144 | Social Media for Professional Organizers: What Gets Clients to Stop and Listen

Mar 6

In our series on marketing "yes!" and "you can skip this!" for your professional organizing business--we turn to Jen Mary of Everyday Style to hit us with some truth bombs about what you can do to maximize the times you are using social media in our "proof of life" strategy. We want you to make the time you are spending on social into valuable time so you can go find clients with your other marketing.

Spoiler alert: stop giving TIPS! We are going for inspiration, not information, and we're breaking it down for you.

Here is a great example of what we're talking about today:

"If you imagine standing on a stage and you've got a microphone and there's thousands of people in the audience, and you wanna get the people you wanna work with, walking up there and saying, you need to color code your scarves not an "amen" moment.

You walk up there and you say, 'The weight of your things is crushing. Have you ever not wanted to have people over because you're so afraid they're gonna look in your closet? Are you tired of buying things constantly but you can't seem to get ahead?' That's when that woman or that person goes, yes. So instead of giving information, we need to really be talking about transformation. What will be different by working with you? What are those pain points, those symptoms that people are experiencing that is so much more powerful than color code your closet."

You can listen here, read the full transcript below, or find us on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you love to listen to podcasts!

LINKS FOR LISTENERS

Listen to Jen on her Everyday Style School Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-everyday-style-school/id1464962252
Learn more about Everyday Style: https://youreverydaystyle.com
Learn more about our signature program, Inspired Organizer®: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com
Connect with Melissa and Pro Organizer Studio: CLICK HERE
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.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Pro Organizer Studio Podcast with Melissa Klug and Jen Kilbourne 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.

[00:01:21] Melissa Klug: hey, pro organizers. It's your podcast co-host Melissa, and I hope that you are having a great day whenever and wherever you are listening to me. So it's really funny. My guest today is a business friend of mine, a personal friend of mine. We met networking a few years ago, and she has some of the most valuable insights about business of anyone that I know.

When I got the idea to have her on, I texted her and I'm like, Hey, I just want you on the podcast really quickly. Like 10 or 15 minutes, it'll be a minisode. And she's like, absolutely. And then we went to go record it and an hour plus later we were done talking and I'm like, oh, it went from a mini so to a two-parter.

I'm sorry that. I've done a couple, two parters for you guys. But I value your time. I know we all have so much going on in our life so I wanted to make the episode shorter, break them up and really give you the time to absorb because Jen had some insights that I really had not thought of. She is so thoughtful and insightful and I really wanted to break that up so that you got the maximum amount of awesomeness out of it.

What I will do is promise to give you both episodes this week, so you don't have to wait a week in between. I really hope that this is helpful and useful, and I would love your feedback, so please email me at hello@proorganizerstudio.com if you have anything you would like to talk about I have gotten some really lovely emails from people about how much these episodes have really helped them in their businesses, and it really warms my heart, like you guys can't even know. I love getting emails from people, so I would adore hearing from you. And with that, here's my friend Jen.

[00:02:55] Melissa Klug: I am doing a minis ode today with one of my favorite people.

This is absolutely factually correct, one of my favorite people on the planet. My friend Jen Mary from Everyday Style is here with me. How are

[00:03:05] Jen Mary: you? I am so good. I love it when we can pretend. That we're working and we still yeah. Are gonna have the same conversation, like, we're productive and we get to spend time together.

So absolutely love this. Love it.

[00:03:16] Melissa Klug: Jen has been a guest on our podcast before and she and I met at a networking event years ago, like 2019, I think, and we just like totally hit it off. And she has a, business that does similar things to what we do.

We have analogous clients and I love her and I wish you guys all got her in person. I get her in person, you guys don't, but she just has the most creative ideas. And we were talking offline about something the other day and I'm like, girl, we just need to get on the podcast and record it.

So, yes. Yes. Can you give people the two second version of what you do in life?

[00:03:51] Jen Mary: Yeah, absolutely. So my business is called Everyday Style. We make. Daily style, easy for just like regular, everyday women. We don't work with celebrities and models and photo shoots. We work with women who are tired of hiding from their friends at the grocery store, right, who like dread date night because they have nothing to wear.

We really wanna bring the joy back to getting dressed so that women can live full rich lives. But we wanna make it really easy. So we have capsule, wardrobe guides and style classes and our membership. And then we have my podcast, which is the Everyday Style School, which teaches you everything your mom never did about getting dressed.

