The Pro Organizer Studio Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jen Obermeier + Melissa Klug
Pro Organizer Studio is a business and design resource for professional organizers. We are here to help you launch & grow the professional organizing business of your dreams! Founder Jen Obermeier has been coaching, supporting & inspiring savvy businesswomen in the home organizing industry since 2016. Melissa Klug, founder of home organization business Home By Eleven joined Pro Organizer Studio in 2020 to help even more women grow in the industry.
My friend and fellow professional organizer Missi McKown sent me a voice message with an idea on how to start this podcast.
" So this is a cautionary tale. Please do the opposite of everything we do unless you'd like to burnout and stress yourself out, and also start dropping balls left and right, including family, friends, and relationships that are important to you. Okay, let's dive into it!"
We are talking about some things we do in our business--and the why behind it--but also how we're working on better ways to make sure we're servicing our organizing clients but also not losing ourselves in the process.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Get in touch with Melissa: www.proorganizerstudio.com or hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Learn more about Missi and her business, Clear Spaces Organizing in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area of Minnesota: www.creatingclearspaces.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Balancing Boundaries in the Professional Organizing Business In this episode of the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast, host Melissa Klug, joined by her friend Missi, explores the challenges and solutions surrounding boundaries in the professional organizing industry. They discuss the importance of setting boundaries with clients, recognizing burnout, and the personal experiences that influence their professional lives. The episode also covers topics like the Enneagram personality test, the significance of establishing values, and practical strategies for managing work-life balance as professional organizers. 01:52 How Not to Be Like Us: A Cautionary Tale 03:08 Enneagram 2 issues when Organizing 06:24 Client Boundaries and Burnout 13:06 Melissa's Hypocritical Moment 21:58 Balancing Flexibility and Boundaries 27:48 Personal Reflections on Boundaries 29:48 Childhood Influences and People-Pleasing Tendencies 30:29 Validation and Love Language 31:55 Setting Boundaries with Clients 34:24 Blurring the Lines in Professional Services 37:07 Recognizing and Managing Burnout 42:39 Balancing Work and Personal Life 50:08 Under-Promise and Over-Deliver 58:10 Final Thoughts and Reflections
No matter how great of an organizer you are, there will come a time where a client has something that isn't quite right in their house or something that they aren't happy with from you or your team. How you handle this can go a long way to turning dissatisfaction into happiness--and even getting that client to refer you out or have more sessions.
SYNOPSIS AND TIMESTAMPS
Navigating Client Dissatisfaction and Delivering Exceptional Service with Missi McKown In this episode, Melissa is joined by her friend and professional organizer, Missi McKown, to discuss handling client dissatisfaction in the organizing business. They explore strategies for turning negative client experiences into positive ones and share personal stories of going above and beyond to delight clients. Missi highlights the importance of communication, empathy, and flexibility in resolving conflicts, and the duo emphasizes the value of establishing a network with other organizers. This conversation offers valuable insights for anyone looking to elevate their client service and navigate challenging situations in their business. 03:24 Discussing Client Experience 04:12 Handling Client Dissatisfaction 06:54 Examples of Client Dissatisfaction 12:42 Conflict Resolution Strategies 24:43 Balancing Policies and Client Satisfaction 31:15 Handling Client Dissatisfaction with Empathy 33:05 Going Above and Beyond for Clients 37:20 The Power of Small Gestures 46:00 Miscommunication and Invoicing Issues 54:33 Navigating Donation Mistakes 59:22 Building a Supportive Network
Hey organizers! We are back with an episode about something that I am TERRIBLE at doing--which is...nothing. I am terrible at doing NOTHING. I always have to be busy, I always have to have something going on, and I always have to be in constant motion. My guest today is a friend who is wrestling with that same thing--Kielyn Simonson of OrgaNice in Minneapolis/St. Paul. This epsiode will help you know you're NOT alone in feeling this way!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Get in touch with Melissa: CLICK HERE
Learn more about Kielyn of OrgaNice: CLICK HERE
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction and Life Updates 01:47 Introducing Kielyn and the Topic of Rest 03:06 The Pressure to Stay Busy 04:34 The Impact of Technology on Attention 07:44 The Importance of Deep Work and Rest 16:07 Balancing Work, Rest, and Personal Time 28:33 Breaking the Cycle of Constant Activity 28:43 The Pressure of Social Media 29:29 Finding True Relaxation 30:26 The Importance of Hobbies 31:09 The Compulsion to Stay Connected 32:39 Balancing Personal and Professional Life 33:23 Learning to Say No 39:24 The Value of Rest and Delegation 51:18 Building a Supportive Network
The Constant Hustle: Finding Balance as Professional Organizers In this episode, podcast host Melissa introduces her friend and fellow organizer, Kielyn Simonson of OrgaNice. They discuss the challenges of balancing rest and productivity as professional organizers and entrepreneurs. Melissa shares her ironic situation of working through the night, while emphasizing the importance of finding rest in their busy schedules. They touch on topics including societal pressures to always be busy, the impact of digital distractions, the struggle to prioritize self-care, and the value of creating boundaries and routines. Kielyn shares insights from her personal and professional life, highlighting the importance of community and support among organizers. The episode is a candid conversation about the obstacles of modern work-life balance and offers a call to action for listeners to prioritize their well-being.
If you have a Linktree in your Instagram bio or anywhere else...STOP doing this! Here's what to do instead,
This episode is a "how to" of garage organizing! Sarah and I are here to tell you about ALL things relating to garages, and if you are someone who doesn't love organizing garages--we're trying to convince you they're GREAT!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Melissa at Pro Organizer Studio: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Sarah's Tidy Stock Photography: CLICK HERE
Costco Shelving: CLICK HERE Container Store shelving: CLICK HERE
Costco hand truck: CLICK HERE Melissa's favorite Home Depot folding dolly: CLICK HERE
SHOW DETAILS:
Mastering Garage Organization: Tips, Tricks, and Secrets for Professional Organizers In this episode of the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast, host Melissa Klug is joined by fellow organizer Sarah Brent to tackle the daunting but lucrative task of organizing garages. They dive into the specifics of how to efficiently manage a garage organization project, including preparation, necessary tools, safety tips, and maximizing client satisfaction. Along the conversation, they share personal anecdotes, highlight essential products, and encourage organizers to break through common fears and hesitation associated with garage jobs. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, this episode provides valuable insights and practical advice for turning a messy garage into a thriving aspect of your organizing business.
00:43 Garage Organizing: A Lucrative Opportunity 02:28 Personal Stories and Experiences with Garages 03:19 Challenges and Misconceptions about Garage Organizing 11:29 Gender Norms and Overcoming Fears in Garage Organizing 31:18 Practical Tips and Tools for Garage Organizing 37:42 Understanding Bagster and Junk Hauling Options 38:41 Dealing with Hazardous and Special Waste 41:58 Safety Concerns and Precautions 44:45 Essential Garage Tools and Equipment 49:14 Organizing and Cleaning Strategies 01:05:17 Effective Use of Shelving and Vertical Space 01:11:20 Pegboard Organization Tips 01:12:11 Investing in Garage Systems 01:14:41 Garage Gym Setup 01:20:06 Bins 01:23:50 Moisture Control and Storage Tips 01:28:46 Labeling and QR Codes Debate 01:33:29 Monetizing Garage Organization 01:39:47 Final Thoughts and Resources
After three years of being a professional organizing entrepreneur, one of our most popular guests is back to give a recap of what she learned in year 3 and what she has happening with big changes coming for year 4. Kim Snodgrass of Rustic Home Organizing in Oregon is here to have a refreshingly honest take on what her year was like.
If you want to listen to the past years' retrospectives with Kim, starting at Epsiode 177, all three of her prior episodes are there if you'd like to take a look back!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Connect with Kim: www.rustichomeorganizing.com
Year Four Reflection: Trials, Triumphs, and Transformations In this episode, Melissa reconnects with Kim Snodgrass from Rustic Home Organizing to discuss her journey through her third year as a professional organizer. They delve into the ups and downs Kim faced, including major life events, business dynamics, and personal growth. Kim talks about the importance of adaptability, the evolution of her business practices, her passion for supporting women, and her ambitious new project, The Daydream Project. The conversation offers an honest, raw, and insightful look into the realities of running an organizing business, emphasizing resilience, learning, and the necessity of ongoing self-reflection.
02:51 Year Four Recap Begins 04:35 Challenges and Reflections 07:43 Business Struggles and Personal Growth 12:44 Organizing Philosophy and Client Relations 16:32 The Realities of Organizing 27:25 Product Use and Ethical Considerations 39:20 Facing Ethical Dilemmas in Organizing 40:19 The Power of Saying No 40:57 Staying True to Your Why 42:53 The Joy of Downsizing Projects 45:43 Balancing Multiple Responsibilities 46:52 The Importance of Automations 48:08 Reflecting on Personal Growth 59:13 The Daydream Project: Empowering Women 01:02:43 Event Planning Challenges and Successes 01:10:52 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
We said that this year at Pro Organizer Studio was going to be a focus on how we can help you with your SEO--which is THE best way for people to find your organizing business. We are introducing something to help you with that!
LINK YOU NEED: organizernearme.com/advertise
Unlocking the Potential of SEO for Professional Organizers: Introducing Organizer Near Me
Melissa and Cabri are excited to announce their new venture, OrganizerNearMe.com, a platform designed to help professional organizers enhance their SEO and connect with clients. The pod covers the importance of SEO, the benefits of joining Organizer Near Me, and how it differs from other lead generation services. They also touch on the significance of making SEO more approachable and highlight a special promotion for podcast listeners. Additionally, Cabri shares insights about her recent business ventures, emphasizing the value of selling a business. This episode is a must-listen for professional organizers looking to grow their business effectively.
00:00 Welcome to the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast 00:42 Special Announcement with Cabri Caldwell 01:32 The Importance of Partnerships in Business 03:01 Introducing Organizer Near Me 03:41 The Power of SEO for Organizers 04:14 How Organizer Near Me Works 06:50 Benefits of Joining Organizer Near Me 22:05 Special Offers for Podcast Listeners 25:24 Expanding Business Ventures 30:58 Final Thoughts and Farewell
A lot of professional organizers are in an age range that makes this topic SUPER important--and it's one that you might need help navigating. We are talking about perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause as professional organizers.
Links for products Kim recommends are below the timestamps!
Navigating Perimenopause and Menopause as a Professional Organizer with Kim Snodgrass of Rustic Home Organizing Today we dive into a topic Melissa has wanted to cover for a while—menopause, perimenopause, and post-menopause, especially as it impacts professional organizers.
Melissa and Kim share their personal experiences, challenges, and tips for managing symptoms while running a business. They emphasize the importance of advocating for oneself, whether with doctors or clients, and highlight the need for organizers to take care of their health and comfort on the job. The conversation includes practical advice such as using cooling products, ensuring proper hydration, and speaking up for personal needs. 00:42 Discussing Menopause and Perimenopause 02:18 Personal Experiences and Challenges 06:09 Health Advocacy and Medical Insights 09:10 Impact on Daily Life and Business 24:58 ADHD and Menopause: A Complex Relationship 31:50 Understanding Modern Life's Impact on Attention 33:04 Menopause and Unexpected Symptoms 34:36 Client Interactions and Personal Comfort 35:48 Managing Heat and Staying Cool on the Job 37:21 Practical Tips for Organizers 44:07 Adapting to Physical Changes 53:51 Advocating for Yourself and Finding Resources 58:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Links for cooling products Kim recommends (NOT affiliate links, this isn't an ad, it's actual stuff she uses!)
Cooling packs Powder Cooling Comforter
I'm ready to start 2025! Let's take a quick peek at what is going to be guiding my work and personal life this year!!! AND--I want to hear YOURS! email me with your word/phrase of the year: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Most people (me!!) have not super fond memories of middle school--but for Nancy and Tina, a junior high friendship blossomed into a business partnership in a wildly successful organizing business. I am talking to them about their partnership, organizing, life, and so much more--it's the PERFECT way to end 2024 on the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Tina and Nancy: www.unclutteredspaces.com
Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
The Ultimate Partnership: From Middle School Friends to Business Success
Join Melissa as she wraps up 2024 with a special interview featuring Tina and Nancy from Uncluttered Spaces. These lifelong friends discuss their journey from seventh grade classmates to co-founders of a thriving professional organizing business.
They share the ups and downs of their personal and professional partnership, provide valuable business advice, and highlight the importance of mental health in their work. Their unique approach to large-scale projects and their passion for helping others shines through!
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Wrapping Up 2024: Reflections and Excitement for 2025 00:58 Introducing Tina and Nancy from Uncluttered Spaces 01:56 The Origin Story: From Childhood Friends to Business Partners 04:09 Building a Business: Challenges and Triumphs 13:56 Navigating Partnership Dynamics 23:31 The Importance of Mentorship and Accountability 26:09 Client Relationships and Business Boundaries 34:00 Decision Fatigue and Efficient Organizing 42:39 The Impact of the Pandemic on Our Lives 43:57 Changing Perspectives on Home and Family 44:22 The Rise of Professional Organizing 47:25 Mental Health and Professional Organizing 48:33 The Value of Professional Organizing Services 52:30 Concierge Relocation Services 01:05:02 Senior Move Management 01:10:36 The Future of Professional Organizing 01:19:03 The Importance of Community and Partnership 01:26:54 Conclusion and Contact Information
One of my goals as a coach is to try to prevent entrepreneurial burnout in people I love (and myself!) When my guest today reached out to ask to talk on the podcast, I knew it was going to be a good one.
Dr. Camilla Moore is a lifestyle medicine expert who focuses on stress management and burnout prevention for women entrepreneurs. She shares her journey from a chiropractor to a full-time stress management coach, and we are talking about the challenges women face with work-life balance, especially post-pandemic, and the importance of setting boundaries to prevent burnout.
Dr. Moore provides practical tips for identifying energy-draining and energy-giving activities, setting personal policies, and maintaining a sustainable balance in personal and professional life. Stay tuned for part two to be released tomorrow! TIME STAMPS: 00:00 Introduction and Peanut Butter Confession 01:10 Upcoming Episodes and Burnout Topic 02:01 Meet Dr. Camilla Moore 02:31 Burnout and Stress Management 04:17 Impact of the Pandemic on Women 08:12 Invisible Load and Gender Roles 12:04 Setting Personal Policies and Boundaries 12:59 Energy Management Exercise 18:35 Balancing Work and Personal Life 25:25 Preventing Burnout and Finding Joy 30:12 Conclusion and Teaser for Part Two
Pinterest has a wealth of information for us--but did you know it's also A SEARCH ENGINE? My guest today is an SEO expert for pro organizers and she is here to tell us all the goodness about how professional organizers can use Pinterest to increase their own SEO performance.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Julia Renee Consulting: Pinterest & SEO: https://juliareneeconsulting.com
Connect with Melissa for your free Pinterest helper: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
EPISODE INFO: Boost Your Organizing Business with Pinterest: Expert Tips from Julia Renee Consulting
In this episode, Melissa returns to bring valuable insights on using Pinterest as a marketing tool for organizing businesses.
Joined by Julia from Julia Renee Consulting, they delve into the benefits of Pinterest for driving traffic, SEO strategies, and actionable tips for professional organizers. Julia explains how Pinterest works as a visual search engine, offers advice on creating effective pins, and emphasizes the importance of seasonal content.
They also discuss the value of maintaining a business account, repurposing old blog posts, and tools like Canva and Tailwind to streamline pin creation and scheduling. Whether you’re a Pinterest newbie or looking to optimize your current strategy, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you attract local clients and enhance your online presence.
00:00 Welcome Back to the Podcast!
01:30 Diving into Pinterest for Your Business
02:42 Introducing Julia Renee: Pinterest and SEO Expert
03:14 Understanding Pinterest as a Visual Search Engine
04:51 Creating Effective Pins for Your Organizing Business
11:34 Setting Up and Optimizing Your Pinterest Profile
18:36 Repurposing Old Content on Pinterest
18:48 The Longevity of Pinterest Traffic
19:40 Creating Effective Video Content for Pinterest
24:49 Using Pinterest for Seasonal Content
27:25 Pinterest for Local SEO
29:24 Blogging for SEO and Pinterest
34:31 Pinterest Management Services
36:59 Conclusion and Contact Information
Inspired Organizer's price is going up at 11:59 on Monday, November 4. I'd love for you to get in before that happens!
www.proorganizerstudio.com/join to join Inspired Organizer
https://calendly.com/proorganizerstudio/coaching-call if you'd like to have a Zoom with Melissa to talk about coaching options or what IO can do for you.
hello@proorganizerstudio.com if you'd like to chat about anything else!
Mastering Business Finances: Tips, Mindset Shifts, and Empowerment for Professional Organizers
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Schedule a Zoom with Melissa to talk about joining our programs: CLICK HERE Learn more about Inspired Organizer: CLICK HERE Get in touch with Danielle and her team at Kickstart Accounting: CLICK HERE I am talking to Danielle Hayden, founder of Kickstart Accounting Inc., to demystify the world of business finances.
From actionable strategies in bookkeeping and tax planning to understanding the different financial roles like CPAs and CFOs, we are breaking down essential financial concepts and highlight the critical importance of knowing your numbers.
The discussion also delves into mindset shifts necessary for business success, especially for women entrepreneurs. Knowing your numbers actually means FREEDOM--and financial guidance can save and grow your business.
00:42 Tax Day and Financial Conversations 04:00 Introducing Danielle Hayden and Her Journey 08:25 Understanding Bookkeeping and Accounting 18:57 The Importance of Knowing Your Numbers 22:46 Budgeting and Financial Planning for Small Businesses 26:46 Support for Business Owners with Financial Challenges 28:07 Creating a Safe Space for Financial Conversations 29:34 Taking Responsibility as a Business Owner 30:28 The Importance of Nonjudgmental Financial Support 32:58 Understanding the Infinite Game of Business 35:33 The Role of Gender in Business Ownership 39:57 Practical Tips for Business Finances 41:20 Overcoming Financial Disorganization 45:22 The Importance of Separating Business and Personal Finances 46:50 Navigating State-Specific Financial Regulations 48:21 Breaking the Taboo: Talking About Money 52:07 How to Get Financial Help and Support 53:18 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Schedule a zoom with Melissa to talk about how I can help you in your business! www.proorganizerstudio.com/book
Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
"Boss October" Podcast: CLICK HERE
This week's pod...
Conquering Comparisonitis: Overcoming Social Media Traps and Boosting Your Business Productivity
It's October TO-DO list time in your business--but first, we're talking about a huge block a lot of organizers have, which is comparing yourself against other organizers!
I'm talking 'comparisonitis'—the unhealthy habit of comparing yourself to others on social media—and offers practical advice to overcome it. Strategies include muting social media triggers, focusing on personal business goals, and "using your own yardstick."
As October rolls in, I am encouraging organizers to make the most of the last three months of the year. There is a lot to focus on!
00:00 Welcome to the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast
02:04 The October To-Do List for Your Business
03:22 Understanding and Overcoming Comparisonitis
16:20 Strategies to Combat Comparisonitis
23:35 Maximizing the Last Three Months of the Year
28:07 Boss October: Shoring Up Your Life and Business
29:37 Wrapping Up and Future Opportunities
31:04 Free Workshop and BYE!
NEW FREE WORKSHOP!! Our new workshop, How Professional Organizers Can Get Clients WITHOUT using social media, is ready for you on demand at poroadmap.com !
THIS WEEK ON THE POD:
Fresh from the How To Summit in Austin, Texas, we are diving into a live recording of a marketing panel I moderated--featuring Blair Nastri of Erin Condren, and organizers Liz Wann and Cindy Huzenmen. We are talking about ALLLLLL things marketing for professional organizers--including concentrating on marketing, authenticity, and consistency in building a business.
Key takeaways include personalized marketing strategies, leveraging customer loyalty, and the value of consistent effort.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:42 Recap of the How To Summit in Austin 01:46 Introducing the Marketing Panel 03:52 Panel Discussion: Marketing Strategies for Organizers 14:33 The Importance of Authenticity in Marketing 27:06 Consistency and Focus in Business
GET IN TOUCH! hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Thank you to our special guest Cabri Carpenter for joining us for this entire week of podcast epsiodes!
Today the discussion dives into handling panic moments within the business, setting up pricing strategies, and creating systems to sustain through unexpected situations. We also explore the power of community, the essential tools and courses, and the importance of promoting niche services in your pro organizing business!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Check out Pro Organizer Studio: www.proorganizerstudio.com
Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Learn more about Cabri: www.minimizethenorganize.com
It's Day 3 of the WEEK OF CABRI and we are diving into one of THE most important subjects for organizers--working with clients with ADHD.
Adapting to clients with ADHD means talking about how we need to emphasize the wide spectrum of symptoms and the need for flexibility. We are also talking about the significance of not overcomplicating organizational systems and maintaining simplicity for clients. Lots of great things here for our favorite professional organizers!
00:55 The Importance of Working with ADHD Clients 01:34 Adapting to Clients' Needs 08:56 Simplifying the Organizing Process 13:34 Future Trends in Professional Organizing 17:27 Embracing Slow Periods in Business 20:25 Conclusion and Contact Information
How is the organizing business growing and changing--and how do YOU adapt so you don't lose out? We're talking about it today on Day 2 of the Week of Cabri on the pod!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Our new free workshop: www.poroadmap.com Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com Meet Cabri: www.minimizethenorganize.com
Melissa is delving into the evolving landscape of the organizing industry with guest Cabri Carpenter of Minimize Then Organize in Lubbock, Texas.
They discuss the impact of COVID-19 on business practices, the importance of adaptability and flexibility, and the necessity for organizers to embrace new technologies and strategies. The conversation also touches on the influx of new organizers, pricing challenges, and the various paths professionals can take within the industry. Melissa emphasizes the need for continuous learning and innovation to sustain and grow a successful organizing business.
01:32 Adapting to Industry Changes 04:18 The Importance of Flexibility 06:31 Challenges and Opportunities in Organizing 10:55 The Reality of Running an Organizing Business 13:54 Exploring Diverse Paths in Organizing 20:03 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes
It's part 1 of our WEEK OF CABRI here on the podcast--you are going to get lots of GREAT stuff from one of my favorite (and one of the most successful!) organizers that I know!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
New FREE workshop: www.poroadmap.com Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
The Week of Cabri part 1: Business Growth, Team Dynamics, and Social Media Insights
We are touching on various topics crucial for the professional organizing industry, including social media strategies, business reflection, team expansion, and the importance of knowing your numbers. Both Melissa and Cabri share their unique experiences and perspectives on growing an organizing business, tackling social media, and transitioning into leadership roles.
03:54 Cabri's strengths and coaching style 07:13 The journey of Minimize Then Organize 13:10 The role of social media in organizing businesses 22:07 Building and managing a successful team
I love trying new things. So today, I'm honoring the modern day short attention span with A FIVE MINUTE PODCAST (but it's about an interesting topic!)
I am here with Cabri Carpenter, a successful organizer at Minimize Then Organize in Texas, and coach at Inspired Organizer, to discuss the importance of appearing detached to attract more clients. Trust us!!! We can explain!!
We also have a new on-demand FREE workshop titled 'How Professional Organizers Can Get Clients Without Using Social Media,' available at www.poroadmap.com.
Growing Your Professional Organizing Business I am about to launch a brand new free workshop, which means I am retiring a workshop called the "Pro Organizers Profit Plan." Jen and I created this workshop to help both new and experienced organizers streamline and grow their businesses. Key topics include overcoming common mistakes, effective marketing, personal branding, and leveraging systems and data to achieve goals. TIME STAMPS: 00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Changes 00:23 Retiring the Pro Organizers Profit Plan Workshop 01:41 Workshop Introduction by Jen 05:12 Melissa's Journey and Workshop Goals 05:35 Friendly Competition: Polite Pro Carrie vs. Savvy Organizer Lauren 07:39 Melissa's Personal Journey to Organizing 11:05 Common Mistakes When Starting an Organizing Business 17:18 Understanding Client Needs and Expectations 22:36 The Pro Organizers Profit Plan: See, Say, Do 23:12 Pro Organizer's Profit Plan Overview 23:49 Defining Your Success 27:02 Creating a Minimal Business Launch 29:29 The Power of Branding 35:09 Marketing, Systems, and Data 40:09 Building Confidence and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome 42:38 Introducing the 'Do' System 47:28 Join the Inspired Organizer Community
The record-screech moment in this podcast is in the title: The definition of self-care is "creating a life that you don't regularly need to escape from." My guest Tami Hackbarth is back to drop some knowledge bombs for our home life and that can help your organizing clients live better as well. Today we are talking about a fabulous resource called Fair Play--and I am excited to have you have this for yourselves and for clients. It works for all types of family systems and structures and I am hopeful it will help lots of people live better. In part 2 of my discussion with Tami, we get into a range of topics from the often-overlooked reasons behind relationship breakdowns, such as the failure to share household responsibilities, to the broader implications of self-care. We talk about 'weaponized incompetence,' generational shifts in domestic roles, and how maintaining a functional, rather than perfect, home can contribute to better relationships. The conversation weaves through the impact of childhood responsibilities on adult capabilities, co-parenting challenges, and practical steps for teaching children essential life skills. The episode emphasizes the importance of creating a life that doesn't necessitate escape and the value of communal support in achieving balanced and equitable family dynamics. 00:00 The Clickbait Headline That Changed Everything 00:22 The Reality of Unheard Conversations 01:46 Generational Shifts in Household Responsibilities 05:42 Teaching Kids Independence 16:47 The Importance of Self-Compassion 26:42 Embracing Flexibility in Home Organization 27:14 The Unrealistic Expectations of Organizing Social Media 27:57 Prioritizing Function Over Perfection 30:20 Fair Play for Non-Traditional Families 31:51 Breaking Down Fair Play: Conception, Planning, Execution 33:55 The Importance of Communication in Fair Play 37:29 Building a Family Success Team 41:07 Self-Care for Solopreneurs and Organizers 47:25 The Essential Guide to Guilt-Free Self-Care 52:18 The Power of Asking for Help 53:49 Conclusion and Future Conversations LINKS FOR LISTENERS Connect with Tami: tamihackbarth.com Connect with Melissa: proorganizerstudio.com
When you hear the phrase "Self-Care" what comes to mind? To me, it's hearing people say "go take a bath and read a book" when the reality is the world can feel like it's spinning out of control. My guest today is trying to change our view of what self-care REALLY is. Today I am talking about balancing the domestic load, in a conversation with life and work coach Tami Hackbarth. We are discussing the Fair Play method, focusing on the redistribution of domestic labor and mental loads to create a more equitable household dynamic. This episode is one where I want to bring together help for you as an entrepreneur, along with ways you can help our organizing clients as well--it's a double win and a double header epsiode! We are talking about it ALL--family roles, parenting, and the division of labor, emphasizing the importance of communication and implementing changes in a team-oriented manner. Tami shares her expertise in helping clients manage their mental load and prevent burnout, bringing valuable advice for both professional organizers and their clients. The episode stresses the necessity of ongoing conversations and systems to maintain household balance and offers perspectives that are applicable to various family structures. TIME STAMPS: 00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview 02:13 Meet Tami Hackbarth: Life and Work Coach 11:49 The Fair Play Method: Redistributing Domestic Labor 17:24 Addressing Burnout and Mental Load 25:34 Client Stories: Teaching Kids Responsibility 26:31 The Laundry Debate: Independence vs. Pampering 30:00 Setting Household Standards: Minimum Standard of Care 32:22 Invisible Labor: Recognizing Unseen Efforts 34:00 Food Decisions: Balancing Family Preferences and Allergies 38:02 Collaborative Parenting: Sharing the Load 45:39 Communication Strategies: Regular Check-ins 47:30 Conclusion: Reflecting on the Conversation LINKS FOR LISTENERS: CONNECT WITH TAMI HACKBARTH: www.tamihackbarth.com CONNECT WITH MELISSA: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
There are six months left in 2024 which means it's time for a mid-year check in on your organizing business! Melissa is taking a July reset and she'll talk about what that means and how you can get some of that magic too.
