Cindy Tien

Senior Consultant & Corporate Trainer at Imageworks

“During our first meeting, Christina was patient and nurturing. She took the time to make me feel comfortable and to understand my goals. She was also well-coordinated in her choice of clothing and beautifully eloquent! I only wanted to be trained by the best and to me, there was no other I’ve met like her.”

Cindy believes that every person is unique and beautiful. She takes pride in helping each individual attain confidence through improved grooming, style and communication skills. With more than ten years of corporate and strategic sales experience in the advertising, financial and travel industries, Cindy interacts well with people across all levels, understands corporate needs, and is able to deliver effective image training and consultancy solutions that meet clients’ needs. Prior to her corporate career, Cindy travelled the world with Singapore Airlines as a flight attendant for six years, during which she acquired an appreciation for the high standards in personal grooming and customer service, leading her to win the “most well-groomed” award at SIA. Since graduating from the Academy of Image Mastery (AIM), Cindy has continued to hone her skills by attending further courses in Style Coaching and Etiquette Proficiency. As an outstanding alumna of AIM, she was offered the post of Academy Manager in 2014, extending her talent and experience to mentor and support aspiring image consultants in Asia. Cindy also contributes to the image industry actively as VP Membership, AICI Singapore Chapter.

When people started asking me for advice on how to dress in my corporate career. I also realised that dressing matters in how you communicate about yourself and it was something I so enjoyed doing!

I do think it’s God’s timing and AIM is the perfect choice for me! I got to know about AIM when my brother (Adrian) shared with me about Christina Ong, whom I immediately Googled. Being me, I tend to be very particular about who I’m being trained by and decided to make an appointment to meet Christina. During our first meeting, Christina was patient and nurturing, taking the time to make me feel comfortable and make the effort to understand my goals. She was also well-coordinated in her choice of clothing and was beautifully eloquent! After that meeting, there was really nothing else to decide. I only wanted to be trained by the best and to me, there was no other in Singapore.

Oh my God, there were so many! I joined the course thinking that it would be easy as I thought I had a natural talent for dressing. Little did I realise that rigour, science and communication skills had a huge part to play in being a world-class Image Consultant. One key learning point that I can vividly remember is this – to always do a compare and contrast. It’s tough to analyse Asian skin as we all appear somewhat similar. Sometimes a person might look good in everything because he or she is just simply good looking! I’ve learnt that we need to provide advice for the client to look their best and always remember to take their goals into consideration when making recommendations.

Personally, it has helped me become a better listener and to be open to different types of people and their background and experiences. As a professional, I am able to articulate the reasons for my recommendations rather than just saying “that’s nice on you”.

Revamped my wardrobe. They were a mess of sexy and inappropriate clothes without much colour. I needed to change my look to gain credibility.

Practise! I did free consultations for my loved ones to sharpen my technical skills.

Organised workshops to train the people that I know – this was to give myself a trial to see how I would do as a trainer. It was mortifying feeling judged by the people who knew me well. But I got over that and became stronger. My hair still stands when I think about training my friends and relatives!

I did at least four consults and facilitated two to three workshops.

Please do rest enough as there will be lots to absorb.

Don’t freak out if you don’t understand everything at first, it will come together for the greater good!

AIM has been training Image Consultants for more than ten years and the trainers are world-class Certified Image Masters. Do not compromise on a quality education!

I wished I had done this earlier in my life.

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