables you to continue to do your work effectively, enables you to continue to effectively speak, have the right sound.
Helps you feel more confident. You know that you look better. You know that your desk setup is optimized. Your camera is in the best place. You have the best lights for your needs, because lighting is, as you know, can’t see — you can’t have a conversation. There’s no trust. Lighting is the most important thing. If you know you have the right lights for your setup, that’s quite often half the battle.
Some of your clients end up having to rearrange the furniture. Do some of them end up having to buy new clothing?
Sometimes, I do have people, I give them suggestions of what colors and styles to buy.
Is it safe to say that you conduct these calls over Zoom?
Yeah.
Okay. Since they are Zoom makeovers, I figured you’d use Zoom.
There was a woman who was actually a friend of a friend who lives not so far away from me. I live in the San Francisco Bay area. I had met her before and wanted to become friends with he. She was creating back to yoga. She was creating a whole yoga space, but she didn’t know where in her house. She actually had an empty house, because it’s for sale — where to create it and also wanted to do yoga outside. Where’s the optimal space? Where’s the optimal lighting? What’s the best setup? We created a whole setup for her.
I’m also curious about what are the consequences or negative results people have from having a bad Zoom presence. If it’s too dark, and people can’t see you, there’s probably a whole bunch of other common manners in which you people perform makeover clients that are really having some negative impacts of now that we’re on Zoom quite a bit and remote/hybrid work doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. What do you see is happening to these people who is like, “Okay. We’re doing Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, or whatever,” and never really thought through how they’re coming across through that square box.
They don’t really notice it to be honest. It’s like you don’t know what you don’t know. Ignorance is bliss. It seems to fall in that category. Sometimes, that’s why it’s a little difficult to refer me as well, because you don’t really go up to people and say, “You know, Stephen? Your Zoom space looks like shit.” For example, I had two clients. I did a Zoom makeover for this woman. She hired a business coach, who’s a very dark-skinned African American. She says she now knew she was more educated on what I do that she said on her first call with him, she was so distracted by the lighting and the background that she bought him a Zoom makeover.
He was a little resistant at first, like, “I’m fine. I’m just a business coach. I don’t need to look great.” After working with him, we got the right lights, we got his camera at the right camera angle. Another thing that I do is I create subliminal lines. I lived in Amsterdam for 10 years. When I was there, one of the things that I did that was a huge gift in my life is, I studied European arts, in particular, the Dutch masters and the impressionists. When you look at these paintings, the question is, why is it that everybody looks at the same place first? What have these artists do that made their painting so special that it’s quite often on the masters? Everybody looks at the same spot first. Quite often, what they used were subliminal lines, because our eyes like to see fun lines. Our eyes don’t read like this. We read in a line. Actually, if you could see my face, I have two intersecting subliminal lines.
Oh, wow.
Starting in these flowers over here, little round circle, little round circle, little round circle, corner of the cabinet. It forces you to look at the middle circle, which is in the middle of my eyes. I have two rectangular planes. I have one over here and one over here. There’s another diagonal. My eyes are in the middle, forcing you to look at my eyes.
If you and I were sitting across the table, having a conversation, and you twist your ankle and your fingers twitching like this on your lap, I would see that you were a little nervous, had to go to the bathroom, something’s going on. I can’t see that. I can only see from here up.
Actually, that’s why I always say, from the armpits up, as opposed to just neck and head up. You want to be able to see people’s torso. Besides my two lines that meet at my eyes, I then always wear a V-neck because it draws your eye down. You see this purple because it’s in the middle of that line. You can see all my torso, read my nonverbal language. I’m also taking up a lot of real estate. I am in the foreground of the painting — a very busy living room is in the background. Again, it’s like creating a painting.
At this point, I just want to tell everyone out there listening that you should not in any way feel ashamed for not noticing this at all. I have no clue either. In fact, I think most of the people that look at these paintings the same way you don’t even explain why do you like this song, why do you dislike this song. Oftentimes, it’s just a feeling.
I think what Shelley is pointing out is that, some of the feelings as to why your eyes notice some people on Zoom and not notice other people because a lot of us are going to be on Zoom calls with large groups of people, especially if we do networking events on Zoom. I’m thinking about these events I’ve been where you have 20, 25, even 30 people all getting a chance to talk at a networking event, because networking events, you’re going to talk at some point. The question is, why are you drawn to some people and not drawn to others?
