Episode 98: "Someone Should Do This!" - An Organizing Passion Project with Sarah Brent
Sarah Brent did something awesome with her organizing business, which is she saw that there was a need for something in the market, and she kept saying "someone should work on this!" and then realized someone was actually her. We love when someone takes a challenge and is like, wait, I'll tackle that! So we wanted to have Sarah on to talk about what she's doing...and how it can help all our pro organizing friends.
LINKS FOR LISTENERS:
Tidy Stock Photography site
Coupon code: PODCAST20 for 20% off your purchase
Sarah's organizing business Practical Harmony
Pro Organizer Studio: Organizing Essentials (enrollment closes 1/31)
Information about Inspired Organizer
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 free workshop that is called The 4-Part Plan for Landing Your Dream Clients. 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.
Feeling ready to start? Great! Check out this post on how to start your business stress-free!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sarah Brent: I've always felt that when you have that, saying the back of your mind, that's just like, somebody should do something about that like, if you hear yourself saying that to yourself, like three to five times, you are the one that needs to be doing something about it, because number one, not everybody pays attention. Like you do. I'm sure a million people complain, Ugh, I can't find this, but not everybody's thinking, well, could I create that?
Could I offer that? And that is your sign you think, is this somebody me?
Melissa Klug: Hey pro organizers. It's your podcast Co-host Melissa Klug and it's another awesome week here at Pro Organizer Studio. I was just thinking, as I was putting this podcast together and getting everything ready to go out, I am so grateful and so fortunate to be able to do this work. And I was just thinking about the people that I've connected with this week, who are talking about their businesses and how excited they are for this year.
I, I just am so passionate about building this and Jen’s and my goal is always to make sure that you are inspired and that's why today's guest is going to really bring some awesome inspiration to everybody.
It's Sarah Brent from Practical Harmony and we love bringing you people that are doing things that are not just organizing, but expanding their organizing universe. And Sarah did something awesome, which is she saw that there was a need for something in the market.
And it was something that she had searched for and couldn't find, and she kept saying someone should work on this and then realized someone was actually her. And I love when someone takes a challenge and is like, wait, I'll tackle that. So without further ado, we hope you are having an awesome week and let's get to the podcast.
You're listening to the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast with Melissa Klug and Jen Obermeier. Thank you so much for joining in our mission is to broaden the horizons of savvy business women in the organizing industry by instilling confidence and inspiring authenticity. You'll gain new insight into strategies designed specifically for professional organizers.
So now let's get started.
Melissa Klug: I have someone special on with us today. She is not only a part of our inspired organizer program, but she is one of our mentors inside the program so she provides
daily coaching and guidance in addition to running her own organizing business with a team.
And also another thing that she has started which we're going to talk to her about. So one of the things we're going to have to ask her is how does she do all of the things, but I would like to welcome Sarah Brent to the podcast. How are
Sarah Brent: you? I'm good.
Thank you for having me again. So excited to be here and talk about this. Yes.
Melissa Klug: Sarah has been a guest on the packet. How many other times? So
Sarah Brent: I feel like I think three times
Melissa Klug: three-time podcast, I think you win the prize for being on the most amount of time.
So congratulations. There is some sort of wonderful prize that we can give you for this, but just to get everyone started, even if you have been on the podcast before, tell us a little bit about your business and where you are and all that good stuff.
Sarah Brent: So I own Practical Harmony Professional Organizing, and I'm located in Bloomington, Illinois, which is central Illinois. And I started my organizing business in 2014. I went pretty much full-time in 2016 and ever since then, just like it's taken off. I found Pro Organizer Studio I want to say probably like 2017 and joined, inspire, organized around then.
And there's not a day that goes by that I'm not chatting with my friends and inspired organizer. That is just really what helped take my business to the next level to get where I am today.
Melissa Klug: We talk a lot about entrepreneurship can be very lonely, you know, especially most of us are solopreneurs.
And so it is so nice to have other people that get exactly where you're coming from and you don't have to explain it. And everybody is like such a great cheerleader
Sarah Brent: for sure. Cause like in central Illinois, there's not very many organizers and it's like, you try to talk to people like your friends or your husband.
And they're just like, oh, what? I don't understand. So it's great. Even when we go on our group and we're complaining like about a client situation or a travel, we've been complaining about travel lately, stuff like that. It's just so nice to have other people that get it. You don't have to explain it. Like you said, it's just like you get that support, that feedback when you want it.
