190 | Easy Sustainability Tips for Organizers + A Fab Pricing Concept
We are back with organizer Michelle Parravani of Designing With Less in Atlanta, and we are talking about some easy sustainability tips for organizers working with eco-conscious clients, and Michelle gives us a FABULOUS idea for a pricing differential that I had never thought of before!
You can find Michelle at designingwithless.com.
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
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.
If you’d like to watch a video podcast, click here to watch us on YouTube!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hey pro organizers. It's Melissa. And we are back with part two of my conversation with Michelle Parravani, who is one of our awesome Inspired Organizer® members. And today I wanted to divide this into two parts because today she is talking about something that's really important to her, which is sustainability and organizing.
She has some great ideas for us, like really actionable ideas. And we talk a little bit about in your business. There are lots of ways to do things and things that she and I do with clients that we find helpful to help them say goodbye to more things. And that's really sometimes finding the right place that makes them feel good about it.
So we're talking about that. And the other thing that we're talking about, it's a little later in the podcast, but I really want everyone to listen because Michelle has done something in her business that I honestly have never thought about before. And I think it is super genius. It's about a price differential that she has, that her clients pay happily.
And I just think it is really, really smart. Hopefully you will love this conversation as much as I loved having it with Michelle. And I really hope that you have an absolutely. Wonderfully fabulous week. Bye organizers!
Melissa Klug: See, now it's my dog's turn. Yay. Good. We're just, it's just a dog. This is a dog friendly podcast. Oh my gosh. The Amazon truck just drove by for the 55th day today.
Michelle Parravanni: Even talking about Amazon, I gave up my Amazon Prime because I feel like I have to walk the walk. If I'm talking about sustainability and I'm talking about having less, I have to walk the walk of my own business. So I gave that up to support local business. . You know, anything I can get from Amazon, I can get locally.
So now I've just, I've started doing that and I'm actually saving money because I'm too lazy to go out and get it half the time. Correct.
Melissa Klug: You don't actually need the thing that you're clicking here to buy very often. So. Well, tell me some more about sustainability in your business. What are your best?
Because I do think that there are a lot of people that are trying to do that, but it's also hard sometimes to know about all the resources. Like you mentioned textile recycling. I think that's one that a lot of people do not know about. There might be shirts that are not good enough to be donated, but there is textile recycling.
What are some of your favorite tips for sustainability for organizers? Well, I think
Michelle Parravanni: the one we run into mostly is socks and underwear because you can't do without socks and underwear, right? Yeah, so you can do there's a company called Trashy. The only problem is with some of these companies, you have to pay to get the bags.
Yeah. Not everybody wants to pay to be sustainable. It's right. And there's another company called Ridwell that will come. You've heard of
Melissa Klug: Ridwell? Ridwell is huge in Minneapolis. Yes.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah. They don't serve everywhere, but again, you pay a monthly subscription to be able to do that, but you can textile with them as well as your, all your different types of plastic and your styrofoam.
And I use them. But we also are lucky enough to have a place called charm here where you can recycle the hard to recyclable, hard to recycle. Try to say that. So you can take tires, paints textiles, all your bags, all your styrofoam, all of that. You can make an appointment and you can drop it off there free of charge.
So I make use of that. I actually, even though I advise my clients not to have storage units. Yeah. I have a storage unit downstairs because I have to keep that stuff in it. So on a Saturday I can separate it all out because I don't want it in my apartment. So separate all that out and take it to to Charm, but it's really a matter of just being intentional.
And even if you go on Google and try to find your local businesses to take your things to yesterday, the client that had a ton of wall she she, I don't had good intentions to start sewing. And so she bought a whole lot of material and she had bags and bags of it. I don't know why she'd buy bags and bags, but the idea of it and the reality for her were two totally different things.
So she ended up giving it to me and I take it to a place called Scraplanta. So we take it there and they text all of that stuff and, you know, and dog shelters need your towels. Don't shelter in your blankets.
Melissa Klug: Yep. And then craft supplies too. So again, this is all to the level of that you want to do it.
These are things that occasionally with a client, I will say I'm really, I'm willing to go above and beyond, but kids books can go to elementary school libraries. Craft supplies, also art teachers, so many schools do not have budget for anything. So whenever I have a client that is saying that cause I don't know what you're talking about.
