201 | The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan Workshop
Jen Kilbourne (l), founder of Pro Organizer Studio; Melissa Klug (r) current head cheerleader of organizers around the world!
Growing Your Professional Organizing Business
I am about to launch a brand new free workshop (check out www.poroadmap.com for all the details!), which means I am retiring a workshop called the "Pro Organizers Profit Plan." Jen and I created this workshop to help both new and experienced organizers streamline and grow their businesses.
Key topics include overcoming common mistakes, effective marketing, personal branding, and leveraging systems and data to achieve goals.
Whether you are a brand new organizer, an experienced organizer, or someone looking to start a professional organizing business—this is an hour of your time that will be well spent (if I may be so humble!)
TIME STAMPS:
00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Changes
00:23 Retiring the Pro Organizers Profit Plan Workshop
01:41 Workshop Introduction by Jen
05:12 Melissa's Journey and Workshop Goals
05:35 Friendly Competition: Polite Pro Carrie vs. Savvy Organizer Lauren
07:39 Melissa's Personal Journey to Organizing
11:05 Common Mistakes When Starting an Organizing Business
17:18 Understanding Client Needs and Expectations
22:36 The Pro Organizers Profit Plan: See, Say, Do
23:12 Pro Organizer's Profit Plan Overview
23:49 Defining Your Success
27:02 Creating a Minimal Business Launch
29:29 The Power of Branding
35:09 Marketing, Systems, and Data
40:09 Building Confidence and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
42:38 Introducing the 'Do' System
47:28 Join the Inspired Organizer Community
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
Check out our new free workshop at www.poroadmap.com!
Learn more about us: www.proorganizerstudio.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
Melissa Klug: Hey organizers. It's Melissa. And I know that I haven't had podcast episode for awhile and that trust me is going to change. But. I have been working my tail off behind the scenes. On a bunch of new stuff that I'm going to be launching into the world, starting in September. One of those things is a brand new free workshop that everyone is going to be able to enjoy.
But what that means is it is time for me to retire a workshop called the pro organizers profit plan. And I have had many people that have done this workshop online, but I've never brought it to the podcast audience and it actually translates pretty well into audio. So I would love for you to take a listen.
It's Jen and myself both. If you miss Jen's voice, you're going to be able to hear her voice again. On the podcast, which is always wonderful. And it is a great way to revisit what are you doing in your business? Whether you are brand new to business, whether you're just dreaming about it or whether you've been in it for a while, hopefully you will hear some things here that will help you as you March into the last four months of the year, which is crazy this year has gone so fast. I am also excited in September for the how to summit. I am hoping to see a ton of people there.
Please throw me an email. hello@proorganizerstudio.com or throw me a DM on Instagram if you're going to be there, because I would love to make a list of all the podcasts listeners who are going to be in the audience, but cannot wait to see everyone. All right. So I'm going to give you. A podcast version of the workshop, the pro organizers profit plan. Have an awesome. awesome. day.
Jen Kilbourne: Hello, everybody is Jen . I am so, so, so excited that you're joining in we have a workshop for you guys tonight. It is called how to profit from your passion for organizing, without giving away all your time for free.
So I know that this is a problem. I know that this is a pain point. I know that a lot of you have been thinking about starting your business for a very long time and have lots of questions. Tonight is going to be super special because I am bringing on my podcast host, Melissa Klug. She is helping develop brand new programs and courses and educational resources for professional organizers across all stages of business.
If you don't know me, I'm Jen. I am the founder of pro organizer studio and the creator of the Inspired Organizer program. Melissa is a professional organizer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is going to be really taking over and presenting most of this workshop tonight.
I know you guys are going to get so much out of it because she's absolutely incredible. While you're watching, let us know what is standing in your way of launching or growing your organizing business. We really want to hear from you not only what you think about this training.
Where you are with your business right now. And anything that we can do to help you move forward. So, you are in the right place. You have an organizing business or you want to start one soon. If you've been thinking about starting one since 2015, there is still no better time. Like the present, I promise you.
But if you are struggling with how to even talk about your services or like getting that first, oh, how do I talk about this? Getting it off the ground, this is definitely going to be the right training for you. This is also for you. If you are currently dealing with a ton of overwhelm and we all are and I promise you, you are not alone.
And if you're not even sure where to start with your business or how to find clients, this is definitely going to be for you. And last but not least, this is also for you. If you know, already that there are ways to grow your business locally, or even take part of it online, create an online component of your business.
