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[EO Los Angeles Valley] Building a Life and Career Around Color Analysis With Rachel Zhang

Rachel ZhangRachel Zhang is a color analyst and a Franchise Owner at House of Colour, a company that offers personalized color and style analysis to help clients build confident, flattering wardrobes. She is based in Westlake Village, California, and works with clients to identify their most harmonious “power colors.” Before joining House of Colour, she spent over a decade in recruiting and held a role at Facebook (now Meta). She combines her corporate experience with her passion for fashion to support clients in making strong visual impressions.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [02:18] What Rachel Zhang learned about sales and entrepreneurship while selling Cutco knives in high school
  • [05:10] How working in recruiting at startups, Oura Ring, and Meta, shaped Rachel‘s skills before launching a business
  • [06:11] Why a tech layoff pushed Rachel into “forced entrepreneurship” and opened the door to House of Colour
  • [08:47] Why most people are wrong about which colors look best on them and how color analysis changes self-perception
  • [16:43] The ways color confidence impacts first impressions, business growth, and everyday confidence

In this episode…

Many entrepreneurs struggle to find the right path when an unexpected change forces them to pivot. Sometimes the answer comes from an unlikely source, like discovering a hidden passion that unlocks new confidence. How can something as simple as color transform a career and day-to-day life?

According to Rachel Zhang, a color analyst and entrepreneur, the right colors can completely change how people see themselves and how others perceive them. She highlights that most people are wrong about which colors suit them best, and once they experience and implement color analysis, their confidence shifts dramatically. The impact goes beyond personal style — it affects first impressions, business opportunities, and even relationships. By turning her own layoff into a launchpad, she demonstrates how embracing this science-backed approach to color can build both confidence and a thriving business.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, host John Corcoran sits down with Rachel Zhang, Franchise Owner at House of Colour, to talk about building a life and career around color analysis. They discuss how a tech layoff led her to entrepreneurship, why color analysis is more powerful than styling, and how wearing the right colors influences confidence and business growth. Rachel also shares insights on educating clients and helping professionals use color to make stronger impressions.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments

  • “That was kind of my first foray into being able to understand how to meet people I’ve never met before, explain a product, and be able to sell to them.”
  • “I entered into what is nicely called forced entrepreneurship in 2022 when a lot of companies were doing layoffs in the tech sector.”
  • “About 80-90% of the time, people are wrong about the colors that they think look good on them.”
  • “Sometimes wearing your best colors can actually help you to close more clients and grow your business.”
  • “We really don’t know what we don’t know, so if you’ve never tried a color, you might not realize how much it flatters you.”

Action Steps

  1. Discover your personal color palette: Understanding which colors flatter you can boost confidence and improve first impressions.
  2. Test assumptions about style choices: Many people are wrong about what suits them, so challenging these beliefs opens new possibilities.
  3. Use color to enhance professional presence: Wearing the right colors can positively influence client interactions and business outcomes.
  4. Apply visual comparison techniques: Directly comparing colors in natural light helps reveal subtle but powerful differences in appearance.
  5. Commit to experimenting with new colors: Stepping outside comfort zones allows you to see how different tones impact confidence and perception.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran: 00:12

All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran here I am, the co-host of this show. And you know, if you’ve listened before, every week we have smart CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of companies. If you check out their archives, you can see those previous past episodes.

And this episode is brought to you by Rise25, where we help B2B businesses get clients referrals and strategic partnerships with done-for-you podcast and content marketing. And you can learn more about what we do at rise25.com or email our team at support@rise25.com. And this episode is also brought to you by EO LA Valley, which is the LA Valley Los Angeles Valley chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which is a global peer to peer network of 20,000 influential business owners across 200 chapters, 60 plus countries. And so if you are the founder, co founder, owner or controlling shareholder of a company that generates over $1 million a year in revenue. And you want to connect with other like minded, successful entrepreneurs.

EO is for you, and you can learn more at the website for EO Valley. My guest here today is Rachel Zhang. She is a color analyst. She has a company called House of Colour based out of Westlake Village, California. And we’re going to get into her story of how she got into that.

And it is an interesting background because she was telling me beforehand about how everyone has different colors. And I have always been self conscious about my complexion because I am pale as a ghost. Was my went to the dermatologist recently and said that I have zero pigment, which is not an exaggeration. And so I’ve always felt like I look bad in just about every color except for blue. So we’re going to find out if that’s true or not.