And that team feeling when you're saying. A lone business by yourself sometimes. Yeah, I have. I'm
Melissa Klug: sure that honestly, my husband probably should think Inspired Organizer more. Cause then I don't have to be like, okay, so here's the story. And you have to give like seven minutes of background information before you even get to the basics of the story, but then he's like asleep, right?
Sarah Brent: I don't know about other people's husbands, but mine's a Mr. Fix it so many years. My complaint. He's like, oh, well, here's what I can fix it. I'm like, no, just,
Melissa Klug: yeah. That's another great thing. Like women understand it. No, no, no, no. We just want you to listen and just go on. Sorry.
Sarah Brent: They get it out.
Melissa Klug: Tell me a little bit about your business. What kind of clients do you serve? You have a team of people that you work with.
Sarah Brent: Yeah, so we primarily serve most of the central Illinois, which for me, it's like a 60 mile radius. And you know, we don't have like a super niche because there's not a lot of organizers and I want to be able to offer our services to whoever needs help, but we work with a lot of families.
Currently. I'm working with a nonprofit nearby, small business owners, things like that. And the typical. Decluttering or unpacking, packing, organizing. And then sometimes it's just like, you know, fancy pantries and fancy walk-in closet. So we dabble a little bit with everything when it comes to the different types of organizing, which I love.
It's like, you know, each project is different and it keeps us on our toes. I like
Melissa Klug: that too. I personally love the like every day is totally different. If I had to do the same thing every day, I would get bored.
But then some people will love doing the exact same thing every day.
Sarah Brent: Well, cause sometimes like there was one like Christmas season, I was doing so many pantries and I loved it. It was so much fun. And I thought I'm just going to focus on pantries. But then after like my third one, I'm like. Okay. I'm kind of bored with pantries.
Where can we go back to like digging through a basement? Like I just need to change it up as much as I think I want to do the same room every time I know that's not what my brain wants. I just go to that, you know, keep it fresh, doing different things. And these are a
Melissa Klug: good example. That is something that I know a couple of people that specifically niche down to pantries and that's awesome for them.
I, this is just an old person problem. I have, like, now that I'm getting older, my eyes are getting worse. So in order to do a pantry, like the expiration dates, I'm like putting my glasses up on my head and then I know that's ridiculous, but it's, it's so much work for me to do a pantry that I'm like 1 a week is good.
Sarah Brent: I get that. I've been telling my friends. I'm like, I'm getting a lot older than what I first started. Like the jobs I prefer are different now my body feels different at the end of the day. So yeah. Alright, this
Melissa Klug: is a story. No one asked for, but the hardest pantry I ever did was the client of mine who had three kids, all with different, very severe food allergies.
So one was celiac. One had a tree nut allergy one had a peanut allergy, but not a tree nut allergy. And so we had to like, do, we had to look at every label and give everyone a shelf. It was seriously like the hardest math problem combined with reading labels. And it was really channel.
Sarah Brent: That sounds so ridiculous.
Cause already with pantries, you have to like really set it up, you know, take everything into factor. And I can't imagine like, okay, well this product contains this and this as it go in this person's or that person
Melissa Klug: legit, one of the hardest pantries I've ever done. And at the end of that day, I was just like emotionally exhausted.
Sarah Brent: That's funny because I, myself am gluten-free and my husband's not. So I already organize our stuff differently, but even thinking about that job, I'm like, Ooh, that sounds like it. It was a
Melissa Klug: lot. But anyway, we didn't come here to talk about pantries, to came here, to talk about your awesome, awesome new thing that you've started.
So tell us a little bit about what you've started and then we'll talk about
Sarah Brent: how you got there. Okay. So I launched last year, tidy stock photography, which is styled stock images, primarily for home organizers or bloggers like interior designers, anybody who needs. An organized type of image.
And I came up with this idea because in the very beginning of launching my business on my website, stuff was DIY like a lot of us do. And I realized I was spending hours and hours, if not days, accumulative just searching for stock photos. And it was so hard to find something that said organizing without being a totally sterile, fake looking house.
Or they just want to show you a crazy pile of garbage with a sign that says help. And I'm like, I, that's not what I want. That's not the branding I want. That's not the message. I want to say, like these clients of ours are coming to our website already feeling overwhelmed. They don't want to see a pile of garbage and be like, ah, It makes me feel even more overwhelmed.
So I just started collecting SOC images and saving them on my computer for years, still having a hard time finding ones that fit my, my colors or the feel I was looking for. And I'd find things that worked, but it just took so much digging. And I literally would schedule out days in my calendar just to search stock photos.
