The Pro Organizer Studio Podcast

What does it mean to be an organizing entrepreneur, and what does it mean to have an organizing business and what makes you successful? Jen and Melissa are dishing about what it takes to be an entrepreneur in our industry.

What is entrepreneurial spirit for an organizer? What you will hear I hope will reassure you about what it takes because I've said on many occasions, I never envisioned myself being an entrepreneur, ever. And now I am happier than I have ever imagined being in a career. And that's why I spend all day, every day making sure other women can get into this industry and be happy!

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Find out more about Pro Organizer Studio HERE: www.proorganizerstudio.com

Check out our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: www.poroadmap.com

We got an email the other day from someone who was asking, essentially, what's the perfect time to start my business? She gave me a couple of details about what she has going on in her life driving the question...trying to figure out when she should begin.

But I thought about that email and I was like, you know what? We have something. Jen and I had a conversation about this one time, and I found it and knew it was the perfect thing to share. But--it's not JUST about starting a business.

The thing about this conversation is Jen has so many things that she says that I realize it's not just about whether it's time to start a business. It's really about what's the right time to start doing anything different.

Whether it is starting your organizing business, whether it is starting a team and your organizing business, whether it is time to pivot into something, no matter what it is, whatever you're trying to decide about, if you're reaching some sort of a crossroads in your organizing business.

LINKS FOR LISTENERS

Check out our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan: poroadmap.com

Information on Inspired Organizer®, our signature program: inspiredorganizer.com

This is a special episode of the pod up for 48 hours only! 

Links for listeners:

Join us in Organizing Essentials HERE...

https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F

In honor of enrollment for our course about everything under the sun about working with clients, Organizing Essentials, we are bringing you a podcast today where Jen and Melissa talk about all sorts of things relating to working with clients. From organizing closets to whether we feel pressure to keep our houses perfect, we're ready to talk about it all!

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Our Organizing Essentials course is open for enrollment until April 17. Click here to join: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F

Can an organizer survive and even thrive without any social media? Amber Ehrlich of The Tidy Bungalow in Phoenix, Arizona is here to talk about her experiment in saying goodbye to Facebook and Instagram.

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Amber's organizing business, The Tidy Bungalow: thetidybungalow.com

Organizing Essentials course CLOSING APRIL 17-for details and registration, click HERE

For information on our signature business building course, Inspired Organizer®, click HERE

A little taste of the show:

Melissa Klug: absolutely. Well, so one of the things that's really important, and something that you said is you have been doing this business full-time since you started, that's over five years ago. And so you're pretty experienced, but you and I also were very fortunate that we were able to build our have them be true full-time businesses pretty quickly.

And so the way we did that was by using social media, right? That's how we solely built our businesses.

Amber Ehrlich: No, I, I've had a client, I know a client has verified who I am on Instagram like four years ago, but I've never, no, I did. I got one client, I got one client that did one session from Instagram. Okay. Once

Melissa Klug: congratulations.

Well, all joking aside, what we want to talk about today is Amber undertook are we gonna call it an, I don't know if we call it an experiment or just a lifestyle change? It was an experiment. Yeah. Okay. So what I wanna talk to Amber about is, she and I have been aligned from the very beginning that social media is just a tool that you use in your business, and it is way down the list, like at the bottom of the list of what we did to grow our businesses or to get clients.

Right. But what I want to talk to you about today is you just very boldly over a year ago, undertook an experiment and I wanna hear all about it.

Amber Ehrlich: Okay. So, social media causes me like a lot of performance anxiety and comparative anxiety.

And as a recovery perfectionist, that's really the last thing that I need. Doom scrolling. Definitely. A thing and, well, I'm definitely, you know, was the person that was the top of my game and had confidence. I just, whenever I'd scroll through, I would just get angry. And I think one of the reasons I would get angry, You see what you see online, but then you know the real story behind things and that kind of drives me nuts.

