Image consultants bank on people’s desire to improve their image

• When Renu Dalal Jain says, "Image consulting is my first love," it's hard not to believe her.
• By 2003, after four years of working in pharmaceutical market research, Jain founded Flair Consulting, an image consultation company, and within eight months Jain had enough clients to quit her day job.
• This means that, after an initial telephone consultation, Jain will go to a client's home for a minimum three-hour visit where she will analyze a client's wardrobe, de-clutter their closet and help them design outfits from the clothes that they own.
• Many, she said, come at the insistence of their wives, but Jain has found that many others are starting to come in response to a one-hour seminar she recently started giving on finding a life partner.
• Jain has found that the Indian community is another niche market she would like to expand.
• As Jain described, many Indian professionals come to the United States at a relatively high level of responsibility but don't always look the part.
• "Americans are visual and an American boss can think an Indian person isn't management material or high level executive material," she said.
• This can simply be because Indian men tend to wear clothes more tightly than their American counterparts or wear clothes that don't match or even wear white socks with black shoes, something that Jain said communicates an unpolished appearance.
• Jain has recently starting marketing to the Indian community in Philadelphia and beyond, but she acknowledged that it's not easy.
• Jain's career was initially on a more traditional track.
• The family went back to India for Jain's high school years and she returned to Philadelphia to get a bachelor's of science in marketing and a master's degree in international marketing from St. Joseph's University.