Welcome to Episode 18: Build a Business that Runs Like Clockwork

In this week’s episode, I am joined by professional organizer Brie Kistler, who also happens to be my Operations Manager at Pro Organizer Studio. Today we are talking about what goes on behind the scenes at Pro Organizer Studio, as well as some tips we have learned recently to help the business run as smoothly as possible. We will be sharing our experience as students of Adrienne Dorison’s new course, Run Like Clockwork.

What We Talk About:

(00:00) – Introduction to the episode
(01:01) – Introducing Brie Kistler
(02:15) – How Brie and Jen met and starting working together
(06:41) – Brie’s role at Pro Organizer Studio
(08:10) – Why we read the book Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz
(09:10) – Finding the Run Like Clockwork course from Adrienne Dorison
(09:43) – Why we decided to enroll in the Run Like Clockwork course
(10:07) – Brie’s summary of the book Clockwork
(10:55) – How even a solo professional organizer can benefit from this book
(15:17) – Easy steps you can take right now to get started “clockworking” your business
(16:04) – Recapping our favorite lessons and tools we learned from Run Like Clockwork
(22:29) – How the course has changed the way we work as a team
(27:05) – Jen explains what bottlenecks are and how to avoid them in your business
(32:30) – Brie shares why she loves her job
(33:36) – Information about the Pro Organizer Studio Retreats
(34:48) – Episode Wrap-Up

Run Like Clockwork Course
Clockwork Book
Profit First Book

Related Links:

Profit First – Taking your biz finances to the next level

How to streamline your workflow with Kate Jones

Lessons Learned from 5 Years in Business

Slow down and get more done & money mindset with Hiddy & Co.

Brie Kistler

Brie Kistler is an Inspired Organizer™ turned Operations Manager for Pro Organizer Studio. With a background in Psychology and HR Management, Brie brings a variety of skills to the table as she assists Jen in a multitude of community and project management tasks. She is also the brains behind the match-making for our Accountability Partner Program, which is very popular amongst the Inspired Organizer™ students.

Takeaways

Regardless of if you are running your business solo, or you have a team, getting your business to run smoothly and streamlined in essential. When your everything is operating like a well oiled machine, it makes scaling so much easier and faster.

Full Transcript

Jen Obermeier:

It definitely takes a team to run things here at Pro Organizer Studio. Today I have on professional organizer, Brie Kistler, who also happens to work part-time for Pro Organizer Studio as our operations manager. Now I’ve got her on the podcast to talk about a little bit about what goes on behind the scenes at Pro Organizer Studio and some tips that you can apply to helping your organizing business run as smoothly as possible.

You’re listening to the Pro Organizer Studio podcast with Jen Obermeier. Thank you for joining in. Jen makes it her mission to broaden the horizons of savvy businesswomen in the organizing industry by instilling confidence and inspiring authenticity. She is a devoted business coach and founder of the inspired organizer program. Each week you’ll gain new insight into strategies designed specifically for professional organizers. And now, let’s get started.

Jen Obermeier:

Welcome back to the Pro Organizer Studio podcast. I’m super glad today to have on my … What is she? She’s a little bit of everything. She’s my operations manager. She’s my assistant. She is a major, major part of Pro Organizer Studio with everything that we offer. Her name is Brie Kistler. Hi Brie!

Brie Kistler:

Hey!

Jen Obermeier:

And it’s one of those podcast episodes you kind of have to do at some point where you’re bringing on team members that work with you and introduce them to your community. Brie is someone who works tirelessly really behind the scenes to make sure that I don’t look like a hot mess. Right? Well okay, that’s one of the goals. But I wanted to have Brie on because obviously as a new podcast I wanted to introduce her, but we also, the two of us together just finished a really cool business training over the past few months that we thought that you guys would get a kick out of hearing because it’s really something that for organizers who really want to get a handle on their systems and their processes in order to grow their business or even just maintain at a steady state without losing their mind. I think you guys are going to love it. But before we jump into that, I want to just tell a short story of how Brie and I met. Brie?

