Episode 89: From Analog to Digital: Finding Leads for your Organizing Business
Jen and Melissa got together recently and decided to record all of our conversations so you can feel like you were here with us. Today we are covering both analog and digital--we chat the value of referrals as well as SEO for your organizing business--and we promise, SEO isn't scary! The name of the game is finding clients for your business, and these are two great ways to accomplish this.
If you are looking for business inspiration, we have a free workshop that is called The 4-Part Plan for Landing Your Dream Clients in 2021. Jen Obermeier leads you through that workshop. Sign up for that poroadmap.com. If you are interested in our Inspired Organizer® program, you can find us at www.inspiredorganizer.com.
Links for listeners:
Podcast episode on SEO from our expert Caitlin Strempel: CLICK HERE
Information about our Inspired Organizer® program
If you are considering starting or growing a professional organizing business, we have a brand new for 2021, totally free workshop you can take that goes beyond this podcast--you can register here if you want to check it out!
Join our free Facebook group for podcast insiders to get notified about new episodes (plus get behind-the-scenes access and other goodies weekly)!
If you are looking for business inspiration, we have a brand new free workshop that is called The 4-Part Plan for Landing Your Dream Clients in 2021. Jen Obermeier leads you through that workshop. Sign up for that poroadmap.com. If you are interested in our Inspired Organizer® program, you can find us at www.inspiredorganizer.com and don't forget, we have a whole library of podcasts here, our YouTube channel, and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pro Organizer Studio.
Still not sure about starting your own Pro Organizing business? Cick here to read about the 5 things you need to know BEFORE starting your organizing business.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Melissa Klug: Hey pro organizers. It's Melissa Klug, your co-host of the podcast. And today we are bringing you a conversation that Jen and I had, and we're going to be bringing you several of these conversations that we taped recently, Jen and I live pretty far away from each other, unfortunately.
And so when we get that chance to be around each other. When we get the chance to meet in person, it is always a treat for both of us. And one of the things we decided to do as we were talking is just hit the record button. And when I tell you, we talked for hours, we talked for hours. So. Get ready podcast listeners.
You are going to hear all of our conversations. Now I will tell you because we were taping our conversations, that it might feel a little less interview-y than other podcasts. And I hope you'll forgive that there are a couple of times where we have breaks, that might not feel as produced as we would like them to be.
But we hope that you understand that we really just want to bring you snippets of these conversations over the next few weeks so that you can see our thoughts about organizing and business and life and all sorts of other things. We would love to get started and we are very excited to have you here with us.
Jen Obermeier: So we have talked about analog. Yes. Which is definitely thing because how did people, how did people build businesses back in the 1960s? And you know what I find, and maybe this [00:02:00] again is a little bit specific to my area and the type of clientele that I naturally attracted which is just, again, some of it, I think we have control over something that we kind of don't absolutely like, I don't know.
I don't know why just certain people just vibe with you, which I guess is, is nice, but a lot of them trust, still trust more about someone that they heard about from a, for absolute versus somebody that they found online. And it's not even just because they don't use the internet or don't go on Facebook or search for things on Google.
It's just that they, I think still associate a sort of real world, like, let me text you this person's number. I'm going to go out and do my own research and read reviews. I mean, I just think some people just still don't do that. But there is still something to be said for people who really just, they don't email, they don't sign up for email lists.
Nope. They are not going to Google their own answers to things. And so you, you know, them finding out about you through a group or a friend. Like, that's why I hold it in such high regard, because I think people really do feel like if they know someone who knows you, then it makes them a hundred times more comfortable with you coming into their house.
Melissa Klug: I also think that there, I mean, and I just think about myself, I'm a very digital person, but I still, for certain things. Especially if I'm going to spend a lot of money on it. Yeah. I am going to ask friends. I mean, even, I just remember when we moved to this house, the people that we bought the house from gave us this lovely list of all the service providers that they used for anything.
And I know done the research and I knew that they were meticulous so that I knew that these were good, good recommendations. Or there will be times that I'll say like, Hey, I need, I need a hand. Here is how I found the handyman that I now recommend to all of my clients. I used to work for someone who was one of the meanest people I have ever met in my life.
He was so difficult. It was impossible to please him. [00:04:00] And I reached out to a friend of his and said, Hey, I need a handyman in this person's area. Do you know who he would recommend? And this person gave me his name and I'm like, if he can make that guy happy. If this is his handyman, I know this.
Guy's awesome. Guess what he is awesome. That's awesome. Oh, that's a very silly example, but I ask for referrals from people and I am very digitally based. So if you have someone who is looking to spend thousands of dollars on an organizer, it may be from all around that you're going to see the benefit of that referral.