But you just haven't quite figured out yet how to do. This training is also going to be for you. I know that you're going to get a ton out of it. So of course I have to say, this is not for you. If you're not really like ready to let go of what you think that you know about how to become a successful professional organizer.
Because one thing I can tell you that Melissa and I have in common, and we do have totally different backgrounds and different experiences. But what we both have in common is done is better than perfect. We will show you the right rules to break. We will help you kind of dispel those myths that you might have heard somewhere.
And that you might be continuing to tell yourself we're going to help you bust through that. If that sounds good and you want to stay with. Let me introduce myself one more time before I turn it over to Melissa. In 2016, I started pro organizer studio as a business and just overall resource for professional organizers.
I have a program called do that I created, and it is a thriving community of professional organizers from pretty much everywhere. We have students in Europe, Australia, Canada, all over north America.
Melissa has joined me in the endeavor and I am ready to let her take over and take you on a journey to share more of her very best tips for you from all of her experience of coaching, other professional organizers in the industry.
So without further ado, I am going to turn this over to Melissa. We are ready to hear from you. And I know you guys are going to enjoy this cause she is so, so knowledgeable and so fun. Thanks Melissa.
Melissa Klug: Thanks Jen for that warm welcome. I am thrilled to be here. So there are two things that I really, really love.
The first thing is talking about organizing. And the second thing is helping people build and grow organizing businesses. So I am very excited to be here and I want to go through this workshop for people to know that there is a great future in the organizing industry for them. So let's start with a friendly competition.
I have the power to give someone a TV show. This is an exciting power. And don't you wish it were real. I dream of the day that TLC calls me and says, Hey, we want you to have an organizing show, but let's just say that we have this contest and the person who gets the most organizing clients in a month gets your own show.
So we've got two people competing in this contest. We've got polite. Pro Carrie and Carrie asks family and friends repeatedly to hire her on social media. She just overwhelms people with organizing content, how to organize their kitchen, how to organize their bathroom, thinks that telling people how to organize is going to make them want to hire.
She tries one marketing tactic one day then pivots the next day to something completely different. And she has no plan whatsoever on her marketing or her sales strategy. She also sets her prices really low and she will do any job. Someone asked her to do, even if it's well beyond the scope of her organizing abilities or even what she wants to do.
So she finds herself running errands and cleaning people's houses. Anything that will get her ahead in this contest. Then we've got savvy organizer, Lauren who takes a different approach. So Lauren inspires her potential clients online showing them what their life could look like if they hired her for her service, she targets specific clients who are searching for and who are willing to invest in her valued services.
So she finds the right people who are actually looking for these services and want to hire her. She sets a marketing strategy. She has a plan. She has a small number of achievable goals and she uses data to make those decisions about where the smartest investments are for her. And what is her promotion strategy?
So of those two people, which one do you think wins the show? Is it our frantic organizer who's running around just trying to get anyone, or is it someone who has a plan and a process and a way to get there? I know which one I think works. And this is what we want to talk to you about today.
So I want to introduce myself. My name is Melissa. I am thrilled to be a part of pro organizer studio and do. And I want to tell you just a little bit about my own journey to organize. So I dreamed of a career that I got to control.
I wanted to escape the eight to five life. I was a corporate person. I traveled all the time, worked constantly, I did things that helped people do their jobs, but I wasn't really helping people live a better life.
I also dreamed of flexibility for my family and what I had instead in this job. Was I traveled constantly. I at one point was platinum on two different airlines, which I can tell you from personal experience is not something that you should strive to achieve. It's not a very fun life.
I was parenting via FaceTime. I really wasn't there for my family. I missed family activities all the time, including vacations.
I wasn't feeling fulfillment and the values that I had were aligned with the company that I was working for, the people that I was working.
So after years of living in a career that did not fit me, I knew that I needed a major change in my life and my organizing career was born out of that. And I have never, ever looked back. I knew it was time for me to start my own business. And I knew that even as scary as that sounded, it was the absolute right thing for me to get to those ultimate goals.
And that's what I'm here to tell you is you can build that as well. And we want to give you the tools to be able to do that. I love that I have a career where I can go into people's homes every single day, and I get to share my knowledge with them and I get them to be able to live better lives.
I get to share my love of organizing with people. I get to truly change people's lives. And that's the best part about my job. So if you're sitting here going like great, I'm in, let's start a business. You sit down and you say, I want to start this business. And how do I do that? You start thinking about it.
And pretty soon you start thinking about all of the things that are part of building a business, and you might start to get overwhelmed because you think about, oh, well I need a, an email address for my business await, but that means I also have to call my business something, what am I going to name my business?