[00:04:27] Melissa Klug: I love what Jen does for people, it's called Everyday for a Reason. We are not talking about going to shop at Chanel unless you want to, which good for you, girl. We support that, yes, we, we support that, but we just want every day people to feel happy and confident in themselves.

But the reason we are having this conversation is because we have recently started to align on things that we see on social media and obviously if you're listening to this podcast, I'm hoping that you listen to a couple of episodes ago when I did an entire podcast about why social media isn't it for organizers?

And I stand by that. However, in that podcast we did, , we're not telling you to completely abandon social media. And so if you are going to continue using social media, and if you are going to do like, let's say one post a week like Kate suggested, we want it to be a really good post. And that's what Jen and I have feelings about.

We have feelings, right? Mm-hmm. , oh,

[00:05:24] Jen Mary: we have many, many feelings about social media. Many. We

[00:05:27] Melissa Klug: have so many feel. Well, lemme start out with, before we get into what we were going to talk about, I do want to hear from you, explain a little bit about your feelings on social media in terms of what we do as organizers or what people in your style network

[00:05:40] Jen Mary: do.

Yeah. So my style network actually trains stylists and certifies them to be in-home one-on-one wardrobe stylists. So the parallels are definitely there, sort of how we work with people, what services that we provide. So I think there's so much to take out of what we talk about that, that your organizers can take.

I really think that everybody needs to right size social media in their own business. Yeah, that's it. I mean, we live in the digital age and when somebody hears about you or sees you somewhere, or you know, their friend tells them about you, they're gonna go to your social media, you know, and you have to have something.

You can't have just nothing. It's just proof of life. But I really think that that every small business owner should dig into how much time they're spending on it. And what is it actually getting you? And I charged my stylist. how much to, to, to find out how much time are you spending creating social media?

Like sit down and batch content for a month. If that's one post a week, how long did it take you to do four? If you wanna do two, how long did it take you to do eight? Everything from ideation to scheduling it, all the creative, all the captions. How long did that take you? And then at the end of the month, go back and look at your analytics.

I, I don't know about you, but I'm obsessed with looking at my analytics on Instagram. And if you have a business or creator account, which you should, you can see there's just on every post view analytics, the, the thing that it will show you is how many non followers was your content delivered to. Mm-hmm.

it is low. It is really, really low. And I feel like organizers and, and stylists, they're doing this to gain a following. They're doing this to get clients. But if it's only telling, showing your things to people who already follow you. , what's it for? What's it for? And so at the end of the month you go, well, I spent 12 hours and it was delivered to five people.

Right. That's not a good use of time.

[00:07:45] Melissa Klug: Also, not only how many non followers is it getting delivered to, but thinking about how many of your actual followers Oh, yeah. Saw it.

[00:07:53] Jen Mary: Oh yeah. That's a depressing number, isn't it?

[00:07:55] Melissa Klug: It's, I mean, based on things that I've read, it can be as low as [00:08:00] 10% of the people. Oh, follow you.

[00:08:02] Jen Mary: I think that's a really generous number. Yeah. I think, let's look, let's look. I have my phone here. I'm gonna pull it up. Let's do a realtime data dive. We are

[00:08:11] Melissa Klug: using, as my husband frequently says, he's like, if only in our pockets, we had a computer that had all of the information in the world that

[00:08:18] Jen Mary: we could look up.

I . So I have, all right, so this post is doing 95% better than my recent post, so this is a good one. Right? Right. Let's boost it. Don't boost it. Tip number ever. Oh, please don't ever, let's view the insights. So I have, I don't know, around 7,000 followers. It reached 1,737 people. Okay. Of that 17 were non followers.

[00:08:46] Melissa Klug: 17 people.

[00:08:47] Jen Mary: 17 people . Now, luckily that was like a post I took at Tarkin of my new zebra jacket that I adore, and I put it up with a picture of my dog. But that took me no time to create, no time to, but it did take time to schedule and write a caption and all that good stuff for 17 people.

Did they even follow me? Yes. Did they, did they take the next step? I don't know. So right size your social media.

[00:09:10] Melissa Klug: Again, I would like to point out, and we, we talked about this in that podcast episode, it also depends on what you do for a living and what you're trying to sell. Your followers. Yes, Jen is selling global.