Connect with Melissa at proorganizerstudio.com or hello@proorganizerstudio.com!
When I signed up for a trip to Japan with Marie Kondo's team from KonMari Media, I figured I would get some good sightseeing, some good food, and get to meet other organizers and have some good pictures for social media. What I didn't expect was to have a truly life-changing experience that has made me look differently at my business and my personal journeys--and my guest Kristin DeCou from Modern Refresh is here to talk with me about our amazing trip across Japan! The episode delves into the lessons learned about mindfulness, slowing down, and the importance of creating a sustainable organizing business. Kristin discusses her organizing journey and the impacts of the trip on her approach to work and life. Emphasis is placed on the value of intentional living, building meaningful routines, and fostering community among professional organizers. LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Connect with Kristin of Modern Refresh: www.modernrefresh.com or www.instagram.com/modernrefresh Get in touch with Melissa at Pro Organizer Studio: hello@proorganizerstudio.com TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Introduction and notes about Melissa's personal journey 02:58 Introducing Kristin DeCou + her organizing journey 08:37 Reflections on the Japan Trip 25:20 Implementing Changes Post-Trip 30:19 Reevaluating Life and Business 32:04 The Power of Saying No 34:01 Meditation and Mindfulness 37:19 Incorporating New Habits 46:49 Empowerment and Future Goals 48:39 Sustainable Organizing Entrepreneurship 52:07 The Organizing Community 54:46 Connecting and Finding Your People 56:23 Conclusion and Contact Information
What lessons can Inside Out 2 teach us about entrepreneurship? Melissa is going to tell you!
Your online presence is your employee that works 24/7/365--and today I'm hosting Brie Morrissey of BK Branding Co to talk about 8 signs your business needs a REFRESH!
I am so thrilled to welcome Jenny Albertini, who is one of the very first professional organizers I ever met, and who was a great part of my organizing life, to the pod! She is the author of Decluttered: Mindful Organizing for Health, Home and Beyond--and it's a book that will help organizers with clients by connecting health (mental and physical) with the organizing process.
WIN A COPY OF JENNY'S BOOK!
www.proorganizerstudio.com/links
Two of my favorite people I've met in all my years of organizing are back with me here on the podcast! I am having a fun convo with Brandie and Ryan of Home+Sort in northern California, who are the founders of the How To: Summit. The summit for 2024 is moving to Austin, Texas in the end of September--and tickets are almost gone! We're chatting about everything that's in store this year for the 6th year of the summit.
REGISTER HERE: howtosummit.org
Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
One of the most popular topics with organizers is social media. A lot of people have a view of what social is for their business, but it doesn't always align with the reality. Today we are talking about the dos and don'ts of social and how to really show up in the right way--without stress.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
connect with Jen Mary: https://youreverydaystyle.com
Prior social media episodes referenced: 142 + 143
Bee Movie clip--"this time!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_AZgoP2Jig
Helping clients who need organizing while they're struggling with grief can be very challenging--and today we want to help you with some concrete ideas to help your clients. My guest is Missi McKown of Clear Spaces Organizing in Maple Grove, Minnesota, and she is graciously sharing some of her personal stories of loss to help organizers work with clients.
We are back with organizer Michelle Parravani of Designing With Less in Atlanta, and we are talking about some easy sustainability tips for organizers working with eco-conscious clients, and Michelle gives us a FABULOUS idea for a pricing differential that I had never thought of before!
You can find Michelle at designingwithless.com.
I am so happy to welcome my guest Michelle Parravani to the pod--she is talking about entrepreneurship as a single woman which is a super important subject, and I can't wait for you to meet her!
Adding photo organizing to your list of services is an awesome thing to do--I did and it's been a great revenue source for my business. My guest today occupies a special corner of the organizing world, where she does all of this for clients. We are talking about all things related to photo organizing today and I hope you get some ideas on how you can serve clients more!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Connet with Rachel at 2000 Paces: https://www.2000paces.com
Connect with Pro Organizer Studio: https://www.proorganizerstudio.com
We are continuing with our campaign to prove that being YOU in your business actually gets you clients--it doesn't scare them away (trust us!) Today's guest is Meg Mueller of The Lit Bulb--she is a writer for professional organizers. We are talking about how much your words and your branding (not just the color palette, either!) matters to your business. I'm excited for you to listen and hear all the topics we get to.
It's one of the hardest parts of professional organizing entrepreneurship--telling a client "sorry, I can't help." This is part 2 of my conversation with Melissa Gugni of her eponymous Bay Area organizing business.
One thing we encounter in our Inspired Organizer group a lot is, "How do I tell someone I don't want to work with them?" Today's guest is Melissa Gugni, and we are talking about this challenging situation and how you can approach it, and the hows and the whys and all of that. We know it's hard, and we want to take away some of the difficulty for professional organizers!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Pro Organizer Studio: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
www.prooorganizerstudio.com
This is going to be the first, and not last!, conversation we have about organizing clients with ADHD, and being an organizer with ADHD. Neurodivergence is the hot word right now--but we are diving into a discussion on how you can help clients even if you yourself aren't fully up to speed on all things in this realm.
Have you ever gotten that pitch to be on a 5 minute podcast that will inevitably vault your business to the stratosphere? I've warned against them before but our intrepid organizer slash undercover agent Missi McKown of Clear Spaces Organizing has done it for you just to talk about it.
Stay tuned later this week for more Missi, talking about ADHD with clients!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Join Inspired Organizer before it closes for some time and the price goes up! https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/sAR6Yrsd
Learn more about Missi McKown and Clear Spaces Organizing: https://www.instagram.com/clearspacesorganizing/
Sarah Brent of Practical Harmony in Illinois is talking to us about something she (and I!) are equally passionate about. Here's a little sneak peek:
"Clients need to hear about you and your uniqueness. They need to hear your story, why you do what you do, why you're different from other organizers. Not everybody wants to hire the type A minimalist organizer who's been organizing since they were in diapers.
A lot of clients are looking for organizers who have had firsthand experience with hoarding, chronic disorganization, downsizing, relocating, therapy, recovery, blending families, aging parents, losing loved ones, being diagnosed late in life with ADHD or autism, even something like rebuilding after a fire or designing your own kitchen or closets.
This is what makes you unique and knowledgeable. Share with others what you have gone through, what you've learned along the way and find ways to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack."
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Sarah's Tidy Stock Photography business for pro organizers: CLICK HERE
Connect with Melissa at Pro Organizer Studio: CLICK HERE
While I am calling her a guest today, it is her podcast! Jen Kilbourne is on the pod today. She is the founder of Pro Organizer Studio, and she is the visionary behind everything that we do here. If you are a longtime podcast listener, you have heard Jen's voice on the podcast so many times--she began all of this magic. She started the Inspired Organizer® program, which has helped 900 women across the globe on five different continents start or grow their organizing businesses. Everything you see at Pro Organizer Studio was her vision.
As I was trying to think about how I could introduce this episode, and how I could explain what you're going to be hearing. I was having a really hard time encapsulating it because we go a lot of different directions. I was just about to upload something and I was thinking about, oh, how can I explain this? And one of the pieces of software that I used has AI capabilities and it encapsulates an episode and it went ahead and titled it: Reflections and Transformations. And honestly, I can't think of a better name to name this podcast.
Reflections and transformations is everything that we were talking about. We are talking about buying and selling businesses. We are talking about personal, deep journeys. We are talking about challenges of running a business. How important the impact of major life changes are on you as a business person? We are talking about marriages, divorces, kids, relationships. So many different things here, and I want to just give you one great big giant mega podcast.
I hope it is helpful to you, organizers!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
- The full, unedited version of this episode (referenced at minute 4): CLICK HERE
- Connect with Jen at Every Dear Communications: CLICK HERE
- Connect with Jen on LinkedIn: CLICK HERE
- Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn: CLICK HERE
- Connect with Melissa and Pro Organizer Studio: CLICK HERE
We finish up our series with Kim with a cautionary safety tale AND a wonderful story about her mom. Enjoy this bonus to wrap up our series!
If you have been here for more than two seconds, you know I've been interviewing Kim of Rustic Home Organizing in Portland, Oregon, every year, since she brand new in starting her professional organizing business out. This is her year two recap what she has learned.
Kim has so much wisdom to share. And one of the things that I love is that Kim has stayed really flexible about her business. She has changed when she needed to. She has pivoted when she needed to, she has admitted her mistakes. She has a lot of great lessons for people, whether you are brand new, starting out, or whether you've been in business for a long time.
I always enjoy catching up with Kim. She has a great sense of humor. She's a great person and more than anything, she loves to help other organizers really realize that this is a business that they can start and that they can be a part of.
One of the stories that I loved of Kim was she got a dozen eggs as one of her first payments. And then she moved up to having multiple $10,000 plus months. And that's a part of a journey in organizing—just reminding you that you can start small and then end up big. There are so many ways that you can work this business to make it work for you and to achieve your goals.
All right, let's get started with my second conversation with Kim.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Kim: www.rhorganizing.com
Join our Organizing Essentials Program, closing Valentine's day: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F
Connect with Pro Organizer Studio: www.prooorganizerstudio.com
I first interviewed Kim two years ago when her business was BRRAAANNNDD new. In her first year, once she got paid by a client with a dozen eggs. Fast forward two years later--and she had her first (and second, and third) $10,000 month in her business, Rustic Home Organizing.
Kim is giving us all the details on her second year in business--and no matter where you are in your organizing business, there is so much to learn here!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Get connected with Kim: www.rhorganizing.com
Join our Organizing Essentials course, open until Valentine's Day: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F
This is our second episode in our rewind series of Kim Snodgrass of Rustic Home Organizing growing your organizing business--if you missed the last episode, check it out (episode 177 right before this). Then check out next up, which are two brand new epsiodes which will be a 2024 real time update on what Kim learned in her second full year of organizing--and her first $10,000 month.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Connect with Melissa at Pro Organizer Studio: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio programs and resources: Click here
Time capsule for organizers--open! It's a little bit of a rewind week but here's why!
I started something a couple of years ago, with someone in our Inspired Organizer® group who was brand new--she had just started her business and I wanted to interview her about taking the leap into organizing. And then almost exactly a year later, I interviewed her again and learned about what the reality of that first year was--what are some things that went great? What are some things that you wish you had done differently? And then the other day, I interviewed her at the end of her second year, as she goes into her third year--so those brand new episodes will be up this week.
But I wanted to do this rewind to remind all of us where she came from and what her journey is--there is so much good stuff here to hear all over again!
Rewind epsiode 1, this one, is when she was brand new.
Rewind episode 2 is up now as well--after her first year in business (episode 178.)
Current 2024 update after 2 years of organizing are episodes 179 and 180.
Thanks for listening to the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast!
LINK FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Melissa: email hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio: Click here
This is the second epsiode in our 2 part series with Rachel Rosenthal, a professional organizer in Washington DC who has used the media to propel her business to serve over 8000 clients. In this ep we get down to business learning how to pitch potential outlets like TV, podcasts, and print media to grow your organizing business.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Use code POS for Rachel's course The Power of Press for $100 off: https://rachelrosenthal.co/online-courses
Learn more about Rachel's organizing business, Rachel & Company: https://rachelrosenthal.co
Connect with me at Pro Organizer Studio: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Today we are demystifying the process of putting your organizing business out in the world by doing press--print, TV, online, podcasts and more! Rachel Rosenthal, who has served over 8000 clients in her Washington, DC organizing business Rachel & Company, has skyrocketed her client list by actively participating in press opportunities.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Learn more about Rachel and her business Rachel & Company: CLICK HERE
Rachel's course The Power of Press Playbook--USE CODE POS FOR $100 OFF!: CLICK HERE
Connect with Melissa and Pro Organizer Studio: CLICK HERE
For the last couple of years, instead of New Year's Resolutions or large scale yearly goals, I have picked a word of the year. I pick one word at the start of the year and then I use that as my guiding light, my North Star for the year.
So over the holidays, I spent time reflecting and thinking and trying to decide what that word was, that magical word that was going to guide me through the year for my businesses, and for Pro Organizer Studio.
Today's podcast brings you the word of the year--and why I picked it!
We got a great question this week about what qualified business expenses organizers should think about, so here's a mini-sode for you!
We continue our conversation with Julia, an SEO expert for professional organizers! If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, bump back one episode because there is AWESOME stuff there!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Julia's website: https://juliareneeconsulting.com Julia's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliareneeconsulting/ Julia's Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/juliareneeconsulting/
Join Inspired Organizer: CLICK HERE Join our $19 Google Business Profile course UNTIL DEC 31: CLICK HERE
Additional info: Julia is an SEO and Pinterest Consultant for creative small businesses at Julia Renee Consulting and is the first SEO professor at Drexel University. Her goal is to make SEO and Pinterest strategies approachable and easy to implement for all small businesses so they can reach their ideal clients organically. She lives in Philadelphia with her Siberian Husky sidekick, her husband, and her baby daughter, and on the side, she runs a travel photography site and experiments with spicy recipes in the kitchen. Julia offers both set and custom SEO packages to help home organizers rank higher on Google. She focuses on creating strong SEO foundations, and she does a variety of services, from keyword research and website copy optimization to fixing technical errors and creating data reports. Julia's goal is to help make SEO approachable for small businesses, so she's always happy to answer questions and give guidance throughout the process of working with her.
The #1 question I get as a coach for organizers is, "How can clients find me?" SEO is one answer to this question! This is a 2 part series with an expert for professional organizers, Julia of Julia Renee Consulting--and it is FULLLLL of gems for you!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Julia's website: https://juliareneeconsulting.com Julia's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliareneeconsulting/ Julia's Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/juliareneeconsulting/
Join Inspired Organizer: CLICK HERE Join our $19 Google Business Profile course UNTIL DEC 31: CLICK HERE
Additional info: Julia is an SEO and Pinterest Consultant for creative small businesses at Julia Renee Consulting and is the first SEO professor at Drexel University. Her goal is to make SEO and Pinterest strategies approachable and easy to implement for all small businesses so they can reach their ideal clients organically. She lives in Philadelphia with her Siberian Husky sidekick, her husband, and her baby daughter, and on the side, she runs a travel photography site and experiments with spicy recipes in the kitchen. Julia offers both set and custom SEO packages to help home organizers rank higher on Google. She focuses on creating strong SEO foundations, and she does a variety of services, from keyword research and website copy optimization to fixing technical errors and creating data reports. Julia's goal is to help make SEO approachable for small businesses, so she's always happy to answer questions and give guidance throughout the process of working with her.
How is it December already? Let me help you think about the new year AND get your business ready for what's next.
JOIN THE GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE GROUP: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/3Z8pbxvc
There are 99,000 Google searches EVERY SECOND. Are you taking advantage of those?
LINK TO JOIN OUR GOOGLE BUSINESS COURSE:
https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/3Z8pbxvc
Welcome to part 2 of our recent live pod taping at the How To Summit! Thank you again to Brandie and Ryan of Home+Sort for hosting such an awesome event! I can't wait to be there next year!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Information on Inspired Organizer: click HERE
email Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
PANELISTS:
Ria Safford | Riorganize | @riorganize Ashley Murphy + Marissa Hagmeyer | NEAT Method | @neatmethod Mindy Godding | President of NAPO | Abundance Organizing | @abundanceorganizing Ashley Jones Hatcher | Travel & lifestyle expert | @ashleyjoneshatcher Get in touch with us! Email us at hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Follow How To Summit HERE
Sign up for info on next year's summit: howtosummit.org
Welcome to our first ever live podcast recording! The How To Summit was an amazing two days of learning and community and fun, and the last day we hit record on a fab panel of organizers answering a grab bag of my questions.
The panelists:
Ria Safford | Riorganize | @riorganize Ashley Murphy + Marissa Hagmeyer | NEAT Method | @neatmethod Mindy Godding | President of NAPO | Abundance Organizing | @abundanceorganizing Ashley Jones Hatcher | Travel & lifestyle expert | @ashleyjoneshatcher
LINKS FOR LISTENERS Get in touch with us! Email us at hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Follow How To Summit HERE
Sign up for info on next year's summit: howtosummit.org Inspired Organizer information: inspiredorganizer.com
After I posted the epsiode about scams/scammy things we encounter in our organizing businesses, I got so many emails/messages from people who had examples or things that I forgot about, I wanted to add a second podcast to make sure you're staying away from the messes that can be created. Today's episode talks about "partnerships", more details on bad advertising decisions, and lots of other scammy or super scammy things that can happen to organizers.
As professional organizing entrepreneurs, unfortunately one thing we have to watch out for are straight up scams at the worst, and things that are sketchy and unhelpful opportunities at the least. I want you to have a healthy level of skepticism for opportunities that come your way--and today I am talking about some specifics on things to be on the lookout for!
Timestamps:1:00 It's ok to be a little cynical in your professional organizing business to find scams 4:00 Listen to your gut to avoid being preyed upon by scammers 7:00 Scams camouflaged as "opportunities" 10:00 Pay to Play options 14:00 Ask a lot of questions before you hire a coach or other business 15:30 Moving scam to avoid 19:00 I don't want you to have regrets!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Learn more about our Inspired Organizer program: www.inspiredorganizer.com
Our 24/7 on demand workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: www.poroadmap.com
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, pro organizers, it's your podcast host, Melissa. And of course, just right as I press record, the neighbor's dog started going absolutely bananas. So hopefully you guys can hear this. This is just shows you this is real life here when I'm recording the podcast. But. I am on here today because sometimes I have podcasts planned out for a long time and there's something that I've thought about for a while and I want to get out
and sometimes there will be things that happen in a given day or week or month and I go, this is like, I was going to say an emergency podcast. There's no such thing as an emergency podcast, but like a breaking news, organizing breaking news podcast type of thing. I don't know. And that's kind of what today is.
There is something that's been on my mind based on some conversations that I've seen in the past few days. And then combined with a podcast that I am listening to, and I think it's important for organizers to talk about and think about, and it was on my mind so much that I'm like, this is, I have to make this into a podcast.
This is going to be a pretty stream of consciousness, like free flowing it's, it's what's in Melissa's head. So hopefully you guys are all good with that. I just wanted to give you kind of my off the cuff thoughts because I think that this is really important and when I originally started thinking about this, I will be honest, the only word that kept coming to my mind or the only phrase that I could think of to describe this was the phrase like Be cynical.
And I don't think that being cynical in general is a good trade for professional organizers. I think it's the exact opposite of what we need to be, especially with clients. But what I do want to do is turn that word cynical into I guess what I would phrase it as
I want you to be a careful and thoughtful consumer, and I want you to ask a lot of questions when you're presented with something. So let me just tell you a little bit about how I got here and what's going on. So first of all, there is a podcast called The Dream, which I've listened to for a long time. I can't remember when it first came out, but it's had a few seasons.
And the first couple of seasons, they did a really well researched dive on MLMs, which is a subject that fascinates me. But then the current season that they're on, they've like kind of shifted a little bit and they're talking about the life coaching industry, particularly, and it's just, it's been really fascinating to listen to, and it's really hit on something that is kind of the combination of something that I've seen in our Inspired Organizer group, and then this podcast just got me going, I've got to talk about this.
So I was listening to an episode of The Dream while I got ready to go to an organizing client last week, and they were talking about how people, even very famous people sometimes can just like literally just make things up and say, you should do X, Y, Z. And then they get people to pay for X, Y, Z when they don't have any actual training.
They don't have any actual expertise. You can say anything you want to on the internet and no one will ever fact check you, right?
So, they were talking about this guy who wrote a book that has sold 100 million copies worldwide. People really bought into it. And essentially, he is a complete 100 percent con man, okay? But was thinking about that book and then in the past few days There have been a couple things that have come up in our inspired organizer coaching group Which by the way you guys I would absolutely love for you to get into our community It is so lovely and people bring up so many things in that group that one of my main goals as a coach is to prevent People from making decisions that they will regret later sometimes very expensive Mistakes.
And there were people that come to this group and just say, Hey, I had this opportunity to come up and give me a gut check or tell me about your experience with this. A couple of things that have come up in the group that things that were brought to us. And basically it was presented of like, I have like a fishy feeling about this basically.
And they were doing a gut check because in our business we are sometimes presented with opportunities or presented with things and we're like, oh my gosh, it sounds so exciting. Like this person wants to interview me or they want to do this or they want to do that. And then you start to get a little voice in the back of your head and said, but.
Is it, is it really real? Is it too good to be true? We start to doubt ourselves. We doubt our voices sometimes. And, and one of the things that I am going to always tell you all the time, if you listen to this podcast ever, or if I coach you, I always say go with your gut and trust your gut because if your gut is telling you that something feels fishy, it probably is fishy, right?
And there were a couple of things that came up and they were both in the category of what I term unsolicited media opportunities, okay? One of them was an organizing company that was featuring other organizers in a blog post and they were chosen for this out of the blue. And then the other one was a podcast that had called and said, we want to feature you on our business podcast.
And both of these organizers were very excited by this because they were opportunities that just came out of the blue, right? But then they also wanted to ask the question, is there anything that I need to be watching out for? First of all, I know what it's like to be in business and you sometimes get opportunities that come your way and you're excited about it because you're like, Oh my gosh, this is a great opportunity for me.
I want you to be excited about opportunities that come your way. But I also want you to ask the appropriate questions because extremely unfortunately, and this is what bothers me about business probably more than anything else, unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there, not in the organizing industry, but just the bigger industry who are out there honestly just preying on entrepreneurs and they're trying to build their own businesses.
Right. But sometimes they're doing it in a way that. is not really on the up and up. And when we as organizers get an opportunity presented I want you to be appropriately excited, but I want you to ask the questions and make sure that it's not an opportunity that you're being preyed upon. And I want to be clear, this has nothing to do with your level of experience.
It doesn't matter if you are a newer organizer or an experienced organizer, all of us can have things that we fall for. I know an experienced organizer who unfortunately lost a ton of money in an organizing scam and that was not someone who was brand new. And so we can all be susceptible to these.
In these two circumstances that I'm talking about, these were not traditional scams. There are scams in organizing. Okay. And I'll talk about those in a couple minutes.
But I want you to ask questions about some of these opportunities that come your way, because sometimes, even if they're not a scam, they are something that is really not going to help your business, or they are something that is trying to lead you into something that could be bigger or something that you are going to be trying to force to make a very expensive decision about.
A couple examples. One of them that has come up lately, And I'm guessing that a lot of you on listening to this podcast have gotten this call. There is a podcast that they say it's a business podcast. They really want to feature you. It's a five minute interview. They want to feature you in this promotion and they want to give you an article and all this stuff.
It's not a scam. They really do interview you. for five minutes and they put that up, but there's always a catch. So it might not be a scam, but there's a catch. Then they're going to call you back and try to sell you a huge advertising package which one of our organizers said they were asking for about 5, 000 for an advertising package, which I can promise you is not going to lead you to ideal organizing clients.
Okay.
There are so many other things out there that you are going to be presented with as opportunities and all of us are trying to build our businesses. And so we do the natural thing, which is we get excited and we go, maybe this will be the thing that will lead me to, you know, this, this treasure trove of clients. A few examples are golf courses that will call you and want you to be in a book that they give to all golfers. They present it as this amazing opportunity. It's going to be transformative for your business.
As a great entrepreneur and all of these opportunities, you guys are pay to play. And so what's going to happen is they, they bait you with like, Oh, we have chosen you for the super special opportunity. And then they're going to say, Oh, but we need you to pay X, Y, Z. And it's usually a decent amount of money.
We're not talking about a couple of hundred dollars. We're talking about, in most cases, thousands of dollars so that you can really promote this opportunity. And. While again, these are not necessarily traditional scams, they are not something in general that is going to help your business. So this includes print ads for local magazines.
This includes a lot of those different things. And in a lot of cases too, you're going to get pressured, like really pressured with a sales pitch. And that should be your spidey sense number one going off of, wait a minute, why are they pitching me so hard on this? If they are pitching you that hard, it's something that's a little bit fishy.
Okay. It's, it's not really, really legit.
The second one was I think it was just someone being very creative about seo and their backlinks it was an organizing company that was featuring other organizing companies And I think the goal is they just want to get a backlink on someone else's site, which is an SEO tactic for their own websites, right?
So this is not a nefarious scam. Neither of these are nefarious scams, but it's like, as I say, it's a little bit sketch. In this SEO one, they randomly pick 10 organizing companies, several of which are people in our inspired organizer group. And they said they want to focus on them. And the idea is the person gets really excited to be featured and then they post the story everywhere.
And then that backlink helps that other company. So it helps their SEO. It's very enterprising, honestly, but here's what I want to do. I want you to get backlinks for your website, which is a whole thing that I am happy to teach you, but I want you to do it by connecting with other organizers that you actually know, other organizers that you actually want to be connected with, who you guys can mutually help each other.
Okay. And I will tell you as pro organizer studio, I get pitched. Please do not think I'm exaggerating seven or eight times a day. Sometimes more pitched on things people want us to buy things that people want me to write an article about for our blog, things that people want to feature on the podcast.
It's nonstop. And I really, I'm going to tell you, I hope for you, for your business life, it doesn't include that because it is extremely annoying to manage, but partner with people on things that you know about and trust that are in our industry or in analogous industries. You can give and get backlinks from other organizers in ways that aren't like scammy and blah.
Another thing that's going to happen to you a lot is you are going to be pitched that you are an amazing entrepreneur and you have been chosen to be featured in XYZ magazine.
And we're going to do an article about you and blah, blah, blah. So, in 99. 9 percent of these cases, these are pay to play opportunities, you're going to get excited that someone wants to feature you and they have chosen you, and then you're going to find out that, unfortunately, it's really not what you thought it was.
And then, you're going to get a high pressure sales tactic? The example I gave was Brains Magazine, Brains with a Z has been on a tear. They're not just contacting organizers. They contacted a friend of mine who's a stylist. They're all over the place. So then when you find out they're contacting all these people, you realize it's not special.
They're just contacting a lot of people. There are tons of these magazines out there, entrepreneurial magazines, and it's all pay to play. And they prey on people who don't ask the questions or people who just go, Oh my gosh, this is so exciting. I'm going to be featured in a magazine.
And If you want to be featured in the media, that is a whole other topic and there are ways to do it where you pitch for that media and there is going to be a whole podcast that I'm going to do on that pretty soon. But those opportunities that reach out for you and they really, really hard sell you, you're going to get multiple emails about it.
You're going to get a lot of stuff those are. They're just almost never things that are going to be worthwhile for you. And they really are just sales pitches. This is so random but I'm going to just save you a little bit of time. If you start to get these opportunities presented to you, right.
Via email, via phone call, whatever you are not obligated in any way, shape or form to respond to a person to decline the opportunity to reply to them in any way, if you're getting pitched something and you're not interested in it. You can just delete it. You do not have to spend a single minute of your time.