Brie Kistler:

Okay. So I have a two and a half year old now, but when she was around 12 months old, I had been staying home with her. And I was really getting an itch to work again. And I had been in an administrative sort of, but also HR role at another company. Well, the particular industry I was in was very stressful and so I knew I loved organizing, but I never really thought it was a thing to start a business, but I had had a lot of encouragement from family and friends to look into it. And then I started going to moms when she was 12 months old and in my moms group a professional organizer came to speak to the group about decluttering your house and stuff like that. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I didn’t know this was a thing, but wait, I don’t need to do this. I’ve already done it. I needed to teach other people how to do it. And it just really got me excited. And so I just started doing some research and I found Jen on Pinterest and on YouTube, and I could not stop watching her videos. But I didn’t want to write to her. I was intimidated because I heard in one of her videos that she lived 30 minutes away from me. So I was just like, I can’t talk to this girl. She’s my competition or whatever. It made me really intimidated, but after six weeks of scouring all of her content, I finally wrote to her and I was like, Hey, we have all this stuff in common. I just wanted you to know that I really think you’re awesome. And I’m here 30 minutes away from you.” So yeah.

Jen Obermeier:

Well Brie, let me just give you my recollection of getting your email that day. I remember exactly where I was because I was like, oh my gosh, I need somebody. I was basically like, can I hire you essentially right away because I was like, I need somebody to come organize me. And what I meant by that was not organize my life per se, but really I was at a point in my business where … This was at the end of 2017. So I was at a point in my business where I had already been doing everything. I was wearing all the hats at Pro Organizer Studio. I was the student, the teacher, the coach, the tech support, the social media manager. I had not outsourced anything at that point. So I had really been flying on my own and I just was kind of like, I’ve got so many projects coming up.

Jen Obermeier:

I know because it was coming up at the end of the fall. So I was already thinking about the next year. And I asked Brie, I was like, “Well can you just come to my house because I need some admin sort of” … I just needed even one day of just help me just organize my admin and all my thoughts because again, it was like me constantly having papers spread out everywhere and post-it notes of all my ideas and things I had to do. So, Brie went from being scared to talk to me, to me being like, well, are you going to come to my house or not? And it was like one week later, which was awesome. And to me it was the most natural thing in the world. I think she was …

Brie Kistler:

Oh my goodness. I ran into my husband’s office jumping up and down. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Not only did she write me back, she wants to meet me. What the heck?”

Jen Obermeier:

That was awesome. No, you just, you came at the right time. So, that was wonderful. Fast forward, Brie ended up working with me as a subcontractor to help with various projects with Pro Organizer Studio throughout the rest of 2018. And then as of January 1st of this year, 2019 Brie became my very first employee, which was great.

Brie Kistler:

Yes.

Jen Obermeier:

And we knew for a long time that eventually that I would want her to move into an employee role. But for a while there it was just sort of like, hey I’m going to need help with this kind of project and she would essentially kind of charge me for a package of hours. And she was kind of helping me here and there. So by the time she became my employee this year we had already had well over a year of working together.

Brie Kistler:

Yeah.

Jen Obermeier:

But with her moving into an employee role, which by the way her official title now is operations manager. She’s my only employee. So she is my only other person who truly helps support all of our programming. So she’s a support person for the inspired organizer community. She handles a lot of support requests from current students or potential students. And she also is my right hand person when it comes to leading our retreats that we’re now offering, which she is amazing at.

Brie Kistler:

Yes.

Jen Obermeier:

So it’s been wonderful to really Brie, see you develop into all of these different roles. But as we started through the beginning of the quarter this year and we’re working together and it was me learning how to manage an actual employee and not just someone who is working with me on a project basis. It was a whole new ball game. So here’s what I want to tell you guys about the business program that Brie and I just went through together.

Jen Obermeier:

If you guys remember, I have talked on the podcast before about a book called Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. Now it’s a great book and if you’re into finance and you’re kind of like that … I almost think it really appeals to people who also like Dave Ramsey for their personal finances, but Profit First is kind of like Dave Ramsey but for your business. And Mike wrote a somewhat new book. It hasn’t been out a very long time even as of now, I think just about a year called Clockwork. And Brie and I both read this book. When did we read that? Probably the end of 2019?

Brie Kistler:

Yeah, late in the fall. Yeah.