What's my brand. Then you start thinking about, oh my gosh, I've got to get Facebook. I've got to get Instagram. Where do I get professional photos taken? And is my house a house that people would want to see? And your brain starts swirling with all of these different things that are a part of starting a business.
And you might start to get a little bit overwhelmed then on top of. You've got a regular life that you have to lead to. You have a family that you probably have to take care of and you have a home that you have to take care of. And I'm sure at the end of this, you would also like to make sure that you still have friends at the other end of this starting a business.
So you have to keep up with your relationships and your home and your life. And all of those things may start to feel like they are a lot. And I completely understand that. What we want to give you is a path forward. To let you create this career that you love, but also not feel like you are totally overwhelmed and don't know where to start and don't know where to go.
We can show you a path forward, and that's what we're going to do here today on this workshop. I want to tell you a few things that were keeping me stuck. When I started my organizing business, I was making three big mistakes that I see a lot of other organizers. Next. We want to talk about those to make sure that you're not making those same mistakes too.
The first mistake. Copying what everyone else is doing. I have a phrase that I love to use, and it is that comparison is the thief of joy. And this comparison itis that people can get is a huge hindrance to people. If they want to start or grow an organizing business, if you are constantly looking at another organizer in your area or someone that does the same thing as you or someone that you look up to, even if you're constantly comparing yourself to that person, oh, look, she's one rung higher than me.
What I have to go do exactly the same thing she's doing or on the right-hand side. If you go to Facebook and go, oh my gosh, well, she shared something and it got a hundred likes on Facebook. I need to go copy that exact same thing. Even though it doesn't really work for me, I still need to do that because that's what other people are doing.
I need as many followers on Instagram as that person or people won't hire me. We have all these thoughts in our head that are, that we're going through. She only charges X. So I can't charge. Y there's no way I can charge something different than what she's charging. I see her social media, she's working with tons of clients all the time.
Constant comparison can really hurt you when you're trying to start or grow your business. And here's what we want to tell you as we learned, because we made this mistake, the grass might not be as green on the other side of that fence, as you think it is, it is very possible that all those people you're comparing yourself to, they may not be as successful as you think they are, or they may be working 12 hours a day on their business just to get those 100 likes on Facebook.
It doesn't mean that they're running a successful business. And it also doesn't mean that you have to do exactly what they're doing. Okay. I want you to be able to set your own goals and know your own needs to create your own business, a business that works for you and constantly comparing yourself to what other people are doing is not a way to go about that.
I promise you, what we want you to do is throw out the rules. Throw out the rules of I have to be on Instagram and I have to have thousands of followers. I have to be on Facebook, even though I don't want to be on Facebook, you can throw out the rules and don't compare yourself. And the only rule that you should be comparing yourself to is what works for your business that you are building or growing.
The second mistake is waiting until everything is perfect before launching your business. This is a sign that I absolutely love. This is, hold on, let me overthink this. We have a tendency to go a million miles an hour and think about all the things that we need to be doing and all of the things that need to happen in order to start a business.
And I'm here to tell you that you don't have to wait until everything is picture perfect and everything is in place before you start your business. I promise one thing that we see a lot with organizers that we coach something that was from my corporate career, it's called analysis paralysis and analysis paralysis is the process of analyzing a situation so much, and this is the key part that a decision or action has never taken.
Let me give you an example in the organizing world pricing. This is something that causes a lot of people some stress. How do I price my services? Should I do it hourly? Should I do packages? Should I have 12 packages? Should I have three packages you could, if you wanted to create a spreadsheet where you give yourself 25 different pricing scenarios, pros and cons, you could do market research to say, what are other people in my area charging?
What kind of packages do they have? You could end up spending days or weeks analyzing every potential pricing situation that exists in the world for your service. And what ends up happening is you do so much analysis that you are then paralyzed and you can't make a decision and you can't move forward versus just saying, you know what, my gut tells me that I need to have three packages.
And here's what the package looks like. And I'm going to try this and then I'm going to analyze my data. And I'm going to be able to say, yes, people are responding to this, or maybe I need to change these a little bit. That analysis paralysis stopping you from taking forward. Action. It's a great way to not be able to get your business off the ground as quickly as you would like to.
We encourage you to find your business sweet spot. There is a phrase that I love to use when I'm coaching clients and that is MVP and it's not most valuable player. It is minimum viable product. And what minimum viable product means in our business is that you can find that sweet spot of what you're putting out there that is great content, and that people want to see and things that people want to be able to understand before they hire you.