Part of it is always going to be about your message, what you’re exactly saying, but another part of it may have to do with how you’re presenting yourself. Some of these are really subliminal. I’ve never really thought about these diagonal lines from bottom left to top right, from top left to bottom right. It actually makes me feel like when I’m doing my podcast on Zoom, I should just get another microphone that I hang from the ceiling into the top left corner so that it makes a line with the microphone that I’m talking into right now.
Microphone is different. In your space, Stephen, you have a dark background, beautiful dark wood, door cabinet, even the microphone is dark, as well as the top that you’re wearing, except a little bit of red at the top.
Yeah.
Your face is the first thing that I see.
Hopefully, it’s a good thing.
Uh-huh, but it would be probably be a little better if you wear light colors.
It is a rather cold day for April in Denver right now. Part of the reason why I’m not feeling quite right. I think a lot of us are still in that mode where a lot of people choose what they wear based on how the weather is making them feel. If it’s a rainy day, you wear darker stuff. If it’s a sunny day, you wear your bright orange shirt and just show out a little.
That’s why I call these Zoom uniforms.
What you want to wear on Zoom, compared to the background that you’re going to be in, is going to be quite a bit different than what you’re going to where. I’m thinking about everyone going forward that’s going to be one of those hybrid scenarios where you’re in the office a couple days a week. You’re working from home a couple of days a week. You’re going to have a different wardrobe consideration for those in the office days versus those at-home days where you’re going to mostly be on Zoom.
You need a Zoom uniform actually. For example, if you have a dark background, which you do, you want to be able to stand out in the foreground. You would be better wearing a lighter, brighter color as opposed to a darker color. I miss your nonverbal body language. Even for mine, I have a difficult setup, just the way it is — oh, there you go.
For those listening out there, I have a red T-shirt on underneath my green sweater. I am just trying to see how it looks and how it impacts the conversation if I make this quick switch that I can make without really having to go back into my own wardrobe and find different clothing.
In my background, I am sitting in my living room. I have a dark brown Chinese cabinet behind me on one side of my head and an off-white sofa on the left side. Unlike Stephen, who has dark furniture on both sides, I have dark on one side and light on the other. I can’t wear light-light, because I’m going to just blend in with the sofa. I can’t wear dark browns and blacks, because I’m going to just blend in with everything on the other side of me.
As an image consultant, I have a really limited Zoom wardrobe. I have my three summer tops and my three winter top — one or two in between. That’s it. Same thing for the last two year almost, as so it seems.
I’m probably going to date myself a little bit with this next question. One of the things I remember from right around the turn of the century is MTV having these shows something along the lines of someone giving you a surprise makeover for your friend. Your friend is unaware of whatever they’re doing wrong in their wardrobe. I think was makeover. It might have been some other type of coaching. Do you envision a surprise Zoom makeover show for some of these people that are really unaware of how they’re being presented on Zoom and how many opportunities they may be missing because their face isn’t really showing up?
That’s cool. I love the idea. I love you’re thinking out of the box. I don’t know if I envision a show. Quite often, people need to actually purchase things.
Yeah.
It’s not what I can do. If I say a Zoom makeover is 90 minutes to two hours, yes, we can get X amount accomplished in real time, but you might need to buy a new camera, you might need to buy a new microphone, you might need to buy some lights or some artwork. I have people buy artificial plants or artificial flowers. It literally feels like you’re being welcomed into someone’s home. That’s what you want. “I know you’re working at home. I can see you are at home,” as opposed to in your office, which now it’s okay, but you don’t want to be distracted. You want to be welcomed. You don’t want to see the mess. You want it to look neat and tidy.
How does this differ for people who are deciding they want to do a lot of their work from a coffee shop?
A couple of things. If you’re in a coffee shop, from experience, it’s very difficult to control the sound. Sometimes, there’s overhead music, which can be distracting for both you and the person listening to you. Number one, quite often, the lighting is just distracting. You probably don’t have enough light. On the other hand, if you actually are on Zoom, there is a control in the video settings called adjust for low light. You can actually brighten up your whole screen. You want to make sure ideally, if you face a window. If you face a window, chances are, you’re going to have even light on your face left and right. That’s eliminating yet another distraction if you have light on only half your face. Quite often, you might just want a virtual background.
You can take any photo from your computer and make it a virtual background.
I had somebody reach out to me a couple of months who was interested in some virtual backgrounds. All of a sudden, in the last couple months, I’ve been creating custom-branded virtual backgrounds for people.
Oh, wow. That’s a whole another need. That’s a great segue into what I want to cover your origin story.
