Whatever your body shape, these tips will help you look great. If in any doubt about your shape, have an image consultation with an image consultant.

Hourglass: Finding jeans that fit on both the waist and the hips can be difficult. The solution is to go for a hipster cut and to finish your look with a fitted top and a belt to emphasise your waist.

Apple: If youhave a rounder figure then higher-rise jeans are best for you. Opting for a straighter cut pair of jeans will show off your slim legs to their best advantage and help to detract from your larger tummy and bust. To minimise your stomach, choose wider waistbands and plunge pockets. Apple shapes should avoid drainpipe styles.

Pear Shaped: If you are pear-shaped, try to choose a leg width that helps to balance out your figure and don’t buy loose-legged jeans since these will only make your bottom half look larger. Boot-cut, low-rise or flared jeans which even out your triangle shape are best for balance.

Long legged: For those of you lucky enough to have long legs, skinny, straight leg or low rise jeans look superb on you as well as wide legged jeans which can look very elegant. To avoid your legs looking too thin, wearing denim with a little texture is ideal since it adds volume. To detract from your height a pair of jeans that stops at your ankle is best when they are paired with flat shoes.

Petite: To give the illusion of extra height and create a sleek silhouette, try to match the colour of your jeans to your top and even shoes. You could also wear high heels and ensure that the hem of your jeans hovers just above the ground. As a general rule, is you have a petite shape then you should go for slim fitting or skinny shaped jeans that are slightly on the long side.

Fuller figure: The worst thing you can do is try to hide your larger shape in baggy jeans and clothes since this will just bulk you up. Generally, the more simple the style the better. Classic boot cut jeans in a dark denim are best for you since they can create a slimming effect. Clean, simple lines without any added extras like detailed pockets are ideal.

Organizing your business for success is imperative — that’s why I’ve decided to list two more traps to watch out for:

1. TAKING A CLIENT OF QUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY

If you have trouble with “promises kept” at the beginning of a relationship, that is very unlikely to improve. Personally, one test that reveal to me how ethically and predictable a client is going to behave is how they handle time .. when our first telephone appointment, meeting or consultation is arranged, are they prompt and on time? If they cannot be respectful of my time then, they’ll be even less respectful during the relationship and a person who does not respect another persons time cannot, in my experience, be trusted in other matters either. I don’t want to be stuck trying to work with somebody who can’t even keep simple appointments.

Another thing is money. If the first retainer check is a problem, it’s suppose to arrive FedEx on Wednesday, but it doesn’t, then there’s a “story” about why it didn’t, then it comes in the mail instead of FedEx as agreed — look out! If you have difficulty getting the payment agreement honored at the very start, you can only expect more trouble later. And I’m just not interested in having to jump through hoops to get paid.

2. THE “KNOW-IT-ALL” CLIENT

When a client is hiring me for my specialized knowledge, I expect them to pay attention to it, value it, and act on it. Intelligent questioning is fine, but argument is not. Some people actually want their consultant to agree with them and stroke their egos. And you can actually get paid to do just that. But the relationship will be short-lived and is not based on real value.

Also, if your consulting compensation features commissions or royalties tied to results or similar arrangements, as some of mine does, then having clients who do not implement and follow-through is not only frustrating, it’s not profitable.

3. TAKING ON WORK YOU REALLY DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO

Anyone who lives in the world of billable hours/project work –consultants, attorneys, accountants — is frequently tempted to agree to impossible deadlines, overload their plate, then respond to crisis while delivering everything late. It is an understandable temptation. We all get caught from time to time. But you should be very aware of your workload and commitments, realistic about the number of hours required by a project, and do your best to stretch out the deadlines and commitments in your favor. Keeping commitments is a “make or break” characteristic.

In today’s economy, you are likely experiencing a decrease in the amount of consulting projects you are doing. Obviously this results in a decrease in your income. Many people think now is the time to discount their fees, but don’t make this mistake.

If you work at reduced rates many people will always expect you to work at this rate and you will gain a reputation as a cheap consultant. This is not a bad thing, but it can seriously hinder your future earnings. So here are three tips to help you increase your consulting fees.

Tip #1: In your proposal give them several options to choose from. Start with a base fee and then have three options to choose from, each one more expense because it contains more value to the client, like sales training, etc.

Tip #2: Think several projects ahead, most of your business should be repeat business. You should establish yourself as a high quality consultant from the beginning of the relationship. This means not cutting your fee and charging an appropriate amount for your time. Discounting your services at the start of the relationship makes it more difficult to charge more later on.

Tip #3: Charge by the project and not by time. Charging by the project can make you much more money than by the hour if you know how to do it. Many people underestimate how long a project will take so be careful of this trap.

Try using these three tips and you should see a great improvement not only in the size of your consulting fees, but also the bottom line of your practice.

Perhaps you have been considering making changes in your business and may have some reservations. Do you sense that you may be taking a gamble in one area or another. Perhaps you may be interested in learning how similar businesses fared after making the same or similar changes or adjustments. Or perhaps you are interested in making an assessment of new emerging markets that you may be unfamiliar with. Also, bear in mind that in today’s tight credit market lenders are going to want to see hard, positive research data before they will consider providing any financing for new business concepts.

Compiling and Quantifying Your Data

Today, more than any time in the past, accurate and quantifiable business research data is more important then ever. Investers, lenders, share holders and even possibly yourself if you are an owner or in a management position are all more likely today then ever before to be less inclined to take gambles in business than they have in the past. What this means, is that before any real changes, be it in marketing, production or human resources can be implemented, accurate research data must be first compiled, analyzed and reported on. This is precisely what the job of a reporting consultant consists of.

Obtaining Business and Investment financing

If you have applied for business financing or attempted to seek out investors in today’s tight credit market then you may have been sent away empty handed. The problem may not be that your current business or business proposition or concept isn’t viable. Rather, your problem may be that that data that you were able to provide at the time was in some way deficient. Not only do qualified business data reporting consultants know that today’s lenders and venture capitalists want to see but they also know how to obtain, analyses and organize it as well.

Plugging Holes and Discovering Gaps

No business is perfectly run. At any given time there are holes that profits are leaking out of. The problem all too often is that business operations can be too convoluted to actually locate and deal with losses when they are occurring. Sure you may know that something is wrong but by the time that you get to the source of the problem, it has all been sanitized or cleaned up. Vendors or suppliers aren’t going to tell you when you are being over charged. All you will see is a dip in your profits. Also, your employees aren’t going to tell you when they are experiencing shortcoming in their productivity.

Converting Raw Date to a Visible Format

One problem that many business managers and owners face isn’t that they don’t have the information that they need to arrive at viable solutions. Rather, the information and data that they have is in a unrecognizable format. In short, they have full files and piles of papers laden with facts on their day to day operations. It’s just that making sense of it all would require the hiring of a full time accountant. A reporting consultant can show today’s manager and owner how to put systems in place that will replace piles of figures and printed text with easy to understand charts and graphs that can actually be used.