And that perfection model of I have to have the absolute perfect website and the perfect Instagram and the perfect Facebook. And until I have all of those things perfect. I am not going to put my business out there. So there is that sweet spot of good and good enough to get it out into the public. And then you can change it as you go along.
So build your business while you are building your business, you can launch a business. We promise and get clients, which was the most important part of building a business without having every single thing in place. You could start a business tomorrow with a very simple one page website that you have made your.
And it does not have to have 22 pages and you do not have to have an FAQ document to cover absolutely. Every scenario that a potential client might give you. I promise you could launch and grow a business without having every single piece in place or perfect mistake. Number three is not knowing what clients actually want and need in an organizer.
So you may have said any number of these things. I send them to myself. A client wants to see dramatic before and after photos. So I need a ton of before and after photos, they want me to have several certifications. So I'm definitely going to need to take more classes and join more organizations.
They are going to want someone who has thousands of followers on social media. That's how they know that person is legit. They want me to have a lot of experience before they have. You have probably said all of these things to yourself. I am here to tell you that these things are limiting beliefs.
They're just not true. I had a client hire me on my first day of business. This client paid me money to give her a plan. She didn't even live in my state. She lived in a different state. I gave her a virtual plan on how to organize her house and she paid me for it. On my first day of business, you do not have to have oodles of experience and you do not have to have 10 certifications and you do not have to have thousands of followers on social media to get clients knowing what a client actually wants to see from you is critical.
Let's talk about. I'm going to give you an example. Water is free. Okay. You can get it from almost anywhere, but why is it that 13 billion with a B gallons of water are sold every year in bottled form? Well, it's because people want convenience and they want a service. So water that comes in a bottle is able to be carried places, whether you're on a plane, in a car exercising, whatever that looks like for you, that is what you need.
It's a service, even though you can get it for free. So technically a client could do their house on their own. They could organize their house. They have the skills and they have the knowledge that they could get from lots of different place. But they're looking for a service to have someone help do it for them and with them.
So what do clients really want and need? They want inspiration. They don't want information. They don't want to have you tell them how to do it. They want you to show them what is their life going to be like if they hire you as their organizer, they want an inspirational look at, oh my gosh, look at that living room.
That's the kind of life that I could live. If my house were organized and I have news for you, they want someone to deliver them. That aspirational home life that they desire, but can't get to, but that aspirational home life, isn't always Instagram, perfection. Sometimes people are just looking for someone to deliver them out of the chaos that they live in and they don't know how to get there and they need someone to help them.
So that aspirational home life for them. It may not look like that. Beautiful living. It may just look like a house they can walk into that doesn't have stuff piled on every inch of the floor. It may look like a way for them to organize their mail, which is crushing them every single day. It may look like a way for them just to store their kids' toys more effectively so that they don't step on Legos and hurt their feet.
Every five minutes that aspirational life can sometimes be achieved in a very simple fashion. And they want you to help them achieve that. They want a confident assured coach to provide them an extremely valuable service. So yes, you could tell them how to pick up the Legos, but if you show them a beautiful toy room that has everything organized, they're going to say yes, that person can help me.
And they're going to come in and they're going to be the superwoman that is in this photo. They're going to be my superhero to help me out of this chaos. That is my house. So knowing what those clients want and being able to deliver that and show them what you can deliver to them is really what they're looking for.
So you can tell us you're sitting on your couch or in your office or wherever you might be right now and looking at this and nodding and going. Yeah, I totally did that. So just kind of quietly follow along and tell us, how are you making these same mistakes that we did? You can admit it. No, one's looking.
So there are three different ways that you can get from point a to point B. If you're trying to get from your house to a destination, there are ways that you can accomplish that. The first one is a compass. You could use a compass to get from point a to point B and it's a possibility for you to get there, but it requires you knowing exactly what direction you're going.
And it's going to require you to know how to read a compass. Not a lot of us probably know how to do that. Then you've got a printed map. So it's definitely an easier way to get from point a to point B than a compass, but you're also not going to have all of the information that you need.
You might not know where all of the construction is going to be. You definitely don't know where you can stop and get gas along the way. You just know what highways you need to do. Then you've got the smartphone version of getting from point a to point B, you know, exactly how to get there. You know, exactly how long it's going to take you down to the minute, you know, where there are detours and you know exactly where you can stop in the next three exits to get French fries, because everyone needs French fries on a road trip.
The smartphone version of how to start and grow your organizing business. The pro organizers profit plan. We want to tell you the things that we suggest for you to do to get that business going the way you want to.