And I just, I was over it. I was also over computers in general. Actually, today I had to reinstall Zoom because apparently I haven't been on a Zoom since I bought a new computer. Fascinating. I love that. So, yeah, it was the end of November, 2021 and I was just like, I hadn't posted on Instagram for six months, not like I did much before.

Hadn't shared anything on Facebook for quite a long time, and I just made a post. I was like, so we're coming down to the end of 2021 and I'm just gonna not do any social media whatsoever in 2022. So I was like, you can find me in real life. Here's my phone number, here's my email address, here's my website.

And I said, I'm gonna go all of 2022 with no social media and. Maybe I'll return and maybe I won't. And of course it was weird at first but oh my goodness, by the end of 2022, like no need, no

Melissa Klug: need whatsoever to return. So you, you not only didn't post, you didn't go on at all, is that correct?

Amber Ehrlich: I didn't go on, no. I, before I quit everything, I did go into all the Facebook settings and I downloaded every single picture that I had ever had. And then I did try to go on mid 2021 to completely deactivate and delete everything. Okay. But since after you are inactive for so long, you can't even get back on.

I don't even know how to verify. I am who I am. So it exists out there. People can find me with my last message ever, but, yeah. I don't even know how to get on at

Melissa Klug: this point. Now you were never a huge Instagram person. , you weren't on it all the time anyway. But when you first started, did you have any sort of like, fomo, what have I done? I miss it. What was the first month like?

If you've been hearing the words ChatGPT, Magic Write, or AI and wondered "what the heck are these things everyone is talking about?"--we are here to help! AI is artificial intelligence, and we are taking the mystery out of these new tech tools and how they can help organizers with some of the hard work we need to do with SEO, blogs, websites, and other STUFF!

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Join our newest round of our Organizing Essentials course closing soon ($249 for lifetime access): https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F

Click here to see the AI prompts and outputs Melissa mentions on this call: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10JTKttYjPmuoQ3fYcGhoj9ln0OrqvNUw/view?usp=share_link

Information on our signature Inspired Organizer® program: www.inspiredorganizer.com

A LITTLE TASTE OF THE EPISODE: One of the things that I am committed to doing here is trying to break down some of these things that suddenly seem to be everywhere or things that have been around a while, but you might not actually know what they do, or more importantly, why you might need them in your business. And I want you to be able to say, yeah, I've heard of that, and like, Not have it be a lie. "Oh yeah, I definitely know what that is."

So today's version of what the heck is this thing is going to be something that is the hottest new thing around everyone is talking about it, it is all over the news,

and it's something that can really. I think super overwhelming. Super techy. And I know that some people really don't love tech or they think they're not techy and, and tech things might overwhelm them or start to feel very scary. But this thing that we're gonna be talking about today has huge opportunities for organizers, and I want to talk about it.

If you have heard people talking about ChatGPT there are reels, there are tos, there are news stories. It's like a really, really huge thing. If you've heard about ChatGPT, but you're like, I have no idea what it is, that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're actually gonna talk about a bigger subject, but ChatGPT, is this new technology and it has experienced insane growth.

So I'm a business data nerd. Okay, so just go with me for a second. , it took Instagram two and a half years after it started to get to a hundred million users on their platform, it took ChatGPT two months to get to that same level. So this is something that came out and just absolutely exploded.

And you may have heard about it, but you might be sitting here going like, I've definitely heard of it, but I have no idea what it is. By the way, total side note that you didn't ask for it. This is how I feel. Anytime you read an article about Bitcoin, I have tried really hard to understand Bitcoin.

I don't understand it. I'm never going to understand it. I refuse to understand it. So it might just be that ChatGPT, is your version of Bitcoin, right? Where you just go like, yep, I've heard of it, but I have no idea what it is. ChatGPT is just one of many different options that you have for starting into the world of AI.

And the other day, someone posted in our coaching group for Inspired Organizer members and they were like, oh my gosh, have you guys tried the Canva tool using AI? And someone responded, what is AI? That is a very common response. It's actually why I'm doing this podcast today. AI stands for artificial intelligence, and in its very simplest form, what AI is, is using computer learning to generate something that would've normally been generated by you and your brain.