Here’s one of them.
Oh, cool. There’s a virtual background here that looks like an office. I think most of the virtual backgrounds I’ve used have just been these goofy, “Oh look, I’m on the moon,” that type of thing that you see in the movies.
I took a room of photo and I sized it correctly, I put the person’s logo in this particular room that I’m in right now for the listeners. It looks like a lovely office with a window. I added the logo in the windows. It almost looks like a sticker in the window. I put some law books on the shelves. I added some plants for just a little touch of interest. I’ve created other virtual backgrounds for people with their logos and their names often, because a lot of timesc, people want their name on their virtual background. This is also a new thing that I’ve been doing, creating custom-branded virtual backgrounds that are inviting, that look nice, or that look like a real room. That’s what I’ve been doing.
That’s interesting from the standpoint of a lot of people who have another dream that this remote work scenario could potentially be making possible which is the dream of working while traveling, either being nomadic or quasi nomadic and saying, “Okay. I can work from anywhere. I’m going to go here for a month. I’m going to go there for a month. I’m going to use as opportunity to do a lot more of this travel because all I need to get my job done is a functioning WiFi connection.”
For example, I just started working with a woman who won a political office in Ohio. Sometimes, she’ll be doing political zoom calls from her law office. We are redoing her law office, also making her a customed-branded virtual background for when she is out on the road, or she’s not at home, or she’s in somebody else’s office and needs to do an interview.
Yeah. You never know how that’s going to look. I recently did an event from my parents house when I was visiting them in Chicago as we were talking about before. It took me a few minutes to try to look at where’s the lighting, how do I get this light right to look personable, plausible essentially.
Exactly. I remember, it seems like 100 years ago someone said to me, “When you want to find the right spot, just make a little telescope with your fingers. Just put your fingers and make a little circle. Just look through that and that’s what the camera lens always looks like.” For some reason, that’s something that I always do, because that’s all you’re going to see, just making a little loop next to one eye.
From the perspective of the camera, it reminds me of how web designers have had to more recently increasingly think about what this website is going to look like from people’s mobile phones or tablets, as opposed to just from a laptop screen.
Yeah, it’s quite fascinating.
I also want to make sure we cover your origin story, starting with the seminars that you did and how you identified this need that wasn’t previously thought about that much and realized that society was going to need these services.
That’s a funny story. I laugh at it every time. Let’s take a step further back.
Okay.
Who am I? How did I come up with this? I have been an image consultant on and off for 20+ years in three cities, on two continents, because I lived in Amsterdam and Abu Dhabi for 15 years. As an image consultant, I’m always particular to how people show up. I’m also a color consultant, so I’m particular about color. As I mentioned before, I studied the Dutch masters, I studied European art. I’m very knowledgeable, should I say, about art and how to look at art. That’s a little bit my background.
Two weeks before COVID, I had my last in-person networking lunch because I network a lot — networking queen over here. I met this woman, and she’s like, “Hey, let’s do a workshop together.” I’m like, “Sure, let’s do a workshop.” Our first day to talk about this workshop was the day California closed for COVID. We were on a Zoom call, and I said, “Hey, I could help people look good and feel confident in their Zoom box, because I’m in the confidence business. I help people look good and feel confident. I can help people look good and feel confident in their Zoom box.”
We ended up doing three workshops with almost 200 people that signed up. The response that I got from the people who attended was overwhelming. “Wow, I guess that was really valuable information.” I thought, “Oh, why not?” I literally started almost like a new business and have gotten amazing response — absolutely an amazing response, and it continues to grow, working with not only individuals, but also companies. How do companies show up online to elevate everybody on the company? Another company is speaking to your company, and maybe they’re talking to a couple of different people or there’s a group presentation. I had one company actually respond back to me. I asked them to write a LinkedIn testimonial, which they did, which I was really appreciative. They won a big account, because the company that was hiring them liked how everybody showed up.
That’s the important thing — how you present yourself, whether it be on Zoom, whether it be out in public, or at networking events. There’s a big difference. I had another recent guest asked me to say the same exact thing with my arms hunched over in that forward standoffish stance versus in a stand up tall and have you shoulders back stance. It came out completely different. Even what I thought of for the question came out completely different. A lot of it is about that way you present yourself you’re presenting yourself well. Opportunities are just more likely to come your way even if it’s for reasons that you don’t quite get first glance the same way I didn’t get the squares going from the bottom left to the top right of your screen.