Reach, so she is putting out social media. And theoretically, no matter where you are in the universe, you can buy Jen's product. Yeah. If you are an organizer selling in-home local, regional organizing services, thinking about who you're doing those posts for and who is even going to possibly see it.

And if you're spending two hours on a reel, making it perfect. Yes. Versus spending two hours doing SEO on your website or working on your Google business profile. That's what we want you to look at. We both want you, all of us want you to look at your data and see what it is actually giving you for the time that you're

[00:10:00] Jen Mary: spending.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I made my stylist take a little pledge at the beginning of the year, but they were only gonna do things that worked. Okay. Cause when you start cutting out things that aren't working you get a lot of time back. So much time. Yes, so much time. So much

[00:10:16] Melissa Klug: time. So that's why I wanted to talk to you because we were having a conversation about things that we see as business coaches that are done with the best of intentions. The people that we work with are just trying, they are trying to do the best thing, but we see things and we're like, Ooh, I wish that you would think about that.

Is that a fair way to

[00:10:35] Jen Mary: say it? Well, I think we say it a little differently. I think we say, please stop doing that , please stop doing Please. Just please just stop doing that. And, and we, we say that out of love because again, we want people to do things that work. Yeah. And stop wasting your time on things that don't, and, and frankly, a lot of the things that we say, please reconsider that they're actually hurting you.

in your business in the long run. It's not that, it's just like neutral. They're hurting you. Yeah. And so we want people to stop doing those things.

[00:11:04] Melissa Klug: So I would like to submit to the court Exhibit A of a thing that I, I see and I know you see it in the stylists that you work with. So again, the people that Jen is training to be stylists are in-home in a lot of cases.

Mm-hmm. in-home stylists. So doing the very similar things as organizers. One of the things I see a lot is we see d I y tips all the time. Yeah. So I, people feel like I need to tell people how to organize, but in fact that that does the complete opposite. So Yeah. I assume you see the same thing.

[00:11:39] Jen Mary: I do. I do.

And it does the opposite on a lot of levels actually. I mean, let's just talk about the first thing that you are teaching somebody not to need you. The more information you give them. And the reality is you could give them tips all day long. And we both know it's not about the tips. . Right, right. I actually said to a business consultant the other day, I said, it's not [00:12:00] ignorance, it's overwhelmed.

I know how to do things, it's just I don't have the time. Right. So in that respect, you could give 'em tips all day long and they still wouldn't be able to do it themselves. But what you're giving them is confidence that they could you're not talking about the fact that they, that it isn't a lack of knowing how to fold your sweaters or, you know, get rid of papers or whatever it is.

They know that. But what you need to be speaking to is the bigger thing of why they need you, why they need you. And I'm gonna get a little deeper than I maybe you thought we were gonna talk about. Love it. But this, what's happening on a psychological, the actual brain chemistry level, is your brain has to make so many decisions a day.

Right. It takes in so much information that it is processing things really quickly. And we need to stop the scroll of the brain. Just like the graphic, which I know we're gonna talk about, stops the scroll of the feed. Your messaging and what you're talking about needs to stop the scroll of the brain from just taking in information and your brain is like, oh, don't need that.

Don't need that. That doesn't affect what I'm cooking for dinner. That doesn't affect what my finances, whatever. We have to interrupt that information doesn't interrupt that brain scroll. It just doesn't, what you need to put out there is things that move people. And a, a messaging person that I work with says she's always looking for the lean in.

Right? Like when you say something, what do people lean in? What do they lean into? I, when I was speaking on stage a lot, I would look for the head nots. I would look for them to look to their neighbor. Neighbor and kind of chuckle a little bit. And on social media, I'm looking for the amen. Yeah. The preach sister, every post you do that can be answered with an amen preach sister that is interrupting that brain scroll and it makes people, oh wait, what?

What is she talking about? If you imagine standing on a stage and you've got a microphone or a megaphone and you're talking to people and there's thousands of people in the audience, and you wanna get the people you wanna work with, going up there and saying, there's a sale at container store.

That's no amen moment. Right. Walking up there and saying, you need to color code your. Scarves not an amen moment. You walk up there and you say, the weight of your things is crushing. Have you ever not wanted to have people over because you're so afraid they're gonna look in your closet? Yes. Are you embarrassed by what's under your bed currently?

Are you tired of buying things constantly but you can't seem to get ahead? That's when that woman or that person goes, yes. That stops the scroll. So instead of TA giving information, we need to really be talking about transformation. What will be different by working with you?