But Rachel, first I want to hear from you. So this is your first entrepreneurial company, but you’ve done things that are entrepreneurial before. So in high school you sold cutco knives, which for those who don’t know, it’s a great training program, great sales program. And I think it’s like you go and you sell knives to your parents, friends and door to door and anywhere you can write. So tell me about it.

Rachel Zhang: 02:18

Yeah. Thanks, John, for having me on. So for anyone who’s not familiar with Cutco knives, a really great high quality knives, but you basically learn how to sell things and the things that you’re selling are knives as well as scissors that can cut through pennies, which may or may not be illegal to destroy a legal tender. But anyway, so that was kind of my first foray into being able to understand how to meet people I’ve never met before, explain a product and be able to sell to them. And kind of my first taste of entrepreneurship.

John Corcoran: 02:55

Wow. That’s cool. And you actually were like a top three in the region.

Rachel Zhang: 02:59

I was yeah. So, you know, I was in high school and I started being kind of successful in being able to experience convincing people that this was a good product and people wanted to buy from me. And the next thing I knew, after about two weeks, I was one of the top three salesmen in in the New Jersey region and received a pretty large check for being a high schooler. It’s the most money I’d ever seen. And it was.

It was very exciting.

John Corcoran: 03:24

Yeah. So you go from New Jersey to Berkeley, which is actually quite a ways away, all the way across the country, seems I, I imagine there are not many from New Jersey coming to Berkeley. Or maybe there’s more than I than I realized. And that was quite an experience. You graduated in three years and you even had to work two jobs at the same time.

That’s insane.

Rachel Zhang: 03:47

Yeah. So out of state tuition was very expensive for Berkeley. And so, you know, I studied psychology and I was able to balance my course load so that I could take classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and work two jobs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of the jobs that I held was working in a library, and the second one was during big football games. I was hired to be a golf cart driver for some of the VIP box seat holders, and we would drive them from the parking lot to their seats or to various parts of the stadium.

And and that was a really fun job.

John Corcoran: 04:23

Now there are some very well known, renowned, famous Cal alumni in the Bay area. Did you ever drive any famous people around?

Rachel Zhang: 04:33

I didn’t. However, there were a couple of Olympians at school, especially Nathan Adrian, and a couple of the other Olympic swimmers when I was there, but I did not drive them around in golf carts.

John Corcoran: 04:44

Nathan Adrian actually lives not too far from me now. I saw him on Halloween, actually. He was trick or treating in my neighborhood. Yeah. Olympic swimmer.

Rachel Zhang: 04:53

Really nice.

John Corcoran: 04:54

Guy. Yeah. Yeah. Very tall too. Incredibly tall.

So you. And then you go into the corporate world you worked for as a recruiter for a number of years recruiting doctors, and he also worked for Meta Facebook, managing other recruiters.

Rachel Zhang: 05:10

Yeah. I really kind of cut my teeth in the interviewing world. So, John, you’re a great interviewer. And I realized at a certain point when I was applying for jobs that I actually enjoyed interviews and probably one of the few people who do. And so I decided, okay, what would it be like to sit in the other seat on the other side and provide people with a good interview experience?

So I’ve worked at a lot of different companies, startups, large companies. I worked at Aura Ring. They make a wearable ring that tracks your sleep and health and heart rate, and hired a lot of their C-suite and executives, and it was really great. I really enjoyed being able to hire people I wanted to work with, and being able to meet people from all walks of life.

John Corcoran: 05:56

Yeah. What did your experience working in tech? How did that lead you to entrepreneurship? Did you feel like, oh, I want to own my country company, my own company one day? Or is that something that had harkened back to the days of selling knives?

Rachel Zhang: 06:11

That’s a great question, John. And the perfect question, really, because I entered into what is a nicely called forced entrepreneurship in 2022, when a lot of companies were doing layoffs in the tech sector, I decided that this was kind of the perfect opportunity for me to start my own company and work for myself. I think if that kind of hadn’t happened, where meta laid off about 50% of their recruiting organization and many other companies were laying off people, so they didn’t really need recruiters to hire more, I think I would have been a little bit more nervous about the opportunity cost of exploring owning my own company and taking on that risk when I had previously, for about ten years, been working for a company that was giving me a paycheck every single week, so it was the best decision I had ever made. I had gotten my colors done prior to being laid off by meta, and it had completely changed my life. And when I moved to my area, there was nobody doing this.