Jen Obermeier: That's so true. That's so true. So, given even though that analog and like we said, in real life experiences, they're, they're so valuable. You know, it goes without saying a major part of, modern marketing. The online world. Melissa and I were having a conversation about how Facebook was such a big part of my story, like with getting started.
And Melissa has similar feels for Google because she, yeah, I don't know if it's because you understood Google better or if it was just the first thing that you tried and not understand anything.
Melissa Klug: So I never built a website. I've never done any of that.
Jen Obermeier: Like, what would you, what do you say to people like lately when they.
They're thinking they w they want to be found online, but they're now no longer the first in their area, because organizers, organizers in general are starting to become more popular. I still would say it's far from being mainstream, but I think more people understand it today than they did six years ago.
When I start. And certainly 25, 30 years ago when the first organizers were really building the industry, I mean, they paved a lot, a lot of road for all of this to be working, but with modern internet and, and with sometimes the sensitive nature of organizing. Decluttering and situations that people call organizer sport, they do go online and search sometimes instead of asking people.
Cause they don't either. There's a lot of shame or they're [00:06:00] like, this is kind of a personal topic. So people are going and searching. Tell me in your words, how someone, someone getting started now, or even maybe somebody who was starting a few years ago, but they weren't super serious about their online presence.
What do I do with Google and how do I get this all in sync and working for me? Yeah. I am extraordinarily passionate about using the internet to your best advantage and. It, you do not need to be experienced. So I want to say when I built my own website, when I started my business, I had never, ever, ever done anything like this before.
Melissa Klug: When I was in my corporate life, I had people that did things for me. Like I would just say, I want a website and a wand would be waived and a very large bill would be paid. And boom, you had a website. I did not want to do that for my own business. So I was like, oh, I hear a lot of ads on podcasts for squares.
I'll check it out. Whatever I went online, it was a ton of trial and error. I got something up there that I felt good about, but then I just did research and I figured it out for myself. I knew SEO was something that was important. I knew nothing about SEO. My husband was like, what does SEO even stand for?
And he made up a bunch of words that SEO might stand for. But I learned about SEO and I learned that what the most important thing is that you are trying to get someone, some random person on the internet who is searching for your services and you have to use the words they are using to find.
Jen Obermeier: That is why the actual acronym stands for search engine optimization. Yes. Thank you. So it sounds like kind of tech techie, even when you're just like hearing the word, I've heard it a million times, but when you think about it, you're like I'm optimizing an engine. I mean, that's that's sounds like something we shouldn't be allowed to touch.
Melissa Klug: Right. You actually can't the internet has made it. So here's the beautiful thing about the internet is because very, very [00:08:00] smart computer people who know coding and all those fancy things that none of us know, they have made tools for people like us who know nothing to go, be able to be on the internet.
So Squarespace. Because someone said, Hey, we know that you probably don't have these skills, but we'll build you a template. And then you can pretend like you have it skills to build your website. Right? So when you, you are in any of the website builders, Squarespace's my favorite. But if you're in Wix or Weebly or any of the website builders, there are backend things that say se.
So then you're able to say, oh, people are going to find me by searching for professional organizers, or they're going to use the word declutter, or they're going to use the word pantry organizing, or maybe they don't use the word pantry. Maybe they say kitchen in your area. I don't know. You know, in different parts of the world are going to call things different things.
SEO is just, how is someone. Who is trying to find you, going to look you up. And the key thing is you have got to use words that maybe won't be the fancy words that you want to use to describe what your services are. For instance, I love working with people on the deep, psychological roots of why their house is closed.
Do I say on my website, I work with you to uncover your psychological issues behind disorganization. Heck no. Right. Because no, one's going to be looking for that and it may scare people away. So what I say is I declutter and organize your house. Yes, that's it. That's what we do. And guess what do we do?
Way more than that? Of course we do. Do we provide people way, way, way, deeper and better and more impactful services than just decluttering and organizing your house a hundred percent. But how are people going to find me?
Jen Obermeier: I'd be searching for a professional organizer in Minneapolis. Right. [00:10:00] And I would find Melissa,
Melissa Klug: or they might be looking for home organizing or home organizer or professional organizer or office declutter.
You have no idea how they're going to search for you, but that's why you come up with every different phrase you can possibly think of. And then that gets populated. On your website. It also gets populated in my totally favorite tool, which is Google my business. And then the magic of the internet brings you professional organizer together with Judy searcher of professional organizer,
Jen Obermeier: kind of like combining old school, yellow pages with old school Madlibs.