I know that we all want to be very polite, but what I don't want you to do is, and this is a trap that someone that I know fell into recently, where you respond to some of these things that you should be healthfully skeptical about, and then they know you're a real person, and the sales pitch comes harder and harder.
Just simply delete. and ignore. You can send it to spam. That's what I do. You don't have to respond. The people I want to respond to, you respond to, are potential clients. Other things that are really, really good opportunities, so, please just Delete and move on.
The other thing that I want to talk about too, well, there are a lot of things I want to talk about, but in the time that I have been a coach for professional organizers, I have had a lot of times where people come and they say, I have signed up for XYZ service an SEO service that costs over a thousand dollars a month and you are obligated for a 12 month contract that you didn't really realize was a 12 month contract.
I have seen people sign up for things that they thought were a couple of months and it turns out it was for a year or the services that they were promised are not delivered. Websites that people have paid thousands of dollars for that the person just disappeared with their money. There are so many examples of this and that makes me more sad than anything, because I know how hard we have to work for the money we get in our business.
And so when you are thinking about making an investment, I want it to be a thoughtful investment that has an ROI attached to it. You know that the person that's providing the service is legit. There are unfortunately so many services out there that you're going to get a hard sales pitch for, and then you're going to feel obligated into it.
And it's not going to be the service that you really, really need. Okay. If you need a website builder, we have one. Her name is Bree Kistler. She is amazing. BK Branding Co. She does websites for so many organizers and so many other people. She is going to actually take your money and actually build you a website, right?
Again, does it pass the smell test? If it feels fishy, it is fishy. And I want you to read your contracts. What are you signing up for? What is the outlay of money? How is the person going to get paid?
How are you going to get your services delivered to you? Ask all those questions. A real service provider is going to be able to answer those. The other thing that I want you to do is if you're signing up for coaching with anyone, I want you to ask a lot of questions. If you want to sign up for coaching with me, ask me questions.
Ask me about my organizing business. Ask me about my credentials. Ask me about all of these things. Ask other people about working with me and what it's like to work with me. Ask the questions because I have seen so many people, who are promoting coaching, sometimes very expensive coaching services.
And I want you to be able to say, is this someone that I really want to learn from? Is this someone that has the credentials that I want to learn from? And a good person, and a person who's legit in general is going to be able to answer those questions, right? There is a level to which you have to trust and you have to listen to your gut.
But asking those questions and making sure that you know exactly what you're signing up for, exactly what you're paying for, exactly what you're doing is really important. We've gone through a couple of things that are just things that you need to be on the watch out for.
There are things in organizing that are straight up scams. Okay. And I want to talk to you about a couple of those because these are things where you actually lose a ton of money. And I know people who have lost money. And that is that like hurts me more than anything else. So actual scams that you need to be careful of.
I don't care if you're a new organizer or an experienced organizer, I've been an organizer for a long time. And I still get excited when I get an inquiry in my inbox of someone who wants organizing services, right? It never is not exciting, but this is a very classic scam.
So if someone comes into your inbox and they say, I'm getting ready to move from out of town, I would like you to organize my move. I would like you to hire the movers. I'm going to give you and they cite a very large amount of money and they usually say I'm also going to give you a 20 percent tip. You know, it's a large amount of money so you get excited about it and we're going to send you this by certified check and I want you to coordinate all of this.
Extremely long story short. This is a full on scam. I had a friend of mine who played this out because she knew it was a scam, but she wanted to see what the whole thing was. She had them send her the quote certified check and she took it to her bank and it was fraudulent. So they send you a certified check, you cash it.
It takes a while for your bank to say this isn't legit. And then they ask you to transfer money, usually via Venmo or some other thing to the movers. who aren't really movers and so you are out the money because your bank takes back the certified check and then you have sent the actual money via Venmo and it is gone.
So, the check bounces and I know someone who has lost many thousands of dollars to this and that's just. someone who is willing to admit it. I'm sure there are other people who have lost it that are understandably not willing to share that information because they feel badly that it happened. But the other part of that scam that I want you to be on the lookout for is they will say that they're unable to talk on the phone because they have a hearing disability and that is designed to make you feel like a bad person if you question anything in the email.
That is also a part of the scam. Please be aware of that. Just in general. If your spidey senses are going off, and I have had a lot of instances like this another one that's going to come to you is you're probably going to get some texts occasionally. I got a text the other day that was just, it felt weird, it just felt off, like the language was kind of stilted, and I just started asking questions and then the person disappeared, okay?
If your spidey senses are going off, please, I urge you, don't ignore that feeling. If there's a book that you want to read on this, one of the best books I've ever read in my entire life is called The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. It's a great book about, it was, it's published many years ago, but still relevant to this day.
It's about personal safety and just like using your intuition for protection. It's such a great book. I totally urge you to read it, but I am a person who, I, I am not generally scared of things. I don't walk through life scared of my own shadow, but it's a great, it's a great reminder that we need to listen to our gut not just on personal safety, but on organizing scams and all sorts of other things.
Okay. So. In general, I want you, I don't want you to be cynical because I want us to go through life and think that most people are out there doing good things, right? I know so many people in the world that are doing amazingly good things, but I want you in your organizing business to ask the questions.
There are unfortunately so many things out there. that are people trying to take advantage of us. Oh, another one really quickly before I forget is if you have your business registered like properly like as an LLC or any other legal entity, you will get a few times a year solicitations in the mail that look very official.
They look like they're from the government and they will say, Hey, you're about to lose your trademark or your LLC or your whatever. They, they scare you into thinking you're about to lose your business entity, if you do not send them 300 so that they can file it for you. And if you read the, the fine print teeny tiny at the bottom, it will say, we are not a government entity.
We're not associated with a government entity, like basically in the email or in the mail that you will get, they will say, we are lying to you. And those are another example though, of we get scared because we don't know any better.
But please just. Ask questions, trust your gut, use your intuition, and I think you're going to be better off. All right, I feel like I have gone all over the place. I hope that someone is still listening. Totally understand if you don't though, but one of my main goals... Is I want you to run your business and have it be a great experience.
I don't want you to have these regrets and I don't want you to have bad experiences where you go like, man, this really took a lot of wind out of my sails. This was a really upsetting situation for me. So please be a good consumer. a thoughtful consumer and I want you to go through and not have those regrets.
Okay. So anyway, that is it for today. That's my mini podcast. And if you are interested in being a part of our community, I would love for you to be a part of it. You can email me hello at pro organizer studio. com and ask me any questions you want to. All right. Have a great day organizers.
It's OCTOBER and for me, it's a month when I feel SUPER motivated and excited to dig in to my business. I'm giving you some ideas of what an October business to-do list looks like, and some ideas of things you can focus on.
Here are some bullet points to remind you what's in the podcast!
I would love for you to be a part of our Inspired Organizer® program and community. Join 800+ other organizers around the world in our awesome family. Join us or get more details HERE!
HONEYBOOK COURSE $149 https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/7yd3LKFq
OCTOBER ideas:
- Seasonal wardrobe switch outs
- Get ready for holiday entertaining before the crazy starts
- Organize Halloween decor
- Kid focus: school has started, is paperwork out of control already? I got you!
Concentrate on ONE thing that you've been avoiding...what are you putting off in your business?
Habit development: what are some business habits you need to develop or work on?
Thinking about raising your prices, but haven't done it yet?
Time to build a team, or time to change things up with your existing team?
THREE months left in this year to do great things. I can't wait to hear all about them.
I'm thrilled to introduce you to our Inspired Organizer® member Bethany, who is living out her "Disney job" dream of being a closet designer at The Container Store!
Brandie and Ryan of Home+Sort and the How To: Summit are back with SO MUCH GOODNESS. We are chatting about so many things, including clients being liars (we'll explain!), being passionate about your business and what kinds of conversations that leads to--and so much more. I can't wait for you to hear all the great things we get into.
Our Organizing Essentials program closes 8/25--CLICK HERE to join us!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Information on the How To: Summit CLICK HERE
Check out Home+Sort on IG: CLICK HERE
This is a can't miss episode of the pod with Brandie & Ryan, who are the reason we are all so excited to go to the How:To Summit 9/21-9/22 in Ohio.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Info + tickets for How:To Summit CLICK HERE
Follow for summit information: CLICK HERE
Register to join Pro Organizer Studio: Organizing Essentials closing soon: CLICK HERE
Our last episode on your August to-do list generated some questions--answering a couple of them for you!
It's August and I'm giving you a to-do list for your organizing business! This is a great time of the year to focus on one of the most central clients to a lot of organizers--moms--and I'm giving you a few things you can tackle in your business to try to get that calendar FULL of organizing sessions.
Here is a recap of the items discussed in the podcast with timestamps for you to listen:
4:00 Two functional tasks to automate and plan for the entire month
app links-- Google Business Profile autopost software | Planoly for social posting
8:30 Strategic moves for your organizing business for August:
10:00 Texting targeted past clients
12:00 Reminding clients about refresh/maintenance packages
13:00 Back to School newsletter
14:00 Lead Magnet --change theme
15:45 Blog post
17:00 Moms group strategy
Related podcasts to check out: Episode 145, Five Mile Famous; Episode 147, Using AI, Epsiodes 117 + 118 Class Keeper app with Denise Albright
If you have any questions, please email me at hello@proorganizerstudio.com
Last epsiode, we talked to Melissa of Melissa Gugni Organizing in the Bay Area about boundaries in our organizing business--and that conversation veered into talking about pricing, knowing our worth as businesses, and a LOT of other topics--so we get a second awesome epsiode! Thanks to Melissa for joining us!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Melissa's business, Melissa Gugni Organizing: mgorganizing.com
Information on our Inspired Organizer® program: inspiredorganizer.com
"Boundaries" is a word that is pretty hot right now--but it's not just a buzzword, and it's a concept that organizers really need to get comfortable with in their work. My guest today, Melissa Gugni, a pro organizer in the Bay Area, runs several businesses, and has become really good at knowing what works and what doesn't as an entrepreneur, and she is helping us think about the concept of boundaries in our business.
My guest is Molly Z. Winters, who is a copywriter for professional organizers. One of the things I'm extremely passionate about is making sure that you're getting all of your information out in the world, whether that is your website or an email newsletter or a blog, and one of the things that is a major sticking point for people is writing.
I hear all the time, "I don't know how to write. I don't know what to say. I don't know the words." I was very excited to meet Molly and have her be able to talk to us about copywriting and all of the magic that happens when you are able to get your message across.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
3 Mistakes you might be making on your website: https://mollyzwinterswriting.ck.page/3-common-mistakes-you-might-be-making-on-your-website
Molly's program to become a better writer, "What The Heck Do I Write on My Website?":
https://molly-winters-writing.teachable.com/p/what-the-heck-do-i-write-on-my-website
Website: https://www.mollyzwinters.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/molly.winters.writing/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mollyzwinters/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-winters-freelance-writer/
Information on our Inspired Organizer program: www.inspiredorganizer.com
We are back with one of our favorite things--interviewing organizers in our Inspired Organizer® program on their businesses and what they've learned as organizers. Today I'm excited for you to meet Jen Weintraub of Splendid Spaces Organizing!
We are back with part 2 of my conversation with Cabri Carpenter of Minimize Then Organize in Lubbock. We are talking about something we see a lot--when organizers operate their business out of fear of what MIGHT happen.
Cabri Carpenter (Minimize Then Organize in Lubbock, TX) and Melissa are breaking it down today with a little tough love...about how you are overcomplicating your professional organizing business. Sometimes being efficient means we actually end up with TOO many processes, procedures, and rules--which might be costing you time and money.
What does it mean to be an organizing entrepreneur, and what does it mean to have an organizing business and what makes you successful? Jen and Melissa are dishing about what it takes to be an entrepreneur in our industry.
What is entrepreneurial spirit for an organizer? What you will hear I hope will reassure you about what it takes because I've said on many occasions, I never envisioned myself being an entrepreneur, ever. And now I am happier than I have ever imagined being in a career. And that's why I spend all day, every day making sure other women can get into this industry and be happy!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Find out more about Pro Organizer Studio HERE: www.proorganizerstudio.com
Check out our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: www.poroadmap.com
We got an email the other day from someone who was asking, essentially, what's the perfect time to start my business? She gave me a couple of details about what she has going on in her life driving the question...trying to figure out when she should begin.
But I thought about that email and I was like, you know what? We have something. Jen and I had a conversation about this one time, and I found it and knew it was the perfect thing to share. But--it's not JUST about starting a business.
The thing about this conversation is Jen has so many things that she says that I realize it's not just about whether it's time to start a business. It's really about what's the right time to start doing anything different.
Whether it is starting your organizing business, whether it is starting a team and your organizing business, whether it is time to pivot into something, no matter what it is, whatever you're trying to decide about, if you're reaching some sort of a crossroads in your organizing business.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Check out our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: poroadmap.com
Information on Inspired Organizer®, our signature program: inspiredorganizer.com
This is a special episode of the pod up for 48 hours only!
Links for listeners:
Join us in Organizing Essentials HERE...
https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F
In honor of enrollment for our course about everything under the sun about working with clients, Organizing Essentials, we are bringing you a podcast today where Jen and Melissa talk about all sorts of things relating to working with clients. From organizing closets to whether we feel pressure to keep our houses perfect, we're ready to talk about it all!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Our Organizing Essentials course is open for enrollment until April 17. Click here to join: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F
Can an organizer survive and even thrive without any social media? Amber Ehrlich of The Tidy Bungalow in Phoenix, Arizona is here to talk about her experiment in saying goodbye to Facebook and Instagram.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Amber's organizing business, The Tidy Bungalow: thetidybungalow.com
Organizing Essentials course CLOSING APRIL 17-for details and registration, click HERE
For information on our signature business building course, Inspired Organizer®, click HERE
A little taste of the show:
Melissa Klug: absolutely. Well, so one of the things that's really important, and something that you said is you have been doing this business full-time since you started, that's over five years ago. And so you're pretty experienced, but you and I also were very fortunate that we were able to build our have them be true full-time businesses pretty quickly.
And so the way we did that was by using social media, right? That's how we solely built our businesses.
Amber Ehrlich: No, I, I've had a client, I know a client has verified who I am on Instagram like four years ago, but I've never, no, I did. I got one client, I got one client that did one session from Instagram. Okay. Once
Melissa Klug: congratulations.
Well, all joking aside, what we want to talk about today is Amber undertook are we gonna call it an, I don't know if we call it an experiment or just a lifestyle change? It was an experiment. Yeah. Okay. So what I wanna talk to Amber about is, she and I have been aligned from the very beginning that social media is just a tool that you use in your business, and it is way down the list, like at the bottom of the list of what we did to grow our businesses or to get clients.
Right. But what I want to talk to you about today is you just very boldly over a year ago, undertook an experiment and I wanna hear all about it.
Amber Ehrlich: Okay. So, social media causes me like a lot of performance anxiety and comparative anxiety.
And as a recovery perfectionist, that's really the last thing that I need. Doom scrolling. Definitely. A thing and, well, I'm definitely, you know, was the person that was the top of my game and had confidence. I just, whenever I'd scroll through, I would just get angry. And I think one of the reasons I would get angry, You see what you see online, but then you know the real story behind things and that kind of drives me nuts.
And I just, I was over it. I was also over computers in general. Actually, today I had to reinstall Zoom because apparently I haven't been on a Zoom since I bought a new computer. Fascinating. I love that. So, yeah, it was the end of November, 2021 and I was just like, I hadn't posted on Instagram for six months, not like I did much before.
Hadn't shared anything on Facebook for quite a long time, and I just made a post. I was like, so we're coming down to the end of 2021 and I'm just gonna not do any social media whatsoever in 2022. So I was like, you can find me in real life. Here's my phone number, here's my email address, here's my website.
And I said, I'm gonna go all of 2022 with no social media and. Maybe I'll return and maybe I won't. And of course it was weird at first but oh my goodness, by the end of 2022, like no need, no
Melissa Klug: need whatsoever to return. So you, you not only didn't post, you didn't go on at all, is that correct?
Amber Ehrlich: I didn't go on, no. I, before I quit everything, I did go into all the Facebook settings and I downloaded every single picture that I had ever had. And then I did try to go on mid 2021 to completely deactivate and delete everything. Okay. But since after you are inactive for so long, you can't even get back on.
I don't even know how to verify. I am who I am. So it exists out there. People can find me with my last message ever, but, yeah. I don't even know how to get on at
Melissa Klug: this point. Now you were never a huge Instagram person. , you weren't on it all the time anyway. But when you first started, did you have any sort of like, fomo, what have I done? I miss it. What was the first month like?
If you've been hearing the words ChatGPT, Magic Write, or AI and wondered "what the heck are these things everyone is talking about?"--we are here to help! AI is artificial intelligence, and we are taking the mystery out of these new tech tools and how they can help organizers with some of the hard work we need to do with SEO, blogs, websites, and other STUFF!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Join our newest round of our Organizing Essentials course closing soon ($249 for lifetime access): https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F
Click here to see the AI prompts and outputs Melissa mentions on this call: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10JTKttYjPmuoQ3fYcGhoj9ln0OrqvNUw/view?usp=share_link
Information on our signature Inspired Organizer® program: www.inspiredorganizer.com
A LITTLE TASTE OF THE EPISODE: One of the things that I am committed to doing here is trying to break down some of these things that suddenly seem to be everywhere or things that have been around a while, but you might not actually know what they do, or more importantly, why you might need them in your business. And I want you to be able to say, yeah, I've heard of that, and like, Not have it be a lie. “Oh yeah, I definitely know what that is.”
So today's version of what the heck is this thing is going to be something that is the hottest new thing around everyone is talking about it, it is all over the news,
and it's something that can really. I think super overwhelming. Super techy. And I know that some people really don't love tech or they think they're not techy and, and tech things might overwhelm them or start to feel very scary. But this thing that we're gonna be talking about today has huge opportunities for organizers, and I want to talk about it.
If you have heard people talking about ChatGPT there are reels, there are tos, there are news stories. It's like a really, really huge thing. If you've heard about ChatGPT, but you're like, I have no idea what it is, that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're actually gonna talk about a bigger subject, but ChatGPT, is this new technology and it has experienced insane growth.
So I'm a business data nerd. Okay, so just go with me for a second. , it took Instagram two and a half years after it started to get to a hundred million users on their platform, it took ChatGPT two months to get to that same level. So this is something that came out and just absolutely exploded.
And you may have heard about it, but you might be sitting here going like, I've definitely heard of it, but I have no idea what it is. By the way, total side note that you didn't ask for it. This is how I feel. Anytime you read an article about Bitcoin, I have tried really hard to understand Bitcoin.
I don't understand it. I'm never going to understand it. I refuse to understand it. So it might just be that ChatGPT, is your version of Bitcoin, right? Where you just go like, yep, I've heard of it, but I have no idea what it is. ChatGPT is just one of many different options that you have for starting into the world of AI.
And the other day, someone posted in our coaching group for Inspired Organizer members and they were like, oh my gosh, have you guys tried the Canva tool using AI? And someone responded, what is AI? That is a very common response. It's actually why I'm doing this podcast today. AI stands for artificial intelligence, and in its very simplest form, what AI is, is using computer learning to generate something that would've normally been generated by you and your brain.
And because computers can work infinitely faster than we can, our brains are amazing, but they can only process at a certain speed. And because computers. A ton of information and put it together and synthesize it in milliseconds. It can basically generate a lot of data and content and information in a very short period of time.
While ChatGPT is getting the most attention recently for how it brought AI kind of into the public consciousness. There are other things beyond ChatGPT G P T that are using AI that we have access to. Okay. So for a while AI's been [00:08:00] around for a while, but it's really only been able to be used by computer scientists and other people.
Now it's coming to actual consumers like you. So there is something called Jasper that has been around for a while. And then there's a new tool in Canva that is called Magic Write that uses AI.
This is a total side rant. I will argue to anyone on the earth that the best $12.95 I spend in my business every month is being a Canva Pro member. I cannot possibly. All organizers to get on Canva Pro, it is the best thing for your business. But inside Canva, they have this new tool called Magic Write?
Okay. So I'm gonna start by talking about what they do and how to do it, and then I'm going to move on to how I recommend you start using it in your business. So just stick with me. ChatGPT, Jasper, Magic Write, use artificial intelligence to take something that you give it as a prompt and all that a prompt is, is just a set of instructions of what you want it to do.
It's basically the direction that you're giving it, and then magically, and, and I'm just gonna say magical. I know it's not magic, it's very smart computer scientists who are writing code and like something, I don't even, I will never understand how it gets put together, but it takes that prompt that you give it those instructions and then it uses all of the knowledge of the internet to give you a result of the instructions that you gave it.
An example, I just wrote a prompt in canva's magic write tool that says, write a blog post on the top 10 tips for decluttering in less than five seconds. And yes, I timed it, it spit out a list of decluttering tips with details. So an example that I particularly liked was “be ruthless: be honest with yourself about what you really need and use. If you haven't used an item in over a year, it's probably time to say goodbye.” That was one of the tips that it spit out. I did another simple prompt, then write a 500 word blog post about the benefits of decluttering with children and toys.
In six seconds, it spit out some really good content, 10 tips, including one that I actually use all the time with parents in my organizing work. It was decluttering promotes creativity with fewer toys to choose from. Children are forced to be more creative with what they have. This can lead to imaginative play and foster creativity.
Those are just a couple examples of using really simple prompts. I think that the magic of AI gets more magical when you give it very specific and detAIled information in the prompt. And by the way, these prompts can be very long. Like you could write a whole paragraph as a prompt. So the more detail you are able to add to your prompt, and the more specific you can get, typically the better the information that comes back from the prompt.
Kris Hargrove is one of our Inspired Organizers, and she recently took the leap from her full-time job to devote all her time and energy to organizing. She is giving us all the scoop today on this transition, what led her to organizing in the first place, and lots of other gems.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Learn more about Kris: https://organizedbykris.com/
Join our new cohort in Organizing Essentials: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F
Learn more about Inspired Organizer®: www.inspiredorganizer.com
Last episode, we talked about "what not to do" and today we are telling you what you should be doing to implement the "proof of life" strategy on social media. If you haven't heard part 1 of my convo with Jen Mary, head back and take a listen before today's epsiode (or click here!)
Jen is the founder of Everyday Style, and she is a super savvy businesswoman who has run an in-person business similar to professional organizing, and a digital business, so she's seen it all. She is giving us awesome tips on what TO do with your social media, including becoming "Five Mile Famous."
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Listen to last week's epsiode: https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/social-media-for-professional-organizers-with-jen-mary-of-everyday-style/
Meet Jen Mary of Everyday Style: https://www.youreverydaystyle.com
Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® signature program for professional organizers: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com
A LITTLE MORE OF THIS EPSIODE:
Jen Mary: The other thing, so can we talk about things they need to start doing for just one sec? Absolutely. Lean, lean into local, lean into local.
This is what differentiates you from every other influencer. On Instagram is that you are where you are. A carousel post that I encourage my people to do. Where to take your clothes after we did a closet edit. Yes. After I came to your house and we cleaned out your closet, where should you take your things?
And then I had them highlight five places, women's organizations in their community that accept clothes. And guess what? They follow you back. You build relationships. It's all of that. I also say snap a picture. Like, oh, picking up my coffee from blah, blah, blah. To start my day of organizing a long day of three clients means I need to be well caffeinated.
And you don't go to Starbucks anymore. Starbucks isn't gonna follow you and share your stuff and add you to their stories. And you go to local coffee shops.
Melissa Klug: Also, just again, in the just do things like in the moment, it does not have to be planned in advance. So I have a number of times when I am in line at the donation place with a car full of stuff.Like a selfie with the giant pile in the back of my car. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, doing another client drop off or whatever. It does not have to be complex. It does not have to be overthought. It can be as simple as, Hey, I wanna give people the idea that someone hired me to clear this amount of stuff out of their house, and by the way, a service I offer is dropping off all of your stuff at donation.
You don't even have to do it.
Jen Mary: And if you're afraid to be on camera for a real. just film the drop off line, right? Like there are some My best performing reel lately, I was walking through a target parking lot. I put it over the sound of Taylor Swift. This is why we can't have nice things. Yeah. And it was me in the slush because you know, in Minnesota you can't have cute twos in the winter.
You just say goodbye. Yeah. And I was talking about how your style has to be practical for the way you really live. So I have just really leaned into sneaker boots and cute like weather boots, not just cute booties that I'm gonna fall on and break an ankle and ruin. And it took me all of five seconds to fill my feet walking through the target parking lot.
My best performing reel of all time was a target clearance rack.
And it was the Justin Bieber. Immediately. No. Immediately. No. Oh yeah. Which is really cool. You what I need to sounds immediately. No . Yeah. And all it said was the clearance section is a problem, not the solution.
Okay. I mean, there's so much you can do, [00:04:00] so much you can do. And I find the best stuff is really the off the cuff. Off the cuff. But leaning into local is something that every in-person business owner needs to be doing. Because when anybody in your community, in your area says, oh, my house is such a mess.
Oh, have you talked to Melissa? You need to call Melissa. Yeah. You need to be that go-to person. You know, I think somebody out there has the course called Five Mile Famous. Oh, I've never heard of it. Yeah. Your goal. And that's what I, that's when I talked to my stylist about your goal should just be five Mile Famous.
I, it's a little circle around your house. Yes. And get five Mile Famous. That means that you are going to those chamber meetings. You don't wanna go to, you are building partnerships. I encourage my stylist to build partnerships with photographers. With organizers, with hair people who is a good complimentary adjacent business.
Follow all those people on Instagram and just get five mile famous for a local business that's gonna do a whole lot more than you're complicated, overly styled Instagram feed. Yes.
Melissa Klug: And I think that there's a misconception that, cuz Instagram used to be you had to be perfectly curated. You had to have a professional level photo shoot.
That's not what Instagram is anymore.
Jen Mary: No, and
Melissa Klug: that's actually another, that's actually part of the problem is Instagram is changing all the time. All the time. And therefore you're constantly on the hamster wheel of what do they want this week? A ten second reel. A one minute reel. Not reels at all. We're going back to pictures.
Nope. Now we're on carousels. That, like, that's part of the thing. But you don't have to be as buttoned up as you used to have to be.
Jen Mary: Oh, without a doubt. If I'm not perfect, if I don't have the right background, if everything's not a perfect puzzle grid, you know, Ooh, I don't wanna post this cuz it's gonna mess up my grid.
I mean, the things that do the best are the usually the ones that really stand out. But I think there's an interesting point in that if you are so concerned about what the Instagram algorithm is showing right now, who cares? Yeah. I have always just put out the content that I wanna put out.
Understanding, my static posts aren't gonna get as much traction as a reel, but then reels tanked. You know, and I talk to business owners all the time are like, who? What's the best time to post whatever time you want? The time you're gonna do it, the time you're gonna do it.
There is not. If you post at 10:00 AM it's gonna go viral. And if you post at 3:00 PM no one's gonna see it. That's just not going to happen. So being so concerned about the algorithm and what it wants to, the point where it paralyzes you from doing anything is really a waste of time.
Melissa Klug: I just think in general, remembering that you do not control anything that's happening on these multi-billion dollar platforms, and the rules are going to change possibly hourly.
Yep. And so just saying, I'm gonna spend the least amount of time I can to show that proper proof of life, authenticity, legitimacy, whatever words you wanna use. I'm gonna do a proper amount of time, but then I'm going to go control the things that I own. Yes. I own my website, I own my Google business profile, I own my email list.