And, only came up with, I'd say probably 50 to a hundred good ones, and then they just kind of get boring once you use them. And it still just wasn't what I wanted. So that was when I first was like, this is a major struggle. Why are there no, like home organizing images? Why, when somebody takes a picture of home organizing stuff, it's so fake looking or so messy looking.
And I know as an organizer that that's not what any of us really want. Right. Like our website or social media to feel like we want it to be, shows our personality down to earth. Most of us want to be, and just like for these leads and clients come to our website and just like connect with us through images rather than being like, oh,
what's that?
Melissa Klug: And I think that having images that you know, are good, that you can use reliably. And you can say I can come up with a story for this image versus trying to seek out an image and go like, yep. No, that's not quite, that's not quite it to be able to create that story, to then be able to inspire your clients.
It's a big deal.
Sarah Brent: I remember finding images. I'm like, this is super cute. This fits my branding and my colors, but then. What do I say about this? Like, yeah, it's a cute image and it will look really great if I throw it up on my feed, but how do I really connect this image to organizing to what I want to share with people?
And I do remember having some people look at my social media at the time, which I wasn't trying super, super hard, but I was trying to make it pretty. And they're just like, I don't see anything organizing related. I'm like, I get that. I get it. Cause I don't either.
And it's really hard. And I'm trying to tell a story with these various flat lays or like, lifestyle pictures, but it's still, it's, it's just like a kitchen, not a kitchen cabinet with things inside of it. So I saw the need and I knew the struggle and I was just like, somebody's got to do something someday.
So. One way that I initially was like, I can fix this for myself is I had my first branding shoot done in 2019 and I met a local photographer on Instagram actually. Now she's like one of my best friends. And I told her , Hey, I want to do a branding shoe.
Obviously I want pictures of myself, but I struggle with finding stock images for what I want for my business. So I came prepared to our shoot with props, notebooks, you know, hangers, baskets, tubs, all this different stuff. And she was like, okay, do your thing. And I'll take pictures. So I literally was sitting on the ground folding stuff and she was taking pictures.
I was writing things down, in my planner and she was taking pictures. She even took some of my business cards and other things that are my branding color, put them on a cute table together, took some flat lays. And when we got these pictures back, when we looked at my Collection together.
We both are freaking out at how amazing everything look we're like, seriously, we did that. That is so good. And I still use a lot of those pictures to this day because my colors haven't changed and my branding still feels the same. So I'm able to keep using those every so often.
And that was why I was like, okay, this is what it's like to, have a collection ready to go, ready to use. And boom, I'm confident once I post that, it looks good. It's cohesive people. See it. And they're just like that. Sarah that's practical harmony. So that was my first taste of like, Ooh,
Melissa Klug: this is good.
Well, it is so nice to have something that, you know, you can go to and you feel super confident in it. You're like, yes, this fits out all his checks, all the boxes, this fits all of the things that are important to me and my business,
Sarah Brent: especially like me, my creativity. Comes at such a random time.
So if I'm in the middle of the night, getting an idea to post on Instagram and I want to throw it up, but I'm just like, what image do I do? But you can easily go to like your folder of whatever you have and throw up one that looks good. And she's like, there you go. Perfect.
Melissa Klug: And one of the things that I know people struggle with with social media is not only coming up with the ideas, but just having something where they don't have to think about it as hard to, like, you just want the content to be there and ready to go.
You don't want to have to be going like, well, what am I going to post this week? What am I going to go to? So having a set of photographs that you're like, I can reliably depend on all of these images and I'm not going to have to think very hard about it. And I'm not going to have to spend very much time on it, which nobody
Sarah Brent: has time. Nobody needs to be scheduling dates. She looked at the stock photos through every I'm pretty sure I looked through every single free site that's out there. Like I had them all, every single day searching, there's gotta be something new. There's gotta be something organizing related.
I don't think anybody has come from the organizers perspective and we're pretty particular people. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: You did this shoot with your branding person. And then how did you then decide to make the leap of, Hey, I don't want these just for me.
Sarah Brent: So I, so that happened in 2019. And so I got to play around with my own photos for a while. I kept thinking somebody should do this. Somebody should do this. And even in our group, like we would have multiple posts a year. People would be like, where do you guys find stock photos? There's nothing out there.
And I'm just like, man, somebody should do this. And then in 2020, when the pandemic hit and everybody stopped working. I actually reached back out to my photographer friend I'm just like, Hey, you know, I've had this idea for awhile.