And you're like, yes, this will make me money. It is, I don't know why that was such a thing. It really is. And also it forces you to think about your service from your client's point of view, not from your point of view, because I mean, Melissa just said all this, but just to reiterate it, they are not passionate about the same.
They're like, I would like for someone to help me live more intentionally.
Melissa Klug: Yes. I see the word curate a lot too, and I'm not anti the word curate. So I do not want to offend anyone who uses that word, but I will see a lot of organizers say I help you specially curate. Your belonging, your belongings that's yeah, it's too.
Jen Obermeier: It's too out there. Think about something like you're using the most basic terms that, you know, are going to get you what you're looking for on Google when you're used to Googling things. So, I, I thank you for sharing that because there's so much more that it does.
Go into the technical parts of getting found on Google and helping your website get cataloged. So it even shows up which reminds me of a couple of other resources for you guys to kind of branch off from here, we had an amazing podcast. I know, actually this might've been in our top five or top 10.
At least at one point was my interview with Caitlin. Strimple actually. [00:12:00] She is our SEO manager for pro organizer studio, but she gave an amazing interview with tips that I think I would've probably had to go back and listen to that podcast, worked four times to really soak it all in. However Alyssa.
Who wrote to me right after that podcast was aired was like, well, I took a Caitlin's tips and just did what she said in the podcast. And I got my website from not being on the page at all to being like number two within like two weeks early, something along those lines. Hold the phone. Yeah. It's like magic, except it's not.
It's like if you just do the things and especially if the other people in your area aren't necessarily doing the things like you can move up in the search results so quickly and implementing some of the things that like Melissa mentioned about Google maps. All of it sort of contributes to this algorithm of who shows up first and your area.
And you want to be that person who shows up first. And so a little bit of those, a little bit of that technical knowledge and implements. And teaching it to yourself can go a long way, a long way. And you don't and especially stuff with Google. It's not like you have to sit there and babysit it every day.
You just get it set up and then you're kind of good to go. I mean, you got to keep, you know, keep things updated and make sure that your information stays correct. So that Google doesn't just keep knocking you down for being out of it. But in, in large part, it's something that is so worth the time to spend a couple of days figuring out how to do.
Melissa Klug: And there are with your website, there are nice to have things, and then there are need to have things. So, and I think sometimes people mix those things. So I hear a lot of organizers say, oh, I know I have to the blog to get SEO up. No, you don't. Yeah, you don't have to blog, but, and then they don't blog because it seems intimidating to them.
And then they think that that's why they're not rising in searches roles. No blogging is a nice to have. If it's something that you are into and particularly passionate about, [00:14:00] it is not a need to have, need to have things though. Sometimes people. Don't think about some really, really basic things. Like is your name prominent on your website?
It's a shocking number of websites I see where, like, you can't find the person's name anywhere or they're located in the locate. That's. You gotta put your location on.
Jen Obermeier: Yeah. It needs to be in the footer specifically. Google looks in certain places they expect to find. Yeah, there's so many good stuff.
Melissa Klug: And, and again, these are not super complex things that you need to be a computer programmer for.
I promise you. And so that, that podcast with Kaitlin was really good. And then also we had a spring cleaning podcast series that we did and I did. And Google stuff on that spring, cleaning your business when your business. Yeah. And, and so, when you were talking about Google, making sure that you are recent, that's where Google my business is a good partner because Google, my business is the tool that allows Google to say like, yep, this is currently an active business.
They posted last week. Yeah, they're still up there. They're still ready to go.
Jen Obermeier: Caitlin Strimple has also done a blog post series on our, on the pro organizer studio blogs. So that's another excellent resource. And she basically, I have for her email list because it's great. The biggest tips like. You know, in terms of like the 80, 20 principle, like you're going to get 80% of your results from 20% of the even possible things you can do with SES.
And she gives a whole of that on our website and in that podcast for free. And she knows that when you're trying to, you have a local service business and you need local search. That some, you know, it's a different approach than if you're an national pizza chain. Like you, you can't possibly compete with that.
But if you do these certain things to stand out and make sure you have your Google, my business listing, you're going to get found out as people who are already searching, which is huge. And those [00:16:00] are all free food. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: And the other thing that I am just passionate about reminding people is you can do these things like in your pajamas, from the comfort of your couch while you're watching.
Whatever you can work on these things while you are kind of, you know, just quietly thinking about other things. This does not have to be a, I have to work on this two hours a day, or it's not going to work. You can do a few of these things.
