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.

169 | The Best Free Tool For Organizers (I bet you're not using it fully!!) 11/13/2023

168 | How To Summit LIVE (Part 2) 11/01/2023

167 | How To Summit LIVE! (Part 1) 10/30/2023

166 | More scammy or super scammy things to avoid 10/15/2023

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... /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/28288373

164 | October to-do list for your organizing business 10/03/2023

163 | From Pro Organizer to Closet Designer-Meet Bethany from The Container Store 09/12/2023

162 | Today's a Good Day To Raise Your Prices. Yeah--you! Raise 'em! 08/28/2023

161 | Taking Chances, Business Passion, and "I need to die on less hills!" -- Home+Sort p.2 08/21/2023

160 | Brandie & Ryan of Home+Sort and the hosts of the How:To Summit 08/16/2023

159 | Answering Qs about the August to-do list 08/08/2023

158 | Your August To Do List 08/01/2023

157 | Pricing + Knowing Your Worth, And "It's Not About You"--Melissa Gugni of Melissa Gugni Organizing 07/25/2023

156 | Not Just a Buzzword: Setting Boundaries as an Organizer 07/18/2023

155 | You Can Write! (Really...you can!) - Molly Z. Winters, Copywriter for professional organizers 07/12/2023

154 | Jen Weintraub of Splendid Spaces Organizing 06/12/2023

153 | "What if I get a bad review!" Managing fear and client expectations with Cabri Carpenter 05/30/2023

152 | You're Overcomplicating Your Organizing Business. 05/23/2023

151 | What Does It Take To Be An Organizing Business Owner? 05/01/2023

150 | "How Will I Know The Perfect Time?" 04/20/2023

149 | Working With Clients: A grab bag of organizer questions 04/11/2023

148 | I Quit All Social Media: Get Inspired with Amber Ehrlich of The Tidy Bungalow 04/04/2023

148 | I Quit All Social Media: Get Inspired with Amber Ehrlich of The Tidy Bungalow 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: Organizing Essentials course CLOSING APRIL 17-for details and registration, For information on our signature business building course, Inspired Organizer®, 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? /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/26434863

147 | New Secret Weapons for Your Organizing Business...Demystifying ChatGPT and AI 03/22/2023

147 | New Secret Weapons for Your Organizing Business...Demystifying ChatGPT and AI 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): Click here to see the AI prompts and outputs Melissa mentions on this call: Information on our signature Inspired Organizer® program: 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. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/26312742

146 | Leaving A Full-Time Job for My Organizing Business: Get Inspired Series with Kris Hargrove 03/14/2023

145 | "Five Mile Famous" - Smart Marketing Strategies for "Proof Of Life" Social Media with Jen Mary of Everyday Style 03/07/2023

145 | "Five Mile Famous" - Smart Marketing Strategies for "Proof Of Life" Social Media with Jen Mary of Everyday Style 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 () 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: Meet Jen Mary of Everyday Style: Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® signature program for professional organizers: 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. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/26157672

144 | It's Not About Organizing Tips! What Gets Clients to Stop and Listen with Jen Mary of Everyday Style 03/06/2023