There are three different components of this plan. Very easy to remember. The first one is see the second one is say, and the third one is do. And as you can see in this graphic, they all work together. Step one, see feeds step two, which is say, and then that feeds part three, which is do and they all work together.
So once you go through the doing steps, then you can start over at the see steps and make sure that your plan is right and that you have it organized in a way that makes sense to you. Let's dive into what this pro organizers profit plan looks like. The first part of the profit plan is see. What that means is we want you to map your path, to turn your passion, which is organizing into a profitable business.
How do you do that? You may be starting from scratch, or you may have just started your business, or you've been in business awhile and you're trying to decide, do I take the left path or the right path? We want you to have a plan where you can see where you're going. So you don't have to ask that question.
Do I go right? Or do I go left? I know exactly where I'm going. I'm going left. And the way that we want you to develop that plan is to determine and define what success means to you. Let's go back to that comparisonitis that we talked about earlier. We do not want you to look at anyone else to determine what success means.
We want you to create a plan that defines success for you. There are lots of different ways to define success as you start a business or grow a business. One of the ways that you can define your success is by a sense of purpose. Maybe you're in a career right now. Like I was where it's really not fulfilling you and starting a business could give you a renewed sense of purpose or maybe you're a stay-at-home mom, and you're ready to start to get back and do something for yourself.
If that gives you a sense of purpose, that by itself is a success. It could be a sense of value. Helping other people, the help that you give to a client when you are an organizer is so far beyond what I can even explain to you.
If you haven't started your business, yet the amount of help you can give to a client and really revolutionize their life by decluttering their house, that gives you a sense of value in your life that you are helping someone live a better life for themselves. That could be your success, even if you only help one client a month or even one client a year, that value I promise is going to drive you.
Your success could be money. It could be very much that you want to start a business because you have financial goals that you want to reach, and you feel like starting this business can help you reach those financial goals, or maybe it makes you a little bit more self-sufficient maybe this business just enables you to take an extra vacation every year, or maybe it really enables you to start to propel yourself forward to a different financial future.
Altogether money can actually be one of the best sources of your success. If that's what you define it as time owning your own time and being able to account for your own time could be your arbiter of success. You could say, I want to start this business because I want to be able to reclaim my time.
Remember how I said, I used to go late to vacation and have to leave early sometimes for my job. I don't have to do that anymore. For me, reclaiming time was one of the most important measures of success. I know someone in the organizing industry who does it because she wants to take every August off to go on vacation with her family.
And she wasn't able to do that in her old life. Having your time be yours and to be able to do what means a lot to you is one of the great ways that you can measure success. However you choose to measure it is absolutely up to you, but this path that you are on, make sure you have that definition of success, and then you can measure your success against what you thought it would be at the beginning.
Lots of ways to go from point a to point B. And if you're overwhelmed and you don't know where to start in point a and you want to get to point B, which is a profitable business, maybe there are five steps in your way. Maybe there are a hundred steps in your way, whatever that number of steps looks like for you.
Totally fine. But define those steps and know I need to do 1, 2, 3, 4, and five to launch my business. Developing that written plan is really important so that you know what you're doing and where you're going and how to steer the ship there. But we are here to say, you don't have to have a 100 point plan.
To start your business. You can have a minimal business launch. Minimum viable product means you can have a business plan and you can launch a business with the absolute minimum number of things to get you out there. You can start a business with just a one-page website that you have built yourself.
That is incredibly simple, that tells people what you offer and how they can get in touch with you. You do not have to have a 22 page business plan and a 50 page website that has an FAQ for every possible situation. You can even launch in a weekend if you wanted to.
That is true. We have a plan for it and we'll share it with you. You have got to let great stop getting in the way of good. So you can launch a business that is good enough to get out there and get you clients. We're going to talk about one of our clients who gave us this feedback.
A happy client is so rewarding. I love being an organizer. A huge thank you to Jen and this group for getting me started and being my inspiration today. I got this client moved in one session. She called me in a panic and I was able to do the home consultation the same day and fit in one session. This morning was seven more for the rest of the house.
I love this job. When you map your path and you're able to say, what is my definition of success and what do I need to get there? And what does that look like? Then you've got to figure out what do I say? So what are the smartest and simplest things that I can say to a potential client here is an example of what I say.
I'm Melissa, I'm a professional organizer. And I believe if you declutter your home, you can change your life. Really. And I truly believe that I truly believe that there is life changing magic in organizing your house. And that's what I share with clients very simply and very easily. Let's look at this coffee cup.