So I’ll talk a little bit more about that kind of opportunity and demand later. But I got trained in Austin, Texas for about two weeks, and then I was off to the races and started my business.

John Corcoran: 07:26

What inspired you to get get your colors done and what did that entail?

Rachel Zhang: 07:31

Yeah. So when I was a little bit like you, John, when I was young, I could not figure out for the life of me what colors I should be wearing. And so I had actually discovered that color analysis was very popular in the 70s and 80s and in the 90s. Now there was nobody really in New Jersey, but I had read all about it. And so when I had the opportunity to get my colors done in California, I jumped at it.

But it’s something that had always been percolating in my mind. And what’s really interesting is that a lot of us have some intuition about color harmony. Like for you, John, you said you like blue. And oftentimes those colors are in our best palette for our most flattering colors. Because we feel good in those colors, we often look good in those colors.

So everyone just has a little bit of intuition around their best colors.

John Corcoran: 08:22

Yeah, or their worst colors. Right? I mean, I know I look horrible in like pink, orange and brown. I look the worst in brown. Okay?

It just is like completely makes makes me look like I am sickly.

Rachel Zhang: 08:34

Okay. Interesting.

John Corcoran: 08:35

Yeah. All right.

Rachel Zhang: 08:36

Yeah, yeah.

John Corcoran: 08:37

But yeah, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. I mean, like, it’s maybe it’s. How often do you find that people are wrong about that.

Rachel Zhang: 08:43

About 80 to 90% of the time.

John Corcoran: 08:45

Really? Yeah. Really.

Rachel Zhang: 08:47

So my story, John, is that I was very wrong about the colors that I thought looked good on me for about ten years. I was wearing a lot of browns and oranges and olive greens, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know what looked good on me, but that’s what was available. So that’s what I was buying. And after I got my colors done, the woman said, you know, you look best in jewel tone colors, royal blues, purples, things I had never really worn before.

But when I saw myself in photographs and in the mirror comparing those two tones, it was a world of a difference. So, you know, a lot of people, actually, a lot of my clientele tend to be very pale individuals because they have a hard time knowing what colors look good on them.

John Corcoran: 09:30

And if they just look good and everything.

Rachel Zhang: 09:33

And if a color doesn’t look good on a pale person, it can be more obvious. So the good news is, I’ve been able to help every single pale person who has walked through my doors.

John Corcoran: 09:42

So yeah, there you go. Now you also in the midst of this, or maybe it was before and I don’t know the order of it. Covid happens. And that was actually before the layoff. And you go to an outdoor wedding where you meet your future husband.

Tell us that story.

Rachel Zhang: 10:00

It’s a fun story. So you know when 2020 hit. My sister was getting married and decided to have an outdoor wedding with about 30 people, so it was immediate family on both sides. A couple of friends. I was the maid of honor and my now husband was the the best man because he was best friends with my brother in law.

They had gone to Northwestern together, and so we were kind of all hands on deck. We were setting up all the chairs and cleaning up all the food after the wedding, and kind of doing everything. And so after the wedding, I had texted him to thank him for helping out and kind of offhandedly said, hey, maybe we can get coffee sometime. At the time, I was living in the Bay area. He was living in Los Angeles, and he agreed, but we didn’t know when that would happen.

And the next weekend, I had spontaneously decided to drive down from my dad’s birthday and texted him and asked if he was.

John Corcoran: 10:55

Unrelated to the fact that he was close by. Unrelated, maybe.

Rachel Zhang: 10:59

A little bit motivated, I don’t.

John Corcoran: 11:00

Know. So you said, yeah.

Rachel Zhang: 11:03

He was available for lunch. Lunch turned into going to Santa Monica beach and talking for about six hours, so we went from 12 to 6. I looked at my clock and I said, hey, do you want to get dinner? Are you hungry? And he said, yes and turned into an 11, our first date.

And it was the best first date I’ve ever been on. And yeah, the rest is kind of history.

John Corcoran: 11:22

Wow. Amazing. Had you guys met before the wedding?

Rachel Zhang: 11:26

We met a couple days before the wedding. The wedding party. We all kind of had dinner together. And my first impression is that he’s very quiet in a group, very introverted. And so, you know, when I had asked him out and we had decided to go to lunch, I texted one of my friends and I said, if this doesn’t go well, I might need you to bail me out because he might not talk during the date.