144 | It's Not About Organizing Tips! What Gets Clients to Stop and Listen with Jen Mary of Everyday Style In our series on marketing "yes!" and "you can skip this!" for your professional organizing business--we turn to Jen Mary of 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. We want you to make the time you are spending on social into valuable time so you can go find clients with your other marketing. Spoiler alert: stop giving TIPS! We are going for inspiration, not information, and we're breaking it down for you. Here is a great example of what we're talking about today: "If you imagine standing on a stage and you've got a microphone and there's thousands of people in the audience, and you wanna get the people you wanna work with, walking up there and saying, you need to color code your scarves not an "amen" moment. You walk up there and you say, 'The weight of your things is crushing. Have you ever not wanted to have people over because you're so afraid they're gonna look in your closet? Are you tired of buying things constantly but you can't seem to get ahead?' That's when that woman or that person goes, yes. So instead of giving information, we need to really be talking about transformation. What will be different by working with you? What are those pain points, those symptoms that people are experiencing that is so much more powerful than color code your closet." LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Listen to Jen on her Everyday Style School Podcast: The clip from The Bee Movie referenced in the pod! :) Learn more about Everyday Style: Learn more about our signature program, Inspired Organizer®: A LITTLE BIT OF THE EPISODE: Melissa Klug: Jen has been a guest on our podcast before and she and I met at a networking event years ago, like 2019, I think, and we just like totally hit it off. And she has a, business that does similar things to what we do. We have analogous clients and I love her and I wish you guys all got her in person. I get her in person, you guys don't, but she just has the most creative ideas. And we were talking offline about something the other day and I'm like, girl, we just need to get on the podcast and record it. So, yes. Yes. Can you give people the two second version of what you do in life? Jen Mary: Yeah, absolutely. So my business is called . We make daily style easy for just like regular, everyday women. We don't work with celebrities and models and photo shoots. We work with women who are tired of hiding from their friends at the grocery store, right, who like dread date night because they have nothing to wear. We really wanna bring the joy back to getting dressed so that women can live full rich lives. But we wanna make it really easy. So we have capsule, wardrobe guides and style classes and our membership. And then we have my podcast, which is the , which teaches you everything your mom never did about getting dressed. Melissa Klug: I love what Jen does for people, it's called "Everyday" for a reason. We are not talking about going to shop at Chanel unless you want to, which good for you, girl. We support that, yes, we, we support that, but we just want every day people to feel happy and confident in themselves. But the reason we are having this conversation is because we have recently started to align on things that we see on social media and obviously if you're listening to this podcast, I'm hoping that you listen to a couple of episodes ago when I did an entire podcast about why social media isn't it for organizers? And I stand by that. However, in that podcast we did, , we're not telling you to completely abandon social media. And so if you are going to continue using social media, and if you are going to do like, let's say one post a week like Kate suggested, we want it to be a really good post. And that's what Jen and I have feelings about. We have feelings, right? Mm-hmm. , oh, Jen Mary: we have many, many feelings about social media. Many. We Melissa Klug: have so many feel. Well, lemme start out with, before we get into what we were going to talk about, I do want to hear from you, explain a little bit about your feelings on social media in terms of what we do as organizers or what people in your style network do. Jen Mary: Yeah. So my style network actually trains stylists and certifies them to be in-home one-on-one wardrobe stylists. So the parallels are definitely there, sort of how we work with people, what services