Jen Obermeier: You do it on the clock while you're at your day job. You did not hear that from me.
However, I mean more than one person has, has built a business while they've got a little bit of downtime on there. Right. Do it on your lunch hour. If it makes you feel better, whatever, more than one person, meaning more than me. Right. It's not just me. Okay. All right. You do what you gotta do. And yeah,
Melissa Klug: one thing that I hear sometimes is. People know that they need to do something, but they'll get overwhelmed because it feels like a lot. And then they will maybe do 1% of the thing and then go, well, this feels too overwhelming. I just can't do it anymore.
One thing that I would encourage people to do, especially on SEO, if it feels overwhelming to you, just be patient and go back to the basics. Don't you don't have to be an SEO expert, but just go back to Caitlin's podcast and then say, I am going to implement two of Caitlin's tips,
Jen Obermeier: or I am going to ask a teenager in my life to have says super good idea.
Here's the thing. Here's the biggest hack. Find people who want to learn how to do the thing that you also don't know how to do and pay them a little bit to do it for you. Yes. Not everything has to literally be, do it yourself. It can be all right. Now I have a basic understanding enough to know whether someone has.
For me or not or obviously pay a professional, which helps, but going back to, you know, in the scheme of things, do you want to do this on day [00:18:00] one to, to pay a professional SEO expert? Probably not, definitely not necessary, but it's one of those things that with a little bit of deposit, you know, deposits over time, like Melissa said, you don't have to do it two hours a day.
Can I have a major payoff, which is awesome. If you have anyone in your life who is willing to help you do some technical things that you just, frankly don't like doing. Yep. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: I had someone that was a personal friend of mine that I have given a lot of business advice to. And sometimes, it takes her a while to decide that she's going to listen.
And then she came back to me and was like, you know, all those things you were telling me to do that I didn't do. I finally did them. And then I started finding a bunch of clients. Oh, really do occasionally have good ideas. I like to share with people. So I swear to you spending a little bit of time on SEO.
Jen Obermeier: Yeah. So it's a, long-term play in your business though, because it's not an instant result type occurrence, but it's something that you look back and you're like, thank you. Sell. Thank you for setting me up for, yes, long-term. Success with clientele. So that's one of those things that if you've been in business awhile and you would like to step your game up without having to invest, I think a ton of time and money is going to really pay off down the road.
Just a quick break to make sure that you know, that we have a free workshop that is available to you on demand day or night, it is called your four-part plan for landing your dream clients in 2021. If you are thinking about starting a business, or you have already started a business, we have tips and tricks for you in this workshop.
And Jen would love to spend an hour with you head over to PTO roadmap.com for our totally free workshop. And we would love to see you. Now we will get back to the podcast and our conversation between Jen and Melissa. .
Jen Obermeier: The podcast [00:20:00] officially launched in 2019.
So, yeah, I guess unofficially, this is our two year celebration, the anniversary.
Cheers. Yeah. And so when I think back and I honestly think that getting the podcast going for pro organizer studio was one of the best things we ever did because I know we were not we're not able to do it. Fancy real time live things as we would like to. Like I know there's some, there's some great early, early in the business, there were some YouTube and Facebook videos where I would have a guest on and then like halfway through somebody is losing the signal and then people, and I was just like, oh, this just breaks my heart. So with the podcast, we were really able to start. I could do. Guest interviews really be able to edit things and make it, hopefully as smooth for our listeners as possible.
So we didn't have any tech issues and that kind of thing. And, and then the other thing that has really been such a joy.
And what I really like is reflecting back on. We've had a lot of guests who've come on and shared really valuable business things that were not necessarily just about professional organizers. So I know we one of our more popular podcasts have been about websites and branding from someone who is a website and brand.
It's not just a professional organizer who, who likes websites. You know, I like to bring in people who have something to add to our conversation that aren't even as familiar with the organizing industry. And so if you have. Visited or revisited some of those early episodes, especially if they weren't really relevant to you at the time, but now they kind of are we have had people come on and talk about life coaching or, cause I know that a lot of organizers kind of feel like they are unofficial life coaches.
Yeah. And you know, interviews with people who kind of have some, you know, really didn't. Out of the box ideas about how to get more clients and kind of piggybacking off of existing businesses in your area. Those have been really good. We've had people come on and talk about launching virtual services, creating courses you know, kind of [00:22:00] having a more online component of your business.
So when I think back like those, some of the highlight moment. I know one of the episodes that Melissa co-hosted with me was with a woman she goes by Kate, the social life, and we're talking about marketing and email lists and her, her industry expertise was more broad like home services, like interior designers stage or stage.