Clients never spend thousands of dollars on crafts and then decide they're not going to do them. Just kidding. They do it all the time. Yeah. I like to find places, especially for those things that are really in need. And there are so many people that are willing, you know, obviously you're not going to donate one marker.
I like to make it a nice set of things, but there are resources out there for everything. Yeah, exactly.
Michelle Parravanni: And that's why I have the storage unit, because then I can make big piles of things and make it worth the while to make the trip. I mean, you've got a place called Helping Mamas where you can take diapers and baby clothes and things like that for moms that can't afford to buy it for their own kids.
Once you go down these rabbit holes, you see how many resources we actually have, tons of places that will take all these things. There's no need for everything to go to the landfill, but some things have to, you can't do all of it. You can only do what you can do.
Melissa Klug: My favorite example of that is I really did have a client one time who, and I appreciate, I really appreciate people who do not want things to go in the trash because I also want to keep as much stuff out of the trash as possible.
But she had a broken pen. I mean, it was broken and she goes, well, maybe someone at Goodwill could do something with this girl. No, they cannot. And then you're just gifting your burden. So we are not. That is something that actually just needs to go in the trash. Right. But there are so many things that can be, you know, kind of bypass there.
And I would just say check local for anybody, especially that's starting out or you don't, or maybe you're established, but you don't know about these resources. Where I live, there is tremendous recycling. Like there is a place we can drop off cardboard, electronics, paint, you chemicals, all the things, they just take them out of your car and they just disappear them, right?
I'm telling you almost every community, unless you live in a very tiny area. So, and even then so many communities have resources that you don't even know about. Yeah, exactly. It's
Michelle Parravanni: actually one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday morning is to book an appointment and everyone goes and there is a whole shoe of cars that go around, you drop off and it couldn't be any more simple.
Yes, everything is numbered. All the signs are there. Now you do have to pay for some of them, like if you have a TV or something big. You'll pay a small charge for that, but that's when you know, you up what you're charging people, basically, so you can cover all those fees. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: Yeah. You just tell people it's 50 for this drop off or it's whatever.
I love it.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah, exactly. And people will do it if they don't necessarily want to do it themselves, but if someone's doing it for them, they'll do it every time and then they really appreciate
Melissa Klug: it. They really appreciate it. And just getting resources in general, like I have a shredder. I'm very lucky.
It's very close to my house. Even just having a shredding resource, a small business that shreds, and they don't shred just paper, they shred, I call it the computer Cuisinart. They will put a laptop through this chomping machine that is very scary, and it is in pieces when they get done. So people who are really concerned about like, hey, there might be information on this and I have no way to access it.
They just get rid of it. It's really quite. So just looking around your local area for resources, there are more than you could possibly imagine. It's just Googling. Oh,
Michelle Parravanni: absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There's something for everything. And I actually didn't know about that. So I'm going to look and see if we have something.
Yeah.
Melissa Klug: Check it out. Yeah. A lot of people just take their shredding to like office max or whatever, and you could totally do that. But this guy, he shreds. Anything. And it's very secure. You can watch him do it. You get a certificate when you're done, that all your stuff is gone. It's great. And he does not charge remotely as much money as he should, which is the best part.
Yeah.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah. I actually had to tell a handyman the other day that he had to up his prices. You're too cheap. You need to up your prices and he did. And it's great, but you know, you see people undercharging. People will pay you. You need so much more. Yes. People will pay you.
Melissa Klug: People will pay you for the services that you are providing to them that add value to their life.
And especially when you're talking about overwhelmed, stressed, tired, busy women, they will be like, wait, you, you disappear this for me? Fantastic.
Michelle Parravanni: Yes. Yes, exactly. I actually posted I was looking for somebody really quickly to come in and dismantle a closet. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Cause that handyman wasn't available. I needed it the next day. So I think I posted on a Facebook group asking for someone, somebody jumped on it really quickly. They went out the next day, dismantled the closet, did everything we needed doing. And because they were so good. Our client has now canceled all of his TaskRabbits that he had booked and has booked them for everything.
Paint jobs, paint his bed together, all of it. Like just something small like that. It's very small networking, quick posts on Facebook. Can somebody save me? You know, I need this done really quickly. Has now gone thousands of dollars worth of work from one client. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: It was incredible. And that's the benefit.