that we provide. So I think there's so much to take out of what we talk about that, that your organizers can take. I really think that everybody needs to right size social media in their own business. Yeah, that's it. I mean, we live in the digital age and when somebody hears about you or sees you somewhere, or you know, their friend tells them about you, they're gonna go to your social media, you know, and you have to have something. You can't have just nothing. It's just proof of life. But I really think that that every small business owner should dig into how much time they're spending on it. And what is it actually getting you? And I charged my stylist. how much to, to, to find out how much time are you spending creating social media? Like sit down and batch content for a month. If that's one post a week, how long did it take you to do four? If you wanna do two, how long did it take you to do eight? Everything from ideation to scheduling it, all the creative, all the captions. How long did that take you? And then at the end of the month, go back and look at your analytics. I, I don't know about you, but I'm obsessed with looking at my analytics on Instagram. And if you have a business or creator account, which you should, you can see there's just on every post view analytics, the, the thing that it will show you is how many non followers was your content delivered to. Mm-hmm. it is low. It is really, really low. And I feel like organizers and, and stylists, they're doing this to gain a following. They're doing this to get clients. But if it's only telling, showing your things to people who already follow you. , what's it for? What's it for? And so at the end of the month you go, well, I spent 12 hours and it was delivered to five people. Right. That's not a good use of time. Melissa Klug: Also, not only how many non followers is it getting delivered to, but thinking about how many of your actual followers Oh, yeah. Saw it. Jen Mary: Oh yeah. That's a depressing number, isn't it? Melissa Klug: It's, I mean, based on things that I've read, it can be as low as [00:08:00] 10% of the people. Oh, follow you. Jen Mary: I think that's a really generous number. Yeah. I think, let's look, let's look. I have my phone here. I'm gonna pull it up. Let's do a realtime data dive. We are Melissa Klug: using, as my husband frequently says, he's like, if only in our pockets, we had a computer that had all of the information in the world that Jen Mary: we could look up. I . So I have, all right, so this post is doing 95% better than my recent post, so this is a good one. Right? Right. Let's boost it. Don't boost it. Tip number ever. Oh, please don't ever, let's view the insights. So I have, I don't know, around 7,000 followers. It reached 1,737 people. Okay. Of that 17 were non followers. Melissa Klug: 17 people. Jen Mary: 17 people . Now, luckily that was like a post I took at Target of my new zebra jacket that I adore, and I put it up with a picture of my dog. But that took me no time to create, no time to, but it did take time to schedule and write a caption and all that good stuff for 17 people. Did they even follow me? Yes. Did they, did they take the next step? I don't know. So right size your social media. Melissa Klug: Again, I would like to point out, and we, we talked about this in that podcast episode, it also depends on what you do for a living and what you're trying to sell. Your followers. Yes, Jen is selling global. Reach, so she is putting out social media. And theoretically, no matter where you are in the universe, you can buy Jen's product. Yeah. If you are an organizer selling in-home local, regional organizing services, thinking about who you're doing those posts for and who is even going to possibly see it. And if you're spending two hours on a reel, making it perfect. Yes. Versus spending two hours doing SEO on your website or working on your Google business profile. That's what we want you to look at. We both want you, all of us want you to look at your data and see what it is actually giving you for the time that you're spending. Jen Mary: Absolutely. Absolutely. I made my stylist take a little pledge at the beginning of the year, but they were only gonna do things that worked. Okay. Cause when you start cutting out things that aren't working you get a lot of time back. So much time. Yes, so much time. So much time. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/26135052