And because computers can work infinitely faster than we can, our brains are amazing, but they can only process at a certain speed. And because computers. A ton of information and put it together and synthesize it in milliseconds. It can basically generate a lot of data and content and information in a very short period of time.

While ChatGPT is getting the most attention recently for how it brought AI kind of into the public consciousness. There are other things beyond ChatGPT G P T that are using AI that we have access to. Okay. So for a while AI's been [00:08:00] around for a while, but it's really only been able to be used by computer scientists and other people.

Now it's coming to actual consumers like you. So there is something called Jasper that has been around for a while. And then there's a new tool in Canva that is called Magic Write that uses AI.

This is a total side rant. I will argue to anyone on the earth that the best $12.95 I spend in my business every month is being a Canva Pro member. I cannot possibly. All organizers to get on Canva Pro, it is the best thing for your business. But inside Canva, they have this new tool called Magic Write?

Okay. So I'm gonna start by talking about what they do and how to do it, and then I'm going to move on to how I recommend you start using it in your business. So just stick with me. ChatGPT, Jasper, Magic Write, use artificial intelligence to take something that you give it as a prompt and all that a prompt is, is just a set of instructions of what you want it to do.

It's basically the direction that you're giving it, and then magically, and, and I'm just gonna say magical. I know it's not magic, it's very smart computer scientists who are writing code and like something, I don't even, I will never understand how it gets put together, but it takes that prompt that you give it those instructions and then it uses all of the knowledge of the internet to give you a result of the instructions that you gave it.

An example, I just wrote a prompt in canva's magic write tool that says, write a blog post on the top 10 tips for decluttering in less than five seconds. And yes, I timed it, it spit out a list of decluttering tips with details. So an example that I particularly liked was "be ruthless: be honest with yourself about what you really need and use. If you haven't used an item in over a year, it's probably time to say goodbye." That was one of the tips that it spit out. I did another simple prompt, then write a 500 word blog post about the benefits of decluttering with children and toys.

In six seconds, it spit out some really good content, 10 tips, including one that I actually use all the time with parents in my organizing work. It was decluttering promotes creativity with fewer toys to choose from. Children are forced to be more creative with what they have. This can lead to imaginative play and foster creativity.

Those are just a couple examples of using really simple prompts. I think that the magic of AI gets more magical when you give it very specific and detAIled information in the prompt. And by the way, these prompts can be very long. Like you could write a whole paragraph as a prompt. So the more detail you are able to add to your prompt, and the more specific you can get, typically the better the information that comes back from the prompt.

Kris Hargrove is one of our Inspired Organizers, and she recently took the leap from her full-time job to devote all her time and energy to organizing. She is giving us all the scoop today on this transition, what led her to organizing in the first place, and lots of other gems.

LINKS FOR LISTENERS

Learn more about Kris: https://organizedbykris.com/

Join our new cohort in Organizing Essentials: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com/offers/uYMgvH4F

Learn more about Inspired Organizer®: www.inspiredorganizer.com

Last episode, we talked about "what not to do" and today we are telling you what you should be doing to implement the "proof of life" strategy on social media. If you haven't heard part 1 of my convo with Jen Mary, head back and take a listen before today's epsiode (or click here!)

Jen is the founder of Everyday Style, and she is a super savvy businesswoman who has run an in-person business similar to professional organizing, and a digital business, so she's seen it all. She is giving us awesome tips on what TO do with your social media, including becoming "Five Mile Famous."

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Listen to last week's epsiode: https://proorganizerstudio.com/blog/social-media-for-professional-organizers-with-jen-mary-of-everyday-style/

Meet Jen Mary of Everyday Style: https://www.youreverydaystyle.com

Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® signature program for professional organizers: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com

A LITTLE MORE OF THIS EPSIODE:

Jen Mary: The other thing, so can we talk about things they need to start doing for just one sec? Absolutely. Lean, lean into local, lean into local.