Would you ever be interested in doing stock photos with me for organizing stuff? And immediately she was like, yes, that sounds like a great idea. She was looking for a new creative outlet. She was wanting to work with more objects rather than people,
so, and I will say I was kind of scared because I wasn't sure if my idea was a good enough idea. I wasn't sure if she'd be along with it. I really didn't know who else I would reach out to because I just knew that the way that she created images was exactly what I already wanted and what a lot of organizers already look for clear, crisp, high quality, bright, beautiful, feminine, but not like too feminine.
And she said, yes. And then we just started having meetings about it, the brainstorming, everything, which was so much fun. And then we had our first shoe, it was so exciting and
Melissa Klug: a good photographer is going to be able to view things from a creative standpoint, they are creative people.
And so they're going to be able to say this notebook would look better, slightly off sides. We need a pen here. We need a pair of glasses. Like they're going to have those ideas, which is awesome. Yes.
Sarah Brent: And that was somebody at the beginning asked me why don't I just do everything on my own, because I do have experience with photography and I've always loved photography, but I knew like I didn't want it to all just Russ on me.
I wanted other people's perspectives of opinions. I wanted somebody, honestly, who was a professional at an already. I have the ideas. I need somebody to help me implement it. And it just feels like such a perfect partnership with her right now to be able to create these together. And you guys know when you're all completely done organizing a space and like you walk back and you're just like, oh my gosh, this is so great.
I can't wait to do this. Like that's every single day we have a shoot. We're like, did we seriously just create this playroom, so I just love it so much.
Melissa Klug: It's a good feeling.
I'm going to take a brief break from talking to Sarah to make sure that you are in on something that I don't think you're going to want to miss. When I started my organizing business, I had only ever organized in my own house.
Thankfully, a few years later, thousands of hours in clients' homes and hundreds of clients later across eight different states. Jen asked me to create a course that people had asked for for years, which is how do you organize in someone's house?
What do I do after I ring that doorbell? And out of that was born pro organizer studio, organizing essentials. This course covers everything you can imagine in a client situation.
And if you have something above and beyond what is in the course, the greatest thing is for all of 2022, we are going to be doing a live zoom once a month, where you can get active coaching advice from me and from the other people in the group, and be able to talk through anything that you are working on with clients that you want to get better at. We want to give you that confidence that when you ring that doorbell and that client opens the door, you are absolutely ready to go. No matter what they have to throw at you, whether it is a basement that is filled to the ceiling, whether it is a toy room that has exploded with Christmas gifts, whether it is a closet that has things that haven't been worn in 10 years, we are going to give you all the tools that you need to work with those clients. We are closing enrollment at the end of this month. And so we would love to get you in if you would like details, hit us up in the show notes or head to our Instagram.
And we will have all of the details there as well. Now, back to our chat with Sarah.
The other thing too, is that this is just a plug for, if you're just starting your business, also hire a good photographer to take good headshots.
This is not, not why Sarah came here to talk, but a good photographer will make you look so good and make your website better and make your social better and make like it's a good photographer. And what you're saying is you find someone that has the aesthetic that you like.
And because they're not all the same. And that is a huge, huge part of a good business,
Sarah Brent: 100%. And that's what I always tell people when they ask tips for hire a photographer, I'm like, you find somebody that already fits what you want, because you really cannot hire somebody that you know, where you're related to.
And just be like, I want you to create. Light and airy photo when they do dark and moody stuff, because it's,. It's like asking us to do something that we're not professional at. You know, you just got to find the person that already fits you and it's worth it's it is the best investment for your business.
Melissa Klug: It has huge ROI. It is really, really important.
Sarah Brent: So what are your dreams for
Melissa Klug: tidy stock photography? What direction do you envision it going in?
Sarah Brent: You know, there's so many possibilities it's a different, different type of business. So I'm just like, do I want to do tidy sock? Full-time I love photography. I love being creative. I'm not sure yet, but I do know that it's not something that neither me or Cory, my photographer ever want to stop doing.
I, okay. I guess I'll talk about the big, you know, those big dreams that you have that you write down.
You're like maybe someday. I would love to someday down the road, have somebody come to us. And they're just like, my brand colors are this, this and this. I specialize in this create a custom stock photo bundle for me. And we're just like on it. I would love to do that because it could be something that we don't have to be living in the same city or state as this person.
