The Pro Organizer Studio Podcast
Pro Organizer Studio is a business building resource for professional organizers. We are here to help you launch & grow the professional organizing business of your dreams! Founder Jen Kilbourne has been coaching, supporting & inspiring savvy businesswomen in the home organizing industry since 2016. Melissa Klug, master certified professional organizer and founder of home organization business Home By Eleven, joined Pro Organizer Studio in 2020 to help even more women grow in the industry.
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192 | Social Media for Organizers: Real Talk!
04/15/2024
192 | Social Media for Organizers: Real Talk!
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: Prior social media episodes referenced: 142 + 143 Bee Movie clip--"this time!":
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191 | Helping Clients Through Grief with Missi McKown of Clear Spaces Organizing
04/01/2024
191 | Helping Clients Through Grief with Missi McKown of Clear Spaces Organizing
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.
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190 | Easy Sustainability Tips for Organizers + A Fab Pricing Concept | Michelle Parravani of Designing With Less
03/28/2024
190 | Easy Sustainability Tips for Organizers + A Fab Pricing Concept | Michelle Parravani of Designing With Less
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
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189 | Single Entrepreneurship: Organizing as a single woman with Michelle Parravani
03/27/2024
189 | Single Entrepreneurship: Organizing as a single woman with Michelle Parravani
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!
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188 | Photo Organizing with Rachel Arbuckle of 2000 Paces
03/18/2024
188 | Photo Organizing with Rachel Arbuckle of 2000 Paces
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: Connect with Pro Organizer Studio:
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187 | The Right Words = Organizing Clients! Marketing in 2024 with Meg Mueller of The Lit Bulb
03/11/2024
187 | The Right Words = Organizing Clients! Marketing in 2024 with Meg Mueller of The Lit Bulb
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.
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186 | When it's time to quit a client--p 2 of the hard part of organizing entrepreneurship
03/08/2024
186 | When it's time to quit a client--p 2 of the hard part of organizing entrepreneurship
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.
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185 | "I Quit!!!" --the How and Why of Exiting a Bad Client Situation
03/04/2024
185 | "I Quit!!!" --the How and Why of Exiting a Bad Client Situation
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:
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184 | Getting "ADHD Curious" with Missi McKown
02/29/2024
184 | Getting "ADHD Curious" with Missi McKown
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.
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183 | Those "5 Minute Podcast" Pitches: Just Say No! Yet More Scams in Organizing To Watch Out For
02/26/2024
183 | Those "5 Minute Podcast" Pitches: Just Say No! Yet More Scams in Organizing To Watch Out For
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! Learn more about Missi McKown and Clear Spaces Organizing:
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182 | "We are not all the same!" - Attracting Organizing Clients by Being The REAL You
02/19/2024
182 | "We are not all the same!" - Attracting Organizing Clients by Being The REAL You
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: Connect with Melissa at Pro Organizer Studio:
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181 | Reflections & Transformations with Jen Kilbourne, Founder of Pro Organizer Studio
02/12/2024
181 | Reflections & Transformations with Jen Kilbourne, Founder of Pro Organizer Studio
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): Connect with Jen at Every Dear Communications: Connect with Jen on LinkedIn: Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn: Connect with Melissa and Pro Organizer Studio:
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Bonus Mini-Sode | "Don't Mess With Eyeballs!" and A Heartwarming Message From Mom
02/08/2024
Bonus Mini-Sode | "Don't Mess With Eyeballs!" and A Heartwarming Message From Mom
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!
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180 | Couldn't Imagine Where I Would Be: 2 Years in my Professional Organizing Business with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
02/05/2024
180 | Couldn't Imagine Where I Would Be: 2 Years in my Professional Organizing Business with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
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: Join our Organizing Essentials Program, closing Valentine's day: Connect with Pro Organizer Studio:
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179 | From getting paid in eggs to $10,000+ months: 2 years in business with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
02/01/2024
179 | From getting paid in eggs to $10,000+ months: 2 years in business with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
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: Join our Organizing Essentials course, open until Valentine's Day:
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178 | 365 Days of Organizing: Rewind of My First Year In Business with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
01/29/2024
178 | 365 Days of Organizing: Rewind of My First Year In Business with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
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: Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio programs and resources:
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177 | My Brand New Organizing Business: Rewind with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
01/29/2024
177 | My Brand New Organizing Business: Rewind with Kim of Rustic Home Organizing
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 Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio:
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176 | Pitch Yourself + Your Business to the Press with Rachel Rosenthal (part 2)
01/24/2024
176 | Pitch Yourself + Your Business to the Press with Rachel Rosenthal (part 2)
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: Learn more about Rachel's organizing business, Rachel & Company: Connect with me at Pro Organizer Studio:
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175 | The Power of Press for Professional Organizers (p 1) with Rachel Rosenthal
01/22/2024
175 | The Power of Press for Professional Organizers (p 1) with Rachel Rosenthal
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: Rachel's course The Power of Press Playbook--USE CODE POS FOR $100 OFF!: Connect with Melissa and Pro Organizer Studio:
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174 | 2024 Word of the Year
01/14/2024
174 | 2024 Word of the Year
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!
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173 | End of Year Expenses Checklist for your Organizing Business
12/15/2023
173 | End of Year Expenses Checklist for your Organizing Business
We got a great question this week about what qualified business expenses organizers should think about, so here's a mini-sode for you!
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172 | How Clients Find You: P2 of SEO for Organizers with Julia Renee Consulting
12/08/2023
172 | How Clients Find You: P2 of SEO for Organizers with Julia Renee Consulting
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: Julia's Instagram: Julia's Pinterest: Join Inspired Organizer: Join our $19 Google Business Profile course UNTIL DEC 31: Additional info: Julia is an SEO and Pinterest Consultant for creative small businesses at 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.
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171 | How Clients Find You! P1 of SEO for Organizers with Julia Renee Consulting
12/07/2023
171 | How Clients Find You! P1 of SEO for Organizers with Julia Renee Consulting
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: Julia's Instagram: Julia's Pinterest: Join Inspired Organizer: Join our $19 Google Business Profile course UNTIL DEC 31: Additional info: Julia is an SEO and Pinterest Consultant for creative small businesses at 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.
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170 | December to-dos in your organizing business
12/06/2023
170 | December to-dos in your organizing business
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
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169 | The Best Free Tool For Organizers (I bet you're not using it fully!!)
11/13/2023
169 | The Best Free Tool For Organizers (I bet you're not using it fully!!)
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
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168 | How To Summit LIVE (Part 2)
11/01/2023
168 | How To Summit LIVE (Part 2)
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 email Melissa: 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 Follow How To Summit Sign up for info on next year's summit:
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167 | How To Summit LIVE! (Part 1)
10/30/2023
167 | How To Summit LIVE! (Part 1)
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 Follow How To Summit Sign up for info on next year's summit: Inspired Organizer information:
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166 | More scammy or super scammy things to avoid
10/15/2023
166 | More scammy or super scammy things to avoid
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.
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165 | Ask More Questions: Avoiding Scams + Pay to Play + Other Cruddy Things
10/11/2023
165 | Ask More Questions: Avoiding Scams + Pay to Play + Other Cruddy Things
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: Our 24/7 on demand workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: 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...
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164 | October to-do list for your organizing business
10/03/2023
164 | October to-do list for your organizing business
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 HONEYBOOK COURSE $149 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.
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