You know, it might be very awkward. So I had an escape plan just in case. Lunch didn’t go well, but thankfully it went really well.

John Corcoran: 11:56

And in retrospect, did your sister and everyone else say that they could tell that there was some kind of connection between you two at the wedding?

Rachel Zhang: 12:04

Absolutely not.

John Corcoran: 12:05

No, no.

Rachel Zhang: 12:06

My sister had never pictured us together. My husband and I are fairly opposites. I’m pretty extroverted. He is an analyst at SCE Edison. Very introverted, research oriented and analytical.

And so she didn’t know how things would work out. She was a little bit nervous that if things didn’t work out, it’d be very awkward later on, but thankfully everything worked out.

John Corcoran: 12:30

So have you done the colors before you met your husband?

Rachel Zhang: 12:33

No, that was before color. Yeah.

John Corcoran: 12:36

So what was your husband’s reaction when you start changing out your whole wardrobe.

Rachel Zhang: 12:41

And changing out his wardrobe?

John Corcoran: 12:42

This girl moves from New Jersey to California, goes full California talking about changing her colors, changing your whole wardrobe. I mean, was he like, what’s going on with you?

Rachel Zhang: 12:52

He was very supportive, very supportive. And what’s really interesting about color analysis, John, is that it’s backed by science and data. And so just like, you know, that blue looks good on you and certain colors you don’t like on you Brown. That is very similar to how the camera reacts in terms of how it sees color. And so that’s why a lot of TVs and TV shows and movies use color analysis for different characters on the screen, because the human eye works very similarly to a camera shutter.

So oftentimes you’ll see villains purposefully dressed in colors that do not flatter them in order to create an environment of emotional friction. So I’ll give you an example. In The Godfather, the Mafia men were specifically dressed in brown suits. We had sometimes Vinny was wearing a tan suit, or a Al Pacino would be wearing a brown suit. And that was very purposeful because back then, Italian men and Mafia men would usually wear navy suits, but because that would really flatter their complexion, they decided to put them in colors that would not be flattering in order to add kind of a menacing feel and underlying Relying, subconscious feeling of making the audience feel a little bit uncomfortable whenever they would be watching The Godfather and all the men in the Mafia.

John Corcoran: 14:14

So yeah.

Rachel Zhang: 14:15

Yeah.

John Corcoran: 14:16

Interesting. How has it been for you making this big life shift, I mean, you so in the last five years, during Covid met, your husband, relocated from the Bay Area to Southern California, then started a new business in a new community, which oftentimes that’s that’s really hard because you don’t know a lot of people. So talk a little bit about some of those challenges.

Rachel Zhang: 14:37

Sure. I had referenced before that there was nobody in my area, John. And so I experienced my first year a lot of highs and a couple of lows, but one of the biggest highs was really being able to buy this franchise by inventory and then be in the black in a couple of months. So I was able to be profitable in about 3 or 4 months. One of the big factors for that is that there was nobody else doing what I was doing.

And so I had people driving from Bakersfield, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, kind of even Fresno sometimes to come and see me and get their colors done because there was just nobody around them providing those services. And then, of course, I was close enough to Hollywood where I would get different actors. I had the actress Jane Leeves, who was on Frasier and Seinfeld, come and get her colors done. Very sweet lady, definitely a high. And I, you know, I’ve had a lot of individuals as well, just people curious about what colors look good on them, whether it’s doctors or lawyers.

Eric from EO came and got his colors done because he’s often on TV being interviewed about legal matters, and he wanted to know what colors looked best on him when he was on screen.

John Corcoran: 15:49

And I want to ask you, it’s interesting because there there are stylists and there are people that describe themselves as stylists and, you know, kind of the it seems to me that the ultimate goal here is to know what clothing to wear, but you deliberately don’t describe yourself as a stylist, leading with, you know, the color analysis and then kind of following on with then it, then from there you it drives what fashion, what attire you know, you you’re going to have. So I’m curious like does it require a lot of education when you, you know, talk to people or do people have people already educated themselves, they’ve consumed information online or they have a have a good understanding that their colors are off or they don’t know what colors they should use? And so they’re kind of sold on the concept when they come to you.