I own those things forever. No one can take those away from me. My past client lists.
In our series on marketing yes! moments and "you can skip this!" for your professional organizing business--we turn to Jen Mary to hit us with some truth bombs about what you can do to maximize the times you are using social media in our "proof of life" strategy. Spoiler alert: stop giving TIPS! We are going for inspiration, not information, and we're breaking it down for you.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Listen to Jen on her Everyday Style School Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-everyday-style-school/id1464962252
Learn more about Everyday Style: https://youreverydaystyle.com
Learn more about our signature program, Inspired Organizer®: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com
Social media IS NOT the answer for marketing an in-home service business in 2023...so what IS the answer? Today's podcast answers that important question with our guest Kate from katethesocialite.com. We are giving you actionable tips on what your marketing should look like, and how to create that client funnel to your business.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Kate The Socialite here: https://www.katethesocialite.com
Connect with us: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, pro organizers. It's your podcast co-host, Melissa, and we have gotten such awesome feedback from people on our episode last week if you have not heard it, just go back one episode and listen to it. We're talking to Kate. Kate runs a marketing business for home professionals, and we are talking about marketing your organizing business in 2023. Last week we talked about why social media might not be the thing you wanna do for your marketing, but this week we're talking about what should you be doing for your marketing.
With people that I coach, whether it's one-on-one or in our inspired organizer coaching program, the most common question I get. How do I get more clients? How do I get more consistent clients? And what we talk about in this podcast today is how do we create a system to get those consistent clients coming in?
This episode is full of really great actionable tips. In editing the episode, I sometimes have to listen to it multiple times and I am writing down like, oh, that's a great idea. I need to do that for my organizing business.
So I would love for you to listen to this episode. Take notes, whether it's on the Notes app on your phone, which is what I use all the time, or pen and paper, which I also use quite a bit.
There are awesome ideas in here for you,
If you didn't happen to listen to last week's episode and you're listening to this one and wondering, Hey, do I hear a baby in the background? The answer is yes, you do. Kate had her seven month old son who is our third guest on the podcast. He does not know anything about marketing and organizing business, but he is really cute.
I can tell you that, I'm not going to waste any more time. I wanna turn it over to my guest, Kate, from Kate the socialite.
So we have talked about the thing that you have realized, and I have realized, and many of us have realized, but maybe haven't gotten off the hamster wheel yet, doesn't work.
What are your foundation, so when a client comes to you and you say, this is what actually works. What does that look like for you? Yeah, it looks like making marketing personal because really marketing is a relationship and that means that you can't be marketing to just anyone who has a home and might possibly need your organizing services.
When a client comes to me, I remind them that marketing is a relationship between them and their ideal client. And that's why you shouldn't have marketing that is so generic you have to be intentional so that, , it all starts at the website level. If you don't have a website, you need to get one because you should be talking directly to your ideal client on your website. It shouldn't, you shouldn't start talking about yourself right away and what you do.
You should actually say, Hey, busy career woman or busy mom or whomever, do you ever feel like your house is a chaotic mess? But you cannot get on top of it? And they'll be like, yep, totally. Okay, now you've got them. Now you can say, well, here at, my organizing studio we specialize in helping people just like you because we know that your time is valuable and we know that your home functions better when it's organized.
So click here to check out our services. Like, oh, right, okay. Now they've got the specific call to action. They feel heard, they feel understood, and you can carry that through to your service packages. So instead of saying it's the pantry revamp, you can give it some sort of, Name that's still very clear, that is aligned with your ideal client.
When you describe the package, describe it from the perspective of that particular person. Yes. You know, we are gonna take all your vitamin water, we're gonna take all your kids' snacks, we're gonna take all these things and we're gonna make it organized so that you know when you need to buy more, so that you use the stuff you already have and that actually saves you money.
And so that you have that, that visual, that eye candy, when you open your pantry, you're excited to look at it because, man, that looks good. Yeah. And that makes you feel good. .
And I, I love what you're saying because I, a couple things. I had a business coach that used to always use the phrase, use second grade language with people.
And I think a lot of times we have people that are like, I have to sound like really fancy, or really, like, I have to make this sound beautiful. Especially when you're building a website, you just, you think, no, please use simple words and use, use that, connect with people. Yes. Words, like, the words that you hear in every consultation.
The word I always hear is overwhelmed. Mm-hmm. . So everybody's overwhelmed. Whether it's overwhelmed, chaos. Any of these words that you hear clients say to you all the time, use those words in your marketing to connect with people. Mm-hmm. .
Yep. I mean, . It's the really, the most successful trick in the marketing book.
Just use your ideal client's words back at them. They're telling you how they want to be marketed to, so pay attention on those discovery calls because it, it's amazing. It'll help your copywriting so much and you don't have to worry about sounding polished. You don't have to worry about sounding professional, obviously stay away from profanity, although I feel like a few WFS might be appropriate if it's that could work situation.
Yeah. I mean, you know, let's just, let's just say that, but after you've got your website squared away, Think about the blog, turn your most common questions into a blog post. Yes. And share your projects, share photos. Share what the client's problem was and how you fixed it. But share it from an emotional standpoint.
Not, oh, their pantry was a mess, but this couple is super busy with work and they are trying to eat healthy. They can't find anything in their pantry. Here's how we made it easier for them to live a healthy, happy lifestyle. Share the photos cuz now you're connecting with people on an emotional level.
You can do the same thing in an email newsletter, but it has to be shorter. You have to have a specific call to action for people to book a call. And it really could be that.
Yeah. And blog posts in particular, I think that there are a few words that start to scare people a little bit, or phrases.
So I think when, when sometimes when people are like, oh, blog posts, oh, I have to like, basically write a a book quality piece of, of marketing, you know, it has to be perfect. Nope, it doesn't have to be, none of these things have to be perfect, first of all. But you can take something, a simple concept in your in your business, and you can write a blog post.
It could be what, what do you recommend for blog posts? 500 words. What's your.
Yeah. So 500 is the minimum. You could go up to a thousand. I think most people get tired of writing at that point. Yeah. even. I do, and I'm a writer. Yeah. But yeah, if you have a 500 word post that's basically a single page document in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
So single space, single page, and make sure that you have headings so that people can skim it. Make sure you've got a nice balance of photos. Like you don't want it to be all images because that's not really helpful for your seo, but you wanna make sure that you're able to tell the story and don't stretch it out to make it 500 words if it's just not that long.
But also make sure that you're hitting on the emotional points and then ending with. , are you ready to take the next step? Well, the next step for people reading your blog posts wouldn't necessarily be to book a call with you right away, though. You could have that as an option. Maybe the next step for them is actually to get one of your free downloads.
Your free download should not be, here's how you can organize this yourself because you're not trying to sell. Yeah. Why? But it's more so like, here's what you can expect when working with a professional organizer. Mm-hmm. , and it walks people through the emotional component of it. We're not gonna throw away your stuff.
We're gonna help you make streamlined decisions. And then we're going to get the appropriate sized, you know, organizational things for your space. We're gonna put it all together. We're gonna teach you the organizational system so that it doesn't get screwed up within a week. Yes. And then that's also when you can talk about the maintenance packages that you might offer so that they're not like, oh, so I hire you and then you're gone forever.
Don't leave me like this. You know? Right. And it's a great upsell, but as long as you're focusing that download on. , here's how we are gonna help you and not, here's how you're gonna do it yourself. Yeah. People are going to get so much value out of that, and the value isn't necessarily the knowledge of, okay, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
It's more like, okay, they're gonna help me. They understand my problem. It's not gonna disrupt my life. It's actually going to improve my life. Then once they get your download, because they had to sign up for it via their email address, now they're in your contact. You can't ignore them, okay? There's a lot of untapped revenue in your mailing list, even if you've only got 12 people
there.
Even if it's 10 people. You guys, yes. It doesn't matter how small
your list is, it really does not. So make sure that you're reaching out to them once a month. Now we get down to you. Okay, well, what could I say in that newsletter, you could talk about one of your previous clients, but if you don't have a lot of clients right now, that could be pretty hard to do.
So instead, you can talk about here's how I approach organizing the kitchen. You know, here's how I organize the cabinets. Here's why. And it's again, not d iy. And then you could also just talk about like, one of the newsletters that we have in my membership is the emotional cost of. . Mm-hmm. . And then we also have one about how cluttered eats equity.
And that one's for people who are like trying to get ready to sell their home. But they've got so much stuff in it that when people come for showings, it's like I can't see past your stuff. Sorry. Yep. You know? And that can actually cost you big time, even when the market is hot. Sure, your home might sell, but it's not gonna sell for what it could have sold if your stuff was just not in the way.
Yeah. And so really taking people up to a bird's eye. and helping them understand that this is why organizing matters. It's not just about having Instagram perfect pantries. It actually has real world implications. And talking to them about that once a month in a newsletter, that's where we're seeing conversions happen.
People will click reply and they'll be like, I really need your help. When are you available? And all of a sudden they're just in a huge. because they're like, oh, I didn't know I needed this, but I need it and I need it now. And that's like the perfect situation. So, that's the sales funnel. Now people are getting to your site because you're blogging once or twice a month or they met you in person or someone referred them to you.
You have to have that blog to really engage with them. That lead magnet or the, the free download to capture their contact info and then the newsletter once a month to nurture them into a client. And that's what you can do. And you can do that in addition to being social, on social media. Right. Or you can do it completely in place of social media.
Right.
And here's the crazy thing I'm gonna throw out there the return on investment for email marketing versus social is 40 times higher.
Okay. So I want everyone to like stop and absorb that because I do, I talk a lot about it's, and we're gonna talk about this, but email marketing is the most slept on thing in our business.
I think it's something that people maybe know that they should be doing, but 40 times the return even, I assume you're gonna agree with this. With a small
list. Even with a small list.
Since I became a business coach for organizers a few years ago, if I had a way to add up the amount of time that I talk about social media in relation to a lot of other topics in business--I think it's an outsized part of the conversation that exists for how to grow our businesses.
I wanted to have a really candid talk with my guest about what social media is and what it isn't for organizers. My guest is Kate from Kate The Socialite, and she is a marketer for the home services industry, including many great professional organizers. We are talking about why soical media isn't the answer many people think it is--and why.
Jen and Melissa are doing what they love--answering organizer questions! Today we are talking about mindset when things are in a bit of a valley with your business; how we "manage it all" (spoiler alert: we don't!) and taking a break from your business. We love love love talking to organizers, so if you have questions don't hesitate to send them our way! We're at hello@proorganizerstudio.com and we would love to hear from you.
Beth Nordby was doing digital marketing for a big Fortune 500 company and she realized she wanted something more for her career. Organizing was it. She took a leap a year ago and started Custom Order Organizing, and hasn't looked back. We love our Get Inspired series talking to the awesome organizers of our Inspired Organizer® community!
Melissa is recording this episode from an AirBNB--because she's on a work vacation. This is different than being ON vacation FROM work, and she'll explain it all in this Friday minisode for our awesome organizers.
This is the second part of my conversation with Kim Snodgrass of Rustic Home Organizing in Oregon. We interviewed her on the podcast last year when she was brand new--and we wanted to check in with her on what she learned in her first year of organizing. LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Connect with Kim: CLICK HERE
Learn more about Inspired Organizer®: CLICK HERE
Transcript:
Melissa Klug: What have you taken from that kind of learning to help you moving forward as you start into your second year and hopefully third and fifth and 10th year
Kim Snodgrass: Oh, I'll be there. For me, so my new word, I would like to share my new word.
Melissa Klug: I'm excited. Drum roll.
Kim Snodgrass: Are you ready? My new word is intentional. I love that. This year is all about being intentional in my actions. , I will be thoughtful in what I'm doing. I'm giving myself time to process. I'm not making quick decisions.
I'm gonna allow myself to think for myself until I feel like I need to bring in another opinion which will bring me to another subject of other organizers around the country. But I'm gonna be intentional about my time. I'm gonna be intentional about my shopping when I do it.
This last year was really difficult for me to go shopping for like, two projects at a time. Okay. But this year I, I've figured out a process about how am I gonna shop for two projects at a time when I'm at the store or at, I'm online. So just being very intentional about my actions.
And that goes for anything that I'm gonna put my money or my time or my brain into as far as apps, programs, whatever it might be. Any sort of groups. Anything that I'm going to give my time to. Why am I doing it and what am I hoping to get out of it? And that I think is very important for anybody looking into resources within the business to figure out why am I doing it and what am I hoping to get from it?
And, and knowing that you've gotta, they need, you need to put the energy and the time into it. Things aren't gonna be done for you. It's very
Melissa Klug: important. . And that's an important thing because I found myself last night scrolling, for whatever reason, I don't know if it's the end of the year and everybody's selling a billion things.
I was scrolling through Instagram and I kept getting fed all these ads about courses and, and education and do this, you know, try this funnel and that, I mean, things that are more relevant to my work at Pro Organizer Studio. And I found myself feeling a little bit of fomo, like, oh, maybe that's magic.
Oh maybe that's magic . And then I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I need to step back. And I love what you said about, how would I use this? When would I use it? Am I going to use it? Cuz there are a million things out there and, you can buy, you can buy a thousand things. But if you're gonna spend that money, then how are you going to use that thing?
How are you going to implement it in your business? What are you gonna learn from it? And then what gaps does it fill in your knowledge and your education, whatever that looks like for you. ,
Kim Snodgrass: you know that. I'm so glad you brought that up. I was thinking about that. I almost wanna say social media newsletters, whatever emails you might be signed up for is like a feeding ground.
And you have to be careful. You have to be really careful on what you decide is gonna be your magic potion to get your business, because the energy that you're putting into all of the things could be put into a YouTube seo tutorial that you could just zip over to your website and make it sound so simple.
I wouldn't even know how to do that right now, . But you could be putting your time and energy into learning the seo. To get your website more exposure. And I was told at the beginning how important that was and who told
Melissa Klug: you that? Just asking
Kim Snodgrass: this lady, this one lady, this one lady that wears red glasses.
I think it's so easy to get sucked into so many different rabbit holes. So easy. Yes. And, and to try and avoid those at all costs is really, really important. I think we have to be careful on what advice we throw to newer organizers. On how to find their business. What one organizer did at the beginning of her business versus what she's doing right now on year four, five, or 10, is going to be so different than that new organizer is gonna be doing on, you know, in year one. So what happened four years ago is different, and what's happening for that organizer right now is very different.
And I, I find this trap of newer organizers feeling like they have to depend on third party people to get them their business. Mm-hmm. , oh, I need to go visit this real estate office. I need to go visit this real estate agent. Oh, I found this designer and they're gonna, it's not, it's that, that really truly is.
Going to be where you're going to find your clients. First of all, there are so many real estate agents out there, and they're all clawing for business. Especially right
Melissa Klug: now in this, especially right now. Right now. I mean, yeah,
Kim Snodgrass: putting really bad right now, putting in a, in a basket with, with a, an agent that might only have exposure to 10 different people, you aren't most likely going to get business off of that.
Now, that isn't to say that it's not somebody you should keep connected with. Sure. I think they, you need to change your thinking and that these third party professionals are gonna bring you your business. And I just, I just don't think that is where you should put your energy at the beginning of your business. .
Melissa Klug: Referrals are such a huge part of so many organizers businesses, but when we say referrals, what we mean is a very happy client refers you to all their friends.
I fell into the real estate trap at the beginning too, and one of the reasons we're talking about this is cuz it, it comes up in, our inspired organizer Facebook group a lot. And newer organizers naturally, cuz I did it. I thought, oh my gosh, realtors, what is the most natural place?
Who's in homes all the time? Oh, it's realtors. Right? And you, by the way, full disclosure, used to be a realtor, so I, I was a realtor. , you know, you know better than everyone. But you know, it, it seems like it's a natural fit, but it's not in actuality. And does that make sense?
Absolutely not. But relying on that or putting all, like you said, all of your eggs in that marketing basket and that networking basket is not going to yield you the client base that you often think it would or should.
Kim Snodgrass: When you interviewed Cori from Meat and Potatoes recently, she talked about her BNI group her chamber and, I do think that there is something for putting energy into those smaller.
Melissa Klug: Local groups where you're cross, you're cross referring, I know I talked about this recently, my clients, I cannot believe the number of times I'm called upon to provide referrals for people like handyman and you know, all of these things.
I know. And so, I mean, I have a handyman that I adore. If you're in the Minneapolis area, hit me up cuz he's amazing. But like really that local referral group because it's not just one type of people, it's not just one type of business person. It's many different types of business people in a chamber or a b and i group.
And so we have a lot of people in our group that are really, really big on in-person local networking. And if that is something that is your jam, absolutely do that.
Kim Snodgrass: Yes. Yeah, definitely. That was one of my notes I wrote down is being an organizer, you're a resource manager. Yes. And so you need to be that one, figure out how you can be that person that is that reference person.
One year ago, we introduced you to brand new business owner Kim, who had just opened Rustic Home Organizing in Portland, Oregon. Melissa caught up with her almost exactly one year later to hear about what she learned (the good and the bad!) about starting an organizing business.
Kim is an open book about what she thought she knew, and what she realized she didn't know at all...and everything in between.
If you want to catch up and remember what she said last year--hit up episode 97 of the podcast, "Taking A Leap: Lessons from a Business Launch."
LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® community: click here Kim's beautiful website!! click here Connect with Kim on social: click here
Get our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan, by heading to poroadmap.com
A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Melissa Klug: It was one year ago, almost exactly a year ago that we had you on the podcast, and you were at that time a baby organizer. You had just started your business and the other day I was like, oh, I know, because I talked to you a lot how far you have come in that year. But I want everybody to hear how far you have come in this year, and I want you to talk about all the things you've learned. And so I'm just, I'm thrilled that you agreed to be here with us today and do your year wrap up.
Kim Snodgrass: Absolutely. I'm excited to, this is very cool to be able to share everything that has gone on in the last year. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: All right, let's just start out, let's give everyone a recap. When did you start your business? Where are you all that good stuff?
Kim Snodgrass: Technically started in November of 21 but I launched in January of 22. So my business is technically established in 22. I went full board, jumped with both feet in and just started plugging away, listening to lots of podcasts coaching doing all the things to get myself a foundation to be able to start my very own organizing business. Been organizing, obviously my entire life as most organizers have, with the exception of you. . That's right. I started late. You started a little late, but so it just became more of my journey to becoming a business owner. Not as much the organizing piece of it.
Melissa Klug: So what would you give yourself on a scale of one to 10 when you first started out? So a year ago at this time what would you rate yourself in terms of like, confidence, business, knowledge, all of that kind of stuff?
Kim Snodgrass: Oh boy. Confidence. I would say on a scale of one to 10, my confidence was about a two. Okay. On a good day, . And then I think today I'm, I'm, I'm on the upper end and depending on how much sleep I get the night before, I'm anywhere between an eight and a 10. Okay. by the way. Sleep is very important. But what people don't understand is unfortunately projects live in your brain, in your sleep, and so the Tetris game goes on while you're sleeping and that can sometimes interfere with the REM sleep. It does. But definitely confidence has played a huge part in my success.
Melissa Klug: So let's last year, let's talk about that because yes, you and I have been working together for a while. Yeah. And it was it at the beginning because we all, by the way, this is not just you, it's all of us. All of us struggle with confidence on sometimes a daily basis, , sometimes an hourly basis, if I'm being honest. Like what were some of the things that got you from a two to an eight slash 10?
Kim Snodgrass: I started to write down some notes today about things that would be important for me to share. And the very first thing I wrote down was being okay with mistakes. Yeah. And those mistakes can range from the back end of your business to being in the home and realizing when you left, oh, that was a really bad idea of what I just implemented.
I really need to fix that. But being okay with those mistakes so you don't beat yourself up over it. And the biggest thing you take away from those mistakes is learning. You have learned what you're going to move forward in in your next job. I think that is gonna be what I have learned.
The most this year is being okay with my mistakes and being excited when I make 'em, because they're getting me to a much better place.
Melissa Klug: I I would love for this needs to be like, I don't know, a t-shirt, a billboard, alike. What I, I don't know, because I think that a lot of organizers struggle with perfectionism and by the way, that's a great trait for an organizer, right? We want people to, you know, give people beautiful homes, but that can also sometimes manifest as like, oh, I made a mistake. I'm gonna beat myself up about it for the next 16 weeks. And being able to say, you know what? I did that I learned from it, and I'm gonna not do it in the future. Yes.
Kim Snodgrass: Yeah, definitely.So yeah, be okay with your mistakes. I made some mistakes right off the bat. I invested a lot of money, which you don't have to, to start an organizing business. Correct. We've all talked about that. But it was important to me to do that and I, I went a little overboard. And that's okay. I'm okay with going overboard because it's helping me in this next year.
But I do wanna rewind just a little bit. So, at the beginning of 2022, I came up with a couple words. They were gonna be my words for the year. And one of them was outsourcing. And I did that and I'm so happy I did that. But it also made me realize it's important to outsource when you're ready for that outsourcing.
And as a. An organizer new in the business. I outsource so many things right away, but what I didn't realize is for myself, I wasn't ready for all of that. I didn't have the bandwidth, you know, technology is not my strong suit. So I thought, okay, I have to outsource all of it.
Everybody will do it for me. But you still need to understand when you outsource, you still have to understand it. You might be able to pay somebody to do it and get it all set up for you, but unless you're paying somebody to work for you on a daily basis, which some organizers have you have to still learn how to maneuver within those programs or apps or whatever you invest your money in on.
My lightbulb moment during a crack of dawn workout is now available in your ears! I'm giving you permission to do something that you might have been thinking about, but hesitating to do. I'm here to tell you to DO ITTTT! This is just a minisode brought to you by my brain...I hope you enjoy.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS: We'd love to have you in our community! Information on Inspired Organizer is here.
TRANSCRIPT Hey, pro organizers. It's Melissa, and I'm coming to you today with a little mini podcast. This is just kind of like Melissa's musings or we can come up with a cooler name for it. But I was thinking about something this morning and then I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna go talk to all my podcast besties about it.
Um, just. A really quick side note that maybe no one listening really cares about, about my personal life, but, uh, or how this happens, do you think I'm in like a podcast studio right now or like I'm in a really fancy No, I'm just at my desk in my house. My husband works at home and currently he is very loud on the phone.
We have discovered since the pandemic started, since he started working at home. He's a very loud. So I started trying to record this and he's like on the phone being super loud. Even though it's downstairs, I can still hear it, and one of my neighbors is putting siding on their house. So there's all this like construction noise.
So I hope that I'm just coming to you in your ears and it sounds melodious and, uh, and good. But anyway, I'm just kind of laughing because this is real life, right? Like we are entrepreneurs, we run our businesses, real life happens. It's not pretty and it's not, you know, like calm and, sometimes things are a little crazy.
But anyway, that's just a little bit of, of the behind the scenes. But that's what happens when I'm gonna come to you with these random things off the top of my head, it's gonna be a little bit more casual than maybe what you're used to. But okay. Onto my, uh, is it a rant? I don't know if it's a rant.
It's just, it's a commentary. It's something that I've learned this year that I think might be helpful to you guys, and it's this. I've been doing this thing, it is not a year's resolution, it's just trying to create some new habits and I have been trying to wake up early in the morning and I mean like really early in the morning and get my workout in downstairs in my house before the day starts.
I have been doing a pretty serious digital detox. I took so many apps off my phone. I have taken all of my entertainment apps off my phone. I chose to keep audiobooks and podcasts, but what this means is when I'm doing something like working out, for instance, I don't watch TV on my phone like I used to.
So this morning I'm on the Peloton and I was in a work mood. You know? Do you, do you guys do this too? Maybe I, maybe it's just me, but sometimes I'll be in work mode where I'm like, oh yeah,
I would love to listen to a work related podcast. Then there are other times when I'm like, Nope, I really, I can't switch my brain to work right now. I just need something entertainment value. So, I'll listen to a fiction, audiobook, whatever.
So let me back up and say for my digital detox, one of the things that I decided to do was I needed to give myself permission to let things go if they aren't working for me in terms of my digital life. For instance, I have a bunch of podcasts that have built up on my phone of things that I think I'm supposed to be listening to or. Business books that I think I'm supposed to be reading because it's really, really important for me to read them, and I'm starting to do a better job in this particular digital detox of saying, does this thing serve me anymore?
I have been trying to be really, really honest with myself about am I keeping things on my phone or am I saying I need to listen to this? And it's sort of like, Schoolwork, right? Like, my kids are required to learn algebra, even though they're like, when am I ever gonna use algebra?
Um, I feel sometimes, like there are certain podcasts or certain books or certain, you know, pieces of information out there, Instagram feeds, anything like that that I. Have to follow because you know they're going to, by the way, in my brain I go, but what if they have this one magical podcast episode that solves all of my business problems and I don't listen to it.
I just have gotten in this mindset of. , you know, this digital detox for me is really saying goodbye to things that don't serve my business or my life, or it just stresses me out. Sometimes it stresses me out to, to listen to something, cause I'm like, oh my gosh, I should be doing this, I should be doing this, I should be doing this.
It's just that constant like brain, you know, the brain jumping from side to side. Just the constant distraction that I'm really, really trying to get away in this digital detox. But the point of my story is I am on the Peloton this morning and I am listening to a podcast because as I said, I was in a business mood listening to a podcast from someone I will not name, but it is someone who is very big in the online marketing space.
And it is someone that I have kept in my podcast rotation for the reason that I just said like, what if I miss out on this amazing gem of information? But in doing that, I have also found that this person really is starting to have information that doesn't really align with my business.
I have kept this podcast in my rotation because I feel like, oh, if I don't listen to this, you know, she's a huge name in the online marketing space, which is what Pro Organizer Studio does.
We are an online business. And I was like, oh my gosh, well what if I missed like the most important thing ever on her podcast? Even though when I listen, I'm like, oh, I probably, I should listen to X, Y, Z podcast this week. Let me see what's up. I feel obligated to listen to it rather than being excited to listen to it.
and this morning I can't explain it. You know, you know, you have these epiphany moments of like, man, I don't like this . It happened to me in college. Halfway through college I changed my major because there was one day where I was like, I hate this. This is terrible. But you have these epiphany moments where I'm listening to this podcast and I'm just like actively annoyed by it.
I'm annoyed by what she's saying. I'm annoyed by what she's talking about. It doesn't align with me. It doesn't align with my business. And then I'm like, so why am I listening to it? Why am I listening to it? And here's the reason that I'm doing this podcast, which hopefully is not annoying you.
I am doing this podcast because you know how sometimes our clients need us to give them the permission. To get rid of something. We've all had that moment where you look at your client and they're like really kind of going back and forth on, oh, well maybe I should keep this, but I really don't like it.
And you just go, you're allowed to say goodbye to that object, or you're allowed to get rid of that thing. And they go, I am. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Or that client that you're like, Hey, if I put this in the trash, will that make you feel better? And they're like, yes, absolutely. I just don't wanna be the person that puts it in the trash.
Right? We all know those clients. This morning I had the most freeing moment of saying, I don't like this, and I am not going to continue listening to it because it is just taking up space in my brain. And I, and I'm annoyed. And just because I think I'm gonna miss out on something I, I'm, I'm saying goodbye to it.
And it really was. This may sound very silly, maybe you're listening to this and going like, man, I don't, I really do not know what she's talking about. Right. I am giving you permission to say goodbye to things in your business life that aren't working for you anymore. It might be following a thousand people on Instagram and trying to like all their posts.