And they might not necessarily need headshots or anything, but they want, you know, a nice cabinet full of plates that are their brand colors and they just can not find that. And they want something that is customized to them where nobody else can go out and purchase it. So that's something that I'm just like, that would be so fun to do.
And you know what, there has been times in my business life where I'm like, I just. My brain and photos. I don't want somebody else to have that photo. So that is like way down the road. That'd
Melissa Klug: be really cool too. Oh, that's really cool. But I think what you're going through and what you're trying to decide with this new side business is what a lot of people are trying to decide, like, I love organizing, but I also have other things I like to do.
So how do I fit that all in. So how do you feel like you're able to prioritize that with your major, like your main business? Do you ever feel like a push and pull between
Sarah Brent: those two things definitely felt like that last year. And I wasn't prepared. I will say like, it had been a while since I had juggled my organizing business than anything else, because in 2016, I quit.
Side jobs, side hustles. Part-time things. I'm just like, I can't do that. So I, even though I, so passionately wanted to start this, I really didn't even consider, oh, I'm starting another business on top of my organizing business. So, one thing that I'm doing this year to change things is last year I started taking Mondays off for my admin days for my organizing business.
And I stuck to that and that's been amazing. Everybody should do that. Well, whatever day of the week, this year, I've decided one week out of every month, I'm taking off to recharge from organizing and then to be able to focus on tidy stock. And that's when I plan my meetings and our shoots and shopping days and stuff like that.
So that was going to be a big change for me. And I feel like it's just going to help things because then I won't feel like. I can't prepare for my photo shoot because I'm working with a client the day before, but oh my gosh, all I'm thinking about is how can I style this bend to look really cute.
And then also recently last year I hired an admin assistant and she's been, have been sent if anybody's ever considering hiring an assistant. Oh my gosh, do it right now. But
Melissa Klug: huge difference in
life.
Sarah Brent: That's a big difference. And it's something I knew I've always wanted to do because I just needed more help behind the scenes.
But now that I have two businesses going, I can be like, were, you can do work for either of these businesses. So something that's been really different. Yeah. Now I'm working with trying to market towards professional organizers all over the world versus homeowners locally, which is what I was doing for my organizing business.
So now my assistant she's creating stuff for me for social media stories and posts. And she's just being so supportive with that and creating all of that for me, so that when I'm planning stuff, she creates and posts like 10 pins on Pinterest a week.
And I'm just blown away by this. So I really could not do it all by myself. That's something that I realized. And also I can't do it without prioritizing it. I had to give it its own time. Every month, just for me to focus on it for it to keep moving and not just stay stuck. Right. Well, and you said
Melissa Klug: something important because I am also someone who has my feet in two different worlds.
Right. I've got my organizing business and I also work at pro organizer studio. And so you do have those moments where you have to go slowly to go fast. I think it's the way the phrase goes. Like you have to say, I am not going to take organizing clients for this week, this one week a month, because I need to devote that time to my business in the same way that you might need to take a day off from organizing clients once a week so that you have admin time.
So you don't get behind on your accounting or whatever. And that feels bad sometimes. Cause you're like, Ooh, I'm losing money. But then you realize you actually aren't, you're, you're actually doing things that are helpful to your business by taking that time off.
Sarah Brent: Yeah. And that's when I first pitched this idea to myself to take a week off every month.
I'm like, that's crazy. That's a week off. But I realized I was already considering taking two admin days every single week. But then when I realized to an additional admin date actually just equals another week, I'm like, okay, Yeah. And that way I can, you know, really focus sometimes even though I blocked stuff off, my brain is not in the mood to do that.
But if I have a full week to try to do the other business stuff, that's a lot more time to actually focus, realign. Some things, crank some stuff out.
Melissa Klug: Well, it's hard to, there's this concept called context switching, where you're thinking about one thing, and then you switched to think about the other thing, but then you lose some of the brain power at Ms.
Switching back and forth. And so being able to devote yourself to this is the only thing I'm doing this week. If you are contemplating another business, besides organizing. So if you have a great idea or if you are going to start a podcast, anything that you're doing in your business, really giving yourself that space to only think about that thing.
It's huge.
Sarah Brent: Yeah. Cause little, you can definitely, you know, do little things every single day to help another business, but that takes forever and you get distracted and you forget what you've started the day before. And yeah, that's I remember doing that first, trying to start my organizing business.
And I did that for a couple of years. That's why I had so many other part-time jobs. So I'm like, I'm building it on the side, but then doing one task would take three months. Cause it was always on the side. So you just have to analyze your time and the investment on that. And it's like, is it worth it to take a break from everything else and just really dive in and focus on something?