It’s not the squares. It’s the line.
The line of those shapes.
It’s this line, because your eyes naturally find lines. If we’re looking over the horizon, we see the line of the horizon. If we’re looking up at a mountain, we see the line of the mountain next to the sky.
It’s the general impression that you got from a person, or from an experience, or from a presentation.
Right, exactly.
To make Shelley Golden Style happen, it seems like two things need to happen. First of all, you have to be the person that identified this need. When you first put on the seminars, you had to say, “Hey, wait. I can help people figure out how to present themselves well over Zoom.” The second thing was, once you got that response to say, “Hey, this should be a business,” as opposed to, “Oh, this was just a cool event. I’m going to go back to my thing.” What do you think people need to do in their lives, anyone listening out there needs to accept, needs to get rid of in their lives, to be the kind of person that’s going to identify that idea the way you identify it, and then have the confidence or the persuasiveness to turn it into a business as opposed to just moving on?
Perseverance. That's it -- perseverance and conviction. I realized I was adding a lot of value. Share on X
I was really helping people. People felt the difference. They saw the difference. They experienced the difference. That was very powerful. I help you look good and feel confident business. I’m just helping people look good, feel confident in their Zoom box.
I did have to learn a little bit more about lighting. I had to learn more about cameras, a little bit more about microphones, a large desktop microphone that has excellent sound. One of the things that I’ve learned, on the other hand — and this is how often what people need — is I have a little tiny microphone. If I whisper, it’s still very powerful enough for you to hear me whisper. Sometimes, that’s all that people need to have clearer sound. I help people in the space that they are.
Part of it, it sounds like, is knowing, first of all, that what you’re doing is important, what you’re doing is something that people really need, and then also knowing that you are the right person to do it from all the experience you talked about studying the masters, studying Dutch artists, and figuring out what it is that makes a person or a piece of art look good.
Right, but also, as a color consultant, I understand the juxtaposition of colors. The psychology of colors is so interesting. I’m taking all this knowledge that I’ve gained over so many years, and putting it all together in a way that most people can’t.
What do most people understand about colors? A lot of people have their default colors that they wear out in public or the colors that they just happen to like when they’re painting another room in their house or they want to repaint something or buy a bookshelf in the back. What do most people understand?
Let me just give you an answer to a different question that I think might serve the same purpose.
Okay.
There’s two ways that people respond to colors. One, what’s in the store? “Oh, it’s in the store. Oh, it must be a popular color.” For example, right now, there’s so much light gray in the store, and light gray looks terrible on most people. It’s also a cheap color manufacturer. People buy what’s available.
There’s another component to color. If you put on a color, and you look at yourself, and you’re like, “Wow, I look really good today,” or, “That color looks really good on you.” It makes you feel different on those rare occasions that somebody actually says to you, “Wow, that color looks great on you.” Ding, ding, ding, take note — hello, hello. Not only does the color look good, but when you’re wearing the right colors, you look healthier, you look younger, and people react differently to you. It literally attracts people to you.
If you’re wearing the wrong color, you look a little more sickly. You might look pale and washed out. You might look jaundiced, and people are like, “Oh, uh. I don’t know, whatever.” You’re almost not quite repelling people, but you want to attract them to you. Color is super important. One of the things that I help people with is the juxtaposition of colors in their Zoom box as well as what works for them for their skin tone as well as the space that they’re in.
It’s interesting, because when you’re presenting yourself in this way, and you get those compliments, and then in turn makes you more likely to adopt healthier lifestyles. I know if people are saying, “Oh, you look good today,” then you’re more likely to say, “Oh, I should go get this workout in and I should make a healthier dinner,” as opposed to just getting fast food or something like that.
There’s a step in between. If I say to you, “Wow, Stephen, you look really good today,” you’re actually going to sit up straighter. You’re going to hold your head up. You’re going to put your shoulders back. It actually even helps your posture, your whole demeanor. When you sit up straighter, when you have your shoulders back, you look healthier, and then, of course, you’ll eat healthier and whatnot.
There’s another step in between that.
There’s another step.
Look good and feel confident. Obviously, I think we’ve all seen people with that really bad posture. Bad posture can put some people off. It’s sad to see. You probably see this quite a bit where people have terrible posture, it’s putting people off, and they’re not even understanding it.
Exactly. I’m not in the posture business. If you look good and you feel confident, especially if you are so lucky to get some compliments, you’re like, “Oh,” you ruffle your feathers, put your shoulders back, “Yeah, I feel great. I feel sexy,” whatever it is, you’re going to just feel better about yourself. You’re going to attract more people to you.