This is what differentiates you from every other influencer. On Instagram is that you are where you are. A carousel post that I encourage my people to do. Where to take your clothes after we did a closet edit. Yes. After I came to your house and we cleaned out your closet, where should you take your things?

And then I had them highlight five places, women's organizations in their community that accept clothes. And guess what? They follow you back. You build relationships. It's all of that. I also say snap a picture. Like, oh, picking up my coffee from blah, blah, blah. To start my day of organizing a long day of three clients means I need to be well caffeinated.

And you don't go to Starbucks anymore. Starbucks isn't gonna follow you and share your stuff and add you to their stories. And you go to local coffee shops.

Melissa Klug: Also, just again, in the just do things like in the moment, it does not have to be planned in advance. So I have a number of times when I am in line at the donation place with a car full of stuff.Like a selfie with the giant pile in the back of my car. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, doing another client drop off or whatever. It does not have to be complex. It does not have to be overthought. It can be as simple as, Hey, I wanna give people the idea that someone hired me to clear this amount of stuff out of their house, and by the way, a service I offer is dropping off all of your stuff at donation.

You don't even have to do it.

Jen Mary: And if you're afraid to be on camera for a real. just film the drop off line, right? Like there are some My best performing reel lately, I was walking through a target parking lot. I put it over the sound of Taylor Swift. This is why we can't have nice things. Yeah. And it was me in the slush because you know, in Minnesota you can't have cute twos in the winter.

You just say goodbye. Yeah. And I was talking about how your style has to be practical for the way you really live. So I have just really leaned into sneaker boots and cute like weather boots, not just cute booties that I'm gonna fall on and break an ankle and ruin. And it took me all of five seconds to fill my feet walking through the target parking lot.

My best performing reel of all time was a target clearance rack.

And it was the Justin Bieber. Immediately. No. Immediately. No. Oh yeah. Which is really cool. You what I need to sounds immediately. No . Yeah. And all it said was the clearance section is a problem, not the solution.

Okay. I mean, there's so much you can do, [00:04:00] so much you can do. And I find the best stuff is really the off the cuff. Off the cuff. But leaning into local is something that every in-person business owner needs to be doing. Because when anybody in your community, in your area says, oh, my house is such a mess.

Oh, have you talked to Melissa? You need to call Melissa. Yeah. You need to be that go-to person. You know, I think somebody out there has the course called Five Mile Famous. Oh, I've never heard of it. Yeah. Your goal. And that's what I, that's when I talked to my stylist about your goal should just be five Mile Famous.

I, it's a little circle around your house. Yes. And get five Mile Famous. That means that you are going to those chamber meetings. You don't wanna go to, you are building partnerships. I encourage my stylist to build partnerships with photographers. With organizers, with hair people who is a good complimentary adjacent business.

Follow all those people on Instagram and just get five mile famous for a local business that's gonna do a whole lot more than you're complicated, overly styled Instagram feed. Yes.

Melissa Klug: And I think that there's a misconception that, cuz Instagram used to be you had to be perfectly curated. You had to have a professional level photo shoot.

That's not what Instagram is anymore.

Jen Mary: No, and

Melissa Klug: that's actually another, that's actually part of the problem is Instagram is changing all the time. All the time. And therefore you're constantly on the hamster wheel of what do they want this week? A ten second reel. A one minute reel. Not reels at all. We're going back to pictures.

Nope. Now we're on carousels. That, like, that's part of the thing. But you don't have to be as buttoned up as you used to have to be.

Jen Mary: Oh, without a doubt. If I'm not perfect, if I don't have the right background, if everything's not a perfect puzzle grid, you know, Ooh, I don't wanna post this cuz it's gonna mess up my grid.

I mean, the things that do the best are the usually the ones that really stand out. But I think there's an interesting point in that if you are so concerned about what the Instagram algorithm is showing right now, who cares? Yeah. I have always just put out the content that I wanna put out.