143 | Getting Clients in 2023: Marketing That Works (no social media required!) 02/26/2023

143 | Getting Clients in 2023: Marketing That Works (no social media required!) 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: Connect with us: 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. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/26051499

142 | Social Media Isn't The Answer: Marketing Your Organizing Business in 2023 02/20/2023

142 | Social Media Isn't The Answer: Marketing Your Organizing Business in 2023 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 , 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. LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Information on our signature program Inspired Organizer®: Kate's marketing business for organizers, Kate The Socialite: Our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: A QUICK TASTE OF THIS EPSIODE: Melissa Klug: Hello to all of my favorite organizers. I hope you are having an absolutely awesome day. I listen to a lot of podcasts. It's a medium that I really like, I could easily fill 24 hours a day with all the great content that's out there, whether it's business or things that I'm interested in personally. But I will tell you, I. So thrilled when I find a podcast that I connect with so much and that really connects with the things that I believe about business and life. And today's guest is one of those people for me. But before we start this conversation, which is all about social. And it may not be what you think it's going to be. I want to give a little preface about some of the things that we are talking about today. 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. And today I wanted to have a really candid talk with my guest about what social media is and what it isn't for organizers. Over the last few months, I've been listening to her podcast it's called The Kate Show. I've been listening intently to her podcast and her candid takes on social media for organizers. And I wanted to have a chat with her about these topics and many, many more. So we're going to break this up into two episodes. This episode will cover social media specifically, and then a second episode is going to be on what is working in 2023 to build an organizing business? I really hope that it will give you some clarity or some freedom in your business or really just give you some things to think about. So with all of that, I am happy to introduce Kate from Kate the Socialite. Melissa Klug: We are back with a prior guest and I am so excited to talk to her. Kate was on our podcast in episode 61, so it was a while ago, it was a couple of years ago. But I am a regular listener to her podcast and I have just connected so deeply with a lot of the things that she has been saying that I really wanted to bring her on and have a conversation about one of my favorite slash not favorite topics. So Kate, the socialite, welcome back to the podcast. Kate: Thank you so much for having me. I, it's an honor to be here yet again. I love it when your listeners contact me and I actually got a wave of that recently, so thank you, what you did on that end, but I did nothing. . Okay. Well clearly they're listening to the show, your show, and then they come over to me and they're like, I heard you on Pro Organizer, and I wanna, you know, do this and that. And I'm like, okay, awesome. Because the people that find me through you guys are so nice. And they're so professional, they really care about their businesses. So it's just a joy to be back. Melissa Klug: Well, that's awesome. We do, honestly, and I'm, I am absolutely not just saying this. We have the loveliest community of people. It's just, it's so refreshing. I mean, I used to be in a corporate job where everything was very cutthroat, and it was so lovely to get in an organizing and be like, oh my gosh, people are so nice. And are people in particular just the listeners of the podcast and the people we have are great. So I'm happy to share that with you. Well, can you give people a recap of if they haven't listened to the past podcast, tell us a little bit about what you do for the organizing industry. Kate: Yes. And before I do that, I better give a disclaimer because he has already snorted in the microphone here, But I have my seven month old son with me, he is my second. And no, I have not figured out how to do Zoom calls with a baby yet. It is just what it is. So thank you for your patience, . Melissa Klug: Oh my gosh, we love it. Kate: He's gonna giggle now cause he thinks this is just great. But, to answer your question, . I run a marketing agency that specializes in helping professional organizers market their businesses simply because I really feel that marketing has gotten overcomplicated and way too expensive. It's gotten to the point where, and I have my clients tell me this all the time. I feel like I have to have two separate full-time jobs in my business. One is marketing and the other is doing the actual thing that I wanted to do, and that just, that doesn't make any sense. And I understand why they feel that way because we are bombarded with messages that say you need to be boosting posts on social media. You need to be posting constantly on social media. You should be showing up in video, and then you also need to blog and you do email marketing and do all these things. Yeah. Who has time for all of that? Because a lot of the organizers I work with, they are also mothers. So it's not like they can just drop everything whenever it feels right and then go work on their business. It just doesn't make any sense. So we have developed simple ways that people can save money, get better, return on their investment and here's the crazy thing I'm gonna throw out there cause I'm sure we'll dive into it later. The return on investment for email marketing versus social is 40 times higher. Melissa Klug: Okay. So I want everyone to stop and absorb that because I do, I talk a lot about like 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 Kate: list. Even with a small list. And we have a lot of people who come to us and say, well, I only have like 20 people on my list, or 60 people. Totally fine. Yeah. Because those people will either refer you to someone else by forwarding your newsletter and then that third party ends up hiring you. We see that happen a lot more than I thought we would. Kind of surprising. But that's just because the word of mouth referral method is not dead. No, and that's why email marketing is not dead. That's why it's worked for decades and will continue to work. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/25981161