Do you think when people feel better about themselves, they’re also, as their work day goes on, let’s say you get a compliment at 10 in the morning, and you have tasks to do, you’re more likely to tune out all those distractions and buckle down and focus on those tasks?
That’s a whole different story.
I know I’m known for jumping the gun and throwing out a lot of that stuff.
That’s a whole another conversation.
Yes. There have been and we’ll be more future podcasts episodes where I cover a little bit more about that particular topic. There’s so many topics out there to how you go about achieving what you want to achieve in life. It’s finding yourself, finding the right people to be around and presenting yourself the right way. They all blend in, or they all play off each other.
If anyone listening out there is interested in getting their Shelley Golden Style Zoom makeover, Shelley, what would be the best way that someone would get in contact with you?
The best way to contact me is to go to my website, which is shelleygoldenstyle.com. It’s shellygoldenstyle.com. If you want to email me directly, it’s shelley@shelleygoldenstyle.com
Thank you very much. Thank you so much for giving my listener base a chance to really think about what they all can do to present the right image for themselves over Zoom as we’re going to be continuing to be doing a lot of Zoom calls. I think the consensus has been this hybrid scenario where people do some in-person meetings, but then still have a good number of days at home. I don’t know. You probably are observing the trends as well, and what people are thinking as far as how to get the best of both worlds, the flexibility of work-from-home, work remote, with some of the still interpersonal communication that people used to get at the office.
Trying to keep tabs on what companies are going back to work, how often they’re going back to work – it seems like so many companies/organizations, it’s hybrid. Actually, just for a little statistic, Zoom and Citrix did a study about a year and a half ago — 10 countries, almost 1000 people, and 20 different professional industries. The result was that about 70% of those industries and companies worldwide are going to be using a hybrid model, both online and in person — 70%. That’s huge.
70%. I know a lot of employees didn’t want to 100% everyday give up some of these opportunities to in the middle of the day, go for a bike ride or in the middle of the day, cook a nicer, healthier meal than the kind that you would bring to the office or the more expensive one that you get walking across the street from the office. I’m glad to hear that people are still going to be taking advantage of what our technology has really enabled us to do.
Yeah. It’s quite fascinating. I’m in the help-you-look-good-and-feel-confident-saf-and-grow your business mode.
Final question. Do you work with a lot of people who are upstarting businesses as well, they have their idea, they formed the LLC and now they need to go out and network prospects for clients to do that type of thing?
Absolutely. It seems like everybody’s on Zoom. I use Zoom loosely like Kleenex, but it’s Teams, WebEx, BlueJeans. Everybody’s on Zoom these days. Everybody’s connecting on Zoom. Improve that connection, so it feels more intimate.
Here’s my goal: I try to make it feel like you and the person you’re speaking to are just sitting on the other side of the table, having a conversation, looking at each other eye to eye. You could see each other, and you’re not distracted. That’s what I aim for.
That’s a fantastic aim and definitely something we all need.
Shelley, I would like to thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes. I would also like to thank everyone out there listening. Hopefully, you got some great ideas about how to identify that need as our needs are ever going to change. I really hope that you find that need, have the perseverance to turn that need into something that’s a business that genuinely serves everyone or, or however it manifests for you. I’m not here to tell you what specifically you should do. I’m just here to give you some ideas, some inspiration, and some feedback.
Have a wonderful rest of your day. Yeah, hopefully, we all can present ourselves in a way that’s accurate representative of who we are, who we want to be, and what we want to do in this world.
Thank you so much for having me. It was great chatting with you.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Shelley Golden Style
- Email Address: shelley@shelleygoldenstyle.com
About Shelley Golden
Shelley Golden is a Professional Presence Consultant and Zoom Make-Over expert who helps professionals elevate their image online and in-person to feel empowered to stand out and feel more confident in how they appear to others when they walk into a room or participate in a Zoom meeting.
As result of COVID 19, Shelley created The Zoom Make-Over, a 5-step process to help professionals up-level their screen presence, as well as that of their employees, team members and organization to create a more professional image to increase client engagement and up-level their brand.
Shelley is 4th generation in the fashion and clothing business, a certified color consultant, costume historian, costume designer for theater and amateur Dutch art expert, including the Dutch Masters.
She has more than 25 years of experience in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, advising professionals on style and presence and is founder and principal of Shelley Golden Style.