Understanding, my static posts aren't gonna get as much traction as a reel, but then reels tanked. You know, and I talk to business owners all the time are like, who? What's the best time to post whatever time you want? The time you're gonna do it, the time you're gonna do it.

There is not. If you post at 10:00 AM it's gonna go viral. And if you post at 3:00 PM no one's gonna see it. That's just not going to happen. So being so concerned about the algorithm and what it wants to, the point where it paralyzes you from doing anything is really a waste of time.

Melissa Klug: I just think in general, remembering that you do not control anything that's happening on these multi-billion dollar platforms, and the rules are going to change possibly hourly.

Yep. And so just saying, I'm gonna spend the least amount of time I can to show that proper proof of life, authenticity, legitimacy, whatever words you wanna use. I'm gonna do a proper amount of time, but then I'm going to go control the things that I own. Yes. I own my website, I own my Google business profile, I own my email list.

I own those things forever. No one can take those away from me. My past client lists.

In our series on marketing "yes!" and "you can skip this!" for your professional organizing business--we turn to Jen Mary of Everyday Style to hit us with some truth bombs about what you can do to maximize the times you are using social media in our "proof of life" strategy. We want you to make the time you are spending on social into valuable time so you can go find clients with your other marketing. Spoiler alert: stop giving TIPS! We are going for inspiration, not information, and we're breaking it down for you.

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

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

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

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Listen to Jen on her Everyday Style School Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-everyday-style-school/id1464962252

The clip from The Bee Movie referenced in the pod! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_AZgoP2Jig

Learn more about Everyday Style: https://youreverydaystyle.com

Learn more about our signature program, Inspired Organizer®: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com

A LITTLE BIT OF THE EPISODE:

Melissa Klug: Jen has been a guest on our podcast before and she and I met at a networking event years ago, like 2019, I think, and we just like totally hit it off. And she has a, business that does similar things to what we do. We have analogous clients and I love her and I wish you guys all got her in person. I get her in person, you guys don't, but she just has the most creative ideas. And we were talking offline about something the other day and I'm like, girl, we just need to get on the podcast and record it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jen Mary: we have many, many feelings about social media. Many. We

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jen Mary: Oh yeah. That's a depressing number, isn't it?

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

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

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

Jen Mary: we could look up.

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

Melissa Klug: 17 people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social media IS NOT the answer for marketing an in-home service business in 2023...so what IS the answer? Today's podcast answers that important question with our guest Kate from katethesocialite.com. We are giving you actionable tips on what your marketing should look like, and how to create that client funnel to your business.

LINKS FOR LISTENERS:

Connect with Kate The Socialite here: https://www.katethesocialite.com

Connect with us: https://www.inspiredorganizer.com

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, pro organizers. It's your podcast co-host, Melissa, and we have gotten such awesome feedback from people on our episode last week if you have not heard it, just go back one episode and listen to it. We're talking to Kate. Kate runs a marketing business for home professionals, and we are talking about marketing your organizing business in 2023. Last week we talked about why social media might not be the thing you wanna do for your marketing, but this week we're talking about what should you be doing for your marketing.

With people that I coach, whether it's one-on-one or in our inspired organizer coaching program, the most common question I get. How do I get more clients? How do I get more consistent clients? And what we talk about in this podcast today is how do we create a system to get those consistent clients coming in?

This episode is full of really great actionable tips. In editing the episode, I sometimes have to listen to it multiple times and I am writing down like, oh, that's a great idea. I need to do that for my organizing business.

So I would love for you to listen to this episode. Take notes, whether it's on the Notes app on your phone, which is what I use all the time, or pen and paper, which I also use quite a bit.

There are awesome ideas in here for you,

If you didn't happen to listen to last week's episode and you're listening to this one and wondering, Hey, do I hear a baby in the background? The answer is yes, you do. Kate had her seven month old son who is our third guest on the podcast. He does not know anything about marketing and organizing business, but he is really cute.