I've talked about this a million times before, but organizers are resource managers. And so sometimes our job is just to have that resource for a client. I have a handyman whom I adore when he retires. I'm going to be extremely sad. He is so great. And the way I found him was networking. I went to someone that I knew who I'm going to be honest with you was extremely prickly and kind of a jerk.
And I was like, do you have a handyman? Yeah. Yeah. And they were like, yep, I sure do. And I'm like, if he can make this guy happy, he can make anyone happy. And then I hired him for a couple of jobs and he has done so many jobs from people that I have referred him to that when he comes to my house now to do jobs, he gives me the most ridiculous discount.
Because he's like, I just appreciate all the business you brought to me so much. So like, that's a win. My clients are happy. I'm happy. He's happy. It's so great. Networking is everything. It really
Michelle Parravanni: is. It is. It is everything. And it makes my heart so happy when I can do that for people. I actually found our handyman through a client.
So he had put an Elfa system for them and a few years later, I was like, Oh, what's your handyman saying? He was great. And then got him on our team. And now he's just got tons of work.
Melissa Klug: I find the people ask me a lot about house cleaners. That one's a little harder because it's city dependent, you know, it's often they work in the same geography, but I've been asked for electricians.
I've been asked for plumbers. I've been asked for just everything under the sun. So having that Rolodex of names, super important. It's amazing.
Michelle Parravanni: I love it. So I have a question for you. Yeah. Okay. Have you ever thrown anything away that you weren't supposed to?
Melissa Klug: Oh, this is a great question. No, I have never had knock on wood.
I have never had anything that I, that someone's like, Hey, where's my blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I've never had that. I did have a client one time that couldn't find a ring. And she's like, did you accidentally throw it away? And this was a house that was on the hoarding scale. And I'm like, No, I absolutely did not.
And I went to the lengths of literally going through her trash with her to prove to her that I had not thrown away the thing that it was just impossible to find in her house. I have broken a couple of things, but extremely, thankfully, extremely minor things like a pot in a garage that they were going to plant something in.
So I haven't. Thankfully, I live in fear of
Michelle Parravanni: the day. No, it's the worst. We've done it once and it's the worst feeling in the world. The worst feeling. It was awful. It was a tiny piece of chocolate. Oh, okay. Teeny tiny piece of chocolate. It apparently they had got this piece of chocolate in Switzerland, kept it.
And when I tell you it was this big, it was this big. Teeny tiny. It looked like it was moldy. So. We threw it away, and we don't throw anything away, typically. Because even the smallest piece of trash, we're like, do you want to keep this? Just because people are very particular about what stays and what goes, and you
Melissa Klug: don't understand what's important to someone.
Michelle Parravanni: Exactly. So this person for months was texting me, do you know where my chocolate is? Where's my chocolate? I don't remember. I don't remember throwing it away. I don't remember. We must've. But I don't remember it. Apparently this little tiny piece of chocolate was from Switzerland. They had been waiting for, I think, a year to eat it because they arranged, waiting for the right time to eat this piece of chocolate.
And they obsessed about it for about six months. They were texting me. I had no idea. Went through all my pictures all my videos all my everything could not find this piece of chocolate anywhere But they were so mad that he texted me afterwards and said I think you should make an excel spreadsheet Of everything you do and everything you i'm like, oh That's
Melissa Klug: not happening, sweetie.
I So I did have a client. It was not something that I accidentally threw away, but I did have a client who was very budget conscious and they had a very big project of which mostly I was doing it by myself. It was an older couple and they were moving and the house that they were moving from was Extremely disorganized.
And so we went through room by room and was like, what can stay? What can go? What do I, what am I packing? What am I doing? But they were again, very specific about, you know, this is our total budget and this is what we need to have done. And they had way more things to be done than they had budget for. At the end, she got very angry at me because she said, do you keep a list of things for donation?
And I'm like, typically, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't, but if you want me to keep a list, I will for you keep a running list of the things that were donated. So. She was really angry at me at the end that I hadn't made, like you said, an exhaustive spreadsheet of every single individual item that they had donated, and I was like, If you would have like if that was your expectation, the amount of hours I would have had to spend would have exceeded your budget, but she was still mad at me about that.
So that's that was an expectation setting thing. Yeah, another example of, I should have just said no I don't do that. Yes,
Michelle Parravanni: yes.