What are those pain points, those symptoms that people are experiencing that is so much more powerful than color code your closet. . Right. Which I inherently disagree with anyway, but that's a different story for another day.

When I talk to my stylist about not doing so much informational content, everyone says to me, but they need to know I'm the expert. That's where this comes from, is that we feel like they need to know we're the experts, but our expertise comes from them knowing we understand the problem and we know how to fix it,

[00:15:21] Melissa Klug: and we hear things that are just in their head that they think maybe no one else hears.

Yes. That is what the actual magic. .

[00:15:31] Jen Mary: Yes. I was playing with chat G P T yesterday, which is so hilarious. It is. But if you can go on chat G p T and say, give me five tips for organizing a bedroom. Yep. It can give you five tips for organizing a bedroom. Yep. If you say, how do people feel about their clutter?

How is clutter ruining their lives? What is being disorganized costing people? How is clutter ruining? Can't.

[00:15:55] Melissa Klug: No. Also, just really, really hitting on the actual [00:16:00] problems our clients have. When you think about, you know, like if you're styling someone's wardrobe, it's probably about body image.

It's about how a woman feels about herself. If you have an organizing situation thinking about, Hey, how many times have you and your partner gotten in a fight because of the state of the house?

Yeah. How many times have you yelled at your kids because you stepped on Legos and broke your foot? Ha. Like all of those things. You're exactly right. Those feelings and those things that we know. How many times a day do you feel overwhelmed? We can give you a thousand things, but it's not about the tip, it's about the feeling.

[00:16:29] Jen Mary: You've gotta be tapping into that. And that is what stops the mind scroll that makes people go, wait, oh, she's talking to me. How does she know? You know, when you have people saying to you, I felt like you were talking to me. Mm-hmm. , there's a sale container stories not talking to anybody, it's just talking.

Yep. But how many times have you and your husband gotten in a fight? Yeah. How many times have you bought bins and ended up less organized than before? Yep. That's one of those. Oh my God. She knows. She knows. And if, if I were only doing content like that, that's the only kind of content I would do. Yep.

Sharing client stories so powerful because you're sharing those experiences through, you know, through what, what someone else just like them has, has gone through. And it's frankly a whole lot easier than trying to come up with clever tips and to, to stand out. I mean, both of us exist in very crowded industries.

Very and. You know, there's plenty of TV shows that can teach you how to unclutter your home or dress yourself, but what nobody can do is get into your heart and into your mind, and, and understand why the transformation is necessary. . So yeah, please, please stop with the informational content. No information, no informational content.

[00:17:46] Melissa Klug: Yes. One of the things that Jen, our founder says is inspiration, not information. Yeah. So, I like that you said it, you know, transformation. Mm-hmm. , not infor. It's whatever word you wanna use, just not the information. And just think about every single one of us who have been inside someone's home, the number of organizing books that almost every

[00:18:06] Jen Mary: client owns

Yes. So, or copies of Real,

[00:18:10] Melissa Klug: real simple magazine that had all the January organization tips, the books. I mean, I have a picture that I have shared before, a long time ago about this giant pile of stuff. And at the bottom of it was Marie Kondo's, the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. And I'm like, this is a metaphor.

Okay. Yes. Yes. The book from the bottom of the pile, you guys, so, yeah. it, there are a million resources out there that have information. Our clients are not able to act on that. And so giving them that feeling of like, oh, I got you. I can act on it. I can make your dreams come true.

Yeah, I can make your organizational dreams come true. That emotion is where you get people

[00:18:47] Jen Mary: without a doubt. 100%.

[00:18:48] Melissa Klug: I also just think about too, like, when I'm scrolling through w what do I stop for? Why wouldn't I also then go create some of that content?

I am never going to stop on a picture. And this is another one that you and I enjoy equally. An Instagram post that has 200 words on it. Yeah. They may be really great words. I'm never ever gonna stop and read. If I wanted to read a book, I would not be on Instagram. This is

[00:19:16] Jen Mary: very true, very true.

Very true. Even better when it's about that one, a

[00:19:20] Melissa Klug: carousel of eight different things I'm supposed to scroll through, all of which have many, many, many words. Yes. That's not a hot button

[00:19:28] Jen Mary: for me. Yeah. You know, it's funny because carousels are doing really, really well for me right now. Like, that is the thing that is doing well.