So even if you don't like coffee, you know exactly what this coffee cup is and you know exactly where it came from, it came from Starbucks. It doesn't have to say Starbucks on it. Why do you know what that cup is? You know, because of the power of branding, you know, whether you're in Topeka, Kansas, or the center of Manhattan, you know exactly what you're going to get when you go into a Starbucks.
So what is branding? Branding is just something that makes clients want to work with you. And while we may not build Starbucks level brands and our organizing business, although I encourage you to dream big, you can build a personal brand that is you and your business, and you can get that information out to the universe so that you can have clients that come and find you.
And you may be sitting there going like, Hey, I don't have a business background. I haven't been a business. I don't know this. These words are starting to feel a little bit scary to me. I promise you they're not. Branding is just giving a personal impression of you that makes a client say, yep. I want to hire that person.
And how do you do that? You can do that from behind a computer. Probably more easily than you think. I had a client one time that hired me because she said, I looked at four organizers websites and you definitely looks like you were the most fun. And guess what? I am the most fun. I had just super fun to work with me and we make sure that we get a ton of stuff done in your house and we get your house organized, but we also have fun doing it.
I am happy that I have been able to project that impression and that people can see that from behind a computer screen. But whether you are a funny person or whether you are a serious person who just gets stuff done very efficiently, whatever your personality type, you can show clients that from behind a computer screen and they want to know, they want to know who they are hiring.
They want to hire someone that they trust with their most important and valuable asset in your life, which is your home. Your home is your sanctuary. And they want someone that they trust to be able to come into that house. So your personal brand is all of the things that go into how someone sees you through that computer screen and how you come across.
There are lots of different ways that you can share information with clients. You can go on your website and your Instagram and other social media, and you can share information with them. You can share steps, you can share how tos and how to organize a pantry and how to organize a linen closet.
You can show before and after pictures, you can do DIY tips and tricks. These are all things that we see organizers do, but what we want to encourage you to do instead of giving information is to give inspiration. Remember when we talked about what does a client really need, and some of the mistakes people make, sometimes we tend to.
Want to tell people how to do it themselves. But instead, what we really need to be sharing with people is the inspiration of what is your house going to look like when you are done working with me? So showing a picture like this, even if their house doesn't look like this, this is a beautiful home. But even if their house doesn't look like this, giving that picture of a clean, organized, calm, and serene space is something that is going to encourage them to say, I want that in my own home, that inspiration is what causes people to want to work with you.
So when you're thinking about what do I say to a client, do I tell them how to organize your closet from steps one through 10, or do I show them a beautiful closet and give them that inspiration of this is what happens at the end. Think about how you choose when you're buying a service, how do you make that choice?
I'll give you an example. I'm right now looking for a carpenter to help a client of mine do built-ins in their home. So I go to websites and I want to see what is the end result of working with this person.
I don't want to see where they shop for lumber. I don't want to see the work in process where there are nails sticking out everywhere and the wood isn't finished. I want to see that inspiration of what can I give to my client and say, this is the person I think you should hire.
Think about what you would want to see. You don't want to see the recipe. You just want to see the finished product. As we end this section of our say part of the pro organizers profit plan, you have a blank page. Your computer screen is a blank page. How are you going to write your story? What do you want to tell clients about you?
What makes you special and what makes them want to work with you? What should inspire that client to say, this is the person that I want to hire for my house. Think about how you want to write that story and coming across as an authentic person that loves to help, and that can give them their dream life is going to be a great way to get home.
We have another client that said I can't thank you enough for the inspiration support and generous sharing of your ideas. Today, I sold my first package, the all-in for 2350 amazing family. And the husband has a traumatic brain injury. I am so excited to help make a practical difference in their lives.
This client of ours was able to create that story and be able to say the right things to that client, that they knew that even in their special situation, that she was the right person for them to hire. That's all we want you to do is tell your story in a way that is compelling. Okay. So you've gone through the see and the say your path and your goals are clear.
You know what your definition of success is, and you know, your path to get there. You have done your branding work. You've developed your personal brand and you know exactly what you want to say to clients. What is your special sauce of how you were going to get them that aspirational home life? So what comes next?
It's the doing? We want you to put that, see and say, plan into action so that you can get dream clients on repeat and you can nurture a profitable business. So what does that look like? We're going to use some other words that, again, these are not scary words. I promise marketing and systems and data.
Marketing that is a word. Even if you've not been in the business world, don't be scared by it. All marketing is, it's taking something functional like electricity and turning it into something that is beautiful and useful, which is light marketing is just sharing your story and being able to tell people, Hey, this is what you are going to get when you work with me and getting that information out to your clients.