Melissa Klug: Oh, the chocolate thing that's a weird one. It is a weird
Michelle Parravanni: one. It's the only time it's ever happened and it still plagues me because I do not remember it. Yeah. Nobody remembers it.
But it was more, I do, well no, I say I don't remember it. I remember the chocolate. Yeah. I don't remember doing anything with it. Yeah. We don't throw things away, but
Melissa Klug: they And you also don't remember saying, this moldy piece of chocolate looks like something that someone's going to want to eat. From
Michelle Parravanni: Switzerland in a year's time in the backyard over a bonfire and a glass of wine.
It's so weird. Yeah. And like a little chocolate chip. It's, yeah, it was crazy.
Melissa Klug: I did have a house that had it just moldy chocolate was reminding me of this. I had a house that had Vegemite, which I've never personally had, but I've heard things about it. I've heard it's disgusting. I'm sorry to any Australians that are like, I love it.
It's the best. In Minnesota, we have something called lutefisk, which is fish made with lye. So you don't have to eat that either, but yeah, no, that also not great. But the point of the story is they had Vegemite. And I flip it over and the expiration date, I actually almost didn't believe it. It said it expired in 1984.
Okay. And I was like this, I mean, they can't have Vegemite from 1984, right? Like this would have disappeared somewhere along the way until I found a passport, an old expired passport that cited a trip to Australia that occurred in 1984 and I put all And I'm like, this is Vegemite from when Ronald Reagan was president.
And I, if I feel like if I open this up like a portal, like that's going to make the earth spin backwards on its axis, or like, there might be a weapon of mass destruction growing in here. Like, can you imagine? I was like, this just needs to go away.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah. But they kept it. They clearly kept it. They
Melissa Klug: moved it multiple times.
It got moved in the kitchen. Also, this wasn't like a souvenir, right? Like it wasn't on a shelf as a souvenir, right? It was in the kitchen where food is prepared. This was a mom, this was a mom of a client of mine. And then I also found a baking powder that expired the year that I graduated from high school.
And I am not a young, I'm not a young woman. And so I said to my client, like, Hey, did you ever eat cookies at your mom's house that she baked? Because if you did, they were made with baking powder from The nineties. Oh my God. This is actually like, when I think about it,
Michelle Parravanni: it's crazy. I always have a competition with myself every time I go in line to see what's the oldest spice I can find.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Klug: Have you ever seen those reels at holiday time when kids will go to their grandmother's house and they play a game called find the oldest thing in the pantry. It's hilarious. I haven't, but me
Michelle Parravanni: and my sister did that at my mum's house over Christmas. Oh my god. Things from when I was born.
Like, why is this still in here? Yeah. Yeah. And she's likely to say, Oh, it's still good. It's still fine. It's still fine. They just have to put that on there legally. It's still fine. I still use it. Oh, God. Okay, well, let's go out for dinner.
Melissa Klug: I was gonna say, hey, Mom, we're going out.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah, we're going out. We're not eating
Melissa Klug: here.
That's amazing.
Michelle Parravanni: . I do have one more thought on. Yes, please. The landfill thing. Yes, please. Whoever have a client, well, I know we do, will go to somebody's house for a consultation and they're so afraid of things going to the landfill, that their house has become a landfill.
Correct. It's so
Melissa Klug: bad. I always say, the storage unit is now inside your house. Or yeah, or sometimes I'll say the landfill is your house. I will flat out say that to them.
Michelle Parravanni: Yes. Yes. Yes. You're so afraid of this. Going to the landfill that you are living in one.
Melissa Klug: I had a client one time that on the consultation, they took me around and they lived in a this is going to sound judgmental.
So just go with me for a second, but they lived in a very beautiful home. And they had just remodeled it like down to the studs. I'm talking every inch of that house had been taken apart and put back together in their basement. They had a. Huge pile of plastic, you know, things that things had come in that were plastic wrapped and everything.
And she said, Oh, we just do not believe in putting things in the landfill. So this plastic has to stay here because we just, she gave me like a long lecture about how bad plastic is and how it can't, you can't put it in the trash. And by the way, I know lots of things about plastic. I'm not denying what she said, but I did also think to Ma'am, you have just taken a 4,000 square foot house down to the studs.