141 | Ask Us Anything! Jen and Melissa answer organizers' questions 02/07/2023

141 | Ask Us Anything! Jen and Melissa answer organizers' questions 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 and we would love to hear from you. LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Learn more about Pro Organizer Studio: or go to Learn more about our signature program and coaching: or MORE INFORMATION ON THE EPSIODE: We have a great podcast episode for you today, a taping of a Facebook Live that Jen Kilbourne and I did with our private Inspired Organizer business coaching group, which by the way, we would love to have you be a part of our family! I love to be reminded of these conversations that we had about running a professional organizing business. And the funny thing is, one of the, first discussions you're going to hear is about someone talking about kind of the CEO mindset and that type of thing. And what I love about this is I know this woman's business is now running full bore is wildly successful. She's in a couple of different locations now and it's just funny to look back and say, oh, we all have these moments of ups and downs, and just a reminder to all of us to ride the waves because something good is on the other side. So that's a little spoiler alert for you, but you're gonna hear some advice that we offered today to our Inspired Organizers also, if you are interested, we have a one hour free workshop. You can go to and get that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whenever you feel like spending an extra hour with us that is there. So we would love to have you see that too. All right, here is a conversation that Jen and I have and I hope that you enjoy it. This is sort of like a freestyle coaching session and opportunity to just hear from you guys and we'll just kind of see where this goes so I'll be reading those questions out for me and Melissa. All right. I've got a question from Kenzie. Kenzie said, I would love to hear your advice from managing slow months and having an abundant / positive/ CEO mindset despite the low times, then she put a smiley face. I always have things to say about mindset, but Melissa, what would you share about that? So a couple of things. First of all, and I know a little bit about Kenzie and I came from similar backgrounds where, you know, we were doing one thing over here and then now entrepreneurship is different. You can have moments and you can, because you're by yourself. And it's hard to manage some of those emotions. So what I would say is it's important to always keep moving forward. So always keeping some momentum and just saying like, first of all, another client is just around the corner. I still have to make sure that I'm doing the work to make sure that they can find me. Mm-hmm. . So I would say ramp up your networking. Try, try a few different things. You might wanna take a look at all of your different processes. It's a great time for you to focus on how can I streamline my business a little bit for when things get busier again, I just find sometimes, working on your business can actually pay you dividends down the road. So maybe this quiet time is being brought to. For a reason by the universe. But keeping a positive mindset in these times is hard because you can start to get pretty negative. So reaching out to whether it's this group or an accountability partner or someone, I think just to keep that energy up is really important cuz you don't wanna project that to a potential client. I agree with that. Like when we're not, when we're not feeling, not that we have to have like perfect life perfectly in order, but when we're feeling very chaotic and very out of sorts, that doesn't project well , that'd be like going to get a massage from somebody who is crying. Right. Exactly. But you know, it's like, okay, not that any of us are perfect, but that it is a part of your job to work on. The mindset and also, I mean, this is maybe an unpopular thing to say, or maybe it's not unpopular. I mean, everybody's goals are very different. If you are working on the c e O mindset and your goal is to have not just a full-time job for yourself, but employ many organizers, I mean, that's really big goal. Other people, their goal is for this to be a part-time thing or for it to be a flexible thing, and they just want the clients there when they need 'em. And so to say, to say that your slow period is not like anybody else's because all of us have a very different picture of how much we want to be working and what they want that to, to look like. But what I was saying was, no matter, no matter who you are, what your goal is, like working on your mindset is part of your job. So that when you are showing up for those clients that it is, it is your best and that you're not just thinking, how fast can I get outta here so I can get to the next one? Cuz I'm desperate for money. Oh, now I know what I was gonna say. There is no shame in if this is a side hustle and you want it