So I'm gonna keep doing them, but there's a, there's a guy I followed, the Steven Miller l e l l o r. He gives really good social media tips, really good, and he does a ton of carousels, but everything has one bullet point. Like one bullet. All of his text is, all the black runs are back. The black, the text is white.

It is so clear. And at the end of it you're like, oh, I, I got something outta of that. But, and it's funny, I, you know, [00:20:00] you and I were talking the other day about people pitching opportunities as collaborations. Yes. That, that word does not mean what you think it means. Right.

, but I, I wonder like, who is out there right now telling people to do this? There has to be somebody because I've seen it so often. And I don't know if there's somebody out there right now telling people to put all the words on an Instagram graphic, because so many people I follow and I've started following a lot more small businesses and local businesses.

Is there somebody out there telling people to do this? Because I, maybe it's always been there, but it seems that people wanna put all the ideas, the caption, the, you know, the all, all the details of the event, all the ways you can work with them, whatever it is right there on the graphic.

And that's not what the graphic is for. Right. If your message is, is getting the mind scrolling, to stop the graphic is actually getting the real scroll to stop. Just to stop. You could post one fluorescent orange square. and it would attract more people than your wall of text. A

[00:21:01] Melissa Klug: Because it's different , it's different.

It's different. Unique. And it makes you go, what's this?

[00:21:05] Jen Mary: You know, if you look from a copywriting perspective, in copywriting, the objective is just to move people to the next thing. Right? That's all it is. Just the picture moves people to read the caption, the caption moves people to do whatever it is. Comment, DM u go to your website, whatever it is. But if you lose them there, you have no opportunity. And I heard something the other day and I was like, oh, this explains it.

It was a podcast I was listening to with Nikki Rosh. I don't know if you know her. She's really good. , but she was talking about cat energy versus dog energy. Okay. In sales. Yes. So I don't know if you're cat people or dog people. I am both, but I have dogs. The other day my dog got out and he, he actually wanted to leave with the Amazon driver.

So I'm in the, and he's pretty new to our house, so I don't know if he's a runner or not, but I'm in the driveway and I'm like, come on buddy, come on. And I'm getting super hyped up and really excited. If you did that to a cat Yeah. They would run. Yes, they would run. They feel like, I'll show you. I'll show you.

Right. So Nikki talks about the here kitty, kitty language. Okay. Because to call a cat that got out, you would say, here kitty, kitty, come here, come here, and you would actually get quieter. Yeah. And do these little things to entice people. And I feel like that caption, the, the wall of text graphic is all about the dog energy.

Like I wanna tell you everything right now and I'm so excited about it. And this thing is amazing. You should. . It's very dog energy.

[00:22:28] Melissa Klug: And first of all, I love cat and dog energy. That's hilarious. Yeah. But I also like, if you really wanna take it seriously I would say what you talked about earlier in terms of, I wanna show you I'm an expert.

I think that's all it's, it's all part of that. Because I have to dump out every piece of information I have. Yes. So I make sure I feel like I've accomplished something and that, that is very, that's dog energy. I love that. Yep.

[00:22:50] Jen Mary: Yep. I think a lot of that just stems from imposter syndrome. You know, and there is no way to get over imposter syndrome except to work.

Confidence comes from working. Yeah. It comes from experience. It comes from experiencing things and dealing with all different situations and types of clients and, and you also have more meaningful stories to share. The more you work. Yes. The more you just get out there and do, the more you actually have to say, and you can stop relying on these things to prove to everyone that you're the expert.

[00:23:21] Melissa Klug: I wish I could attribute it to someone because I would love to, but I heard something years ago that said the only people who don't have imposter syndrome are actual imposters, like common men. So true, so true. Don't have imposter syndrome. So true. Are imposters like the only people who do, are those of us who are like, no, but I'm legit, you guys, I swear.

[00:23:42] Jen Mary: Yeah, . Yeah. Well, you know, I, I hate to bash anybody, but there is that saying like, give me the confidence of a mediocre guy. Yes. Right, right. Yes. That's so true. Yeah. And they just put it out there. They're like, buy my stuff. And people are like, okay, I guess I'm supposed to buy [00:24:00] yourself. And meanwhile, real experts and real people with real things to say are like, well, here are 87 tips of how you could do my job by yourself.

Yeah. And if you, if you still like me, you can call me like, Knock it off. Get that guy's energy. Get that guy's energy.