The number one filler of landfills is construction waste. . So I'm guessing that you didn't think twice about where all those things were going, but we're gonna keep a plastic bag cemetery in your house because you feel so, and I was like, also the plastic has already been created. You bought the thing in plastic.
That's the problem. It's not that you're not putting it in the trash, it's that you bought it and the plastic has already been created, which is part of the pr. Do you know what I mean? It's like, yes, there's some of these people that you're like, I just need to, I need to reframe your thoughts, and I appreciate that.
You don't wanna put things in the trash however,
Michelle Parravanni: but they still won't hear you. They still won't. No, they won't. No. You can say that to the cows. Come home and they still will not listen.
Melissa Klug: I say it for my own sanity.
Michelle Parravanni: Yes. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But you feel yourself doing that all the time with people.
That's how they get in these messes in the first place.
Melissa Klug: I had someone the other day I posted something apparently very controversial on my Instagram, which I really don't, I don't care a lot about social media. I just put things up that entertain me, right? Like I wrote my, my, my home by 11 Instagram. I just put things up that I are randomly about.
organizing ish. And I put something up about a client that had said goodbye to a bunch of Apple boxes that she didn't need. And these Apple boxes were taking up a tremendous amount of shelf space in a space that did not have a lot of storage. And she's like, well, I don't really need, I mean, she had like an iPhone six box and the whole thing.
Right. I posted a reel about how, hey, you do not have to keep apple boxes. People think for some reason there's like something magical about an apple box. People were so annoyed. I mean, I had people arguing with me. I actually deleted a lot of the comments because they were really mean, but I was like, I love these people that are arguing with me, which by the way, feel free to argue with me, but I also would like to see a picture of your house.
Cause I have a feeling.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah. There's many Apple boxes.
Melissa Klug: People who are like, Oh, I can sell those on eBay. Oh, I can do it. Are you doing something with it? Is my question for you. Yeah. Yeah. And the answer usually is no.
Michelle Parravanni: Exactly. And you're not going to sell it. You say you'll sell it. I have clients that will say, Oh, I can sell this.
I can sell that. I'll be like, no, you are not going to, but you're not going to sell it because you would have already. And you don't have the time and you're not going to sit down and do that. You're going to get so sick of doing it. There's no way, but people ask me to sell things. And I won't
Melissa Klug: know.
That's one that I put a hard bounder and I did it. Yeah, I did it in the early part of my business. And then I refuse. And so anytime someone comes into IO and is like, Hey, I'm thinking about selling things. And I'm like, here's, here are just some things I want you to think about.
Michelle Parravanni: Oh, the same way I tell my clients that all the time, let's just think about how much time is going to go into selling this.
And then talking to these people that are coming, you don't know who they are, then I don't want you to freak out because you don't know them, and it's gonna be a whole thing, and you're not gonna do it. And like you, I did the same thing. In the beginning, I was like, Oh yeah, I can do everything. I'll sell that for you, easy peasy.
I can sell it. But it is exhausting. Am I going to now be the middle person between me, you and them? No, thank you.
Melissa Klug: What I suggest is, this is another one going back to what we said earlier, find a resource that does that so that then you can say to someone, I have a person. Here you go. You can connect with them.
They can do all the things for you. You can find out that you're going to make almost no money off of this and then you can just donate it and then be good with it. Yeah,
Michelle Parravanni: exactly. Cause now you're going to pay someone to sell your thing for 10 and pay them nine.
Melissa Klug: It's like a hundred percent.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah. And do you really want to put the time into that?
No, just donate it. There are some
Melissa Klug: parts of this job that I think are, like, kind of tear your hair out, frustrating, I mean, I love it so much, but, like, when you have those same conversations over and over again, it feels like that movie Groundhog Day, where you're like, oh, look, another day, another conversation about, like, here's, here are the upsides and the downsides of trying to sell your things on eBay.
Yeah,
Michelle Parravanni: exactly. I think I'm just going to write it all down and hand them the piece of paper. You should. Yeah, and then they can just say, just
Melissa Klug: read this. Yeah. Here you go.
Michelle Parravanni: So yeah. Now I will say I, I like to list things if they're free, someone pick it up because that's half your battle is just getting a person here to take it away.
So you don't have to deal with any of that, but don't list something to make five or 10 bucks off of it. Just have someone come get it. That's huge.