Melissa Klug: It's a huge shift to be able to do that and to realize that you are going to have to take that time and take one, you know, take a piece of revenue away and put it in a different spot. It's not to say that you're getting rid of it forever. You're just going to move it to a different spot so that you can create additional stuff.
Sarah Brent: And I will say, since this also affects the scheduling for my organizing business, it just feels super nice to be able to like, sorry, we're booked all month. We can schedule next month. They don't know that you're not taking clients that week. They just know that you're not available.
That's
Melissa Klug: just a hot tip in general.
Like every once in a while, Sarah and I will, we'll be coaching someone and some will be like, well, I have to tell my clients that I have about like, Nope, you don't have to give them your whole life story. Literally you just tell them, sorry, I am booked the entire month. I'm doing the exact same thing this month.
I'm not taking organizing clients because I have a bunch of stuff that I need to get caught up on, on my laptop. So do you know what my messaging is? I am fully booked in, in January and people are like, oh, great. Well, are you available in February? And I'm like, Ooh, I'm going to have to check great message.
People want you, if
Sarah Brent: you're. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, you don't need to overexplain it. You don't over, you don't owe anybody an explanation for anything. And it's the truth. I am booked really booked this month and I, we owe it to ourselves to put ourselves and what we want to do first. It's so hard to get, we get sucked in, in being in a service that we just want to do everything for everybody else.
And I probably have this idea because I got a taste of it during the holiday break, we actually have. Booked completely. But then one of our clients got COVID. So I got a full week off and I'm like, I got to catch up on laundry and my own organizing in my house. And I got to that's actually, when I posted like four or five bundles of our stock photos, cause I had the time to do it.
I'm like, okay, this makes sense. It's because I'm not making the time for myself. I'm not booking myself in my own school. And this goes
Melissa Klug: for you, even if you are not going to start a secondary business with an organizing, we're talking about this as good advice. Just if you are saying, I am only doing my organizing business, that's all.
And I want to do, these are still principles that are super important and I'll tell you, it took me. A long time to learn. I was fully two years into my business before I had these like, bright moments about, oh, I need to take some time
Sarah Brent: for me. I remember at times considering, can I fit three clients in one day?
What?
Melissa Klug: No, I did it. I, I had a time there. My busiest month that I had, I had some days where I had three clients a day and I remember like I would get home. I was exhausted, my backer and I would go straight to bed. And at some point I realized this isn't good for me and it's not good for my clients.
Sarah Brent: Definitely
Melissa Klug: So for anybody who's out there thinking about, Hey, I have this idea and it's organizing adjacent, but it's not really organizing, like, do you have any tips for people who just have this idea that they keep saying, someone should do that? Wow.
Sarah Brent: You know, I've always felt that when you have that, saying the back of your mind, that's just like, somebody should do something about that.
Somebody should do something about that. Like, if you hear yourself saying that to yourself, like three to five times, you are the one that needs to be doing something about it, because number one, not everybody pays attention. Like you do. I'm sure a million people complain, Ugh, I can't find this, but it's like not everybody's thinking, well, could I create that?
Could I offer that? And I kind of knew, I I'm just so passionate about pictures and photography, which is why I spent so much time finding the perfect stock photos. I kind of knew I want somebody to do something about this because it needs to be done and it needs to be done. Right. And in the right way.
And I just kept thinking, somebody should do that. And that is your sign you think, is this somebody me? And then just do some market research, see if there's anybody out there actually doing it. For me, I had, I've already purchased yearly stock subscriptions before. So I actually went back to those and I'm like, do they even offer organizing stuff yet?
Are they already, doing this thing? I don't ever want to feel like I'm reinventing the wheel. If it's just going to take everything out of me, but somebody else will already do, you know, they've already got it covered. So I did some research and realized no people are still trying and they're offering something close to organizing pictures, but it wasn't quite right.
And then I just kept thinking about it and I kept thinking somebody should do something
Melissa Klug: about this. I love that. That's the takeaway. Someone should do something about this.
Sarah Brent: And for me, since this is organizing related, I just started asking my organizing friends. I just be like, Hey, I haven't seen.
What do you think everybody was like, yes. Do it. I want to buy them right now. And am I, well, I just have the idea, but you really got to ask, you know, you got to see if there is a need, you got to see if anybody has filled that need yet. If you know they're active or anything, doing a good job at it.