And, you know, professional organizers. So I honestly feel like our podcast is sort of a a course in and of itself that if you really went back and studied and listened and learned from all of the free content that we've put out there, not just because it came out of my mouth, but because I've interviewed other experts that you would not only hear.
A range of possibilities and journeys within the organizing industry, but also other ideas for online marketing, analog, offline marketing and just, you know, generally kind of like, really inspiring stories of people who are doing really unique things. And so. This is not to pat myself on the back at all.
I, this, the team that works on the podcast and everything that goes into it they all do it because they have loved it. And that getting that content out in the world, we know has an impact on organizers and really helps bring in like so many different facets of like being an entrepreneur, because I know one of the major conversations that comes up a lot.
Yeah. Balancing it all with a million other things that you have going on in your life. And I love asking those questions to people that have businesses that aren't even about organizing and definitely women who do have organizing businesses, but also are super involved in lots of other things. So not to overwhelm you, but this is my encouragement to you that if you have.
You know, gone back and revisited some of those things. We do have another shortcut for you so that you aren't going back and waiting through the hundreds of hours of content [00:24:00] on our blog each episode does have its own blog posts with timestamps and ways that you can sort of skip ahead to the parts that might be more interesting to you.
You can search on the blog for certain topics, but we also have a not so secret page, but maybe. Well-known to everyone, we have sort of like a directory of the podcast episodes. So the, on this page, you can go back and say what are the ones that are related to starting the business? What are the ones that are related to like client relationships?
I actually can't remember all of the different topics we have, but we sort of have them separated out. So if. Phase of business where you're thinking much more about advertising or you're you're at the beginning. And you're trying to decide just on some basics about what is my nature, what is my direction?
I feel like that's really helpful because then you can jump straight to like the 20 episodes that are like, okay. You know, some from Jen, some, from guests, guests guests, interviews, like I said we have interviewed people who do have really specific niches in the industry, like for example, the photo organizing so that you can sort of like, okay, get my headphones on, go on a walk and sort of immerse myself in, is this, does this sound like the direction that I want to go?
Is this inspiring to me? Can I see myself? Doing some of these marketing methods, because I really resonated with this particular person's story and she's not the stand on a stage and tell everybody, right. And then all the way on the other hand we have organizers in our own community who have written an organizing book and publish it on Amazon.
And so if that is something that's more of your app. All of that is there. And when you guys write to us and say that you heard something that helped you make a decision or make a shift like that makes it all worth it.
And sharing. Of course with anyone in your network or the organizing groups that you're in, if you feel like that's helpful, we love it. And we love to hear it. So, yeah, so happy two years and bringing Melissa on as a, as a permanent cohost of the podcast in the last year has been really excellent for everyone involved because as you guys know, we have different different stories, different [00:26:00] strings.
Which I think strengthens us as a whole because I never, I never wanted to be the person that's like, you have to do it the way I did. I just wanted to share what was working for me and hopefully give you guys the confidence to try some things that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise.
Melissa Klug: One way that you can also absorb all of this content, if you're looking for some very specific advices, a lot of the podcast episodes on the blog post will have a full transcript transcript.
Yeah. So, excellent. I actually know someone like someone new in our Inspired Organizer program, who is a personal friend of mine, told me that she printed out all of the lessons. 50 podcasts transcripts, or like some number of huge number of transcripts. And she would read them at work on her breaks. And so she like made a packet out of them and read them.
So if you prefer to read rather than listen, that's there for you too. And like essentially you can make your own book out of all of the things we have said. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So lots of different ways that you can learn from us.
Great idea. I think we should
Thanks for coming to our podcast today, we will just call it the kitchen Chronicles with Jen and Melissa. We were talking in my kitchen and taped several hours of our conversation. Hopefully you enjoyed this one and you will enjoy several more. That will be coming in the weeks to come. We always love sharing our thoughts and insights with you, and we would love to hear what you think.
If you could subscribe and write us a review we love to have more people find the podcast. If you'd like to find us on Instagram, we are at pro organizer studio. We would love to hear from you there. DMS. We love to chat with listeners and we would absolutely adore it. If you wanted to join us on our free workshop, the four-part plan for landing your dream clients in 2021, head over to PO roadmap.com for that goodness.
I hope all of you per organizers have an amazing, amazing day.
[00:28:00] Thank you so much for listening into the pro organizer studio podcast. If you'd like to get our roadmap for success as a pro organizer, head straight to www.poroadmap.com.