to be a full-time job, but it's not a full-time job yet, you may want to have another side hustle. There is no rule out there that says it only counts if this is the only thing that you do. So there is some of that at the beginning and it's totally normal, and not everybody has the same amount of support or safety net at home. And so, please in, in terms of managing your mindset, do not compare your journey to anybody else's. And just know that planting the seeds, and this is something that we talk about a lot, continuing to plant the seeds, even when times are slow, is very important. Because when you're busy, you're not gonna have a lot of time to plant those seeds either. But that, I promise, that's the input that yields later on. And as long as you know that you are doing those things, it is going to come back in and multiply. Particularly once you start working with clients you know, regularly who are like, a, I either need you forever, or b I want to tell other people about you because you're, because you're so. Wonderfully calming and impactful in their home or whatever, you know, scenario that you're working with them. So it does start to snowball. It does. And I, and I know Melissa can speak to that too. I mean, you guys came from a similar background, so it's like, okay, I've got a corporate income to replace and maybe a certain level of fear of like, this actually has to like really work for me. It can't just be a pretend hobby job that doesn't really profit me. It, it has to really be an actual excellent, and I am a very impatient person. Like I, I want I had to golf years ago for my job and I am the worst golfer that has ever golfed in the history of golf. And I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. I hate it because I. Good at it instantaneously. Right? And so I'm, that's my mindset. I'm like, I have to be good at it right away. And so I think if you come from the backgrounds that Kenzie and I have come from, there is a little bit of like, well, why aren't people just coming out of the woodwork? And it does take time to build. I mean, Jen didn't start inspired organizer, and the next day there are 500 people in the group, right? Like it, you have to build something. And so I think if you're taking forward steps to build that thing, you know, so you are building you're building your web presence, you're building your networking presence. Those seeds, like Jen said, you do not know the day that that is going to come and burst into an actual plant. That is totally true. Carly Adams had a post recently about someone who saw her on TV in 2019 that just booked with her like last week. Yeah. So it. , it just might take a little bit of patience and a little bit of time, and I totally understand how hard that is. That just reminded me of somebody else who I did a coaching call with and she said that a woman called her and had her, had her business card on her desk for five years. Yeah. I was like, see disorganized people, they need follow up. Like you've got , like they want you to nag them just a little bit, you know, not, not in a, not in a annoying way, but just like, hey, still thinking about you, wondering how things are going with your blah, blah, blah. I mean, you know, tho those types of things. Another just maybe sort of pr like practical tip is, aim. Aim for the people who have an urgency. Yeah. Like attached to their job. I'm really glad you said that cuz I was actually gonna ask you a question related to what Kenzie's asking because I was wondering if this was like a philosophical difference that we could have a big fight about. Just kidding who, okay. Yeah, yeah. Great. But I was gonna talk about the concept of, so it goes back to goals. So what is your goal for your business? And if your goal for your business businesses, I ha this is my full-time job, I have to work and I have to create income. You might have to take some jobs that maybe aren't in your ideal client avatar. And if you say no, my ideal client is the most important thing to me and I only wanna work with moms who have kids that have toys that are out of control. If you want to niche down, that's totally fine. Mm-hmm. , but you also need to recognize it may take you longer to build that. Your ideal client is crazy important. But if your goals say I need to get jobs booked, then you might need to say, I'm willing to take moving jobs. Even though that's not my ideal, I'm willing to go on Thumbtack. Even though that's not my ideal. I'm willing to what? You may have to work with other work with other organizers locally. They have to like just to keep your hands moving cuz it does the contract. Yeah. Stay, stay, stay. Feeling valuable. Yeah. You know it's not sacrificing your vision for your business, but it is al also recognizing I'm playing the long game and I'm going to, I'm going to win the battle so that I can also win the war. So I love that and I think that was very fitting. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/25861608