And then just see if you actually want to do it. I had to think like, do I really want to start something new? Do I think I can do. And it's so easy. A lot of us are multi-passionate, it's so easy to be like, oh, this is a great idea. I want to do this now. And then it fizzles out and I'm like, ma whatever.
But I had to really think am I going to invest the money into buying the products for this, the time that it takes to do all of this and build up a second business and is it going to be worth it to me? And I think that's when it was the perfect time when we were all stuck at home and not really happy organizing clients.
I'm like, you know what? I need that creative outlet. I love this was a big part. It's like, I love photography. I love organizing. And I love helping organizers because I just get it. That's totally different type of industry that we work in. So it all came together and I'm like, I'll try it.
See what happens. And I love it.
Melissa Klug: I posted something the other day. That was, it was from I still use a paper planner. Yes, I'm that person. And, but that my paper planner has these inspirational quotes and one of them was, if he can't stop thinking about it, start doing it.
And it's like, your brain is telling you, your intuition is trying to, to send you a sign that like, Hey, there's this, there's this thing that's out there that is going to really excite you. And I think all of us, if you have started a business and then you go, okay, cool. I have that going. And I'm getting good at that.
And then you go, I need a new challenge. And for some people that is okay, I'm going to build a team or it might be, I'm going to start traveling or I'm going to build a course, or it might be I'm going to provide a service to the organizing industry, but it helps keep your passion for the industry going, if you have something else that you're doing, it's not just one thing.
Sarah Brent: I think that's what I realized too is because I had tried at other times, New hypothesis, side hustles, but, it was pulling me too far away from organizing, but I realized I can't split myself. I can't split my focus on the time like that. Like it can not be like that. And then once I realized that tidy sock is an easy segue from organizing.
And I was seeing the same passion and ideas that I had from when I first started practical harmony, you know, you open up a notebook and you just fill the page in two seconds with ideas, for everything. I'm like, I feel alive again. Like you're
Melissa Klug: yeah. You're excited. It's Monday. And you it's, it's whatever you need to reignite that passion for
Sarah Brent: organizing and make you excited to learn again, because we, you know, we always have to learn new systems and things like that.
And sometimes it gets really boring and monotonous, but it's like when you're learning how to set up an se shop and now it's for a new, adventure for you, it's just, it's fun versus. I have to do another thing that I'm learning. So it just keeps things fresh and it keeps it on your toes.
Yeah.
Melissa Klug: Well, I am so excited for you that you have found this path and I don't doubt that there are going to be other fun things that come your way. But until then, I'm just going to keep buying all of your photo releases.
Sarah Brent: That's why I tell everybody, like my organizing friends are like my biggest support right now.
I'm biggest fan base, but that's exactly who I wanted. Like I'm creating all of these photos and stop bundles for organizers. So yeah, it just feels right to be talking to my peers in the organizing industry and producing something for them because I see you. I've been there.
I know the struggle. I know almost all of us just want our business and our brands to look good and be easy to look good. And it just, you know, it feels like.
Melissa Klug: I am always excited when I get to support another small business in a meaningful way.
And it works well for all of us. The other day, I used one of your photos for pro organizer studio. Then I used another one for my home by 11 business. And it was like, boom, I'm done with social media for the day. Do not need to think about this again. They're beautiful photos. I really am a customer, I really own all these photos and I will keep buying them as long as you be putting them out because they are.
They're awesome. And I really hope I
Sarah Brent: saw your posts. They looked so good. And I'm just saying. I loved that because, you know, I wonder like do these connect with people and they use them, but I just loved how it seemed like you easily connected the photo with your story. I'm like, yes, that's what I wanted.
, I want us to have an organizing content ideas and have a photo to go with that when we don't have the ability to produce our own right now. Cause sometimes we don't like, you know, you want to talk about a perfectly tidy drawer, but you don't have a perfectly tiny drawer at the moment. So, yeah.
Melissa Klug: Well, and the thing that we talk about a lot in our group is we talk about inspiration versus information.
And so that's another thing that I love about them is instead of putting something out there, that's like, step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Here's how you organize your house. No, you just put a photo out there and you say, Hey, do you struggle with your kids? Puzzles here is a great solution for you. It's one very specific thing.
It's an inspirational photo. It's like very warm and calming and all that kind of stuff. And it really gives your potential clients that inspiration feeling.
Sarah Brent: Do you have any, is there anything else that you're doing for
Melissa Klug: your business this year? Like, are you reading it? This is not pressure by the way to answer this question.