It may be trying to post on Instagram every day, uh, or multiple times a day. Or you might say, you know what? Real's not my jam not doing it. By the way, if this podcast no longer serves you obvious. I work really hard and I love my, I love my organizing besties. I would be very sad if I were no longer serving your needs as an organizing entrepreneur, but I am giving you the permission.
Just like in Marie Kondo's book, she flat out says, if this book does not spark joy for you, you get rid of it. . Um, she actually doesn't ever use the phrase, get rid of, she says, you can. Gratefully let it go. But the point is, I want to give all of us permission, and, I'm giving myself permission to continue to do this, to say I am not going to consume media and take time, precious time out of my precious life to listen to stuff because I think I'm obligated to.
Or because I have FOMO of what if I miss that one most important episode? Or what if I miss that one important Instagram post? So I need to scroll for an hour and a half every day. I wanna give you the permission to say, you know what, no thanks. Not my jam anymore. I cannot explain to you. It's sort of like this, the feeling that I had when I, uh, first got organized.
If you haven't listened to my story, I used to be completely disorganized. My house was a complete disaster and I found, you know, the religion of organization and I, I like, couldn't believe how much better my life felt because I had gotten organized. And that is the feeling I had this morning of, of gratefully saying, you know what, this podcast doesn't serve me anymore.
And I don't wanna make a big deal out of, I deleted one podcast. That's really not the lesson. The lesson is more I do not have to keep bringing things into my business life that do not serve me. So I'm gonna continue to give myself that permission, and I am giving you that permission to please just remember your gut drives your business so, so, so well.
If something is telling you, this doesn't work for me, this piece of advice doesn't work for me. This style doesn't work for me, this technique doesn't work for me, this person doesn't work for me. Any of those feelings that you have, it is absolutely fine to say, you know what? I'm gonna let this go and what I'm going to do is make the time to let in the things that really do work for me and work for my business.
So I'm going to find the Online Marketing Entrepreneur podcast that does speak to. And how I can help the audience at Pro Organizer Studio. I am going to listen to the entrepreneurs that really are going to be helpful for me in my organizing business, and I just wanna give you guys the ability and the permission to do the same.
Here's my advice to you. Even if you're not into doing a digital detox like I am doing. I really, suggest go through your phone today and just whether it's podcasts, whether it's Instagram feeds, whatever it is that is connecting with you with what I'm talking about, give yourself the permission today to go unfollow or delete the app or delete the podcast or delete whatever it is.
that you know, in your heart is kind of bugging you and it's not your jam, but you're having a hard time admitting to yourself that I can just let this go, and I think you're gonna be really, really, really happy that you did. All right, that's my mini So for the day, I hope you guys are having an awesome, awesome day.
Just a heads up, if you have not signed up for our email list, I'm about to send out an email to our whole list. Please go to inspired organizer.com. You can enter your email address. It's a limited number of emails, we try to send out things that are very helpful to you, and by the way, you can always unsubscribe if it's not your jam.
I just listened to myself in this whole podcast. I only want you to do things that serve you, but we would love to have you on our email list if you would like to be there, and I hope you have an absolutely fabulous day. Bye organizers.
Thank you so much for listening in to the Pro Organizer Studio podcast. If you'd like to get our roadmap for success as a pro organizer, head straight to www.poroadmap.com.
Instead of New Year's Resolutions (which statistically fail at a shockingly high rate), Melissa is implementing an idea in her own business to guide her work this year and she's sharing it with us! Come join us as we pick a word of the year to help with your strategy for your professional organizing business--AND your life!
LIST OF WORDS TO CONSIDER:
Balance Confidence Simplify Adventure Boundaries Self-care Joy Dedication Commitment Intention Abundance Success Limitless Creativity Discovery Transformation Invest Becoming Yes Determination Effort
LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: click here Learn more about our premier program for professional organizers, Inspired Organizer®: click here Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio: click here
ABOUT THIS EPSIODE:
You are listening to the Pro Organizer Studio podcast with Melissa Klug and Jen Obermeier. Thank you so much for joining in. Our mission is to broaden the horizons of savvy business women in the organizing industry. By instilling confidence and inspiring authenticity, you'll gain new insight into strategies designed specifically for professional organizers.
So now let's get started.
[00:00:32] Melissa Klug: Hey, pro organizers. It's Melissa. It's 2023, and I hope that you had an absolutely amazing holiday season. I know I did, and I definitely got some rest and relaxation. I hope that was the same for you and your family, but now we are back into it. It is a brand new year. I am excited, energized, all sorts of words, and this is kind of a companion episode to the last podcast, which was me saying, Hey, thanks 2022 for all your lessons. And I did a lot of thinking over the holidays and I just wanted to bring you some of my thoughts as we start 2023 as a collective organizing industry as the calendar has turned.
I personally love New Year's Day and the few days afterward. I live in Minnesota as most of you know, so before January descends into like gray coldness without the happiness of holiday lights to make it a little bit better.
I definitely feel really, really energized when it's the first week of a new year and I just feel like it’s a promise and excitement and just great things in the air, even if that air is freezing cold as it is at my house.
But I want to be clear, I do not want you to worry about this podcast because there are a couple of phrases specifically that you are not going to hear from me today. And the first one is New Year's Resolution. And the second one, which I'm going to admit bothers me infinitely more is “New Year, New You.” So I do not want tooffend anyone because I have seen the phrase New Year, new you all over social media in the last few days. Tons of people are using it, but the reason that I personally don't like it, and you're not going to hear from me about it anymore, is because I feel like it implies that there's something terribly wrong with you and you must fix it, and you must become an entirely new person. Because a calendar has changed over.
I just want to say the current person you are is great, and I would rather look at it that instead of New Year's changes or resolutions, I would rather you look at things and take stock and say, “Hey, there are some things I would like to do differently and what is the path that I can take to get there?” But that specific phrasing of New Year, new you has always really bugged me. And so I promise I'm done. Even saying the phrase, I think the current you is delightful. I really do. And I want to find ways to make you even more delightful than you already are. The second phrase, new Year's resolution. Everybody knows there are a billion think pieces and articles about it every single year, but New Year's resolutions are widely proven not to be very effective.
What I would prefer to look at is a more holistic approach to trying to develop new habits if the turn of the calendar is a good time for you to take stock of that. Absolutely do it, but just let's not call it a New Year's resolution.
So with that minimal rant out of the way, I'm going to tell you what I've been thinking about, what I've been doing in my own business life instead of resolutions and just give you some ideas to think about in your own world and your own life.
So the last podcast of 2022 was all about the things I had been thinking over my holiday break, and I hope that you were able to be inspired by that and maybe do a little bit of reflecting of your own. I know that it's been really important for me to have those talks with myself, and now that I'm taking thinking mode, into work mode as I have started the year for Pro Organizer Studio and my organizing business Home By Eleven, this is where I wanna dip into a little bit of radical honesty.
So for, for many years, and I, I'm talking decades of my corporate life and in my life in college and in grad school, I'm going to be totally upfront with you. That goal setting has just never been one of my strengths. I think it's probably that at, at my court I'm a procrastinator, and like goal setting and goal adherence. It, it just like making that strategy. It's just, it's not something that I'm really good at and I know that it's really good for people to set goals and have goals, and by the way, I do have goals. It's not like I just run around in my business and my life and not having any goals at all. What I'm not good is being disciplined about making a serious plan as to how I'm going to implement the goals I have.
It's more that I will say, I want X, Y, Z, and then the path to get there. I'm like, eh, I'll figure it out. So, you know, it's absolutely something I'm working toward being better about because I know it's important and I know it really works and I do want to improve myself.
But knowing myself, and I want to be honest about who I am, at my core, and what is actually going to work for me. The thing that does work is for me to come up with a word, one single word that I use as the highlight of my year.
This one word is, it's simple, but it's a way that I can have it guide my overall strategy of my work. So I can get behind this word and it can keep me on track. I can use it as a litmus test to say, does X, Y, Z project or thing that is coming to me, or that I've come up with fit this track that I'm on for this year?
Or is it shiny object syndrome or, if you have seen the movie Up, uh, “squirrel,” that might resonate with you. By the way, if you haven't seen the movie Up, please stop listening to this podcast and go to it right now and bring the tissues. It's such a great movie, but I don't want to go squirrel on things.
So this word is going to help keep me on track. The word that I have chosen for myself, because it is simple and powerful, it is only five letters, but it is going to guide my whole year. And that word for me is focus. This word is perfect for me. It not only encapsulates the things that I talked about as I was really contemplating and thinking about the end of the year of 2022.
It helps me with the problems that I needed to solve and what I know is on my plate in 2023 and what is truly important for me to work. If I could describe the way that I felt about my 2022 business life, the only thing that I can really come up with is I felt like a ping pong ball, if I'm being totally honest.
I was constantly bouncing all over the place from thing to thing, and I was never able to really stop and concentrate like I needed to. And the funny thing is, by the way, I had a great 2022 actually, I did not have a bad year at all. I had a great year. I grew a lot as an entrepreneur and as a leader, and I was able to help a lot of people, which, is really important to me.
And I created the results that I needed to in my business. But in terms of personal stress and overwhelm, it was definitely very high for me in 2022. So that ping pong feeling of like bouncing all over the place and I just didn't really have great balance last year. I had a boss once who reminded me, “Hey Melissa, you cannot have 100 number one priorities,” because I remember going to him and being like, here are all the things absolutely critical for me to get done this year. And, last year I definitely fell into that category of I had too many number one priorities. A phrase I love is when everything is important: nothing is important. So I have latched onto this word focus because I just feel so strongly that if I can remind myself to take care of the truly important things while eliminating needless distractions, hello phone apps. I'm talking to you. If I can really focus on the strategic things that I need to pay attention.
I think it is going to be not, I think I know it is going to be extremely transformational for me and my business. The word focus addresses the things I talked about in the end of the year podcast that I've been thinking about. And I think we all struggle with distraction. Seriously. Distraction is one of the biggest things that I think we all deal with in this constantly connected world, and that's one thing that I really, really, really want to concentrate on this year.
By the way, you guys, anybody listening to this podcast should want me to succeed using my word focus because what it means is you will be getting tons more great things coming your way from us at Pro Organizer Studio, which of course our goal is always to help you in your businesses. Hopefully you guys can rally around me and cheer me on and really hope that I make this focus thing happen.
But this podcast is not about me, it's about you. And I would love for you to think about a word for the year that you can get behind to help stay on track for what is important to you.
And let me tell you, I am not typically, I'm not like a mantra person. But I will tell you this one word has helped me in the last two days legitimately draw my attention back to what I'm working on.
Great example—today I was writing out my notes for this podcast, and I found myself gravitating toward moving my cursor up to check social media, and I said, no!
Focus, I am focusing on this thing right now. So I would love you to find a word that really connects with what you know that you wanna work on this year. And I have made a list of of other words that you might want to think about. This is not an all encompassing list because there are literally thousands of words that you could pick, but I wanted to pick some words that align with the things that we do in our business and our lives, and I will link these words in show notes so that you can be reminded of them. But just listen to these words and see if anything connects with what you are thinking about in your business and life:
Balance
Confidence
Simplify
Adventure
Boundaries
Self-care
Joy
Dedication
Commitment
Intention
Abundance
Success
Limitless
Creativity
Discovery
Transformation
Invest
Becoming
Yes
Determination
Effort
balance.
There are so many words that you can use. I just wanted to start with something that I thought really speaks to entrepreneurship and organizing entrepreneurship specifically, but find a word that can link where you are coming from and where you are going in your life and your business.
And by the way, for me, my word is also about my personal life. It's not just about work. I have a daughter graduating this year and going to college this fall. So my focus is making this year magical and special and making sure that I'm taking care of my family in addition to taking care of my business.
So maybe the word you want to choose is one that covers both your work life and your home life. If you are a one person family, a 22 person family, if you are single, if you are married, if you are. Divorced. If you are a single mom, if you are not a mom, if you are a dog mom, we all have home life that we are balancing, and I really, really, really want you to think about how that word can work for your personal life as well.
Okay, I want to know your word. You can email me at hello@proorganizerstudio.com, or you can DM me on Instagram when I post about this episode. I seriously would love to hear the creativity of the words that people come up with and what you're thinking about for your year.
As always, I wanna thank you for being such an awesome part of my work life. I cannot tell you how much it means to me when people email and tell me that they listen to the podcast. And if you do not mind taking a minute, if you love the podcast, which I appreciate so much, if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcast, it would be super amazing and helpful.
It helps people be able to find our podcast and join our community, which I just love this community of organizers that we have here on the Pro Organizer Studio podcast. It would be wonderful if you could take the time to do that. Sort of like when you ask clients for a Google Review. You know how important.
Apple Podcast review would be absolutely glorious. So thank you. And if you would like to start your year with a free workshop, if you'd like to spend a little bit more time with me, please check out the Pro Organizer's Profit Plan, which you can watch anytime 24/7 at poroadmap.com.
All right, let's start an amazing year.
Truly, we have no idea what this year is going to bring. There could be challenges in front of us that we don't know about yet. There certainly will be challenges in front of us that we don't know about, but pick a word to gather yourself and your thoughts and your work, and I think we're all gonna have a good one.
Have an awesome day Organizers.
Thank you so much for listening in to the Pro Organizer Studio podcast. If you'd like to get our roadmap for success as a pro organizer, head straight to www.poroadmap.com.
It's the end of year episode of The Pro Organizer Studio Podcast. Melissa has been doing some deep thinking over the holiday break....and is ready to share!
There is still time before the end of the year--two weeks as of when this podcast is up--and we have some things to jump start some thoughts for you on how you can maximize your time and get ready for a great 2023 (AND get some rest and relaxation too!!!!) Scroll down to see the list if you need a reminder after you've listened to the pod!
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST:
Jon Acuff January goals challenge: https://acuff.me/january-2023-challenge-waitlist/
Marie Forleo goal setting pod: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/335-how-to-set-the-right-goals-for-the-year-ahead/id1199977889?i=1000589966597
HoneyBook setup course for professional organizers (with discount code for 50% off a year of HB: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/7yd3LKFq
Our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: https://www.poroadmap.com
HERE IS THE LIST OF THE THINGS WE TALK ABOUT IN THE EPISODE:
Tasks to tackle before Dec 31:
- Make sure all of your expenses are set and in!
- Think of things you might want to invest in--example, some software gives a discount for a full year subscription vs. a month to month (Canva as an example.)
- Anything that you wanted to invest in--equipment (Melissa mentioned a photo scanner she loves), courses, education, etc.
- Have you used your Container Store once a year discount? Use it or lose it by EOY!
- Remember to put money into your investment account for retirement--fund your IRA! Note: in the US you can do this for this calendar year as long as it's by April 15, but also great if you can get it in the end of the year.
- Jan 1 is a great time to roll out new policies, pricing procedures, contract terms, etc.
- Jan 1 is also a great time to implement new software and start clean---accounting, CRM, etc.
- Think about and commit to 2023 goals.
Transcript:
Hey, podcast besties. It's Melissa here. I just wanted to do a short episode and get it up because I always love to make sure I'm reminding people about the things that I am reminding myself in my own organizing business. And so I wanted to throw this episode up because I have been thinking about oh my gosh. What are all the end of the year things that I need to be doing? And at the time I'm recording this, it's December 14th. There are over two weeks left, two weeks and three days. I think when I looked at my calendar. I don't know about you guys. This year has gone so fast. I feel like lightning speed.
I, I don't know if that's the same for you, but I've talked to a few friends. They feel the same way, I don't know about you. I'm ready for a little holiday rest, which is why I would really love to get some of these things set to go for my business and give myself a little bit of break before I go into 2023.
I wanna be rested and ready to go. One of the things we talk about a lot is, Jen and I have both talked about it, in order to show up for your clients, you need to be the best self that you can be. That includes rest and self-care. So I hope that you are taking time for that over the holidays too.
Okay, I'm gonna talk about some strategic bigger picture things, and then I'm also gonna talk about some more tactical, but also very important things. I'm going to start with a little bit more of the functional stuff. This is what I term like, oh my gosh, time to add this to my to-do list kind of stuff.
And then I'm gonna do a wrap up of these tips and the show notes. So if you're listening along, you don't have to take notes. I'll also send an email to you guys about it. If you're on our email list, if not, hit inspired organizer.com. Add yourself to our email list.
This wrap up will be just conservate my holiday gift to you. I'm gonna gift you with a little bit of work, but it's really worthwhile work, I promise. So, all right. First up, make sure that all of your possible expenses for the year are in for your business. I will just add a quick disclaimer.
Obviously I'm not an accountant. I am not providing you tax advice, and some of what I'll be talking about here is focused on the us. I'll apologize to our international listenership. Unfortunately, I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of all tax laws, of all of all countries.
I wish I did. That would be amazing. It'd be a great skill to have. But a lot of this I'm gonna talk about, you know, kind of United States focused, but no matter where you are in your business, making sure that all of your expenses are in for the end of the year.
I just look at my business and I say, do I have some available funds that I could dedicate to some expenses and get those in at the end of the year? One example for you, if there are things that you pay in your business month to month, there are often incentives that a company will give you to pay that for the year.
Canva is a good one. You can pay that on a yearly basis. Some of the software we use for Pro Organizer Studio, you get sometimes up to two months free of that software. If you pay yearly versus monthly, so definitely take a look at that. If there's software that you use in your business every single day.
Maybe it's your crm, maybe it's Canva, your accounting software, anything like that. Check out bonuses for paying yearly. If you have money left in your account, this could be a great way for you to get ready for the upcoming year.
If you have been thinking about investing in something. One thing that we've talked about in our inspired organizer Facebook group, recently digitizing client photos and documents. I personally do this for clients. I have one client that kind of started me down this path.
I invested in a great scanner and I have done a ton of projects with it. It has been. Unbelievably great investment for my business, paid for itself in a very, very short period of time. But if there's a piece of equipment that you wanna invest in your business to help a service that you wanna provide for next year, think about making an investment in that.
If there's a course or another educational program that you wanted to get into, great time to invest in that. Give something newer world that's gonna fit with your 2023 goals.
Okay, another one. If you have your container store once a year discount that you haven't used yet, get on it, get some stuff. Um, I used mine a million months ago, . Um, so I, I am not in this category, but I know that there are people that still haven't used their discount yet. So make sure that if you have saved up that discount, use it before you lose it because it will go away.
This one. This next tip is one that was from one of our inspired organizer members. It was a really, really great and really important tip. Don't forget about your investment accounts, saving for retirement is super important and it's often a lot more challenging for us self-employed people.
So don't forget about funding your IRAs. The good news in this is typically you actually have till April 15th of the following year in, at least in the US to fund those retirement accounts. For this year. So you can still say this is for 2022, even if it's in April 12th of next year. But in case you are likely to forget that deadline, it's a great time to just get those funds into your retirement count before the end of the year.
And just a reminder, compound interest is an absolutely amazing thing, .
Okay. Next thing to think about, January 1st is a great time to start new things in your business. So examples would be new policies. So do you have new cancellation policy you want to do? Do you have a new pricing structure?
Do you need to raise your prices a little bit? Is there new software you want to implement? Do you have new systems that you want to implement with clients, new contract terms, anything new? A lot of things are much easier to implement if you just make January 1st the start. Start thinking about if you haven't thought about it already, start thinking about, Hey, are there some things I need to tweak in my business?
January 1st is a wonderful time to just make a break and start something new for the new year. One example of this, someone in a mastermind that we recently. Ran was talking about implementing new accounting software, and one of the things that we recommended was make sure that you're ready to go with that on January 1st, so you don't have to go back and change anything.
You don't have to add anything. You are ready to go on that January 1st date so that everything is super seamless and easy to transition. It's a great time to evaluate your pricing structure. If you wanted to do a price increase, then you can just change that on your website and be ready to go for those New Year's resolution.
So that we all know are out there, ready to come in, um, much easier to change that on January 1st than it is to change it other times of the year. So, just a thought. By the way, you can raise your prices anytime you want to, but just a little hint, get it done now, you'll be really happy that you did.
All right. If you are thinking about moving to a new crm or implementing a crm, uh, crm, client relationship management, if you wanna go back on the podcast like four or five episodes, maybe a little bit more. We had an interview with Amber Barrett who's talking about Honey Book and TA teaching you all about what a CRM is and what it does. But you might wanna think about this now too. Getting that on board and getting that CRM set up and ready to go for the new year. You will be so happy with yourself. We do have a course on Honey Book.
It's $149 and in the course you get a code for half off honey book for the year, which actually more than pays for the course. We would absolutely love to have you. Group. Um, it's a combo of the end of the year investment and an investment in your sanity, , and your time saving. It's gonna save you hundreds of hours next year in your business.
I will happily link that in the show notes for you.
Okay. I know I talk fast. There are lots of things to think about here. What I would love for you to do is think about, there are probably some things I have forgotten.
Um, it's not an exhaustive list, but I would love for you to think about, oh wow, maybe there are some other things I need to be thinking about. Just do some thought time on what are these end of year things I can do in my business. I think it will make you really happy to get some of these functional things off of your plate.
Okay. I realize that typically this is done backwards. You usually start big and go small, but I wanted to leave this next part until the, the back half of the episode. After you get done thinking about some of these functional things we've just talked about, I would really love for you to think about your 2023 goals, your big goals.
If you listen to our podcast with Megan Sears, it was a couple of episodes ago, you heard her story. I love the story. It seriously just warmed my heart. But she talked about how she made a huge stretch goal for herself for 2022, and at the end of November, she was only $61 and 2 cents away from breaking that.
If she hadn't set that stretch goal for herself, she might not have known what was possible. She might not have implemented some of the things in her business that made it. I want you to think about what do you want out of your business for next year? By the way, those do not have to be financial goals.
They can be client goals. They can be start your business goals, grow your business goals. They can be personal goals. I want to take the month of August off. I wanna take the month of December off. I would like to quit my full-time job and make organizing my full-time job. I want to be able to spend more time with my kids.
Those goals for your business can be anything that speaks to you. They do not have to be financial goals. Anything is fair game in the goal game, as I always, always, always will remind you of something very important. They are your goals, so they need to be what's important to you, not what you think they should be or what other people are doing.
They're your. Goals.
I wanna talk about one important note on this. Recently I was talking to someone who was looking at other organizers who were building teams, and she felt like she was doing it quote unquote wrong because she was a solo organizer and she didn't have a team on the horizon.
I always come back to one of my favorite, favorite quotes, comparison is the thief of. It's completely natural to look at what other people are doing and to think about what that might look like for you, but it's also extremely, totally very okay to say, man, that is awesome for them. I love what they're doing, but that is not something that works for me or my business.
Personally, I am a solo organizer. I always have been, and I always plan to be because that's what works for me. That works for my personality, that works for my business, it works for my goals. But you also do not have to say, well, Melissa is a solo organizer, so I need to be a solo organizer too. And listen, I'm here to tell you, girl, if you want to start a team of 20 organizers in five different states, I am here to cheer you on and I want you to go crush that.
I just don't want anyone that is listening to this to spend time thinking you are less than because other organizers are doing something different and your goals are different than what you see other people doing. Your goal can be to get one client a month, and I love that goal. , your goal can be to regularly have $10,000 a month.
I love that goal. I love any goal that you were gonna set in your business, and I am here to help you achieve it. I want you to make all of the goals that fit your life and your world and your self-care and your sleep and all of those things, okay? If you want resources on goal setting, I will link this in the show notes, but I can highly recommend John a's podcast.
John Acuff, you know, I talk about a lot. He has the book, soundtracks Love that book. He has a podcast called, all It Takes is a Goal. So it's basically all about goal setting. It's a, it's about a lot of things, but a lot of it is about goal setting. He has an upcoming challenge that actually I'm joining in January.
Totally recommend that it's free. And Marie Forlio just did a podcast, a pretty short podcast on achievable goal setting tactics. So I will link both of those if you want some help with some goal setting. All right, one last word. As you cruise into the last two weeks of the year, hopefully with some rest and some fun and family time and all that.
If you want a little bit more in-depth learning from me, we have a free workshop called the Pro Organizer's Profit Plan, and you can watch that on demand 24 7. If you like me, sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. Great time to watch it. I'd be happy to. Happy to stay up.
head to po roadmap.com for that. I would absolutely love to spend an hour with you. Plus it's cool. We have this new software that we use that has interactive components, and if I happen to be online while you're watching, I can message you live. Like you can ask me questions live while you're watching.
And, um, hopefully that sounds like fun and not creepy. I realize as I'm saying it, , I don't want it to sound like I'm watching you. I'm not. Um, it just happens to be that I, I can interact with you if I happen to be online while you're. So I love chatting with organizers. I will love to try to connect with you on that webinar.
If you have any questions after that, you can also email me always at hello per organizer studio. Okay. That's it. That's your shorty podcast about. The last two weeks of the year and getting some amazing things done. You can message me on Instagram. You can email me at hello Pro Organizer Studio, tell me what your goals are for the year.
I would love to hear how we can support you. Ask me any questions you might have. I am off to go do this list of tasks for my own business home by 11 right now. I'm actually gonna do it right now, and I am excited to support you in any way I can. All right, have a great day. Organizers.
Hey organizers! This is a recording of a Facebook Live that Jen and Melissa did with our Inspired Organizer community, and we thought it would be fun to give you a peek into a low-key, casual convo with us answering questions. We hope you enjoy this bonus episode!
We have a free workshop called The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan--head over to poroadmap.com for all the details!
Just wait until you hear the heartwarming and inspirational story we have for you today from our guest, Megan Sears of Megan Sears Organization in the Pacific Northwest. The magic number for Megan is $61.02 and I'll let her tell you the rest!
We are CLOSING ENROLLMENT in our signature program and community, Inspired Organizer®, on Wednesday, December 7. We would be honored to be a part of your business journey! For details on signing up (including TWO special photo bonuses, including 30 done for you Instagram posts and captions!), please CLICK HERE and for more information on the program, CLICK HERE.
Kristin Roser has a similar story to me--we both were disorganized in our own homes, and in fixing that and making permanent changes to our own lives, we discovered that we LOVED organizing and wanted to bring this magic to others. Kristin is now the owner of Kristin & Co Organizing in North Carolina, and she is talking to us today about her organizing journey.
Kristin is a part of two of our program communities: Inspired Organizer® and Organizing Essentials. We are closing enrollment in Inspired Organizer on December 7, and would love for you to be a part of our community. For more information, click HERE; email us at hello@proorganizerstudio.com ; or click here to join the program.
TWO BONUSES available now: 150 stock photographs for you to use on your website or social media; and 30 done-for-you Instagram posts and captions.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Connect with Kristin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinandcoorganizing/
Connect with Pro Organizer Studio on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/proorganizerstudio/
Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio: https://www.proorganizerstudio.com
Cori McDougald dared to dream big (really big) when she started her business. In 18 months she went from a solo organizer with a brand new business to a leader of over a dozen organizers on teams in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and New Mexico. She talks to us about her passion for entrepreneurship and empowering women, and how she built her business in such a short time. She's a success story and a great inspiration of when passion meets productivity with a side of creativity and lots of fun.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Cori's business, Meat & Potatoes Organizing in Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota
Inspired Organizer, our program and community for professional organizers
Our Organizing Essentials program + community are open for enrollment until Friday, November 4! CLICK HERE to register!