140 | Get Inspired Series: Beth Nordby of Custom Order Organizing 02/01/2023

140 | Get Inspired Series: Beth Nordby of Custom Order Organizing 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, became a professional organizer, started Custom Order Organizing, and hasn't looked back. We love our Get Inspired series talking to the awesome organizers of our community! LINKS FOR LISTENERS Custom Order Organizing in the Quad Cities: Connect with Beth on social media: Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® signature coaching program for professional organizers: A LITTLE BIT OF THE EPISODE: Melissa Klug: I am so, so happy to have you with us because I could talk, I say this all the time, I could talk to organizers all day, every day about like, Hey, tell me about your business and tell me about how you started and all that good stuff. But why don't you give us kind of the lay of the land of how you started, how you're in this business, all that good stuff. Beth Nordby: I officially started my business on paper anyway, at the end of last year. I've been in the corporate world for 20 plus years. Most recently in marketing, digital marketing, website strategy, things like that. And I just, you know, the last few years had started to realize that I needed to change. I flirted with the idea of a different company, but I thought, you know, I. Yeah, why not change things up if I'm gonna do it, let's do it now. Knowing that I wanted to leave the job I was in. And so I actually started researching professional organizing as a business probably a year and a half, two years ago, maybe a little more than that, and signed up for the Pro Organizer, studio inspired organizer program. At least a year and a half ago, and started looking into it before I left my job. And my initial thought was I was gonna do it as a side hustle while I figured out do I actually wanna do this or not. And then I got to a point in my corporate world job that I just knew it was time I needed to go. And so I pulled the plug and jumped into it. And decided not to really focus on a niche at all yet cuz I really wanted to see what was out there and try a bunch of different types of organizing jobs and see what kind of the ones that. I enjoyed the most, the ones where I felt like I was making a biggest impact. And so, I'm still kind of in that vein of trying all the things and mostly enjoying myself. , right. Melissa Klug: Mostly. Okay. So I wanna poke on that a little bit. Tell me a little bit about the things that you have said yes to and what have you discovered in that journey of what do I like, what do I not like? Beth Nordby: The only thing I've said no to thus far was a hoarding job. And it was also right after I started, but I'm fairly certain that's one where I, I know I'm like beyond my depth. Yeah. For a true hoarding situation. So that's the only No, I've. Had thus far. The, I've had kind of a, a range of, I've done a few packs and moves. I've done like a massive decluttering slash pack for a move. . And then I've also done kind of the, the pretty pantries. Mm-hmm. and some newly renovated homes like gorgeous, beautiful homes, which I love real estate, so being able to go into some of those fun homes is really cool for me. And I think the decluttering, I find a lot of value. I feel like I'm making the biggest impact. For the individual, but I also am recognizing I can't, that can't be my only because it emotionally, physically you know, a lot of times there's emotional challenges for the client. And again, that's where the, I feel like I'm making a big impact cuz I'm really helping them on that journey. But it also takes a lot out of me. And so I'm finding that if I can balance those with those sort of like pretty pantry, you know, let's, let's crank this closet out type of thing. That's kind of my sweet spot is finding a. Between those, Melissa Klug: I think that's really important because if you did the same, first of all, if you did the same thing every day in any kind of a job, it would get really boring really fast. Right? Definitely. But especially for those things, and especially if you are one of those people who really take on that emotion of the client or even if you don't take on the emotion, You know, you're really affected by, this was an emotionally heavy day. It is really nice to break that up with just to like, can you please just decant all my Cheerios, ? Yes Beth Nordby: Exactly. Melissa Klug: So I, I do wanna, I wanna go back, I wanna talk about organizing a second, but I really wanna go back to something too. So leaving your corporate job, this is something, this is a question that we get a lot. How will I know that I'm ready to make the leap? And so there are a lot of paths. You might do it as a side hustle, you might do it part-time. You might go back to, you know, your day job is three days a week and organizing is two, whatever. Can you give people kind of like what your thought process was on the, I'm just doing it. Beth Nordby: Yeah. I, I wrote a lot of waves. I will say you know, so I could be really zen one day about it and the next day, like, what, what did I do? Oh my God, this is insanity. But for the most part, my kind of steady thought through that was I can always change my mind. Yeah. I changed my mind about the job I was. And I can change my mind about this job. I can decide I don't like it. I can decide I don't like certain aspects of it and farm part of that out. I can decide that I only wanna do it part-time and I can get another part-time job. I can do. I don't have to. Do it the same way consistently. I can learn what I like, I can learn what works. And so that's, I really rode some pretty heavy waves and I still do they're just maybe not as dramatic as they were at first, but, , you know, first of all, organizing is a pretty low barrier to entry. You know, it very low. Yes, you can take it different ways. Obviously you can get certifications and things like that. But the upfront cost is pretty minimal at that point. File your L l C if that, I mean, you can get started without that. I, I guess officially. But really doesn't have to cost a lot. And so if I was two months in and I decided I wanted to walk away. There's no major harm there, you know? And so I just kept having to coach myself and I still do. I can change it, I can get a part-time job just to supplement and make that financial leap a little bit more comfortable for me. And so I've been trying to coach myself in that and actually in all aspects of the business. I can do this for now. My website can look like this for now. Yes, my social media can look like this for now. And then I, and I can change. . And so, and I think that's one thing that the inspired organizer community has done for me is solidify that feeling for me because you hear it a lot in that group. Some people who just went away from organizing altogether and went into some niche, running courses. Or, a photography offering or things like that. And so I think that really opened up my eyes to the fact that I can go a lot of different directions. /episode/index/show/proorganizerstudio/id/25800144

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