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah. And as we were working together at the beginning of this year, this quarter, I said to Brie, it’s a big priority to me to use that book as sort of a roadmap for how to implement a lot of systems and stuff that we really wanted to kind of formalize and bring to the next level for Pro Organizer Studio. And that definitely fell under Brie’s role of helping do project management and helping create systems.

Jen Obermeier:

And so I thought this was an incredible resource. And so we both were going to read the book again. And right when that happened it was just the right place, right time, I saw that they were running their first ever group coaching, eight week program for Clockwork. So you could enroll in it online, and do a guided walkthrough of Clockwork in your business. And the catch, well the big thing for me was not only was it going to be for me, the owner of the business, they said, yeah, bring one other team member too. And I was just like, oh my gosh.

Brie Kistler:

Yay.

Jen Obermeier:

It was like the sun came out because I’m like, this was exactly what we needed in order to really I think properly sort of assess where Pro Organizer Studio was. That sort of the processes and systems that we did have in place. And then also really strengthening and creating systems for the things that we didn’t have in place that we were sort of always reinventing the wheel. Right? So Brie, how would you summarize for somebody who doesn’t know anything about the book Clockwork, what really the premise is and what it’s about?

Brie Kistler:

So I think whether you read the book or not, you know that creating efficiency in your business, it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s definitely a process. And so this book and this course really teach you how to evaluate your business and your time. How you’re spending your time in your business, and if that meets the priorities that you have for the goals of your business and how to kind of shift tasks or shift your time or shift your team members to fit better into the right roles and to use your time more efficiently for the health of your business.

Jen Obermeier:

Brie, why do you think that even someone who is a professional organizer who’s listening, who is a solo business owner and doesn’t have employees or assistants and doesn’t necessarily plan on having any in the near future, why would she … What would she get out of reading that book?

Brie Kistler:

Anyone who’s starting a business has goals or hopefully you have some goals for where you want your business to be five years from now or even a year from now. But a lot of times what happens with entrepreneurs is that they try to do everything themselves. And it’s like you’re just running on a hamster wheel. And you’re not really thinking about … Even though you have goals or dreams for five years from now, you’re not necessarily doing the work it takes to get there right now. And so I think that this book really helps you slow down and take the steps you need to put the systems in place so that you can get to that point a couple years down the road.

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think too that there’s definitely a happy medium somewhere for the kind of person out there who they can run an organizing business all by themselves, but there’s going to be certain things that they never were going to quite get around to putting extra time toward. So I think even reading the book and kind of getting an understanding of, okay, here are what my weekly and daily business tasks should be. And am I on track, and do I have ways to measure whether or not I’m doing those?

Jen Obermeier:

And then I think too that it helps you identify areas where if you wanted to, or if you got to the point where you’re financially able to outsource something to a social media manager for example, you just come to the point where you just say, this is important for my business, but I do not want to be the one who dedicates the time to it myself. And I use this example because it’s such a good one. It’s something that you can do the bare minimum or you can do nothing, and then other people choose to put a lot into it, right?

Brie Kistler:

Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that Adrienne said in the course, Adrienne Dorison co-wrote the book Clockwork with Mike Michalowicz and she actually runs the course Run Like Clockwork. And one of the things that she said to kind of get your mind in the right place is, what will you do when you have more clients than you can handle? Can you make your thousandth customer feel like your first customer? Can you give them the same level of attention? So when you’ve gotten to that point where you are successful, have you outsourced the right things or put the right systems in place so that you can give them the same level of attention?

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah, definitely. So, let’s talk about what that might look like for a professional organizer. Because since we’re always saying, every person in project is so different that a lot of the time, I know especially new organizers feel like they are starting from square one with every single person because you’re learning a little something new with everybody. But I think that going through something like a book like Clockwork or just educating yourself on business processes in general will start to open your eyes to the commonalities of okay, there’s always going to be an intake process. There’s always going to be sort of a project planning part of the project. Whether it’s a small one or a huge one. There’s always going to be the mid-project check-in things that you can do. And then there’s always going to be the project wrap up.

Jen Obermeier:

How can I make enough of those decisions in advance so that every time I have a new client that I don’t feel like I’m just starting from scratch and just flying by the seat of my pants? Because I think that’s probably the number one thing that is contributing to anxiety with organizers is their first anxiety is just getting any clients. And then their second anxiety is, oh my gosh, I have more than one client and I have to figure out how to fit it all in.