We are continuing with our Get Inspired series where we introduce you to organizers in our community. Today you meet Heidi Paul, who is talking to us about how your business can take you through seasons of your life--and how it can adapt to those seasons.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Information on Organizing Essentials program HERE
ORGANIZING ESSENTIALS PROGRAM IS OPEN FOR ENROLLMENT! Closes November 4. Click here for more details!
Julie Aderhold is a great example of an organizer who found a niche that was super close to her heart and uses that to help people who are dealing with an unexpected health diagnosis--but even if you don't have a similar niche for your business, Julie still has lots of great advice for you for your business.
I met Julie through our Organizing Essentials program, and I have loved getting to know her on our monthly Zooms where we talk about client situations and how to handle them. I know you'll love getting to know her too!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Join our Organizing Essentials program
Contact Julie:
Email: julie@healthyhomeorganizing.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hhorganizinggb Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hhorganizinggb/ Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio
We are starting a new series here at the podcast where we introduce you to active, busy professional organizers with inspirational stories of how they started their business, what their secrets are, and how you can do the same. We are starting with Nicole Mannino of Own Your Space Professional Organizing in New Jersey.
Nicole started her organizing business in 2020--and persevered through the pandemic and a pregnancy--and has created a strong business that is growing every month. She has so much inspiration for our listeners!
Nicole was also one of the founding members of our Organizing Essentials Course, which is now OPEN for enrollment until November 1. This $249 course is a great kickoff to a pro organizing business, or also as inspiration for people on how to really get into working with clients. We'd love to have you join us by CLICKING HERE.
October is MY FAVORITE MONTH! So much goodness in this month. One great thing I learned from a client was a concept called Boss October--and in this encore episode we are revisiting this concept and giving you some additional tools to use in your business.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Canva template list of Boss October activities for your business or your clients to use and modify with your logo: CLICK HERE
Learn more about coaching programs to start or grow your organizing business: CLICK HERE
Amber Barrett of Arranged By Amber started as a professional organizer, and realized on that journey that her true gift was helping organizers...get organized in their businesses. Now, she is a CRM setup expert, and she's helping us organize all of the admin work of our businesses.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
The HoneyBook course from Pro Organizer Studio
Link for 1/2 off HoneyBook for the first year
Information on Inspired Organizer, our business building program
This is a little minisode so you can get some recommendations and inside scoop from Jen and Melissa!
Just a reminder about our free workshop--the Pro Organizer's Profit Plan--is going away soon! Click here to get access 24/7/365.
Welcome to part 2 of Jen and Melissa's conversation with Laurie Palau of the This Organized Life Podcast. Today we are talking about clutter and relationships--both our own, and our clients'--and lots of other things. We want you to know the real people behind this podcast so hopefully you'll enjoy some of our revelations about REAL LIFE!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Our free workshop: poroadmap.com
Information on Inspired Organizer®
Laurie has a course on Enneagram and clutter, which is a great companion for organizers to learn more about how to better help their clients. Pro Organizer Studio podcast listeners get a discount if you enter code POS20 at the checkout. Click here for the course!
Whether it's talking about how we love helping women find their passion in this industry; working with organizing clients and getting them transformational results; or our personal relationship with clutter--this interview covers it all. We are breaking it up into two parts so we don't overwhelm you with ALL OF THE SUBJECTS! Part 2 will be up later this week--stay tuned!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
This Organized Life Podcast with Laurie Palau
Free workshop: The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan
Information on Inspired Organizer®
Remember the feel of a new notebook and school supplies? That's what I always think of when September rolls around. I call the day after Labor Day "new New Year's Day" because I feel like it's a great time for a reset. Today we are talking about some important September thoughts for our organizing businesses and how we can use this fall time for renewal and goal setting.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Information on Inspired Organizer®, our mentorship program and community.
A service that gets a "yes" from a client in less than a second? Sign us up! Organizer Carly Adams is telling us about the new service she's set up for mom clients using the Class Keeper app that we are in loooove with. She gives us concrete ideas on how to structure it and how to sell it.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Class Keeper app
Carly Adams - owner, Tidy Revival in Sacramento, CA
Information on our Inspired Organizer® membership and community
Today is part two of our conversation with organizational/productivity products entrepreneur Denise Albright of denisealbright.com --and we hone in on a new product she has for organizers to help moms corral the problems that all our mom clients have with KID STUFF!
Schoolwork, artwork, paperwork--all of the things, collected in an organized way, and able to share it with people in those kids' lives. It's called Class Keeper and we are talking about how you can use this to start a new service in your professional organizing business for busy moms.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Learn more about the Class Keeper app CLICK HERE
Become an affiliate for the Class Keeper app or any of the productivity tools from denisealbright.com CLICK HERE
Connect with Denise here:
denisealbright.com
instagram.com/denisealbrightstudio
facebook.com/denisealbrightstudio
https://www.youtube.com/denisealbright
We are bringing you a two-parter pod this week because we have SO MUCH GOODNESS! Denise Albright is a serial entrepreneur (since childhood!) and she has so many great lessons for all of us in the building of her business, which provides organizational solutions for women to streamline their lives. In today's epsiode we will cover how she built her business (including awesome lessons for all of us on listening to clients)--and then our next epsiode will give organizers great ideas on how to tackle one of our biggest client problems we all see!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Denise's website and social links
For more info about Pro Organizer Studio, click here or email us at hello@proorganizerstudio.com
If you've listened to the podcast at all, you know Jen + Melissa are never shy with giving you an opinion--and today we are talking about a hot button for a lot of organizers--before & after photos. Everyone thinks they are imperative and you won't get business without them--but we are here to tell you that's not the case. (and why!)
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Information on our Inspired Organizer® coaching program
Our FREE 24/7 on demand workshop "The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan"
Today we bring back our team-building expert Kate Waldo Jones, who has five locations of her business Orchid Organizing. Each and every day we have more people in our Inspired Organizer membership looking to build teams--it's a super popular topic for our organizers! In today's episode, we talk about both the "why" to build a team, as well as the "how"--and a resource we have called The Pro Organizer Success Kit.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Info on The Pro Organizer's Success Kit HERE
More team building podcast info HERE
Our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan
In our final minisode of our series on the most missed marketing tool--email marketing--we talk about two methods to grow your email list. We can't wait to hear about your success with email marketing!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Kate the Socialite podcast on lead magnets
Our free workshop The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan
You've committed to starting an email newsletter--now you have to navigate HOW do to this! There are tons of options, and today we break this down for you in another minisode.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Get 50% off Flodesk with this code
Squarespace email template info
Mailchimp information
Our free workshop at poroadmap.com
Information on Inspired Organizer®
Today's minisode tackles a common refrain we hear about email marketing--but I'm not a writer! I can't do this! We talk about ideas to get you thinking about how you CAN write to your audience. We promise!
In today's minisode, we're talking about the most slept-on marketing technique in the home organizing industry.
Part 2 of our conversation on photography in your organizing business is here, with our guest Melissa Keyser. Melissa is a professional organizer who has studied as a photographer, and she is combining those two loves into a brand new business where she teaches us how to take better photos of ourselves and for ourselves and our business. LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Melissa's website
Melissa's course on photography
Melissa's organizing Instagram
Melissa's photography Instagram
Information on Inspired Organizer®
Taking photographs for your business, whether your website or your social media, can feel overwhelming sometimes. Today on the podcast, our Inspired Organizer Melissa Keyser is back with us talking about her personal passion--photography. This is part 1 of our 2 part conversation with Melissa, and today we are talking about why the right photographs can connect you with your ideal client, and how we can all feel more confident in photographs (even if you struggle with this!)
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Melissa's organizing Instagram
Melissa's photography Instagram
Melissa's website
Information on Inspired Organizer®
It is always a great time in organizing when there are things in pop culture and the public consciousness of what we do is high!
The second season of the Home Edit show premiered on Netflix on April 1st, so today on the podcast, we are going to be talking about how you can take advantage of these things, how you can make sure that your business is ready for people to remind themselves that they need someone to come in to their home.
Here is the checklist for what we recommend you do to make sure you're ready for an increase in attention for organizing!
-
Make sure all of your contact information is easy to find and correct on all of your digital properties.
-
Go through your own contact process to make sure all of your links work and that a potential client can easily get to you!
-
Make it EXTREMELY easy to contact you--give potential clients as many ways as possible to get in touch with you--not just a contact form on your website. Make sure you hyperlink phone and emails on your site too for mobile users!
-
Do a webite health check, including: do you have easy to find call to action buttons? Are you featured on your site-because clients connect with a person! Make sure your service location-your geography--is easy to find on your site.
-
Consider a Google ad.
-
Make sure your free workhorse, Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is active and updated.
-
Social media
-
Blog
-
Use your personal network
-
Offer to do presentations to local groups.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Our new, free workshop: www.poroadmap.com
Information on Inspired Organizer®
Jessica Litman is well known as The Organized Mama, and has built an organizing business that many of us dream of! She also has dreamed of writing a book since she was in 4th grade--and is making that dream come true in April with the publication of "Home Sweet Organized Home." She is talking to us today about her path in organizing, including working one on one with clients both in-home and virtually, as well as a super successful online brand which started with a blog and has grown exponentially.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
The Organized Mama website
Jessica's book "Home Sweet Organized Home"
Jessica's Instagram @organizedmamas
Pro Organizer Studio courses
Amy Mayorga tells us about turning her personal passion and interest into a strong onine brand, and how to find your own passion for online presence (hint: it's NOT about having to do social media to be successful!) This is part 2 of our conversation with Amy of Minimalista Organizing in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas. LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Amy's Instagram @minimalistamom
Amy's website minimalistaorganizing.com
Inspired Organizer® program information
When Amy Mayorga became a mom, she realized that the STUFF of being a mother was overwhelming her. She discovered organizing and minimalism, changed her own home life--and now changes the home life of her 26,000 Instagram followers and her in-home organizing clients in the Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas metropolitan area.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Amy's Instagram @minimalistamom
Amy's website minimalistaorganizing.com
Inspired Organizer® program information
Jen and Melissa are back with part 2 of answering organizer Instagram questions. Today we talk about our own closets and what that teaches us about working with clients, and the pressure we feel to have perfect homes because we are organizers. LINKS FOR LISTENERS Our new FREE workshop: The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan
Join our Inspired Organizer® program
Pro Organizer Studio has resources for professional organizers to start and grow thriving organizing businesses. We have resources for you to check out at all of these places:
www.inspiredorganizer.com
www.youtube.com/proorganizerstudio
www.instagram.com/proorganizerstudio
www.proorganizerstudio.com
It's another epsiode of "Jen and Melissa get together and record their conversation" for you! This week, we will give you two epsiodes of us answering questions we got from pro organizers on Instagram. We talk about client situations and client questions, home organizing reality shows, and all sorts of things to get you thinking about your businesses. LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Our new FREE workshop/masterclass "The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan"
Information on our Inspired Organizer® program and community
In this podcast, we are going over the three mistakes Melissa made early on in her organizing business--so if you are making them too, you know you aren't alone! This is a sneak peek of our NEW one hour free workshop called The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan--If you are interested in watching the full one hour free workshop, click here.
For more information on our Inspired Organizer® program, click here.
It is our 100th episode celebration here at Pro Organizer Studio--and we are bringing you an extra special message today. Working with organizers each day--we know that sometimes what we tell ourselves, the story about our capabilities and what we are and who we are--sometimes can stop our progress in our businesses. Today we are bringing you a conversation about the book "Soundtracks" by Jon Acuff, which is all about what those messages in our head are, and more importantly--what are some concrete ways we can fix those messages. If you are struggling with mindset, or negative self-talk--and PS, WE ALL DO THIS!--today is for you.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Soundtracks by Jon Acuff
Sisters of Industry podcast
Information on the Inspired Organizer® program and community
Jon Acuff's podcast (which is awesome!)
In the last two years, organizers have discovered that there are lots of ways to help clients--and sometimes, even for a business that primarily helps people inside their house, organizers have been able to move to find an audience online successfully. Today we are bringing you an interview that Jen Kilbourne Obermeier did with Carly Tizzano of The Resolve Podcast, and it is FILLED with insight for organizers about finding your audience, and important mindset shifts.
Carly is a member of our Inspired Organizer® community and was an organizer for years when she discovered that she had a passion for helping people set and achieve their goals. Now she is a coach specifically for goals and hosts her own podcast, The Resolve Podcast, where she interviewed Jen. We are excited to offer you a replay of their conversation.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
Carly's website (https://www.carlytizzano.com)
The Resolve Podcast (https://www.carlytizzano.com/podcast)
Information on Inspired Organizer (https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/join)
Pro Organizer Studio resources (https://www.proorganizerstudio.com)
Sarah Brent did something awesome with her organizing business, which is she saw that there was a need for something in the market, and she kept saying "someone should work on this!" and then realized someone was actually her. We love when someone takes a challenge and is like, wait, I'll tackle that! So we wanted to have Sarah on to talk about what she's doing...and how it can help all our pro organizing friends.
Links for Listeners:
Tidy Stock Photography site
Coupon code: PODCAST20 for 20% off their purchase! Organizing Essentials (enrollment closes 1/31) Information about Inspired Organizer
In a new series, we introduce you to an inspirational pro organizer from our community and tell you about their journey. Kim Snodgrass has just taken the leap and started her business, but is already working with clients while she builds the back end of her business. She tells us the whole story about making this leap into full-time professional organizing.
Links for listeners:
Rustic Home Organizing site
Information on the Inspired Organizer® program
Jen and Melissa open the doors of a recent live coaching event we held inside our private Inspired Organizer® community--we talk about starting this new year out right in your organizing business (and remind you to take care of YOURSELF so you can show up for your CLIENTS!)
This conversation ranges from 2022 planning to what's happening in the industry to how do you really change your mindset when you change from a nine to five job to having your own business--and much more.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Information about our Inspired Organizer® community
Pro Organizer Studio resources
Do your clients ask you "Hey, what should I do with my..." (Grandma's crystal vases, this antique furniture, this jewelry)? Our podcast guest today, Charles Tinsley of The Keys Guild, is here to help us understand collectibles and how to work with our organizing clients more effectively when they ask these questions.
In this episode, Charles and Melissa Klug of Pro Organizer Studio talk about how the changing tastes of generations are impacting the market for collectibles and how organizers can be educated to be able to assist their clients with options for antiques, jewelry, china, and other items you might encounter in a home.
Links for listeners:
Keys Guild website
Inspired Organizer® program information
What does it take to have a professional organizing business? When do you know it's the right time to launch a business? What does entrepreneurship look like for a professional organizer? Jen and Melissa answer all of these questions and many more in this episode.
Links for listeners:
Free workshop (Your 4-Part Plan for Landing your Dream Clients in 2021)
Information on our Inspired Organizer® program
Laurie Palau is an organizer, coach, author and Enneagram expert, and she's here today to talk about how understanding the Enneagram can help you better serve your clients--and your own business. Laurie's new course on Enneagram and Clutter can help you and your clients understand more about themselves and how to improve their relationship with STUFF!
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
https://simplyborganized.com/enneagram-clutter-course/
Use code: POS20 for 20% off this course!
Laurie's website, Simply B Organized
Laurie's podcast This Organized Life
Our guest Pia Thompson of Sweet Digs, an organizer in the NYC area, talks to us about an incredibly important special event for the home organizing and productivity industry happening this week on Tuesday, October 19 (replays available.) This event is sponsored by The Home Edit, The Container Store, The Neat Method, and YouCopia.
Links for listeners:
Event registration-- www.gridandglam.com/unfolding
One of Melissa's organizing clients joins us this week to talk about a productivity concept she uses in her life that organizers AND their clients can both use to get huge wins. Boss October is a way to free yourself from those things that hang over your head (you know that email you've needed to send for three months? Yeah--that!) and it might even find you a lot of money.
PODCAST EXTRAS WILL GO LIVE WEDNESDAY 10/13
Links for listeners:
Information on Pro Organizer Studio coaching programs: www.inspiredorganizer.com
Whether you've had an organizing business for years or are brand new, today's guest is offering so much wisdom about how your website and branding help you find clients and connect them to your business. Brie Kistler is the owner of BK Branding Co and she knows what it takes for an organizer's website to show off the best of her to potential clients.
Show links:
BK Branding Co website
Brie Kistler Instagram
Email Brie: hello@bkbrandingco.com
Information on Inspired Organizer®
Jen and Melissa got together recently and decided to record all of our conversations so you can feel like you were here with us. Today we are covering both analog and digital--we chat the value of referrals as well as SEO for your organizing business--and we promise, SEO isn't scary! The name of the game is finding clients for your business, and these are two great ways to accomplish this.
Links for listeners:
Pod on SEO:
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/seo-for-organizers/
Our free workshop:
www.poroadmap.com/2021
Music by Atch: First Light - Atch https://soundcloud.com/atch-music
We love when a new organizing show comes out so more people get to know what we do for a living. Today Melissa talks about the new Netflix show from Marie Kondo and how you can use this to your advantage with clients (even if you don't use her methods to organize!)
Melissa drops in with a minisode about something she read recently in Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss that she is implementing--and wants some buddies along for the ride!
Melissa Keyser's journey to professional organizing stretched from the Bay Area to the woods of Maine--including selling almost everything she owned to move cross country. Today she joins us to talk about her business, including why it's the ideal career for people who identify as being HSP--highly sensitive people--and who might struggle in a traditional workplace.
Melissa can be found on Instagram at @melissakeyser and her website, melissakeyser.com.
We are back with more conversation with Shari Medini, work from home and parenting expert. Today we talk about great productivity tips for working from home--whether you're helping a client navigate a home office or if you're trying to figure out how to prioritize solopreneur time in your own pro organizing business.
Links for listeners:
Adore Them Parenting website
Parenting While Working From Home book
If you want our free workshop, "Your 4-Part Plan for Landing your Dream Clients in 2021"--click here!
Shari Medini is a mom and work-from-home expert. Even if you are not a mom yourself, or if your kids are older or grown and out of the house, Shari has awesome advice for us on how we can be the best professional organizer and coach to moms of kids--whether younger or older.
This is the first of a two part episode with Shari. Today we will talk about what we've learned about working from home with kids during the last (very challenging!) year-and how many workplaces are migrating permanently to work from home. We can be special advocates to our clients navigating this change and Shari tells us how!
Links for listeners:
Adore Them Parenting Website: adorethemparenting.com
Parenting While Working at Home book: www.adorethemparenting.com/book/
If you are considering starting or growing a professional organizing business, we have a brand new for 2021, totally free workshop you can take that goes beyond this podcast--you can register here if you want to check it out!
Xiomara Romero started Lilly's Organizing on a whim one night--and the very next day had her first client! She talks to us about her business growing over the last three years, and about her next unique project--taking her Airstream and her organizing business to all 50 states.
Xiomara is a part of our Inspired Organizer® program--to learn more, click here!
Website: www.lillysorganizing.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lillys_organizing/
On day 5 of our Spring Cleaning bonanza, we talk about cleaning up your business processes. Looking at your sales and marketing, finance and accounting, operations and human resources (yep, even if you're a solopreneur, you need human resources!) departments and how you can improve your processes is a boss spring cleaning move.
Dubsado for Professional Organizers course
Our free workshop from founder Jen Obermeier, "Your 4-Part Plan for Landing your Dream Clients in 2021."
Do you LOVE doing social media for your organizing business...or does it totally overwhelm you? Either way, we are talking all things social today--and no matter what side you fall on, we can get you back in order. Spring clean your social today with Jen and Melissa!
Your website is your employee that works 24/7. Jen and Melissa tackle one of the most important aspects of spring cleaning your professional organizing business--your website, including the supporting players SEO (search engine optimization) and Google My Business. It's Melissa's favorite subject to tackle!
Check out our previous podcast with SEO expert Caitlin Strempel here:
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/seo-for-organizers/
In part 2 of our 5 part "Spring Clean Your Organizing Business" series, Jen coaches us on priorities and what Warren Buffett has to teach pro organizers. If you have 100 different things on your priority list--this is the pod for you!
Spring cleaning isn't just for your house--it's for your organizing business too. Jen and Melissa start a five part mini-sode extravaganza this week talking about how to take a look at your organizing business and make it sparkle and shine as you move into the busy spring and summer months. Stay tuned this week for all our tips and tricks! Today we start with GOALS...
Kate Waldo Jones didn't know when she first started Orchid Organizing that one day she would be running a 6 figure organizing business in three different cities, plus running a successful online business teaching people how to streamline the business of running a business (think emails, invoicing, contracts--all the stuff that takes a ton of time)--but on today's podcast, she tells us exactly how she did this. Kate talks to us about how she built her organizing teams, and how she learned about automations that help make the customer experience exceptional--and how you can learn all of these things from her.
Learn more about Kate's team and Dubsado CRM courses here.
Jen Howard found herself in an unfortunately very common situation--she was solely responsible for cleaning out her mother's home, which had become fully and completely stuffed from basement to top floor with hundreds of thousands of things. During this intense, years-long cleanout process, Jen learned about the history of clutter, as well as about professional organizers, junk haulers, and donation locations. She shares her personal story about how clutter and hoarding impacted her mother's life, and how it's impacted her own life, and what she learned during her 2 year long journey with her mother's home.
Jen's book Clutter: An Untidy History can be found at your favorite bookseller.
Jen's website: jenniferhoward.com
Have you ever thought about taking your professional organizing talents to the page? Our Inspired Organizer® Hillary Zama decided to take a dream and an idea and make it a reality--she is now a published author, with her book "Spruce Up: A Professional Organizer's Guide for Your Home, Your Body, and Your Life" being out in the world. Hillary walks us through the publishing process and the goal-setting process that got her through taking her lifelong love of writing from an idea to a finished book.
Have you dreamed of bringing a team of organizers with you to a client's home--but are intimidated by the idea of "how would I do that?" Kate Jones of Orchid Organizing, who is one of our Inspired Organizers®, has teams of organizers in three cities--and is ready to demystify the process of building teams for the Pro Organizer Studio listeners.
Click this link to find out more about the new course for building a team for professional organizers.
As pro organizers, we know that organizing can transform a house. But have you ever applied organizing principles to your financial house? There are some really smart things we do with our clients that can be adapted to work in thinking about finances, and Melissa and Jen talk about this plus how Melissa used these principles to do presentations with financial services companies for her organizing business and networking!
Jennifer Mary of Everyday Style, our guest on our last podcast, is super passionate about customer service!
When we hear the words "customer service" we tend to think about retail stores--the service that you get from a store associate or how someone helps you in a retail environment. But customer service is really what we do with our clients every single day. It's how we interact with them from the time that they first contact us to the time that we show up in their home. It's how we communicate with them, it's how we get them on as a client, it's everything we do to make them feel valued.
I thought it was so important that I wanted to bring it to you as a bonus episode, because it's something that we can think about with our organizing clients as we move through 2021.
She can be found at her podcast, Everyday Style School, on all podcast platforms.
Jennifer Mackey Mary is a personal stylist for everyday women. After growing her in-person client services for years, a family move and changing priorities led her to look to taking that service business to the online space. As professional organizers expand their services to virtual services and online courses, Jennifer has a lot of great advice on how she added these services, and what professional organizers can consider if they are looking at expanding online.
Jennifer can be found online at youreverydaystyle.com, on Facebook, and at her podcast, The Everyday Style School.
Carly Adams is one of the mentors of the Inspired Organizer® program, and after four years leading a successful professional organizing business in California, she has plenty of wisdom to share with other organizers. Carly talks to us about how she works with clients, the shift to online and virtual organizing, what she brings to a client relationship, how she learned what her true north was for organizing--and we talk about how we will never go back to working for someone else!
Carly can be found at tidyrevival.com and on Instagram @tidyrevival.
If you'd like to get our roadmap for success as a pro organizer, head straight to www.poroadmap.com.
(01:00) Intro
(02:00) Online/Virtual Organizing
(04:00) Being "everything to everyone"
(05:00) Finding the right fit with clients
(08:00) Setting expectations
(09:30) The power of organizing
(10:00) Trusting your gut
(15:00) Finding your niche
(17:30) Additional advice
(21:00) Finding your forever job as an organizer
When professional organizers work with clients, emotions and psychology often come into play. Our guest today is Dr. Ania Schwartzman, who combines her clinical psychology degree with a lifetime love of fashion into her personal styling business The Fashionologist. Ania joins us to talk about what professional organizers can learn from a client's closet, and how we can better help our clients through the organizing process by listening and asking key questions. She also tells us a little about how fashion is changing and gives us ideas about pro organizer work wardrobes as a bonus.
Ania can be found at thefashionologist.com or on Instagram at @thefashionologistnyc.
(01:00) Introduction; working with clients
(04:00) Why people work with a personal stylist
(05:30) What questions to use with clients when organizing to help them make decisions
(09:00) What deep things closets can tell you about your clients
(15:30) Fashion changes/current trends
(18:45) Fashion for professional organizers
(24:00) "Enclothed Cognition"-dressing influences actions
(29:00) The power of clothing and how we help clients
(31:00) Showing up for our clients
(34:30) Pivoting for businesses like ours
Jen and Melissa are talking about one of our favorite topics--when is it time to make some investments in your pro organizing business? "Investment" doesn't have to mean multi thousands of dollars--it can mean "when is it time to hire a web designer" or "when is it time to stop using a free spreadsheet and start using an accounting system." Knowing when to invest--and what to invest in--is important, and Jen and Melissa talk about their (sometimes very different!) philosophies on spending for your business.
(01:00) Topic intro
(02:00) Jen's philosophy on investing
(04:24) Keeping promises to yourself
(06:00) Investing in yourself
(08:00) Melissa's lessons on under-investing
(10:00) Jen's guideposts on investing
(12:00) Doing the work to get value out of an investment
(14:00) Delegating-not doing everything yourself
(16:00) Freeing yourself to be a better entrepreneur
(18:30) Your business goals
(20:00) Wrap-up
Entrepreneurship can sometimes feel a little lonely. Developing a network, and finding people who can be a professional support system is important--but can be overwhelming. Today Melissa Klug and our guest Laura Brown of The Sisters of Industry podcast talk about steps you can take to build a network and a personal "board of directors" to strengthen you as an entrepreneur and a person.
Your website and Instagram are often the first ways a potential client has to connect with you--and showing your best self there is important. We offer you specifics on how to look at your website and Instagram feeds a little differently, all to provide a simpler and better experience for your dream clients. For pro organizers, your online content is key--make it fantastic!
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies)!
Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® course + community
Check out our brand new workshop, The 4-Part Plan for Landing your Dream Clients in 2021.
The rest of the show notes can be found here:
proorganizerstudio.com/podcast
Jen and Melissa break down the serious (and not so serious) things we learned this year, and what we can take with us into 2021 for our professional organizing businesses.
Kay Patterson is also known as The Organized Soprano on YouTube, where she makes fun videos about home organizing, cleaning and life as a professional classical singer in Boston. She is a professional home organization and clutter coach, helping clients both virtually and in-person. Her co-star Clover is the most organized dog in America! Kay invited Jen on a YouTube Live recently and we are happy to have it here today for you to hear their conversation.
She can be found here on YouTube and here on the great internet!
Dalys Macon is the entrepreneur behind D'Vine Order, an organizing firm, and the Instagram handle Black Girls Who Organize. Dalys is passionate about many things, and our wide ranging interview covers her background, how she came to the organizing business, and how important representation is to our industry.
Carly Tizzano is a professional organizer and life coach who specializes in New Year's Resolution coaching. She joins Melissa Klug of Pro Organizer Studio to talk about how we can do realistic goal setting for 2021--even when things might still be in flux.