So it's one thing to develop the story, but it's another thing to be able to tell that story to people and make sure that you're connecting with those clients where they are. This is a quote about marketing that I absolutely. It's the art of telling stories. So enthralling that people lose track of their wallets.
So how do you tell that enthralling story in the do section, you're taking that personal brand and you're putting it out there. So there are lots of different ways to do that. You have a website, you can have social media.
If that's something that is exciting to you and you want to do social media is out there for you. Networking. You can use your personal network or your professional network to get clients referrals. You can work with clients and then ask that they refer you to their friends and family and other people that need your services.
There are so many different ways to market yourself. That's why I'm telling you. It's not scary. It's not a word that should scare you. There are so many ways in today's world that you can get your information about your business and yourself out to client. Systems and data. Now this is another one where people start to say, oh, that sounds scary.
And it sounds overwhelming. No, all we're talking about here is developing some systems that make it easy for you to operate your business. Even if you are not a business person, even if you do not have any expertise in running your own business, even if you've never been an entrepreneur before, there are a wealth of systems that are out there to help you do that.
Accounting is a great example. When I started my own business, I knew nothing about accounting and my first year of doing taxes because I didn't have the right systems in place. Didn't go well, for me, it was so much work to put my taxes together. Well, guess what I discovered there are some amazing and super affordable accounting systems out there for people like me, that I can present my invoices to clients super professionally.
They can pay them online. And then I have the reports I need to give to an accountant at the end of the year to do my taxes. It's a system and we are fortunate to live in a world where there are so many systems available to people like us to make our lives easier. There email automation.
Accounting systems \ there are so many things out there that you can use, and we are happy to walk you through all of those data. All data is, is looking at your results and then being able to analyze them and say, here's what I could do better. Or here's what I want to keep doing the exact same way.
If you have a goal that you would like to make a thousand dollars a month in your organizing business, and then after three months you analyze, and you said the first month I made a thousand, the second month I made 1500, the third month I made $750. What can I analyze in that data about how I marketed myself or how clients found me and how can I take that information?
And then go take action. Based on that information. That's all we mean about that. So putting these things together, marketing and systems and data in a way that still fits with your comfort zone is something that we want to encourage you to do. So you might start to feel like, Hey, this is some of these things that we're talking about might get me to the edge of my comfort zone.
I am here to tell you that getting beyond that comfort zone is where the magic happens. But we also want to tell you that you can slip to the edge of your comfort zone, but also have all of these things be aligned with your business goals and what feels good to you.
Here's what I mean by that. Let's say that you're a person who's not super techie. And we hear this a lot. We have people that are like, Hey, listen, I feel like this is going to stop me from growing a business. Absolutely not. If tech is stopping you, you can say my business goals include having super low tech marketing and super low tech systems.
Absolutely fine. You can start and grow an organizing business and not be on Facebook and not be on Instagram. You can have someone design a very simple website for you, and you can say I'm just going to totally rely on networking and referrals for my business. That is absolutely a business model that you can embrace on the flip side.
If you are on a first name basis with SEO and HTML and you know who you are, if you're that person, let's get some Google analytics going, let's do some deep dives on your bounce rates for your website. You can be that person too. These things can be aligned with your goals. I want to also remind you in the pro organizers profit plan, that the best thing you can bring to any client conversations, whether that conversation is happening in person on the phone or over the internet is confidence.
Confidence is the most important thing that you can put into your conversations with a potential client, because you want them to know that you are the person that can help them achieve their aspirational home life. You are the expert, you are the person that they have contacted. You know, more than they do, you're the expert.
That's going to be able to help them and you can lead them to that better home and that better life. What we want to do is banish imposter syndrome. If you have imposter syndrome, which many people have, we want you to develop that confidence to get past that. And like, no, I am not faking it. I really am an organizing expert.
And I really can help these people,
here's what we want to tell you. Is that your dream clients are out there. It is time to go get them both. Jen and I started organizing businesses out of nothing and grew those businesses to be six figure businesses that help our families and that more importantly, help people out in our communities.
Your dream clients are out there and it's time to go get them. If you only take one thing away today from this conversation, I want you to know that you can make more money as a professional organizer than you thought it was possible without running yourself into the ground without paying your imaginary dues.
So without thinking that you have to have seven certifications and you have to have a thousand hours of organizing under your belt to get a client, it's just not the case. This is one of our clients who said, I just need to tell people who will get it almost $7,000 made in a little over a month.