Melissa Klug: Facebook marketplace free is my best tool for people. I have been shocked. Now, it's not to say there aren't some downsides to that. There are. You have to learn a few things about it, but when I have a client that has something that they're like, I really need to get rid of this and it's big, let's like, it's a couch or it's whatever.
I will be like, I can get rid of it in 20 minutes and they'll be like, no, you can't. And I'll be like, watch me. Oh, yeah.
Michelle Parravanni: Watch me. The word free. Oh my god. Just, you just have people piling up your new doorstep. I
Melissa Klug: have given away so much random crap on Facebook marketplace and my view is someone needs it.
Okay. I'm not going to judge. Maybe they don't actually need it. That's not my problem. Unless they are. Right. Okay. I mean, just scraps of construction stuff and you know, an old baby crib that someone could use as a dollhouse. I could just name things over and over again. These are things that are crowding up people's homes, garages, whatever.
Give them away on Facebook Marketplace. You will not regret it. It's so great. And you don't
Michelle Parravanni: have to do anything. They come, they get it. I always say bring help. That's what I say too. Yes, bring help because I'm not going to be lifting it. So, you know, bring help, take it off and it's gone. You have to do nothing.
Melissa Klug: It's fantastic. Yes. Yes. I love it. I highly agree. The only caveat I would give to that is there are some scams on Facebook marketplace, so never deal with anyone outside of messenger. Never give anyone your phone number. Never, you know, like, Look. Look them up. Make sure they're a legit profile. There are a lot of weird scam.
You know, organizing has a lot of scams. There are a lot of scams out there, but once you figure out the process, it's Chef's kiss. Yeah. If
Michelle Parravanni: somebody gets back to you within two seconds, that's a bot. Yeah. You know? Yes, correct. That's a bot right away. Or if they say, gimme your phone number. No, we don't do phone numbers.
No. We only communicate via Messenger. That's it. Yes. Yeah. There's certain rules and you learn all those as you go along, but yeah, you do. Other than that, it's really good. Yeah, I love it. Do you find your friends, or if you go to somebody's house, are they always embarrassed at how their house looks?
Melissa Klug: Yeah, I have a lot of people who well, a couple different things happen.
I do think that there are people that will come to my house and want to judge, like, you know, anything. They might not talk about it, but I think they do. And I, as I always explain, so clients always say, Oh, your house is perfect probably. And I'm like, no, my house isn't perfect because human beings live there.
So it's not perfect, but it certainly is. I can find the things I need to, and I can clean up in five minutes versus five days. And if someone told me they were coming over in a half an hour, I'd be ready for them. I, like, that's the, you know, perfection is never the goal. But yes, I will have people that are like, oh, don't look at this, don't look at this.
And I'm like, dude, I'm not here to work. I don't want to work. If you're not paying me, I don't see it. I don't want to think about work, so therefore, no, I'm not going to judge anything that's going on here.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah, there are some days where you just go, if I hear the word declutter or organize, Anymore today or this week.
I can't hear those two words anymore. I'm
Melissa Klug: done. No, because and this actually happened a few years ago that we went to a gym where like a lot of people were friends, and I didn't even think about this, but like the owners would talk about, we don't always want to talk about, like, gym stuff. , it's exhausting for people to talk about your job all the time.
And that's definitely how I feel. Like every once in a while I'll be at a social event and people will be asking me questions and like out of the good, you know, I said earlier, no one ever wants to talk. No, I've never had a job. People want to talk about more. And I do love it. But every once in a while, I'm like, I'm not asking you about your job.
I just want to talk about like, whatever, you know, like what's on TV, what the kids are doing, whatever. Yes,
Michelle Parravanni: exactly. No, I find that all the time. Like, that's it. I'm done
Melissa Klug: turning off. Yeah, I am done. So if you had to go back and tell. Brand new 2019 you give 2019 you some advice. What would it be?
Patience.
Michelle Parravanni: I would just tell myself to be patient, to join IO sooner. Just, yeah, just be patient. Things will come. Just keep plugging along doing all the things, networking. I actually help a lot of new organizers in the area get started. Just. To bypass. Yeah, I just did bypass. Basically it's the things you've taught me through IO and I've got on board with.