You can find more information on Carly here:
FREE RESOLUTION WORKSHOP https://www.carlytizzano.com/workshop-sign-up-page WEBSITE www.carlytizzano.com
EMAIL
carly@carlytizzano.com
FACEBOOK
www.facebook.com/carlytizzano
INSTAGRAM
www.instagram.com/carlytizzano/?hl=en
LINKEDIN
www.linkedin.com/in/carly-tizzano-88180517a
Continuing on our thread from last week--we are talking about whether now is a good time to start a pro organizing business. For Thanksgiving week, we present one of our most popular episodes: "Make Your First $1k on a Budget." We believe it's a great time to start a business in the organizing industry, and this episode is a great primer on how you can start your business with very minimal investment. We'd also love to see you in our new free workshop, at poroadmap.com --learn even more about the pro organizing industry from two experts.
Jen and Melissa discuss whether now is a good time to get into the organizing industry. If you have been contemplating a career change or starting a side hustle or part time business, but question if now is the right time in crazy 2020--we give you our wisdom (along with things we've learned from our Inspired Organizer community.)
Kate the Socialite of Socialite Vault joins Jen and Melissa to discuss her passion--marketing for home professionals. Kate works with organizers, interior designers and stagers, and knows home pro entrepreneurship backwards and forwards. She joins us to talk about why marketing isn't scary--and to provide actionable tips on how professional organizers can more successfully market their businesses to clients, even in the crazy 2020 environment.
Kate's website: https://socialitevault.com
For a free workshop for professional organizers:
poroadmap.com/free-workshop
Professional organizer Melissa Klug of Home By Eleven joins the Pro Organizer Studio podcast as a new co-host - AND the guest of the hour on today's episode. You'll hear how she turned an unexpected layoff into a fulfilling career as an organizer that needed to quickly replace a full-time income as a brand new entrepreneur.
I’m sharing a clip directly from a coaching call with one of my Inspired Organizer students for the podcast today, because well, sometimes the best aha moments come completely unscripted! What I loved about this conversation is that you can REALLY hear the huge change in her mindset from the beginning of this segment to the end, and if you can relate to having any hangups about spending money on growing your business, I hope you’ll get a major lightbulb moment out of this, too.
Resources mentioned:
Profit First: https://amzn.to/33OP3db
Fix This Next: https://amzn.to/3itcHA0
Take the Fix This Next quiz: https://jenobermeier.fixthisnext.com/
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/facebook-ads
Lupe Prado is a career coach who helps people figure out how to move toward more fulfillment in their jobs. If you are currently in a job situation that leaves you frustrated or feeling the Sunday scaries, my friend Lupe has tips for recognizing what may really be going on so that you can make tangible, positive changes from where you are. I think you’ll enjoy hearing our interview so that you can be reminded that career fulfillment doesn’t have to mean quitting your job overnight and risking it all - it’s more of a sensitive, long-term process so that you can be sure you’re working toward the dream that feels right for you and your family.
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/career-transitions
If you know you love to organize but are on the fence because you don’t necessarily want to own a business, this interview with Marina Del Giacco is a great reminder that you DO have other options! Apply to work for an established organizing company like Marina did, and you’ll get to focus on just getting in there to actually DO the projects you’re passionate about. She’s sharing a day in the life of being an employee and just how fulfilling that can be.
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/employment
The episode I’m sharing today was pulled from a new Facebook Live series I did all about online business topics. I’m simply teaching for free, sharing resources, and pulling back the curtain and breaking things down step-by-step so that you can 1. KNOW what options you have and what they look like, and 2. Avoid getting burned by someone trying to sell you information that is freely available.
The content today isn’t specific to professional organizers, but it may relate to projects you’re thinking of working on for your business while we are temporarily slowed down from in-home client work. Enjoy.
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/business-automations
Lindsay Maloney is a Rapid Transformational Therapy Practitioner and a self-made business and success coach who specializes in teaching women how to start and scale their dream coaching businesses with simplicity and confidence. We are talking today about what exactly introverted women can do to get unstuck around business growth and making decisions that honor who YOU really are as a professional organizer. You’re going to be shocked to hear what all she accomplishes in a day without identifying herself at all as a “hustler”. Even if you’re an extrovert, you'll feel inspired by this episode to put her tips into action, push your business forward, and work with your dream clients.
What we talk about:
(00:00) - Introduction to the Episode
(01:50) - Lindsay’s business story
(05:45) - Hustling vs. mindful action
(07:45) - Allowing your intuition to guide how you run your business
(12:14) - Trusting your gut instinct
(17:15) - How Lindsay manages her schedule and to-do list
(19:38) - Why introverts are great online business owners
(24:35) - Why introverts make great professional organizers
(25:45) - How to gain traction as an introvert on social media
(30:30) - Believing that what you say does matter
(37:19) - Episode Wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/lindsay-maloney
Laurie Palau is returning as a guest on the podcast today. She hosts the popular SimplyBOrganized podcast and is now working on a new project involving Enneagram and organizing styles.
And, for a fun twist, I also have a guest host today, Konmari platinum-certified organizer, Melissa Klug, sitting in to help me interview Laurie. So fun!
So no matter what your organizing personality or style is, this discussion is definitely going to help you think in a new way about yourself as an organizer and the clients that you’re serving.
What we talk about:
(00:00) - Intro to the Episode
(01:08) - Introducing Laurie Palau and guest-host Melissa Klug (07:42) - Laurie explains her research on the Enneagram
(11:38) - Why Laurie doesn’t test her clients for their Enneagram number
(13:05) - The basics of the Enneagram numbers and their corresponding characteristics
(17:40) - Examples of client/organizer interactions based on their Enneagram types
(22:37) - Laurie explains behavior patterns she sees in organizing clients
(33:00) - How understanding the Enneagram can benefit all areas in our lives
(41:00) - How the Enneagram allows for community over competition
(45:04) - Episode wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/enneagram
My guest on today’s episode is Sherra Humphreys, a professional organizer exclusively focused on photo organization. Her business, Simple Photo Stories, is based in Atlanta and provides photo organizing services both in-person and remotely. I am so excited for her to share the story of her unique niche and the resources she provides to organizers who want to add photo organizing to their offerings. Sherra is super fun to hear from, so I hope you enjoy!
Sherra Humphreys has built a career based on helping women succeed in small business. Her philosophy is to learn the business, do the work, and then help others do the same. Her comprehensive background in business coaching and training means you get real life experience from this business owner. She has been helping women for over 25 years find their passion and turn it into a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. Her life’s work revolves around storytelling through photographs so she is passionate about the photo organization industry. Sherra is the owner of Simple Photo Stories located in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia and works with VIP clients. She and Rita Norton are co-founders of PPO Studio filled with training & resources to help people start offering photo organizing services.
Website - Facebook
Photo Legacy Bundle
Photo Organizer Starter System
PPO Insider Membership
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/photo-organizing
Today, I am sharing an episode that was pulled from a new Facebook Live Series I am doing all about online business topics. Rigth now feels like the right time to share everything I know about this topic freely.
I will not be selling a single thing through this side-venture, just teaching for free and sharing resources, tutorials, and breaking things down step-by-step so that you can 1) know what options you have and what they look like, and 2) avoid getting burned by someone trying to sell you information that is actually freely available.
So, the content today is not specific to professional organizers but it may relate to projects you are thinking of working on for your business while we are temporarily slowed down from in-home client work.
Resources Mentions:
Annette Stepanian - Lawyer for Entrepreneurs
LegalZoom
Related Links:
Covering your legal bases with Annette Stepanian
How to take your pro organizing business online
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/legal-online-business
Although we recorded this episode in January 2020 before our world began to change in unprecedented ways, the advice within is timeless.
Christine Stone is a seasoned professional organizer and the owner of Neatly Designed in Jacksonville, Florida. She has amassed a great following on Instagram, partly because of her consistent and authentic video content about all things organizing, and also because she is seriously devoted to putting her client's needs first. Today, she is joining me on the podcast to share her own business story and her best advice for new and aspiring professional organizers.
Follow Neatly Designed: Website - Facebook- Instagram
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/christine-stone
Today, I am sharing an episode that was pulled from a new Facebook Live Series I am doing all about online business topics. Rigth now feels like the right time to share everything I know about this topic freely.
I will not be selling a single thing through this side-venture, just teaching for free and sharing resources, tutorials, and breaking things down step-by-step so that you can 1) know what options you have and what they look like, and 2) avoid getting burned by someone trying to sell you information that is actually freely available.
So, the content today is not specific to professional organizers but it may relate to projects you are thinking of working on for your business while we are temporarily slowed down from in-home client work.
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/email-marketing
Hi everyone, it’s Jen with a time-sensitive update recorded Monday, April 6th, 2020. As you’re well aware, the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting every industry in the world in different ways. Today I’m sharing a conversation with Samantha Smith, the founder of an app called Vishion which is a color search engine created for the interior design world. Interior designers and professional organizers are closely related enough to be siblings, so it’s really worth a listen to understand what is happening in their businesses right now, too.
In case you didn’t know, the High Point Market is the largest furnishings industry trade show in the world, bringing more than 75,000 people to High Point, North Carolina, every six months. Serious retail home furnishings buyers, interior designers, architects, and others in the home furnishings industry can be found in High Point twice a year because if you can’t find it in High Point…it probably doesn’t exist.
Originally scheduled this spring for April 25-29, a hopeful postponement was announced for June. This condensed Market will run for 3 days instead of the typical 5 and will likely include minimal programming, keeping the focus on appointments and sales meetings within the showrooms.
What this means is that a huge gap is left right now where designers typically cherish the opportunity to travel to High Point to shop, be inspired, learn from industry experts, and spend time socializing with their dear friends and community. You’re about to meet my friend Sam who stepped up to fill this need by creating a virtual market week for April 13th-15th. I’m also excited to be contributing a session on adapting to virtual project management as part of the event her company is hosting.
I hope that you’ll be intrigued by this opportunity to connect and learn from experts in the home services industry and share it with your network of both designers and pro organizer friends who could benefit. If nothing else, Sam’s hustle and heart will hopefully inspire you to not wait to step up and be creative in adapting to the changing needs of this unique time in history.
See the schedule and register for sessions:
https://vishion.co/virtualsessions/
Download the Vishion app (iPhone and iPad): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vishion/id1444176806
https://www.instagram.com/vishionco/
https://www.facebook.com/vishionco
https://twitter.com/vishionco
https://www.linkedin.com/company/vishion/
https://www.pinterest.com/VishionCo/
The rest of the show notes are at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/virtual-market
As female entrepreneurs, who are often also moms & wives, it is so easy to fall into the trap of overwhelm and overwork. How do we find a way to manage our businesses and our goals, and also make time to be present for our families and for our own personal growth?
Hiddy Fletcher of Hiddy & Co. joins me on the podcast today to dig deep into the inner work that needs to happen to slow down and get more done, and why it is so important for women to become more financially savvy.
Hiddy is an absolute gem with so much valuable insight about acknowledging what is truly important. In this time of uncertainty we are facing, this episode is sure to get you thinking about how you can position your business to work for you and not against you, so that you can truly live and work within your purpose, and find fulfillment in it.
What We Talk About
(00:00) - Introduction to the Episode
(01:27) - Introducing Hiddy Fletcher of Hiddy & Co.
(02:27) - Hiddy shares the background of her journey that led her start Hiddy & Co.
(05:29) - Hiddys philosophy behind slowing down to get more done, and living large with less
(11:46) - How to implement this philosophy to impact your life now
(16:30) - Tips for slowing down when it does not come naturally
(20:09) - Why women need to be more financially savvy
(26:48) - Money mindset shifts from living in a caravan for a year
(33:24) - What to do if you feel stuck in your negative money mindset
(37:31) - How Hiddy has influenced her children’s money mindset
(42:42) - Hiddy’s courses, resources and promo code!
(44:54) - Hiddy’s closing message to our community
(46:16) - Episode Wrap-up
Hiddy & Co. Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at
https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/hiddy-fletcher
It never fails that my private coaching clients will say to me that one of their bucket list items is something like writing their own book someday, creating an online program to help people get organized, or even put out their very own organizing method into the world to become the next Marie Kondo.
This episode is for you if you are really excited by the idea of building an online business to make an impact far beyond what you can do with hands-on organizing clients one at a time.
My guest today is Haley Burkhead who helps service-based businesses create that online offer out of your expertise and then implement all of the technical pieces that go into enrolling people into your organizing course or membership site. Buckle up for this one and prepare to have your mind blown.
What We Talk About
(00:00) - Introduction to the Episode
(01:27) - Introducing Haley Burkhead
(03:58) - Figuring out whether or not an online offer is the right next step for you
(05:09) - Molly the Coach
(07:22) - Mia the Leader
(09:16) - How a scalable offer could ensure a longterm career
(11:33) - How to help people without doing the work for them
(21:20) - Reaching a broader audience with an online course or program
(23:57) - Running the revenue numbers
(27:18) - Haley explains the 4 parts to her proven sales machine
(34:12) - How to bring in leads to your sales machine
(39:44) - How Haley can help you get started
(41:37) - Episode Wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/haley-burkhead
We are sharing some bonus content on the podcast about the Coronavirus and how it is affecting professional organizers.
Here is the second episode about how to continue marketing your business during a national (or worldwide) crisis.
To join the conversation, head over to our free Facebook group for TPOP Insiders here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/proorganizerstudiopodcast
We are going to share some bonus content on the podcast about the Coronavirus and how it is affecting professional organizers.
Here is the first short episode about deciding how to work with clients during a voluntary quarantine.
To join the conversation, head over to our free Facebook group for TPOP Insiders here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/proorganizerstudiopodcast/
Ep 47 - Networking with Influencers with Carly Adams
Professional organizer Carly Adams is joining me on the podcast today. Carly is a student of the Inspired Organizer® course, and the owner of Tidy Revival in Sacramento, California. Today, we’re chatting about her business story, and about her experiences networking with influencers. If you love using social media to market your business, or even if you are new to the game, this episode should give you some fresh ideas on how to collaborate with influencers locally to spread awareness and continue scaling your organizing business.
What We Talk About
(00:00) - Intro to the Episode
(01:17) - Carly shares about her journey into professional organizing
(07:09) - Carly’s experience with tapering off her corporate jobs as her business has grown
(13:50) - The benefits of working with The Blog Bloc or other local influencer groups
(19:27) - Some ideas for collaborating and partnering with influencers
(22:40) - Social Media marketing and lead conversion as a result of influencer networking
(25:36) - How to decide what to charge and when to give away free work to an influencer
(29:12) - How to start connecting with influencers from scratch
(32:20) - Some ideas on what kinds of influencers to look for
(36:49) - Gaining followers vs. direct client referrals
(39:57) - Episode Wrap-up
Resources Mentioned:
Influence - https://influence.bloglovin.com/
Trove - https://www.trovebusiness.com/
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/collaborate-with-influencers
For those of you who are into personality types or the 5 love languages, I think you’ll enjoy this quick episode today on 3 styles of relating to others: Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic. Being able to recognize these styles in yourself and in your clients will help you quickly assess how they like to communicate and how they will best learn and grow in your work together.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:00) – 3 Styles of relating to one another
(01:57) – Auditory Relating Style
(06:37) – Visual Relating Style
(10:28) – Kinesthetic Relating Style
(12:55) – Share your biggest takeaway with us!
(13:10) – Episode Wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/personality-types/
Today, I am interviewing a professional organizer and life coach, Carly Tizzano. Carly launched her organizing business fresh out of college, and within her first year of working with clients, she realized she had taken on a coaching role in their lives to work through the mental clutter along with the physical stuff. Carly took an interest in life coaching and decided to become certified through Brook Castillo’s Life Coaching School.
Today, she is sharing her journey into life coaching, and she’ll explain just how relevant and beneficial this avenue of life coaching is to the professional organizing industry. I hope you enjoy and come away from this conversation feeling inspired!
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/carly-tizzzano
My guest today is Sarah Brent of Practical Harmony Professional Organizing. Sarah is a very successful student of the Inspired Organizer® program who has recently stepped up to serve in a mentor role inside our course community. Sarah’s past experiences have a strong impact on the way that she serves her clients, and she is joining me on the show today to share her origin story and why her mission is so important to her personally.
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/personal-journey
I am thrilled to be joined today by Lisa Trigstead, who you may know as NeatFreakMcKinney from her thriving community on Instagram. Lisa started her professional organizing business as a second career, after working as a school teacher for many years. Today, she is sharing her business story, as well as her best time-management tips.
As entrepreneurs, it can definitely be a challenge to keep all the things our lives and businesses going off without a hitch. I hope Lisa’s advice and perspective in this episode helps you find new ways to approach your busy schedule and find more time in the day for the things that truly matter.
(00:00) - Intro to the Episode
(01:09) - Introducing Lisa Trigsted
(02:04) - How Lisa manages her time on Instagram
(05:08) - Lisa shares her business story
(10:08) - How Lisa balances all of the things in her schedule
(12:25) - Lisa’s marketing strategies for attracting clients
(13:53) - Lisa’s experience collaborating with other brands
(15:44) - Why Lisa thinks it’s important to share your personal organizing projects
(20:46) - Lisa’s shares one of her most impactful experiences as an organizer
(31:37) - Lisa’s future plans and ideas for her business
(35:02) - Episode Wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/time-management
Today, I am sharing an imaginary coaching scenario that I’ve pulled together based on a composite of many of the coaching calls I’ve been on the giving and receiving ends of over the last few years. As a professional organizer, I think you’ll relate to at least a few of these challenges I’m going to illustrate when it comes to growing your business. And you’ll also learn a model for empowering yourself with some self-coaching as you are working through your own growth challenges in 2020 and beyond.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:07) – The imaginary business coaching client scenario
(03:15) – Jen explains the Karpman Drama Triangle
(04:47) – The Rescuer
(05:46) – The Persecutor
(06:36) – The Victim
(07:26) – Jen analyses her imaginary coaching scenario using the Karpman Drama Triangle
(13:33) – Episode Wrap-up
Resources mentioned:
The Drama Triangle Book
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/drama-triangle
I am so excited to welcome Heather Freeman of the Decor Fix onto the podcast today! Heather is an interior decorator turned course creator who brings tons of experience and insight that meshes so well into our world as organizers. Today, we are discussing conflict resolution between our clients and their spouses, as well as some tips Heather has learned along the way about bringing all of your experiences in your toolbelt to the table to give the most value to your client. I know she will be a fan favorite, and I can't wait for you to hear her story.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:12) – Heather shares a bit about the evolution of her business
(02:58) – Heather’s tips and insight on client spousal conflict resolution
(08:00) – Developing the tools to create the space for resolving clients’ deeper needs
(11:29) – When your client’s spouse doesn’t agree with hiring an organizer
(16:09) – Being the mediator between a couple during a project
(17:20) – Creating a course or service to upsell to your clients or give alternative value to your audience
(23:10) – Heather explains what it means to upsell
(25:53) – The value of continually investing in education to accelerate your business
(29:45) – What Heather’s business looks like now
(32:43) – Eliminating the fear of creating your own course
(37:31) – Episode Wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer’s Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/client-husband
Today on the podcast, I’m having an awesome conversation with Elli Richter. Elli is a life coach and a Psych-K facilitator. She describes her business as helping people to unblock their subconscious, heal the past and co-create a downstream and purpose-driven life. If you have any interest in our brain and how the subconscious works when it comes to working with organizing clients or even on yourself, I know that you will enjoy this interview.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:10) – Elli shares her story
(02:56) – Tips for practicing compassion with your clients
(05:02) – The science behind our neurological conditioning
(06:57) – Avoiding the “rescuing mode” as a professional organizer
(11:25) – Setting up healthy personal boundaries for the benefit of your business
(17:47) – Elli explains more about Psych-K
(26:05) – Recommended resources for learning more about these topics
(28:05) – Tips on helping your clients through the life-change process of organizing
(34:31) – How to connect with Elli online
(37:10) – Episode Wrap-up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/unlock-mind
Today, I am interviewing Lindsey Escalante. She is a professional organizer at Simplifying The Everyday, out of Seatle Washington. In the short amount of time she has been in business, Lindsey has discovered some unique and innovative ways to save time serving her clients, and also to give back through her business. I know you guys will enjoy this one!
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:23) – How Linsdey got into professional organizing
(04:14) – What led Lindsey to pursue a Konmari Certification
(13:33) – The benefits of the Konmari Certification
(16:36) – Lindsey shares about her new website, Find Organizers That Fit
(19:07) – Behind the scenes of creating Find Organizers That Fit
(22:07) – Ignoring the roadblocks that delay you from accomplishing your goal
(24:07) – Who Find Organizers That Fit is great for
(25:40) – Lindsey’s biggest tip for anyone who is trying to start something new
(31:40) – Lindsey’s Home Refresh projects for foster families
(36:34) – Episode Wrap-Up
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/shop-organizing-products
You’ve probably heard me say that actually doing an organizing job is all very personalized to your style, how you prefer to work, and the client’s specific project because everybody has different stuff. One of the biggest keys to being successful is knowing how to competently serve them the moment you show up so that they can immediately feel the difference and see the value of your work together. Whether this is your first client or your fiftieth client, every single job is going to feel like you’re starting over again just a little bit, since you learn something new each time.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:11) – Recognizing your clients' clues on how to serve them well
(03:37) – The example of the Working Couple
(05:44) – Knowing what to do during your first session with a new client
(07:59) – Developing systems based on your clients’ individual routines
(09:42) – How the Inspired Organizer® course prepares you for the consultation
(14:13) – Showing up confidently and getting started on your first job
(20:14) – The emotional contrast between the client and the organizer
(21:37) – Episode Wrap-up & An invitation to Jen’s FREE CLASS.
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
Get on our waiting list for more information about the Inspired Organizer® course.
Download the Professional Organizer's Roadmap to Success.
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/understanding-client-needs
In October 2019, I held the second-ever live retreat experience for Pro Organizer Studio. It was a group of 12 women, hosted in Las Vegas, NV. So before you start thinking we were just partying for 5 days, believe me - we got a lot of work done! But we also had a lot of fun. To recap our experience, I invited Megan Rogers, who is a professional organizer from Oklahoma, today to talk about her retreat experience, and what all went down.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:20) – Megan shares how she get into professional organizing
(09:50) – A recap of the Las Vegas retreat
(14:48) – The format of the retreat
(16:46) – Jen’s one-on-one coaching sessions
(21:30) – Information about future events
(22:25) – Megan shares more about her business plans
(25:42) – Megan’s favorite podcasts
(27:47) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/vegas-retreat
My guest today is McKayla Thompson. McKayla is 18 years old, and she a professional organizer who launched her business before she even graduated high school. As you can imagine, she is extremely ambitious and motivated to be an entrepreneur and get her business going in Ohio.
Today’s episode is actually a coaching call, where I will be talking with her about where she is with her business now, what obstacles she is facing, and what actions she can take to overcome those obstacles. So, if you are listening today, you are likely to be inspired by her level of self-awareness and her dreams for her business. And regardless of your age or stage of business, I think you will also relate to some of the common fears that organizers have everywhere. I hope you get a lot out of listening in on this coaching session!
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:55) – McKayla shares why she started her business and her current struggles
(03:10) – Addressing McKayla’s client pre-qualification process
(13:15) – Addressing McKayla’s marketing strategy
(18:44) – Dealing with people who discourage you about your business
(25:47) – Benefits of a strong support system
(32:07) – Connecting with Real Estate Agents
(33:45) – Mindset shifts for boundaries and knowing your worth in your client process
(39:59) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/coaching-session
Kamille Sommer is a professional organizer in Denmark. I know there are many women listening to the podcast who are wondering, “could I ever start an organizing business where I live? No one here has ever HEARD of this industry.” Today you’ll learn what she has done and continues to do as a trailblazer in her country to educate the population and get clients. She’s also found ways to expand her business online, all while keeping her part-time day job. I hope you’re ready to take notes because there’s a lot to be inspired by in this episode.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:09) – Introducing Kamille
(01:57) – Kamille shares how her organizing business got started
(06:00) – How Kamille has worked to spread awareness of organizing in Denmark
(09:15) – The differences between the European mindset of outsourcing versus the US
(11:09) – How Kamille balances her part-time job with her business and life
(12:40) – Representing the organizing industry for Denmark’s equivalent of Houzz
(14:20) – Kamille’s Organizing Club membership program
(20:30) – The difference in Kamille’s business now that more people know about organizing
(29:14) – What Kamille wants to do next to expand her business
(31:08) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/denmark-organizer
Maybe is it just a stereotype, but most professional organizers are list-makers. I know that organizers are also super tough on themselves, and I think it’s unfortunate that we have this long list of all of our shortcomings that we are carrying around in our heads all of the time. I think it’s important to counteract that with some positivity. So, for today’s podcast, I’m sharing 3 lists to make to increase your confidence.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:39) – The journaling exercise that changed my life
(02:41) – The list challenge
(02:57) – List #1 - The timeline of accomplishments
(07:44) – List #2 - Accomplishments that are not time-specific
(10:46) – List #3 - Above and beyond accomplishments
(13:04) – Bringing it all together mentally for confidence and direction
(17:18) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes are at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/confidence-lists
I am super excited for this interview with Moriah Riona. She is an award-winning graphic designer and brand strategist who owns a full-service branding and marketing studio for creative female entrepreneurs. Moriah’s passion is helping other women succeed in business by giving them the tools they need show up confidently, attract the right clients, get paid what they’re worth, and build brands and lives that they love.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(02:30) – Moriah shares about her business and client process
(04:50) – What is driving Moriah’s clients to re-brand?