Jen Obermeier:

And how to have this amazing level of customer service. Now, all of that is a major chunk and component of the inspired organizer program. So if you want to learn more about that, you should definitely get on the waiting list for the inspired organizer program. But even now what you can start to do is go ahead and audit what are my basic processes. And don’t just have them in your head, have them written down as if you were going to teach them to someone else.

Brie Kistler:

Yeah, it reminds me of working with our clients. What are we doing with them? We are trying to help them simplify their lives, reduce anxiety and automate systems. Create systems in their house so that they can save time.

Jen Obermeier:

Yes.

Brie Kistler:

So it makes sense that that is something that we need to do in our own businesses, to automate things and create efficiency in our business so that we can spend more time with our clients and focus on what they need. It makes sense, it just takes time.

Jen Obermeier:

So true. And I will tell you too that going through the actual hands-on, we got some amazing coaching in the Clockwork program that we wouldn’t have gotten just from reading the book. But going through the program, it really helped us see that a lot of the decisions, especially when there’s two of us, I was making a lot of decisions based on criteria that had lived in my head, right?

Jen Obermeier:

So I, through the coaching of the program … And this is where I think we really benefited beyond just reading the book. Through the coaching and the program I was really taught how to get things and decisions out of my head onto paper because it was basically like they said, Adrienne said, the decision making process already exists. It’s just not in paper form. It’s not in a checklist form. It’s not in something that I can share with Brie so that Brie knows what the expectations are and all that. And so that was genuinely for me the biggest takeaway, is that it’s not like you have to sit down and create all this new stuff in order to create sort of an operations manual for your business. It was more just a matter of documenting what was already happening.

Jen Obermeier:

And I’ll definitely be honest. It was uncomfortable at times too for me to have to slow down and do the Clockwork homework. But it was actually really … It relieved so much stress on my part because it helped me see that a lot of the anxiety that is in my head about wanting things to be perfect … And guys I’m just like you, I don’t ever want to make a mistake in my business. And so I hold on to a lot of things like, oh, I’ll just be the one to do that. Rather than trusting Brie or trusting anyone to help execute on those processes. I was holding onto a lot of that myself because I assumed that it was too complicated to teach to somebody else. And it turns out that I just had never taken the time before just to sketch out here’s how I make this decision.

Jen Obermeier:

One of the things I shared in Clockwork was, one tool is you can make a … You can kind of draw out a decision making tree. If this, then this, and kind of like a flowchart or a yes/no tree, so that now even if you’re the only one in your business, you kind of have your processes visually laid out in front of you so that you don’t feel like you have this huge decision weighing on you all on your own. You’re just sort of like, hey, here’s how I’ve done it before. It’s fairly simple to do it again. And then if you ever do have an assistant in your business, then you have something to start from as far as, here are the standards and here are the things that I would like upheld across client projects or branding, social media, all that stuff.

Brie Kistler:

Yes. And it’s so much easier too for me to be like, oh, if I get an email from a customer and it’s something I haven’t seen before, it’s so easy to be like, oh I just need to ask Jen for every single little thing.

Jen Obermeier:

That was our default before, right?

Brie Kistler:

Yes.

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah.

Brie Kistler:

But if she takes that step and like writes down if this, then that for general scenarios, then it really helps me to make those decisions on my own with confidence and know that she will trust what I do based on the guidelines that she’s given me. So it’s definitely, definitely been helpful. I agree.

Jen Obermeier:

Another big thing I want to share that I got out of it is one of the things that we were required to do that was also very painful for me to do was to slow down and take the time to track what we were doing basically minute-by-minute every time we changed a task for three days.

Jen Obermeier:

And that was very eyeopening guys because it helped me realize actually how much time I was spending “working.” When really what I was doing was sort of jumping between tabs, not really making a decision on things, trying to figure out how I felt about it. And that spins your wheels for a long time because you’re not really committing to just, hey I’m on this one task and I’m going to finish it, and I’m going to make a decision by 3:00 today. Versus you’re not ever setting a constraint for yourself. So I know for me, because I’m definitely an idea person, and I tend to get new ideas just out of nowhere that I have to set constraints for myself or otherwise the big portion of my day, I’ll look back at my time tracking and be like, well I spent a lot of time thinking about something, but I didn’t actually decide. And I definitely didn’t get to the point where I could do it or delegate it because I never set that constraint for myself. What’d you think about time tracking Brie?