I can tell you that, I'm not going to waste any more time. I wanna turn it over to my guest, Kate, from Kate the socialite.

So we have talked about the thing that you have realized, and I have realized, and many of us have realized, but maybe haven't gotten off the hamster wheel yet, doesn't work.

What are your foundation, so when a client comes to you and you say, this is what actually works. What does that look like for you? Yeah, it looks like making marketing personal because really marketing is a relationship and that means that you can't be marketing to just anyone who has a home and might possibly need your organizing services.

When a client comes to me, I remind them that marketing is a relationship between them and their ideal client. And that's why you shouldn't have marketing that is so generic you have to be intentional so that, , it all starts at the website level. If you don't have a website, you need to get one because you should be talking directly to your ideal client on your website. It shouldn't, you shouldn't start talking about yourself right away and what you do.

You should actually say, Hey, busy career woman or busy mom or whomever, do you ever feel like your house is a chaotic mess? But you cannot get on top of it? And they'll be like, yep, totally. Okay, now you've got them. Now you can say, well, here at, my organizing studio we specialize in helping people just like you because we know that your time is valuable and we know that your home functions better when it's organized.

So click here to check out our services. Like, oh, right, okay. Now they've got the specific call to action. They feel heard, they feel understood, and you can carry that through to your service packages. So instead of saying it's the pantry revamp, you can give it some sort of, Name that's still very clear, that is aligned with your ideal client.

When you describe the package, describe it from the perspective of that particular person. Yes. You know, we are gonna take all your vitamin water, we're gonna take all your kids' snacks, we're gonna take all these things and we're gonna make it organized so that you know when you need to buy more, so that you use the stuff you already have and that actually saves you money.

And so that you have that, that visual, that eye candy, when you open your pantry, you're excited to look at it because, man, that looks good. Yeah. And that makes you feel good. .

And I, I love what you're saying because I, a couple things. I had a business coach that used to always use the phrase, use second grade language with people.

And I think a lot of times we have people that are like, I have to sound like really fancy, or really, like, I have to make this sound beautiful. Especially when you're building a website, you just, you think, no, please use simple words and use, use that, connect with people. Yes. Words, like, the words that you hear in every consultation.

The word I always hear is overwhelmed. Mm-hmm. . So everybody's overwhelmed. Whether it's overwhelmed, chaos. Any of these words that you hear clients say to you all the time, use those words in your marketing to connect with people. Mm-hmm. .

Yep. I mean, . It's the really, the most successful trick in the marketing book.

Just use your ideal client's words back at them. They're telling you how they want to be marketed to, so pay attention on those discovery calls because it, it's amazing. It'll help your copywriting so much and you don't have to worry about sounding polished. You don't have to worry about sounding professional, obviously stay away from profanity, although I feel like a few WFS might be appropriate if it's that could work situation.

Yeah. I mean, you know, let's just, let's just say that, but after you've got your website squared away, Think about the blog, turn your most common questions into a blog post. Yes. And share your projects, share photos. Share what the client's problem was and how you fixed it. But share it from an emotional standpoint.

Not, oh, their pantry was a mess, but this couple is super busy with work and they are trying to eat healthy. They can't find anything in their pantry. Here's how we made it easier for them to live a healthy, happy lifestyle. Share the photos cuz now you're connecting with people on an emotional level.

You can do the same thing in an email newsletter, but it has to be shorter. You have to have a specific call to action for people to book a call. And it really could be that.

Yeah. And blog posts in particular, I think that there are a few words that start to scare people a little bit, or phrases.

So I think when, when sometimes when people are like, oh, blog posts, oh, I have to like, basically write a a book quality piece of, of marketing, you know, it has to be perfect. Nope, it doesn't have to be, none of these things have to be perfect, first of all. But you can take something, a simple concept in your in your business, and you can write a blog post.

It could be what, what do you recommend for blog posts? 500 words. What's your.