(07:00) – How to differentiate yourself from your competition
(08:00) – The future of professional organizing
(10:00) – Why not to copy your competition
(12:09) – How to know when to bite the bullet and re-brand
(17:17) – The role social media has played in entrepreneurial overwhelm
(19:40) – Moriah shares about her work in social media strategy and management
(27:00) – How to hone in on your vision and bring it to life in an authentic way
(32:00) – Moriah shares about her new social media course
(33:50) – Creating teams and systems behind our businesses
(40:00) – Moriah shares how she sets boundaries as a work-from-home mom
(45:40) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/brand-strategy
Today, I am chatting with Di Ter Avest, owner of Di Is Organized in Baltimore, MD. While I have heard many aspiring organizers say that they want to wait to start their business until their young children are in school, Di Ter Avest shares how she manages her organizing business with two little ones. With the right support system, healthy boundaries and some pre-planning, balancing your priorities may not be as hard as you think.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:00) – Di shares how she started her business
(06:53) – How Di’s confidence has grown since going through Inspired Organizer®
(11:10) – How Di balances work in her business and family life
(15:18) – Di describes her experience in the Inspired Organizer® Facebook community
(18:14) – How Di created a brand that fits her authentic self
(20:39) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/mom-boss/
Today, I am joined by Ashley and Julie, who are business partners behind Mind Your Mess in Houston, TX. I hope you’ll listen to their entire story. If you’re a solo organizer who has ever been interested in bringing on a business partner, you will definitely want to hear how these two met, how their partnership was formed, and where Mind Your Mess is headed today. Their friendship and sky’s-the-limit mindset are truly inspiring.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(00:56) – Introducing Ashley and Julie
(01:50) – How Ashley and Julie met and became business partners
(04:49) – How Mind Your Mess handles client projects then vs. now
(09:15) – How Ashley and Julie knew they were the right fit
(13:20) – How Ashley and Julie divide up tasks in the business
(19:35) – The ladies share their advice on what to look for in a business partner
(23:15) – Exciting news about expanding Mind Your Mess
(28:20) – Laura Berg’s position on the Mind Your Mess team
(29:36) – Seeking guidance on how to structure a business expansion legally
(32:04) – The ladies share how the Inspired Organizer® course impacted them
(38:15) – Julie shares an inspiring quote about the power of commitment
(41:14) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/partnership
Something I often tell my students is that there is no growth in your comfort zone. Today, I am reaching out of my comfort zone again to share some of my personal highs and lows as an entrepreneur. From my journey as a professional organizer to the growth that I have seen through Pro Organizer Studio, I truly feel that this online community has watched me grow up in many ways. Here are some lessons that I have learned throughout my 5 years in business.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:04) – The history behind launching Pro Organizer Studio
(03:16) – What I’ve learned from all the emotions that come with entrepreneurial life
(5:58) – The importance of continuous challenges
(7:49) – Finding my true purpose by showing up consistently
(9:13) – You have what it takes to step up and show up
(10:34) – How I came to the conclusion to get certified as a business coach
(14:22) – Four areas in which I struggle and am working to change
(16:22) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/lessons-learned
Today, I am joined again by the incredible Sam Pregenzer of Simply Organized. Sam has found much success in the organizing world, but it doesn’t come without a cost. Today she opened up about the growing pains of entrepreneurial life. Sometimes balancing multiple business projects and multiple kids’ schedules is just not that pretty, and finding time for self-care becomes a bit of a chess game. Clearly she is finding a way to make it work. I hope this candid conversation encourages you today.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:30) – Sam shares about her busy summer and getting back into fall routines
(08:28) – Customizing workflows around a unique and growing business
(14:16) – Projects that Sam enjoys the most
(16:16) – How Sam became a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens
(20:21) – The process of rebranding Simply Organized to SO|Home
(21:41) – Sam talks about choosing partnerships with other companies
(22:22) – Sam shares about moving and her plans for her new house
(25:04) – How Sam finds time for self-care
(28:40) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes canes be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/sam-pregenzer
Today I am super excited to be chatting with Matlin Pessarra of Minimized Professional Organizers in Charlotte, NC. In the two short years that Matlin has been in business, she has grown a massive Instagram following and she has worked with a number of local influencers and celebrities in Charlotte. I have invited her onto the podcast today to talk all about her experiences with business collaborations.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(00:55) – Introducing Matlin Pessarra
(1:22) – How Matlin got into professional organizing
(3:40) – Matlin shares how her business has evolved since she first launched
(6:10) – How Matlin has used Instagram strategically as a marketing tool
(10:25) – How Matlin got started with collaborations
(12:50) – Collaborating with influencers
(18:30) – Collaborating with celebrities
(23:36) – Collaborating as an alternative to paid advertising
(25:34) – Cold-approaching businesses to initiate a collaboration
(27:55) – Lessons Matlin has learned from business collaborations
(30:41) – Matlin's advice to new business owners
(32:04) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/collaborations
This week on the podcast, my guest is professional blogger and planner designer, Laura Smith of I Heart Planners. In this interview, we have covered her business journey as an organizing-focused blogger, all the way to being the designer of The Sweet Life Planner. She has done all kinds of interesting things related to organizing for her audience online. So, if you're interested in creating more for your organizing business online, you are really going to love this episode!
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:07) – Introducing Laura Smith
(01:42) – Laura shares how I Heart Planners got started
(4:23) – How Laura transitioned out of her full-time job
(6:11) – Creating and selling printables
(10:58) – How Laura created her ideal planner
(16:50) – Laura shares the details of her online organizing summit, GetOrganizedHQ
(18:42) – The Sweet Life Society membership program
(20:54) – Laura’s blogging schedule and tips for consistency
(26:15) – How to deal with the comparison game
(30:28) – How to not give up on your business
(35:10) – How to fight perfectionism
(39:11) – Laura shares how she uses audience feedback to plan her content
(44:19) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/planners
In this week's episode, I am featuring one of my Inspired Organizer® students, Kandy Negus of Order Your Spaces. One of my goals with this podcast is to feature professional organizers who are living their dream in a wide variety of life circumstances, backgrounds, and business goals. I hope you enjoy listening to Kandy's inspiring story today.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(00:55) – Introducing Kandy Negus
(1:52) – How Kandy got into professional organizing
(5:02) – What gave Kandy the push to finally launch her business
(6:23) – Kandy shares her “why” for choosing this path
(7:39) – A message to the perfectionists
(8:35) – Advice for aspiring professional organizers
(11:37) – The technical side of business for the digitally challenged
(16:38) – Kandy shares the benefits of an accountability partner/community
(17:37) – Personal boundaries and schedule as a solopreneur
(19:17) – Kandy’s plans to expand her business
(22:49) – Living your purpose regardless of your stage of life
(25:21) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/retirement-career
I'm excited to welcome back Nikki Boyd of At Home With Nikki. Nikki is a professional organizer in the Charleston, SC area who started her business 6 years ago with a YouTube channel. Her brand has now expanded to a local organizing business, a new book called Beautifully Organized, virtual coaching services for clients worldwide, and much more. Today, we are catching up on what is new in Nikki's world. I am sure you will enjoy this one!
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:12) – Check out our 2017 interview with Nikki Boyd
(02:30) – Nikki shares the process of writing her book, Beautifully Organized
(5:35) – How Nikki’s book is different than other organizing books
(6:35) – Update on At Home With Nikki
(9:49) – What does a normal day look like for Nikki?
(11:37) – Nikki shares about working with client’s virtually
(12:31) – How Nikki’s virtual organizing process has changed
(13:12) – Nikki’s biggest learning curve as a businesswoman
(14:47) – How big is Nikki’s team?
(15:35) – Nikki’s open showroom office
(19:35) – What does Nikki do to stay on top of her busy schedule
(20:50) – Nikki’s thoughts on her own self-care
(24:00) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/nikki-boyd-brand
In this week's episode, I'm sharing a new concept that I've coined "the 2080 principle," which is my take on the mindset shift that is needed in order to break the cycle of discontent, boredom, and struggle that may be related to your daily habits. If you're ready to take the steps towards creating your ideal future, I hope you'll tune in for this one.
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(01:10) – The 8020 Rule & how I stumbled upon the 2080 Principle
(02:25) – How some organizing philosophies could lead us astray
(04:14) – Organizing your life around your future goals
(06:07) – Life lessons I’ve gleaned from my baby-boomer husband
(07:44) – The 2080 Principle defined
(08:03) – My vision and priorities for my 2080 self
(08:35) – The challenge
(10:13) – The 3 priorities framework
(11:10) – Jen’s strategy for 2080 success
(15:36) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/2080-principle
In this week's episode, I am chatting with professional organizers Cabri Carpenter and Sarah Brent. Cabri and Sarah found each other through the Accountability Partner program we offer as a perk of our Inspired Organizer® membership. Due to the intentional changes they have made in their mindsets around money and self-worth, they have both taken huge steps forward in their businesses this year. I am so thrilled to have them share their stories with you today.
(00:00) – Introduction to the episode
(01:27) – Introducing Cabri & Sarah
(03:10) – More about the Accountability Partner Program
(04:23) – Cabri & Sarah’s experience as Accountability Partners
(07:08) – How Jen Sincero’s book influenced Cabri and Sarah
(08:16) – How Sarah gained the confidence to raise her rates
(10:22) – Pinpointing your negative money mindset themes in order to rewrite them
(15:40) – Cabri shares about the snowball effect of goal-setting
(19:20) – What Cabri would tell her past self
(21:30) – What Sarah would tell her past self
(26:45) – Sarah shares what happened when she stopped taking non-organizing side jobs
(33:38) – Cabri shares why she turned down a full-time warehouse organizing position
(38:00) – Money Mindset book recommendations
(41:46) – Episode Wrap-up
Resources mentioned:
You Are A Badass At Making Money
Profit First
The Total Money Makeover
Secrets of The Millionaire Mind
Sell Or Be Sold
The Life Coach School Podcast
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/money-mindset
In today’s episode, I’m excited to introduce Caitlin Strempel of CRS Digital Marketing. Caitlin is a digital marketing strategist and SEO expert who is actually a part of our network of preferred service providers for Pro Organizer Studio. I invited Caitlin onto the podcast today to share some helpful tips for tweaking your website SEO to get you more traffic as a professional organizer. This episode is packed with great information. I learned a lot myself! You’ll definitely want to have a pen and paper handy for this one.
(00:00) – Introduction to the episode
(01:05) – Introducing Caitlin
(3:40) – What is the goal of SEO and why is it important?
(5:42) – Why SEO should be a higher priority than social media engagement
(7:10) – What keywords should professional organizers use?
(8:57) – Caitlin shares tips specific to the organizing industry
(13:07) – How to use competitor research for SEO
(15:42) – One thing you can do to enhance your SEO rankings today
(16:43) – What to expect when you decide to hire an SEO expert
(18:07) – Blogging tips for SEO
(21:10) – How GoogleMyBusiness will help with SEO
(24:50) – Caitlin’s Top 3 suggestions to do NOW to enhance your SEO
(26:56) – Where to find more of Caitlin’s free SEO tips
(27:36) – How to work with Caitlin
(28:33) – Episode Wrap-up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/seo-for-organizers
In today's episode, I am walking you through my brainstorm of ideas on expanding your professional organizing business online- from creating inexpensive lead magnets to all-inclusive online courses. I hope this episode leaves you feeling super inspired and motivates you to explore how you can showcase your expertise to a much larger audience. This is truly my favorite topic!
(00:00) – Intro to the Episode
(3:52) – Why an online component in your business is a good idea
(5:30) – Types of online products
(12:00) – “Holiday organizing specialty” Case study
(15:30) – Creating a funnel for your online business
(18:15) – Ideas for a “gated” information product
(22:01) – Pros of a Facebook group
(24:15) – Jen’s proven Facebook group strategy
(26:28) – Cons of a Facebook group
(31:24) – Ideas for a cheap information product
(41:57) – Ideas for a medium level information product
(46:40) – Tips for creating a small course
(53:00) – Tips and ideas for creating a large course
(1:13:13) – Would I change my strategy if I were to do it all over again?
(1:20:25) – The process for creating a product
(1:30:30) – Copywriting that speaks to your audience's needs
(1:34:30) – Lessons I’ve learned along the way
(1:43:39) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/online-business
In today's episode, Abby Lawson joins me to share all about her experience as the owner of the popular organizing blog, Just A Girl And Her Blog. Abby is truly one of the queens of the organizing world. She has built her entire career around creating quality video and blog content through organizing her own home and office. In this interview, Abby has lots of tips on creating videos and blog content, as well as how to get started with affiliate marketing.
(00:00) – Introduction to the episode
(01:00) – Introducing Abby Lawson
(03:17) – Abby shares her experience creating content full time for her blog and YouTube
(05:58) – How Abby found out about the professional organizing industry
(07:30) – Tips for starting a blog and what to post
(11:20) – Abby’s #1 tip for posting on social platforms
(12:47) – Some ways Abby has monetized her blog and Instagram
(20:30) – Abby shares why she started her YouTube channel
(24:19) – How Abby plans out her projects in advance
(26:34) – How video makes your audience feel more connected to you
(29:10) – The one big thing that Abby would do differently if she could start over
(30:54) – Abby explains why email marketing is crucial to sales
(33:20) – Why email marketing is important for professional organizers
(35:50) – How to create quality content when you don't have a chic home
(39:01) – More info on applying for affiliate marketing
(40:05) – Abby’s preferred email marketing service
(41:05) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/blogging-niche
In this week's episode, I am chatting with professional organizer and Inspired Organizer® student Kathleen MacAinsh. Kathleen's mission is to serve young moms who need tools to help raise their children in a structured home they can feel safe and empowered in. Kathleen is a true innovator with a beautiful heart. I can't wait for you to hear some of her new ideas.
(00:00) – Introduction to the episode
(01:02) – Introducing Kathleen MacAinsh
(01:43) – What inspired Kathleen to start her organizing business
(02:24) – Kathleen shares about her organizing niche
(03:08) – Kathleen’s reasons for organizing as a side-business only
(05:04) – How Kathleen balances life and work
(05:50) – Kathleen’s mission as a professional organizer
(06:55) – Kathleen shares some of her personal story that led her to organizing
(10:12) – The importance of children learning to be organized
(13:17) – Kathleen shares her future plans for her business
(16:46) – Kathleen explains what she has learned about different organizing styles
(21:13) – How user experience correlates to the various organizing styles
(24:08) – Kathleen shares more benefits of having an organized home
(25:08) – How you can find and follow Kathleen
(26:22) – Episode wrap up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/organize-kids
In this week's episode, I am joined by professional organizer Brie Kistler, who also happens to be my Operations Manager at Pro Organizer Studio. Today we are talking about what goes on behind the scenes at Pro Organizer Studio, as well as some tips we have learned recently to help the business run as smoothly as possible. We will be sharing our experience as students of Adrienne Dorison's new course, Run Like Clockwork.
(00:00) – Introduction to the episode
(01:01) – Introducing Brie Kistler
(02:15) – How Brie and Jen met and starting working together
(06:41) – Brie’s role at Pro Organizer Studio
(08:10) – Why we read the book Clockwork by Mike Micalowicz
(09:10) – Finding the Run Like Clockwork course by Adrienne Dorison
(09:43) – Why we decided to enroll in Run Like Clockwork
(10:07) – Brie’s summary of the Clockwork book
(10:55) – How even a solo pro organizer can benefit from this book
(15:17) – Easy steps you can take right now to get started "clockworking" your business
(16:04) – Recapping our favorite lessons and tools we learned from Run Like Clockwork
(22:29) – How the course has changed the way we work as a team
(27:05) – Jen explains what bottlenecks are and how to avoid them in your business
(32:30) – Brie shares why she loves her job
(33:36) – Information about the Pro Organizer Studio Retreats
(34:48) – Episode Wrap-Up
Resources Mentioned:
Run Like Clockwork Course
Clockwork Book
Profit First Book
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-18/
In this week's episode, I am interviewing Liz Brigham, a dear friend of mine as well as the Manager of Ageless Remedies, a luxury medical spa in Charlotte, NC. I invited her on for a special chat all about creating luxury customer service experiences! She has lots of great tips for building your confidence and designing your services around your customer's true needs. Don't miss this one if you have ever felt nervous about targeting affluent clientele for any reason.
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(01:02) – Introduction to Liz Brigham
(03:36) – How Liz got into the customer service field
(06:38) – How Liz integrates team members that fit the company culture
(09:48) – Who is Liz’s niche target market
(10:56) – How Liz trains her team to be customer-centric
(19:12) – Liz explains why referrals are so powerful
(21:27) – What role confidentiality plays in luxury businesses
(33:29) – The hesitancy around investing in luxury services
(37:34) – How to convey trust in your business
(46:39) – How to start targeting high-end clientele
(51:54) – The number one way to exude confidence in selling your services
(01:00:26) – How Liz handled a difficult customer service issue
(01:16:28) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/luxury-service
In today's episode, I'm chatting with Samantha Pregenzer, a blogger and professional organizer in San Francisco, CA. She is a NAPO member, DIYer, and the writer behind the Simply Organized blog. Helping people get organized is her passion - but the blog and thriving Instagram community are the heart of her business. Today, we are digging a little deeper into how her business got started, and how she grew her Instagram following to where it is today!
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(00:55) – Introduction to Samantha Pregenzer
(02:05) – Why Samantha started her blog before Instagram
(05:13) – How Samantha plans out her Instagram content
(08:46) – How to get the best lighting in your Instagram photos
(11:09) – How many clients Samantha gets from her Instagram
(12:23) – What other opportunities have come to Samantha
(15:02) – Where the majority of her traffic comes from
(21:38) – How Samantha prices her services
(33:19) – What Samantha makes working for The Container Store
(34:19) – The down-low of liability insurance
(37:50) – The secrets around NAPO’s pricing suggestions
(40:12) – How Samantha handles clients red flag clients
(41:53) – Samantha’s #1 tip for organizers just starting out
(48:08) – Samantha’s take on organizing virtually with Evernote
(50:47) – Samantha’s first organizing job
(52:10) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/instagram
In this week's episode, I’m chatting with attorney Annette Stepanian all about exactly what it takes to start your business legally. Annette Stepanian is a traditionally educated lawyer and business strategist who equips other creative professionals and small business owners with the legal and business knowledge needed to confidently start and grow their businesses.
Combining her passion for law and small business, Annette seeks to make the law practical, approachable, and dare we say it - even a little fun!
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(01:13) – Introduction to Annette Stepanian
(01:46) – Annette’s funny organizing story
(05:03) – How Annette ended up where she is right now in her legal career
(09:19) – How to know when you have your legal bases covered
(10:54) – Why legal stuff feels so scary
(14:08) – When is the right time to legalize your business
(17:10) – What you should do when you’re ready to start legalizing your business
(29:11) – How to approach a local lawyer
(37:15) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/legal-advice
In this week's episode, I am interviewing YouTuber Nikki Boyd. Nikki is the creator of the popular lifestyle brand At Home With Nikki on YouTube. She also offers professional organizing services in the Charleston, SC area and all over the world via “virtual organizing.” My interview with her covered all kinds of topics, including how she got started on YouTube, things she’s learned from her audience, and how she found out that being a professional organizer was a real business.
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(00:54) – Introduction to Nikki Boyd
(01:28) – How Nikki started her YouTube channel
(03:58) – How long it took Nikki to cultivate her community
(07:30) – What inspired Nikki to start working with people 1-on-1
(09:35) – How Nikki juggles creating content and client work
(12:09) – What virtual organizing is and how to start doing it
(15:53) – How Nikki gets away with doing very little marketing
(18:35) – Who virtual organizing is NOT for
(20:36) – The best way to do a consult with a virtual organizing client
(22:17) – Tips on creating video content
(24:58) – Nikki’s new subscription service
(26:19) – Nikki’s view on pricing your services
(28:40) – Nikki shares about her team
(34:39) – More information about Nikki’s subscription box
(37:09) – How to clean your office weekly
(40:30) – How Nikki feels about being an African-American in this industry
(42:29) – Nikki’s viewpoint on books like The Magic Art of Tidying Up
(45:21) – Nikki’s last tips
(47:13) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/podcast/nikki-boyd
In today’s episode, I am really excited to have on another professional organizer and mentor, Kate Jones of Kate Waldo + Co. She specializes in providing tools for bloggers and influencers to streamline and organize the behind-the-scenes of their businesses. This allows them to focus on doing what they love. Plus, she’ll be sharing all about how her business got to where it is today. It’s an incredible story so you’ll definitely want to be taking notes on this one.
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(01:07) – Introduction to Kate Jones of Kate Waldo + Co.
(04:44) – How Kate became a systems nerd
(08:03) – The breakdown of tweaking your systems to maximize efficiency
(10:27) – How Orchid Organizing became Kate Waldo + Co.
(13:04) – Why Kate chose the niche she did for streamlining
(18:31) – What is an influencer, really?
(21:42) – How to do giveaways that increase your influence
(24:28) – What levels of influence are there?
(29:24) – Kate’s last tips
(32:08) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/workflow
In today’s episode, I am going to share with you a question from an anonymous student who is wondering if becoming a professional organizer is right for her. She agreed to let you listen in on our call where I address what worries her when it comes to starting her business. If you’re still wondering if this profession is really for you, don’t miss this episode! Nothing is off-limits in this private conversation.
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(02:14) – The biggest fears around starting a professional organizing business
(04:48) – What to do if your biggest fear is safety
(11:08) – The best way to market your business (and it’s free!)
(16:26) – Learn your pace for growing your business
(19:04) – Insights taken from Nikki Boyd about starting a virtual organizing business
(20:50) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/anonymous-student
Today we’re going to chat with two incredible women from the A to B Podcast about how they built an awesome professional organizer community through podcasting. (Fun fact: Autumn was actually the first student in my program, Inspired Organizer®). They were inspired to start the podcast by taking their weekly phone chats to the public by sharing their life and experiences.
(00:00) – Introduction to this episode
(01:00) – Introduction to Autumn Nyby and Bethany Lockhart
(02:14) – How the A to B Podcast came about
(09:29) – The epic shredding event Bethany wants to host
(15:26) – Tips for moms to declutter and without getting overwhelmed
(19:31) – What has changed in Bethany's life since the podcast launched
(29:29) – Hear how Autumn's seen the most professional growth
(31:11) – Bethany and Autumn's last tips
(32:49) – Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/community-building
Today we're going to chat about something super specific and special for getting your organizing business services off the ground. Make sure you take notes on this one because it's a brand new take on what organizers can do to network with their competition and get more clients!
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(01:08) - Introduction to Boss Project Abagail and Emylee
(03:16) - How to create a referral system with your competition
(11:42) - What problem you're solving for busy, successful organizers with this method
(17:58) - Why being an introvert can't be your excuse with this simple method
(20:15) - How to get more of the clients you love
(29:00) - The nitty-gritty about starting out your business with referrals
(32:52) - Why big businesses were built on relationships
(39:12) - A last tip on how to stop getting out of your own way
(41:04) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/network-competition
Today, we're going to chat about what it takes to achieve your business goals regardless of obstacles. You can be sure that life will, at times, be a twisting path of potholes around which you must navigate. Let's talk about how to stay invested in the long game.
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(00:41) - What my story about becoming a professional organizer really looked like
(03:49) - Why it’s important to know what you want your life to be like
(05:13) - How to infuse your goals into your everyday life
(09:50) - Homework for you to start reaching your goals
(10:50) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/achieve-goals
In this episode, I'm joined by one of my students, professional organizer Angela Allred. We're going to talk about what all went down at the first-ever professional organizer's retreat with Pro Organizer Studio, how the retreat had an immediate impact on Angela's business and what's coming next in our retreat schedule.
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(01:00) - Introducing Angela Allred
(03:07) - The main reason Angela was so excited about my retreat
(08:22) - What theme I had for the retreat
(14:28) - A big action Angela took at the retreat that changed her business
(20:48) - What it’s like being in person with your Internet friends
(24:36) - The environment of a luxury retreat
(28:57) - Details about the upcoming Las Vegas retreat in 2019!
(34:52) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/paf-retreat
In today's episode, I'm joined by Jennifer Ford Berry who is a professional organizer and author, and now the leader of a brand new conference called Created Order. I'm chatting with her about the direction her organizing business has gone, how she has incorporated her faith into her message, and what's coming next.
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(00:57) - Introduction to guest, Jennifer Ford Berry
(04:02) - Why we are working so hard to maintain things that don’t make us happy
(05:58) - Jennifer’s new big idea
(13:31) - What Jennifer’s vision is to create order community
(15:23) - How to create accountability
(21:00) - The details about this year’s conference or next year’s waitlist
(25:02) - Some inspiration from Jennifer
(32:40) - Where to find Jennifer Ford Berry
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/faith-and-business
In today's episode, I am chatting with my friend Laurie Palau, host of the podcast, This Organized Life and the creator of a partner program for professional organizers through her business, Simply B Organized. We are chatting all about podcasting and about what she offers for professional organizers. Plus, check out where she sees herself going as an entrepreneur in this industry!
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(00:59) - Introduction to guest Laurie Palau
(01:47) - What Laurie believes is the most interesting thing about herself
(04:54) - Why building a community around a podcast was a good idea
(10:13) - The most surprising aspect of Laurie’s partner program
(13:15) - The funny story of how Laurie and I met
(16:10) - How Laurie launched a podcast and book in one year
(20:25) - Laurie’s tips around self-publishing a book
(22:06) - What Laurie’s next book will be about
(25:03) - Get educated on what the clutter clinic is
(30:14) - The real life of Laurie Palau
(32:33) - How Laurie’s transitions from doing all the things to a single focus
(38:26) - How to limit yourself on social media
(43:54) - What Laurie does at this stage in business to continue to be inspired
(46:04) - The best book or podcast Laurie has experienced recently
(49:15) - Where to find Laurie Palau
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-6
This episode is my audio guide on getting your professional organizing business started. It is all about getting your first REAL paying clients... so are you ready to start making money doing something that you're basically already obsessed with?
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(01:37) - Insights into the professional organizing industry
(06:18) - The 3 real requirements to become a professional organizer
(10:49) - What makes up a simple and modern website
(16:39) - The sales game changer for you to get your very first client
(24:00) - What the number one myth around personal organization businesses
(30:16) - How professional organizers and hoarders have something in common
(34:56) - The top time management tips to stay on track
(41:46) - What I regret not doing from Day 1
(47:16) - What the National Association of Professional Organizers can offer you
(48:45) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-5
In this episode, I am joined by author and professional organizer, Jennifer Ford Berry. She's going to share her story and all kinds of tips on getting published as a professional organizer and what authoring books has done for her business. This is a super interesting interview, so I hope you enjoy!
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(00:53) - Introduction to guest, Jennifer Ford Berry
(05:53) - How Jennifer’s first book was born
(08:51) - How Jennifer took the leap of faith and balanced family and business
(11:07) - What Jennifer attributes the most growth happening for her business
(15:12) - Insights on how the book helped Jennifer gain credibility
(17:39) - What advice Jennifer has for building your professional organizing empire
(19:30) - What Jennifer’s next ideas and plans are for her business
(27:05) - The underlying reason your clients are unorganized
(33:29) - Hear Jennifer’s why for her professional organization business
(37:47) - Where to find Jennifer Ford Berry
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-4
Today we're going to be talking about the book called Profit First. This episode is going to be full of business finance tips just for professional organizers! And if you have never run a business before, you're definitely going to want to take notes on this one.
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(00:51) - Recommended reading material: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
(04:18) - How to ensure your business is profitable
(06:21) - The four “envelopes” you should for your money
(11:09) - Outlining your ideal financial targets for your business
(17:02) - Know if business insurance is important for you
(19:40) - A practical breakdown of the Profit First model
(25:07) - What you should stop doing if you don’t have the capacity
(27:32) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-3
In this episode, we're going to talk about more than 20 ways to work on your side hustle from your phone. That means that no matter where you are, whether you're sitting in car line or you're on your lunch break at your day job, you could be doing something productive to launch and grow your organizing business.
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(00:52) - How to maximize the little bits of time to get stuff done
(02:20) - Overcoming the overwhelm of client communication
(05:31) - Learning new skills through courses or videos
(12:07) - Creating consistent time for research
(16:58) - My top tool for keeping your projects on track
(21:21) - How to professionally organize your subscribers consistently
(24:57) - What software I use to manage my receipts
(29:04) - Maximizing your Pinterest game
(33:11) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-2
In this episode, we're going to talk about over 20 different ways to market your professional organizing business. Make sure you get your notebook and a pen... You're going to want to take notes on this one.
(00:00) - Introduction to this episode
(01:24) - How my perfectionism sabotaged my social media marketing
(04:03) - One great leveraged way to promote your business
(06:39) - What Kate Spade has to do with this next-level hack
(09:39) - How to network with intention
(12:08) - A major mistake I made when I started my business
(17:11) - A strategy that has been the backbone of my business
(27:16) - How to create a giveaway that will yield clients
(31:37) - How interviews can increase your credibility in the space
(35:52) - A really simple way to host events
(40:52) - If Twitter is your jam, pay attention to this tactic
(45:47) - An underutilized strategy for fans of blogs
(53:58) - Episode Wrap-Up
The rest of the show notes can be found at proorganizerstudio.com/blog/podcast-episode-1