[00:24:16] Melissa Klug: And also the, the the other thing too, just if on the social media thing is showing yourself your authentic self is gonna get you people Yes. All day long, by the way, whomever you are, please don't try to be someone else.

Yes. Like, don't try to be someone that you're not. Yes. Right? Yes, yes. I like to try to be funny on social media. That might not be your jam. Please don't do that. If it's not authentic to you.

Whatever your personality is. Yeah. Show that personality because that is what people connect with. And I see a lot of these social media kind of mistakes that we're seeing are, you know, your whole grid is just words or your whole grid. Ha. Like, I haven't seen you in nine months on your, like they're, you don't exist.

Yep. And I want to tell people, cuz I understand why people don't wanna show themselves. Sometimes totally get it. We don't feel great about ourselves. Sometimes our hair does not, we're, it's not having a good hair day. I have a thousand reasons why we sometimes don't want to show up. Nobody cares about that.

We are our own worst enemy on that. Please just show yourself. That is who people buy from. That's who people connect with.

[00:25:24] Jen Mary: Yeah. You have to stand out in these overcrowded spaces. Yes, and when you can put a face to a name, when you can do that and make the person human, that is worth a hundred.

Really great. Stock photo thing. I mean, you know, we all use stock photos. We have to, I always admire these people who have like a photo shoot for everything. Yes. It, it's, it's exhausting to me. It's so exhausting to me. I have to sit and get my hair done and there's hot lights and No thank you.

Yeah. But if you don't have that, yes, you have to use some stock photography, but take two good pictures of yourself too. Yep. And pop 'em in there every once in a while. Yep. If you're not, you know, if you're not ready to be dancing on reels all the time, cool. Don't do that. But people at least have to see you every now and again, just, yep.

It can't be a generic. You're not a magazine. On your Instagram profile, pick, it should be you if you're a small business. Yes. It needs to be you. Not your logo.

It has to be a nice, happy, shiny, smiling closeup picture of you. Yes. Ab yeah,

[00:26:29] Melissa Klug: absolutely. Are there any other things that you have been seeing recently under the please don't do that

[00:26:36] Jen Mary: category. Oh gosh, so much. I think one of the things I see all the time is every post is about, Hey, buy my thing.

Hey, buy my thing. Buy my thing, sign up. Buy my thing. Buy my thing. And again, it comes back to this idea that every post has to be a make or break. Yes. Right? Like if they don't read it now, they'll never, people know where to find you. They do. They do. But if it's like, baskets are on sale at container store, hire me.

Yeah. There's this disconnect where you're not telling them why it matters or what you can do for them or, or anything. It's just, Hey, buy my thing. Buy my thing. And I think we have to remember that business owners and. Instagram are inherently at odds. Yes. Right? Like my goal is to get you off of Instagram and to buy my thing.

Yeah. On my website. Instagram's goal is to keep you on Instagram. So there's always this, and you've gotta give Instagram a little bit of what it wants, of just inviting people to engage with you. Inviting people to, Hey, go check out my highlights. Keeping people on their platform rather than just buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing.

You don't make sales off of Instagram, especially in your type of, of, of model. Correct. I had one of my stylists, she's like, I found, forgot my first client from Instagram. I'm like, oh cool, tell me about that. And she said, well, her friend mentioned me to her. Then she went on Instagram.

Mm-hmm. . [00:28:00] And she liked what she saw. So she called me. She didn't get that client from you didn't get a client from Instagram. You got a client, you got a referral. Go. Thank your friend.

[00:28:07] Melissa Klug: I got a referral, which is one of the most important places any of us get business. What you got from Instagram was what we say all the time is proof of life.

Yep. The person went to your Instagram and said, okay, they look like someone legit I would like to spend time with. Yeah. Or they look legit or they look whatever it was that, okay. I'm confirming that this is a good decision.

[00:28:30] Jen Mary: Yes, yes. That's different. That is very different. Very different. I think about Instagram growth, like pushing a boulder up the hill.

Yes. Right. I mean, there is a point you get to the hill and then it starts to roll downhill and get easier. You know, and I was following Brock Johnson from Insta Club Hub, and he's talking about this post got me 17,000 followers, like. Girl, if I get like three , I'm like, look at that. I'm amazing. This makes you realize that other people

[00:28:57] Melissa Klug: are in like different

[00:28:58] Jen Mary: stratospheres of

Well, yeah, but his whole business is about Instagram growth. My business is not about social media growth. It's not about that. And so just continuing to give value to the same people who are always following you, pushing that boulder up the hill one person at a time. Everybody who has a local in-person business has to understand that your business is going to drive traffic to your Instagram rather than your Instagram driving traffic to your business.