Yeah. So 500 is the minimum. You could go up to a thousand. I think most people get tired of writing at that point. Yeah. even. I do, and I'm a writer. Yeah. But yeah, if you have a 500 word post that's basically a single page document in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

So single space, single page, and make sure that you have headings so that people can skim it. Make sure you've got a nice balance of photos. Like you don't want it to be all images because that's not really helpful for your seo, but you wanna make sure that you're able to tell the story and don't stretch it out to make it 500 words if it's just not that long.

But also make sure that you're hitting on the emotional points and then ending with. , are you ready to take the next step? Well, the next step for people reading your blog posts wouldn't necessarily be to book a call with you right away, though. You could have that as an option. Maybe the next step for them is actually to get one of your free downloads.

Your free download should not be, here's how you can organize this yourself because you're not trying to sell. Yeah. Why? But it's more so like, here's what you can expect when working with a professional organizer. Mm-hmm. , and it walks people through the emotional component of it. We're not gonna throw away your stuff.

We're gonna help you make streamlined decisions. And then we're going to get the appropriate sized, you know, organizational things for your space. We're gonna put it all together. We're gonna teach you the organizational system so that it doesn't get screwed up within a week. Yes. And then that's also when you can talk about the maintenance packages that you might offer so that they're not like, oh, so I hire you and then you're gone forever.

Don't leave me like this. You know? Right. And it's a great upsell, but as long as you're focusing that download on. , here's how we are gonna help you and not, here's how you're gonna do it yourself. Yeah. People are going to get so much value out of that, and the value isn't necessarily the knowledge of, okay, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.

It's more like, okay, they're gonna help me. They understand my problem. It's not gonna disrupt my life. It's actually going to improve my life. Then once they get your download, because they had to sign up for it via their email address, now they're in your contact. You can't ignore them, okay? There's a lot of untapped revenue in your mailing list, even if you've only got 12 people

there.

Even if it's 10 people. You guys, yes. It doesn't matter how small

your list is, it really does not. So make sure that you're reaching out to them once a month. Now we get down to you. Okay, well, what could I say in that newsletter, you could talk about one of your previous clients, but if you don't have a lot of clients right now, that could be pretty hard to do.

So instead, you can talk about here's how I approach organizing the kitchen. You know, here's how I organize the cabinets. Here's why. And it's again, not d iy. And then you could also just talk about like, one of the newsletters that we have in my membership is the emotional cost of. . Mm-hmm. . And then we also have one about how cluttered eats equity.

And that one's for people who are like trying to get ready to sell their home. But they've got so much stuff in it that when people come for showings, it's like I can't see past your stuff. Sorry. Yep. You know? And that can actually cost you big time, even when the market is hot. Sure, your home might sell, but it's not gonna sell for what it could have sold if your stuff was just not in the way.

Yeah. And so really taking people up to a bird's eye. and helping them understand that this is why organizing matters. It's not just about having Instagram perfect pantries. It actually has real world implications. And talking to them about that once a month in a newsletter, that's where we're seeing conversions happen.

People will click reply and they'll be like, I really need your help. When are you available? And all of a sudden they're just in a huge. because they're like, oh, I didn't know I needed this, but I need it and I need it now. And that's like the perfect situation. So, that's the sales funnel. Now people are getting to your site because you're blogging once or twice a month or they met you in person or someone referred them to you.

You have to have that blog to really engage with them. That lead magnet or the, the free download to capture their contact info and then the newsletter once a month to nurture them into a client. And that's what you can do. And you can do that in addition to being social, on social media. Right. Or you can do it completely in place of social media.

Right.

And here's the crazy thing I'm gonna throw out there the return on investment for email marketing versus social is 40 times higher.

Okay. So I want everyone to like stop and absorb that because I do, I talk a lot about it's, and we're gonna talk about this, but email marketing is the most slept on thing in our business.

I think it's something that people maybe know that they should be doing, but 40 times the return even, I assume you're gonna agree with this. With a small

list. Even with a small list.