So glad I discovered Jen, on that fateful day on YouTube, not to sound dramatic, but this group has changed my life. That's the kind of drama that we can get into a group that changes your life. We're we're into that level of. If you take all this information that we've given you and all these tips and tricks, and you say, I'm ready to run with this.
Thank you so much. We will be here cheering you from the sidelines. We are here to celebrate your successes with you, and we are excited to see you get going. If you are sitting here going, Hey, I really love what you've said, but I really need more. And I am looking for a proven system that has been used by hundreds of other organizers.
Then we want to tell you about do, which is our system and our course and our community to be able to get you to start and grow that business. Enrollment is now open so what is do? If you are looking for a framework to book yourself out with bigger and better clients in way less time.
Our going phrases, we made all the mistakes. So you don't have to, we have everything in place to help you build and grow that business. It is here in do. If you're wondering to yourself how do I know this is for me? There are two different groups of people that this is for one, you are brand new to organizing, and you are ready to launch your business.
We have all of the tools that you need. It is also for you if you're already established in your organizing business, but you are ready to level up. You're maybe not getting the results that you want, or you're getting the results that you want, but you're ready to build a team or you are ready to level it up and double what you're making and double the amount of clients that you're serving.
Whichever phase of your business you're in do has things for you. This is one of our clients. I'm so thrilled to announce that I just got my first peg organizing job yesterday. She said she interviewed several organizers and didn't like any of them, but felt comfortable with me. I couldn't have done this without all of the help and knowledge from the Inspired Organizer class and all the ladies in this group.
Thank you so much. So that was someone that was new to the business. This is someone who has been in business for six years and said this year, after joining your course, I have sold more in my business than ever in the six years I have been organizing. So again, whether you're brand new or whether you're experienced, we have things to help you.
What is an do? What can I give you in this course? It is a self-paced course. It's all online. You can take it on your computer, you can take it on your phone. You can take it anywhere you want to on your couch, in your bed, in your car, on a long trip, whatever that looks like for you.
We are ready to move with you. You have modules with over 20 hours of on-demand video lessons and tutorials. You also get 24 7 access to our do community. And you guys I'm telling you, this is the secret sauce this Facebook community provides cheerleading support, advice, ideas.
It provides client leads. We have people that get clients from all over the world and they say, Hey, I need someone in Los Angeles. Who's an organizer in Los Angeles that is ready to take a job. We have this great community of women that are here to inspire you, to build and grow your business. We also match it with accountability partners.
We ask you where you are in your business. And if you want an accountability partner and we pair you up with people in that same place in business so that you guys can help each other and make each other's businesses better inside the course. Also, we have a playbook. And that includes scripts.
It includes a contract that you can give to clients. It includes all sorts of resources so that you can confidently build your business. We also give you free access to all future updates. So as we make updates and as we give new information, as the organizing industry changes, you get access to all of those updates.
This is one of my favorite quotes from one of our clients. I am midway through my contract with a business coach, a $25,000 a year business coach. And I have a better understanding of my business and what I need to do from the Inspired Organizer course, it would have been much better to have whipped through the course and then hired you to get me set up lesson expensively learned.
So Inspired Organizer gives you more things than a $25,000 a year business coach in a much shorter period of time. And we are so proud of this client and of this particular quote, because we know that we have all of the tools that you need to be successful in your organizing business.
We are always thrilled when we can help a client find the light and to be able to help people build and grow those businesses in ways that take all of the time out of it. You could spend months and months and months trying to learn how to build a business and we help get you there faster.
And with a clear path.
And you get lifetime access to this.
So this is not a program where you get access to it for a month or a year. You get lifetime access to this program. This is a course that is going to propel you.
So whether you're just starting or whether you're growing your business or whether you're established and just want to level up, you can get started today, doing all of those things.
So the question isn't, if you're going to make your money back, the question is how many times over you will be able to make it?
That is something that we are very proud of is that we have our clients that are able to with one client, they can get one client and make their money back from our program. And you're going to be able to make it many times over and, get started and growing more quickly,
Melissa Klug: We have over 950 members in our community and we have room for so many more. We dream of having our inspired organizer program, serving thousands of organizers, and we are ready to take you on this journey of organizing. Also, we do not have organizers just in the United States. We have them on five different continents. And we would love to see you in our group, in our wonderful community. If you are interested in joining, you can go to proorganizerstudio.com/join, and we will look forward to meeting you and guiding you on your journey. Thanks for joining us today.
Have a great day organizers.
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