That's just how it works. When you don't have a humongous, and when I say humongous, it's like over 20, 30, 40, 50,000. If you don't have that, you are still driving people. It, it, it's, you're still pushing that boulder, so spend time offline gathering people on your email list that, that you can then send to Instagram.

[00:29:45] Melissa Klug: I also know. I mean, I have actual data-driven examples of organizers who do have 20,000 followers. Who still are not, their clients are coming from Google. Their clients are coming from, their clients are not even with that amount of following. Yeah. That's still not the main source of their clients.

Or when you get to that following, you will have some people that are like, oh, I found you on Instagram, so you can probably, definitely, I got that client from Instagram. It's still gonna be a fraction of the people that are coming to them.

[00:30:21] Jen Mary: Without a doubt. I mean, if you're doing like local in-person stuff, how many of those 20, 30, 40,000 people are in your local.

Probably, I mean, how many of them could even work with you if they wanted to? So then what are you doing it for? Right. I think Instagram followers and any social followers, it's such a vanity metric. It is. It's such a vanity. And I know I've told you this story before, but it's still my favorite. I was on a podcast, she invited me to be on her show, and I looked at her Instagram.

I'm like, oh my God, her following me is huge and mine is tiny. And I then I got in my own head about it and I was like, why would she want me? I'm just this little thing, blah, blah, blah. So we do the podcast and then, you know, we, we end recording and we're chit chatting. Yeah. And she said, my husband tells me if my business doesn't make money this year, I have to quit.

And I was, Whoa. My bills, my bills are paid. . Yeah. All my family's bills could be paid . Like, we're fine. We're fine. And then my favorite messaging guy, especially for online businesses is Brandon Lucero. And he said that when he, when his business had their first million dollar year, he had 7,000 Instagram followers.

Whose business do you want? ? Yeah. Do you want Absolutely. The one with 7,000 followers and a million bucks or 30,000 followers and no bucks. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with the first one.

[00:31:40] Melissa Klug: That is one of the biggest misconceptions that we have in general about any sort of social media is like the person, who has 20,000 Instagram followers, she must have 2000 clients a month.

Yes. A team of 40 people, and she's making a million dollars a year. Maybe not. And we just, we associate because of [00:32:00] that vanity metric. Yeah. We associate success with that following. And I have done comparisons of, you know, there are people I know in the Kamar universe who are masters the highest level you can get, which means you have worked with the, the most number of clients who have 200 Instagram followers, one of the most successful organizing businesses.

I know she has 249 Instagram followers, but I'm telling you, she's booked. all week, every week. It's Huh? There is

[00:32:28] Jen Mary: not that correlation, . No, it isn't. Do you think that comes from your following number being a public number? Yeah, absolutely. Because nobody knows how big my email list. Correct.

You know, my Instagram following is embarrassingly small compared to my email list. Guess which one brings me money? Guess which one grows my business? It's not the Instagram one.

[00:32:52] Melissa Klug: And with organizers, I can tell you cuz a lot of organizers are like, I only have a hundred people on my email list.

[00:32:58] Jen Mary: doesn't matter. Nobody knows nobody. Nobody. The number's not public.

[00:33:01] Melissa Klug: Nobody knows number one and number two, everybody that sends out an email, anybody who's regular on an email newsletter list, you actually generate clients out of that actual, yeah. You can have 20 people on your email list, but someone's gonna sign up with you.

It, it's, it, it's not about that number. I do think there's something to that public piece of it.

[00:33:22] Jen Mary: I think it is. Like, if I'm growing my email list, well that's not fun. No one can see it. Right? Yeah. Let's stop running a public race. Yeah. Who cares? And focus on numbers that matter.

I think though, one challenge that people on Instagram have and I see this with my stylists, we market on social media like influencers do it is a completely different mo business model. Yeah. Now, mine is more in that sort of influencer space, right? Like all I do is digital stuff globally, whatever. But for my stylists, they're not influencers. Yeah. They don't even have L t K and you know, sort of the, the brand partnerships. That's where those influencers, they need a big audience because that is where they're making their money

[00:34:03] Melissa Klug: because they drive them to the links and they drive correct things.