Brie Kistler:

I did it for two weeks, but that just shows the difference in our personalities. Not trying to say I overdid it on purpose, but it was very helpful for me because it did help me to stay focused. And also just to see what I was spending my time doing. And it fits into the whole course because first you’re tracking the time, then you’re kind of evaluating it and seeing what fits in your role, what doesn’t fit in your role, what is your role period, and how to spend your time better. Or remove tasks that are unnecessary or tried to consolidate tasks that … I’m going in to Facebook for five minutes. Going in to the email for five minutes, going into this other project. And then you’re going back and forth rather than just doing a chunk of time here and a chunk of time there. So there’s definitely a lot to be gleaned from that process.

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah. Oh I think if nothing else, just the fact that I had written down what I was doing, I was like, well I don’t want to switch the task again because then I’m going to have to rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. So just saying, okay, I’m doing this even if I thought it was only going to take me 15 minutes. That kept me from jumping around, which is huge because I’ve been telling people for years now, right, single tasking is the best way to get things done. But I am the queen of thinking that that rule doesn’t apply to me.

Brie Kistler:

Jen needs an accountability partner just like anybody else.

Jen Obermeier:

I do. I do.

Brie Kistler:

It was your spreadsheet accountability partner.

Jen Obermeier:

That’s true. I’ll take all the help I can get for sure. Okay so Brie, what else would you say have you gotten out of this and feel free to be honest, it won’t hurt my feelings. One of my goals was for us to continue to strengthen our working relationship. Did you see a positive change yet? And hopefully you see me be a little bit more calm, but overall what would you say has been the biggest change for just your daily work and like how we interact and everything?

Brie Kistler:

I just think yeah, trust and communication is definitely growing. It’s definitely a process. And clock-working our business is not … Just because we finished the course, it doesn’t mean we’re done. It could take another year. It could take as long as we keep adding employees or whatever, it’s going to keep taking time to implement it. But just so far, I have. I feel like we communicate a lot better, especially in the exercise we did of just writing out the company vision. I think for any employee it’s so important to hear that from the owner of the business. What is the vision of the company and what are your goals for growth? Because as employees or contractors or whatever, if we don’t know what that is, then we might not have as much investment in it or we might be able to make decisions with as much confidence, not really knowing what your goal is or what you want to get out of the company or what you’re trying to deliver to your audience.

Brie Kistler:

So that helped a lot too. But definitely yeah, our communication has gotten a lot better. Things are a little more categorized I guess.

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah.

Brie Kistler:

I think it’s more efficient. I guess that’s the best way to put it.

Jen Obermeier:

Well, and that’s awesome. That’s as it should be of course. I think definitely you and I have gotten better at understanding each other’s learning styles, which we are different. And this is interesting too because there’s a lot of businesses that are two girls running it together or someone who actually is managing a team of employees or subcontractors. I know that solopreneurs are not the only organizers listening to us.

Jen Obermeier:

And it’s interesting I think especially if you are the owner of your business like I am, is that because I am an organized person and I have worked as a professional organizer, as has Brie, that you would assume, okay, we’re both organized so we’ll never have any friction because we’ll always be on top of everything. Well that’s not true because our communication and our learning styles are still different, right? And our processing …

Brie Kistler:

We’re on top of things in different ways.

Jen Obermeier:

Totally true. And we see priorities differently, which is totally fine.

Brie Kistler:

Right, right.

Jen Obermeier:

But I think going through the Run Like Clockwork course, we got really clear actually really early in the program what are some things maybe that I was even expecting Brie to learn how to do that weren’t really her strengths. And didn’t make a lot of sense efficiency-wise for me to train her and have the expectation of her taking on certain job roles that were not truly her best, best skillset.

Jen Obermeier:

We got pretty clear early on what Brie was so good at and was going to definitely continue to want to do at Pro Organizer Studio. Now she and I, we’re planning for the time when we have many more than just two employees. Now, we’re not there yet and that’s not necessarily going to happen tomorrow. But we I think are preparing ourselves ahead of time for that inevitable growth so that when we have, say if I had four team members and I was just now trying to figure this all out, I wouldn’t just be learning Brie’s personality, it would be everybody.