Have you read any good books, business books lately? Have you listened to any good podcasts? Anything that's like really inspiring you in terms of your business goals this
Sarah Brent: year? You know, I've been slacking on reading.
What I've been doing more this year for just business, for both organizing and tidy soft related, it's just diving back into online tutorials. We waste so much time trying to teach ourselves a new program when there's literally people on YouTube that will teach you everything you did university.
Yeah. And I just, like, I would struggle with a basic thing, setting up an Etsy shop and I'm just like, why, why am I struggling on my own? Go to YouTube, type it in. For a couple of years, I kind of forgot about using YouTube like that on the business side, I use it so much in the beginning, and now I'm trying to get back into that and just reminding myself, there's somebody out there who's already trained and like kind of have mastered this stop trying to master it yourself on your own because you're driving yourself crazy.
So it's kind of like, now that I've started my own organizing businesses, it's a whole like work smarter, not harder,. Beating yourself up. There's somebody out there who knows how to
Melissa Klug: do it. Absolutely cobble things. YouTube is absolutely the greatest at that. And you're exactly right. I don't care what you're working on.
There was something on YouTube I was trying to figure out how to do a real, right. This was like a couple months ago when I was like, oh my gosh, you got to learn how to do a reel. And I, my teenagers were unavailable to me. So I was like, my gosh, let's go to YouTube.
And yeah, there was an 11 minute video that taught me the basics. I'm not going to be an expert real maker, but it taught me the basics, which I would have absolutely struggled with for two plus hours, trying to figure out is able to figure them out in 10 minutes of watching a video. And so there there's absolutely nothing.
And especially for people, I hear the phrase a lot. I'm not tech savvy. Yeah, I hear
Sarah Brent: that phrase a lot
Melissa Klug: in the work that we do. And so my comeback to that is you don't have to be tech savvy. There are people who will teach you how to do it. So online tutorial, so not just YouTube, but I will tell you whatever it is.
I don't care what piece of software you're using in your business or whatever. There are great help tools inside every piece of software to videos, everything. So I heard, I think it was a Lori Palau. Who's been on this podcast also many times. I think she said the what it takes to be a good organizer as someone who knows how to Google really well.
It's absolutely true. There is nothing out there that can be.
Sarah Brent: I mean, half of my mentoring is just Googling. But that's yeah, that you just kind of have to realize that I don't know the answer to something. So I'm going to go to a search engine where I can find somebody who knows the answer to something and invest the time in that rather than investing the time into working yourself up.
But you don't know about something. Cause we all, we've all been there though. Like, I definitely was like that overwhelmed when I was trying to start the tidy stock shop and all of that. And that I was like, wait, I've, I've been here before, stop freaking out, go to the internet, search the issue you have and find the solution.
So it kind of re humbled me, brought me back to my roots of, you gotta be open to learning new things and I'm like, anybody else I can say, I'm not tech savvy at times we all have to learn something new. We all have, you know, new programs that we got to do, but it's just, you gotta do it. And you gotta say.
Kind of like making a fuss about it and beating herself about it. And I will say for this new year, I'm going to stop saying, I don't know how to do this, or I can't do this because I've said that about so many things in my business before, and that's just the easy way to hold yourself back. Like nobody knows how to do everything.
Like we all start off not knowing how to do something, but I'm going to learn how to do this. I'm going to figure out how to do this. So that's like my new, we gotta re retrain our brains here.
Melissa Klug: I, oh, I love that. And I cannot think of a better note to end on.
Sarah Brent: Thank you
Melissa Klug: so much for joining us. I really appreciate your wisdom each and every day, I get your wisdom every single day, but I know our podcast listeners are lucky to have you today. And where can we find you? This is very important. How can we find tidy stock? Tell us all, all of that good
Sarah Brent: stuff.
All right. So we are a tiny sock photography and we're on Instagram and Facebook. And then you can go to tidy stock photography.com, which will take you directly to our Etsy shop. Okay.
Melissa Klug: And we will link all of this, obviously in the show notes and on the blog for our listeners so that we can get you over there and we'll have a fancy little discount code for you and everything.
Sarah Brent: And if you purchase something and use it in your social media, like tag me or share with me, I love seeing how people are using it. It just validates it. Yes. The images are working and also it gives us ideas for new stuff. If I'm just like, you know what, they should, we can do an image off of this. So, yeah.
Tag
Melissa Klug: us. Fantastic. All right. Thank you, Sarah, for coming on the podcast.
Sarah Brent: Thank you for having me again.
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.