Rachel Zhang: 16:43

I would say about 80% of the clients who come in have heard about it from Instagram or YouTube or somebody spoke about it. And so they are somewhat aware of what color analysis is. Most of the time when I go to a networking event and I’m explaining what it is, it’s a lot more of that education. I find that color analysis. Color education I like to often introduce myself as a color confidence coach can be a little bit more accessible sometimes, especially to men, than being a stylist.

Sometimes men don’t want to be styled, but they do want to know what colors that they should wear. If you’re going to be wearing a black suit versus a brown suit versus a grey suit, and all of those have different effects on how people perceive you. Sometimes wearing your best colors can actually help you to close more clients and grow your business. So I get a lot of business owners as well coming through the door, and I really enjoy being able to help people grow their business by being able to influence people better during first impressions when they’re wearing their best colors.

John Corcoran: 17:44

And how much of what you do is actually like coaching them on convincing them that that they can make these changes. Like if someone’s been wearing, you know, blues and purples their entire lives and you’re like, actually, you would look best in orange and browns for a lot of people that that is a major shift. And it just yeah, it’s I would think would be hard to convince people to make that kind of shift.

Rachel Zhang: 18:10

Yeah, that’s a great observation, John. What I find to be the most common experience is that many people in California wear black, and sometimes mostly only black, with very few colors. And that can be some of the biggest shifts is if black is not their best color in their palette. And so one of the things that really helps during the appointment is that it’s a very visual process. So imagine sitting down in a chair with a mirror in front of you, and then there’s natural light coming in, and I put different colors on you and I compare them.

So if I put black on you, John versus I put brown brown on you versus blue on you. And then we compare them, you will be able to see a shift in your skin where maybe you look more healthy in one and you look less healthy in the other. So right away people can see that very big difference with that direct comparison. And then also I give them some homework when they go home, I say, I would like for you to wear certain colors for the next two weeks. Please don’t wear the colors that are not in your best palette.

And after the two weeks you can put those back on. But hopefully during that training period of the two weeks, your eyes will start to adjust to understanding what colors look best on you. And so then when you put on black, for example, if that’s not your best color, you’ll really be able to see that difference out. Okay, now I understand that this doesn’t look as good on me as some of the other colors that are best on me.

John Corcoran: 19:32

Yeah. All right, so you asked me beforehand what was the color of my hair when I was younger? Yeah. And I don’t have a picture of me when I was younger, but I do have a picture of what my hair looked like when I was younger. So that is my now 11 year old who is basically my mini me.

If you look, if you held up a picture of him at 11, that’s a couple years ago. If you hold a picture of him at 11 and me at 11, we look like Spitting Image. Yes. So any thoughts on that?

Rachel Zhang: 20:03

I imagine John and I could be wrong because I am just looking at a photo. I imagine that you might look really good in a Kelly green or a grass green, if you’ve ever tried that color on you before. As well as beige. Have you ever worn beige sweater? Yeah.

John Corcoran: 20:22

I will wear beige pants, but they don’t. Beige doesn’t often make it above the waist on me. And maybe like some. Well, I don’t know. Leather belt is more of a brown than a beige.

Yeah. But, yeah, a beige sweater would probably. I’d be fearful of it. That would be a big switch for me.

Rachel Zhang: 20:39

And that’s often the experience of my clients where we have told ourselves different stories about colors, things we should avoid, things we should stick to. But the thing is that we really don’t know what we don’t know. So if you’ve never tried a beige sweater on you, John, and it looks really professional, it makes you look really healthy or flatters your complexion. You would never know if you didn’t try it that it actually does look good on you.

John Corcoran: 21:05

Yes I wouldn’t yeah I well I will have to branch out and look for a sweater of that type and the green colors as well that you mentioned. And my wife will thank you because I’m sure she’s sick of me wearing blue all the time. So. Rachel, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you and connect with you?

Rachel Zhang: 21:22

Yes. So I am at House of Colour, Westlake Village, and if you are located in a state outside of California, or if you’re in the Bay area like John, you can look up House of Colour and find a consultant near you. There’s about 400 other consultants in the United States because it is a franchise based out of the UK. So there will be somebody near you, or if you’re visiting LAX or Disneyland, you can come and see me and I will help you find your best colors.

John Corcoran: 21:52

Very cool. Rachel, thanks so much.

Rachel Zhang: 21:54

Thanks, John.

Outro: 21:54

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