Brie Kistler:

Yeah, oh my goodness. A lot more opinions.

Jen Obermeier:

Yeah, so I think there’s definitely something to be said, and this is true for organizing businesses as well, is to really hone in on what are my workflows, what are my systems and processes? Get those somewhat settled. They don’t have to be perfect, but get those settled early in your business before you have so many clients calling that you go, oh my gosh, I really need a process and I don’t have one.

Brie Kistler:

Yes, exactly. Do it now. Do it now. I always say, I think I got this from Dave Ramsey, but he always says, pay now, play later.

Jen Obermeier:

I like that.

Brie Kistler:

Your business might be young, but you won’t regret doing the work now.

Jen Obermeier:

So true. Okay, so the last thing I want to share from Clockwork … And again, I really could not recommend more that you guys go grab a copy of this book from Amazon. It is absolutely incredible, is the idea of getting to the point where you can identify what the bottlenecks are in your organizing business. Now, here’s what a bottleneck is. It means that maybe for example, your capacity to serve more clients is there, but your ability, you don’t have enough people calling in order to fill up your calendar.

Jen Obermeier:

That would be a bottleneck where you’re like, okay, I just don’t have the number of leads. Another example of a bottleneck could be you actually are so, so booked every day that you’re not … That is a bottleneck for you to be able to work more on your business versus you being the one who is doing everything, and you’re totally burned out. That’s actually a bad bottleneck to have, right? Because you can get so burned out, and if you’re the one wearing all the hats, then when you have to take a week off, your whole business has to stop for a week.

Jen Obermeier:

So goodness, that could be a whole nother podcast episode entirely. But just taking some time to really almost … I’m a very visual person guy, so if you were to almost sketch out your business as it stands right now, often of course when you’re starting, your thing is okay, your bottleneck is just, I haven’t even put myself out there yet so nobody knows about me. So the most important thing to do is just get the word out, whether that’s with your website or talking with people that you know already, asking former clients that you’ve kind of worked with on the side casually just to let their friends know that now you’re really launching a business and you would love to have them refer you. That can be a way to move past that initial bottleneck.

Jen Obermeier:

But here’s an example, and Brie you can chime in on this. Often people I think are freaking out about the wrong thing. So if for example you’re that person who hasn’t even launched yet, but you’re worried about not having processes and systems laid out for your entire business, that actually isn’t the right thing for you to be stopping to figure out right this moment because it only makes sense for you to get a client or two first to get some experience to base your systems and processes on, right?

Brie Kistler:

Yes.

Jen Obermeier:

One other way to get around that if you haven’t started yet, is to join the inspired organizer course because we lay out the business system essentially for you. Now, you still are going to customize it based on you and your style, and you’ll have to tweak those processes and workflows and everything to fit you. But we teach you how to do project management for when you have multiple projects and that kind of thing. We give you the sales process, we give you all the nurturing and contact processes that people are like, I’m just now starting, but I’ve got a question that’s miles down the road.

Jen Obermeier:

So that’s one thing that inspired organizer helps you do is to just kind of settle in, know that you have the roadmap with the pieces to follow in order so that you’re not stressing out from square one about something that kind of needs to come later.

Brie Kistler:

Yes. So it’s like when you start your business, you’re not just working, working, working with some clients and it’s not just working, working, working on everything to make it look perfect on the computer, on social media or whatever. It’s kind of a balance. And I think that the course helps guide you through what that looks like to have a healthy business, to know when to launch based on what you have already done.

Jen Obermeier:

And then another example of kind of a bad place to focus on I think is, say you’ve gotten a couple clients already, but you’re still obsessing over your website.

Brie Kistler:

Yes.

Jen Obermeier:

And my advice as your business coach is, if you’re not planting seeds actively, if you’re not marketing actively before you need it, then later on down the line you’re going to have this bottleneck where you’re like, okay, I don’t have any money coming in. And so all that time that I was spending on my website making tweaks that probably didn’t make a huge difference could have been spent towards doing your daily marketing tasks and getting your name out there so that later on hopefully you’ve got a pipeline full of people who know about you. Or past clients that you can reach back out to, to either have them sign on again or refer you to their friends, that kind of thing.