I didn't do all those things in the beginning. So I didn't do the newsletter. I didn't do the blog. I didn't do any of that. I didn't know any different. So I, and even website stuff, my website didn't get touched for two years. I didn't touch it. I didn't know I was supposed to do anything on that.
I didn't know I was supposed to go in behind the scenes and manipulate things and SEO. So I would tell myself to spend more time on that. I thought I had to do Instagram. I hate doing social media. I need to have not done that and focus more on my website. So now when I help organizers I teach them to bypass all of that.
Work on your website, spend time on Google business, do all that stuff that will get your clients. Concentrate more on driving as many people as you can to your website, not to your social media. That's where you want to be. If you want to have your newsletter, if you write your newsletter, write half of one and then link it to your blog.
Drive some traffic to your website. They don't worry about the social media. You only have, like you always say, you only have past clients, other organizers, or friends. Yeah. That are already doing it. You know? So don't worry about spending three hours on that. Put that three hours into your website, change things around, make sure Google knows that you're still here.
Do all that stuff. Even an hour.
Melissa Klug: Yeah. That's a good one. I read I'm gonna do something bigger about this because this was a newsletter that I got this morning that I was like, Oh my gosh, this is perfect. But it's a guy named Jon Acuff. I've talked about him before. He wrote a book called Soundtracks.
He's written a bunch of other books that I love. He's like a business guy, but he, in his newsletter today, I got hired by a social media company and I'm like, all right, that's a good hook. And his whole thing was I, he looked at, he said last week Oh, I'm so busy. And then he looked at a screen time and found out he had spent 13 hours in seven days on Instagram.
And he's like, I'm not busy. He goes, Instagram paid me 0 to spend 13 hours. And then if I'm buying stuff, I actually paid money to be on it. Right. And so his whole point, I'm kind of mashing it up, but I was like, if you looked at your screen time and said, I spent 10 hours last week, scrolling Instagram.
If you spent two of those 10 hours working on your website or doing Google business or doing any of the foundational things that we talk about, your business will be better for it. It just will. Absolutely.
Michelle Parravanni: That video that you made, I'm To go on Instagram, put it on Google business. Yes. Well, yeah, that, that picture, put it on Google business.
I do that first. So I try to put all my energy into that, which is why I only have like 550 followers because it doesn't, I don't care. It's not important.
It's not important and it's too draining for me having to do all that and think about it and figure it out. And am I doing it right?
Is this what everybody else is doing? And yeah, and you know, there's only so much that you can do before it comes tiring, boring anyway. I think I don't want to see any more before and afters. So
Melissa Klug: also, oh my gosh, if you're going to, this is just a pet peeve. If you're going to do a before and after, which I don't even believe in for, I did an entire podcast on it, but if you're going to do a before and after, please, I'm begging you.
Make the after first. And the before is first. Just please also make sure it's a good before and after. This is my plea. This is my plea to organizers.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah, I know. But the problem is sometimes the after pictures look like the before pictures of another organizer. So yeah it's tricky. It's so you don't need
Melissa Klug: them.
You don't need them. And people think you do, but this is what we try to teach people is what you think you need to do versus what you actually do. But
Michelle Parravanni: anyway, well, yeah, exactly. When you look at those pictures and everybody's everything's perfectly placed and all the baskets are perfectly used and it's nothing outside of it.
It's not reality. Those are not your everyday all day clients. Yeah. People it's so, Different to what Instagram shows you. Yes. And I'd much rather network with people that are really down and in it and dirty and doing all the things that we do. It isn't all about color coding. It isn't all about the right basket.
You know, you're in a garage for two days and you're filthy, disgusting spiderwebs in your hair. Like, it's not all pretty. You know, a lot of it is really dirty work. Yes,
Melissa Klug: it is. And I love it. I love I feel very satisfied at the end of the day, like if it's a garage day and I get in my car and I go home and I'm like, I am so excited to take a shower and I am so excited to but I feel so satisfied.
Like I've done really good hard work on days like that. Like it feels so good. Yeah,
Michelle Parravanni: it is funny. We put our rates up. For garages, because they're so hard. They are very hard. And and of course, me being me is like, oh god, no one's gonna hire us to do this, it's too expensive, and then, you know, you tell people in a confident way, this is what you charge.
Even if you're not feeling confident about it, like just for that delivery. And people are like, Oh, okay. Okay, great. Fine. Yeah. I was like, what? Nobody cared. Nobody even gave me any pushback on that price.