We're not doing that same thing. That's a great

[00:34:08] Jen Mary: point. So we have to stop using the same social media strategy that they are. They need to be putting out constant content. Content. They need to be sharing products. They need to be doing all those things. Yeah. You know? . If you only have 200 followers on social media and you share a link, for my girls, maybe a pair of jeans at Nordstrom and you make $8 off that. It isn't gonna add up real quick. No. So I think something everyone needs to stop doing is using the same strategy that a business model that isn't yours is

[00:34:39] Melissa Klug: using. I, I wanna go back too to something that you said earlier about, you know, we're constantly asking people to buy things, and I get it.

We want clients, we want, you know, I want our schedules to be full. if we are constantly asking people for things. Think about all the times per day. You're scrolling and you're being asked to buy something. Yeah. It's nonstop and it's exhausting.

[00:34:58] Jen Mary: It's exhaust, it's exhausting exhaust and

[00:35:00] Melissa Klug: I get tired of it.

And so just asking people a question, Hey, how's your week going? It could be nothing to do with organizing or Hey, tell me about the most annoying toy your kids have in their playroom. Yes. Tell me about the most annoying, do you have a drawer in your kitchen that won't open cuz it's got a potato masher in it?

Tell me about, well, I don't care what it is, like, ask them to tell you something, actually get some engagement. If that's what you are trying to do. You are trying to get engagement, you're trying to get people to connect with you.

[00:35:30] Jen Mary: So giving people the ball is really, really important. People love to talk, they love to talk about themselves.

They do. Right. So give them opportunities to do that. And you know, it all goes back to the whole like dating relationship. I met my husband on match.com. It wasn't, hi, I'm Jennifer. Hi, I'm Andrew. Wanna get married Like that. That didn't happen. And when you look at like the client sales cycle, some are very quick.

Yeah. . I was standing on stage doing a presentation and this woman walks up on stage [00:36:00] with me and puts a note on the podium and I was like, oh my gosh. Like is my underwear showing? Like what is happening here? And I read it and it says, can you go shopping with me after this? That is the quickest sales cycle ever.

Right. . Right.

[00:36:14] Melissa Klug: She did ask you to get married that day?

[00:36:16] Jen Mary: She did. She absolutely did. And then I had a friend who for close to five years said, when I lose 10 pounds, I'm gonna hire you. Yeah. When I, and I was like, okay. Sounds good. That was a five year sales cycle. Yep. It was a five year dating relationship.

Not everybody is going to be right off the jump. Most people are not. And I think if we can just. Be cool. Be a little more cat-like about the whole relationship. You can be in my space as long as you need to, to figure out if I'm the right person for you. Without feeling like you're gonna be harassed.

To hire me every time we see each other. Every time you see a post, because it is just gonna get filed into not, I don't, I'm not, I don't need an organizer. Unless you have posts that tell people why they need an organizer, they're never gonna get there. Some people will, some people know it's a problem.

Other people need to be told

[00:37:08] Melissa Klug: also, I think that there is a beauty in, there's actually a reverse correlation of when you stop trying so hard.

[00:37:17] Jen Mary: Yes, exactly. It's the cat energy.

[00:37:19] Melissa Klug: You, if you constantly are selling, selling, and call me, call me, I'm telling you, if you were just chill and acted like you didn't care.

It's, that's another dating analogy. Act like you don't care. . Yeah.

[00:37:30] Jen Mary: but that's true that's that sort of desperation.

Yeah. Desperation. When you're not asking people to hire you all the time, they think, well, maybe she's busy with other people. Maybe she's just working, living her life. If you're bugging people to hire you every day and giving discounts every day. Can, can we have people stop that?

Please don't. Please. Please stop doing that all the time. It, it reeks of desperation and no one wants to hire the desperate girl. Yeah.

Okay, thanks Jen for that first episode. Stay tuned in a couple of days for the next episode where we are going to go even deeper on a couple of things. And really we don't talk about just about social media, we're talking about your whole business. So really want you guys to dig into this and I hope that you have enjoyed it.

Just a reminder, if you'd like to spend another hour with me, I would love to spend an hour with you. You can come listen to me, give a free workshop called the Pro Organizer's Profit Plan. It's available 24/7 at poroadmap.com. I hope you guys have an absolutely amazing week.

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.