Jen Obermeier:

So, that would be another good example of something where I see … Because of organizers they tend to have that perfectionistic personality with a lot of anxiety, is that they find something to place their anxiety on that is not going to solve their bottleneck.

Brie Kistler:

Right.

Jen Obermeier:

So if you take one thing away from this podcast today, that’s kind of the concept that I would like you to really hear from us is, from this Clockwork book that it’s not just about laying out perfect processes and obsessing over the processes. They’re there in order to kind of free you up to not have to make so many decisions every single time you have a new client where you just feel like you’re starting from scratch. That is going to wear you down. It’s going to take up all of your energy.

Jen Obermeier:

But if you have repeatable processes for everything that you do in your business, everything starts to get easier. And every time you have any client you can give her really more personal attention because you’re not freaking out about actually delivering the service, yeah.

Brie Kistler:

How do I do that again? Yes, exactly.

Jen Obermeier:

Really give her that luxurious attention that she deserves, right?

Brie Kistler:

Yes, yes.

Jen Obermeier:

Okay. So Brie I would love for you to end this by telling everyone how your job is the best job ever.

Brie Kistler:

It seriously is. For me, organizing is awesome and I’ve spent a while in my own business organizing with clients and working as a subcontractor for another organizer. But for me, it’s about relationship and whether you’re working as an organizer or working for Jen Obermeier, it’s about relationships. And so I feel fulfilled in this job because every day I get to connect with inspired organizers and hear what they’re going through or what their current victory is in their business, and encouraging them and giving them tips and guiding them. And for me that means so much. Just being able to be a voice in someone’s life as they’re going through a very scary time to just be encouraging.

Brie Kistler:

And what’s made it even more fun and even more real for me is being able to connect with these women at our retreats. It is such a gift to be a part of that and to see how just women getting together can make such a difference in each other’s lives. And just being able to huddle around each other and hear what everyone’s going through and just have these intense affirmation sessions is amazing both in the behind the scenes, getting it all prepared and then also delivering it and being there for those women is awesome. I love it so much.

Jen Obermeier:

Well, Brie is amazing at that. Our retreats are not only about affirmation but about super strategy and really bringing your organizing business to the next level. So Brie, are you excited to take it to Las Vegas?

Brie Kistler:

Yes. I’ve never been there. That’s going to be crazy.

Jen Obermeier:

And if you guys are interested to get on our interest list for any future live events like those retreats, which we are planning to continue taking around the US and maybe beyond, who knows, in 2020. We do have a waiting list sign up just so you can get notifications about it. If you go to proorganizerstudio.com/events. Well Brie, this was awesome for you to come on and bring you out from behind the scenes. I know it’s not the easiest thing, but I really wanted everyone to really see that I do not do all this alone.

Jen Obermeier:

Brie is a major part of everything that I am able to do through my business coaching, through this podcast. All of the free stuff that we have going on as well, the YouTube videos, Brie has a role in all of those things. So I hope you guys know that while I’m not doing all this alone, that you’re not expected to do it all in your business either. So that’s why we are here to help support you. So please take advantage of everything that we have to offer in order to make your business run more like Clockwork. Run more smoothly and help take the weight off of you because nobody should wear all the hats. Even if you are a solo business owner and you have no plans of hiring your Brie yet. It’s still worth investing time and knowledge into your business so that it keeps your life as balanced as possible.

Brie Kistler:

Yeah.

Jen Obermeier:

Well thanks again Brie.

Brie Kistler:

Thank you so much. It’s been awesome.

Jen Obermeier:

And you guys will see Brie around of course. And also you can say hello to her inside our podcast group on Facebook. We do now have a free Facebook group just for podcast insiders so that you can chat about this episode, ask Brie even more questions or get even more information about everything we talked about with Clockwork today. So thanks again Brie. Talk to you guys soon.

Brie Kistler:

Yes. Awesome. You’re welcome.

Thank you for listening to the Pro Organizer Studio podcast. If you’d like to learn more about time-saving services and resources for professional organizers, visit www.proorganizerstudio.com.

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