Melissa Klug: It was fine. Raise your prices, everyone. What is your, this is interesting. What is your differential for garages?
What did you up it? Like, what's the difference? 40,
Michelle Parravanni: 40. It's 200. Yeah, 200
Melissa Klug: an hour. Oh, that's fantastic.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah, and people were just like, sure. That's fine. I thought we'd get so much pushback on it. It took me ages to be able to say this is what we charge. Because they're really difficult jobs. Garages and basements are really hard.
And they're time consuming. They take a lot of time. They're very dirty. And that's not to say I don't like doing them. I really like doing them. But you it's a hard job. So people have to pay for that, you know? So I
Melissa Klug: love this. This is something that I don't think we've ever talked about on the podcast is if you have certain spaces that have a different pricing structure.
I love this
Michelle Parravanni: idea. Yeah, other spaces in the home, it's our normal rate, but the garage in the basement, you have to pay for it. You have to pay more for it. Or
Melissa Klug: if you live in an area, such as you do, where it gets very hot at certain times of the year, if you have someone that's like, Hey, I need you to do a garage, and it's July, you might say, we don't typically do garages in July, we will do it for an upcharge.
Yes.
Michelle Parravanni: Yes. People just want it done. They don't want to do it and they want it done. And like you said, it's hot. They don't want to do it. We'll do it. But like I said before, you have to pay for it. You get what you pay for and we will give you a great service. Yeah. I love
Melissa Klug: this idea.
Michelle Parravanni: Yeah. The whole podcast is worth it just for that.
Melissa Klug: It sure was. This is great. I love it. Well, I mean, there were so many other things in it too, so, well, please tell people where they can find you.
Including your social media that we don't like.
Michelle Parravanni: Okay. Everything is at Designing With Less. So website designingwithless.com com Instagram @designing_with_less TikTok of saying, how
Melissa Klug: excited are you about that? Tick TikTok you sound very excited.
Michelle Parravanni: Love it. That Facebook the same Designing With Less yeah, that's it.
Okay. Everything's same email, michelle@designingwithless.Com and that's all the places. Bye guys. I love
Melissa Klug: it. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so happy that you emailed me. And I'm happy that you did not feign illness or other disaster today.
Michelle Parravanni: Yes, I'm very proud of myself.
Do avoid talking to me.
Melissa Klug: I'm proud of you too. Thank you. If nothing else, people should take from this conversation that you should do things that scare you because sometimes they're not that scary. No.
Michelle Parravanni: Well, thanks to you. I mean, you're an amazing host and thank you for all you do for us in the community.
You go above and beyond for all of us. Bridget and I talk about it all the time. You give for us. And I think on the behalf of, on behalf of everybody, I can say, just say thank you. Cause you're incredible.
Melissa Klug: You're so
Michelle Parravanni: welcome. Actually wait to meet you at the How To Summit. I know. Oh, you're coming. Oh, yay.
Okay. Yes. This is a hotel room.
Melissa Klug: I'm all set. Okay. Friendly reminder. How To Summit is coming up in September. I am going to be speaking and I'm very excited about that. We are going to have a ton of people there from Inspired Organizer® and just like from the overall organizing community, I'm going to have Brandie and Ryan on the podcast in a couple of weeks to talk about a little bit, you know, some of the changes that are coming this year and all the good stuff.
So I'm so excited to meet you. I
Michelle Parravanni: can't wait. I cannot wait. I'm so excited. Saffron's coming. I'm coming. I'm coming. We have a ticket. Oh,
Melissa Klug: that's fantastic. Well, yes. So if you have not booked your ticket yet, please come join us. It's so fun. We had the best time last year. So, and this year is going to be in Austin, which is a city I've never been to, which I'm very excited about.
I haven't either.
Michelle Parravanni: So I'm very
Melissa Klug: excited. Yay. Well, thank you for coming on today. I appreciate it.
Michelle Parravanni: Thank you for having me. It was amazing.
CONNECT WITH PRO ORGANIZER STUDIO
We’d love to work with you. Send us an email (Melissa answers them personally!) or connect with us HERE…or check out our programs HERE.
If you’d like to watch our FREE seminar, The Pro Organizer’s Profit Plan—check it out here!