July 2, 2025 • 27 mins
I have a simple...but complex question for you today--are you doing TOO MUCH in your organizing business? Are you burning out on back end tasks for your business--but also maybe not spending the time on the things that matter and can move the needle in your business? That's what I'm talking about today--trying to get you thinking about whether you're doing things that just aren't necessary!
Connect with Melissa: hello@proorganizerstudio.com
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In this episode, Melissa addresses a common challenge faced by professional organizers: doing too much. She emphasizes the importance of evaluating the behind-the-scenes tasks that may not be necessary for operating a successful business.
Melissa shares insights from her experience and interactions within the Inspired Organizer group, encouraging listeners to consider whether they are overcomplicating their processes. She provides practical advice on streamlining client interactions, minimizing unnecessary tasks, and conducting a time audit to identify time-consuming activities that don't add value.
Additionally, Melissa shares her own business strategy, highlighting her simplified approach and the success she’s achieved. This episode aims to help organizers find a better balance and avoid burnout by focusing their efforts on truly essential tasks.
00:00 Introduction and Purpose
00:33 Are You Doing Too Much?
02:00 Behind the Scenes: What's Necessary?
03:23 Melissa's Business Approach
05:10 Simplifying Client Interactions
14:05 Time Audits and Efficiency
21:04 Managing Client Expectations
26:15 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hey, pro organizers.
It's Melissa and I hope youare having a great week.
This one today is coming to you basedon a few things that I've seen lately
and just a few things that have beenkind of rolling around in my head, and
I just wanted to get it out becauseit's something that I want you to
(00:28):
be thinking about in your business.
And it's very simply this.
Are you doing too much in your business?
I'm guessing this isn't aquestion that you ask much.
I'm guessing that if you doanything, you are going, I'm
not doing enough in my business.
I need to be doing X, Y, Z, A, B, C. Isit possible that you are doing too much?
(00:52):
If you are making assumptions inyour business that everybody else
is doing this, this, and this, tohave a business and that you also
need to do this, this, and this.
I wanna talk today about whether you arereally needing to do all those things.
Or if you're doing just way too muchand a lot of these podcasts, a lot of
(01:17):
these things that come up are born outof things that people bring into our
inspired organizer group, um, we do alive Zoom coaching twice a month and
there was a question that came up theother day in one of our zoom coachings
where someone said, I'm spending hours andhours working on space plans for clients.
Including furniture.
(01:37):
After we declutter, I give theman extremely comprehensive plan.
I give them a lookbook andthey can pick products.
I give them a detailed, extensive listof what we're going to do next, the
plan of what happens next in detail.
I do space planning, all that kind ofstuff, and I just very simply said,
you're doing way, way, way too much.
(02:00):
And the reason that I want you tothink about some of these parts of
your business is because what I seeso often is women start to burn out
because of all the behind the scenesstuff that is happening in the business.
Yeah, don't get me wrong, there'splenty of behind the scenes stuff
that you have to do in a businessthat is truly important, right?
(02:20):
But what I see sometimes is people areconcentrating on the behind the scenes
things that don't matter or that don'tmatter as much as they think they do
or that aren't necessary to actuallyget the client, retain the client,
continue on the client project, andthey might be neglecting the things
that are really important, and thatwould actually help them get more
(02:44):
clients and do better in their business.
So what I want to challenge you onthis week is, are the things that I am
doing in the back end of my business-are these things that I am providing to
my clients that I'm spending a lot oftime on truly necessary to the process
or something that the client actuallyrequires, or is it something that I just
(03:08):
think that I'm supposed to be doing orthink that everybody else is doing or
think is necessary when it's possiblethat the client themselves does not
require it, does not think it's necessary.
I just wanna tell you a littlebit about how I run my business,
my organizing business.
(03:29):
And, obviously every single one ofus runs our businesses differently.
We have different clients.
We have different waysthat we go to market.
We have different kinds ofservices that we provide.
There is a big difference betweena super high-end luxury organizing
business and the business that I run.
(03:49):
You might listen to what I'm aboutto say about the way that I do my
business and go, Melissa, that's insane.
I would never do that.
The way you're running your businessis not how I wanna run my business.
A hundred percent, absolutely valid.
We all need to run our businessesthe way that we feel good.
But what I want to just point out is whatI run into all the time is people that are
(04:10):
saying, uh, the back end of my businessis really, really overwhelming me.
I have too many things going on, and Ijust want you to ask some valid questions.
About all of the things you'redoing and do they make sense?
So I'm going to tell you how I run mybusiness and uh, just give you an, an
opportunity to say, oh, interesting.
(04:31):
She has a successful organizing businessand she doesn't do all these things.
Now, I will also say, becauseI run Pro Organizer Studio Home
By Eleven is my side hustle.
Okay?
So.
You could argue that we don'tlove the phrase side hustle.
You can call it passion projectwherever you want, but it is
not my main source of income.
So far this year.
(04:52):
I have side hustled my way into $45,000in revenue in my organizing business.
And this is how I run it.
I do not do a lot of the thingsthat other people do, so I just
wanna point out it is possible.
So this is how I run my business.
I do not provide detailedproposals to clients ever.
(05:16):
When someone contacts me about organizing,we have a phone consultation, and at
this point in my business, when I'vebeen operating it for a long time, and
because it is not my main business, Iwill typically do a video consultation
instead of an in-person consultation, bythe way, occasionally I will go in person.
(05:37):
Uh, a couple weeks ago I had an elderlywoman who said that if I made her use
FaceTime, she would be devastated.
Those were her exact words,so I said, okay, no problem.
I'll come to your house, butI will most often do a video
consultation with a client.
They walk me through their house andthen we will talk about the plan.
(05:57):
I will say to them, Hey,here's what I'm thinking.
Here's a little bit more about how I work.
This is what I want you to consider.
And then we will book the firstsession, or they will say, we need
to think about it, and they'll comeback to me whatever way that develops.
One thing I will say, because I don'thave a team and because I have a little
(06:18):
different schedule, because of ProOrganizer Studio being my main job,
I am not booked five days a week withorganizing, so I have a little bit of
flexibility in my schedule, so pleasetake that with a grain of salt As I talk
about my process, obviously you haveto fit things the way they work for you
and your team, but I know that therewill be a lot of organizers who will
(06:40):
measure at the consultation, and thenthey will buy all the product and they
will install it on the day they come in.
I personally do not do that.
I will declutter with a clientand then I'm going to determine
what we need for a project.
I will go out and buy that for thespecific project and bring it on.
I don't provide a proposal.
I'll just talk to them aboutwhat I think it's going to take.
(07:02):
To finish their project, sothere's no written proposal.
By the way, I also do not make anypromises about the amount of time
that a project is going to take.
I always tell them that everybody wantsto know the exact number of hours it's
going to take, and that I have justfound that that is something that I,
I don't do because there are so manythings that can come up in the process.
(07:22):
And I haven't worked with themyet, so I don't know their speed of
making decisions and how many thingsthey're going to wanna keep and what
we are going to have to reorganize.
So I always tell them after we'veworked together a couple times, I
will have a better idea of how fastwe will be able to get things done.
But.
I do not tell them.
This is how long I thinkit's going to take.
(07:44):
I will often send an email with justa few business details such as, here
are my rates, here's how paymentworks, all that kind of stuff.
And then I will just say, Iwould love to book with you.
Let me know when you're ready to start.
I keep it incredibly simple.
Do you know why?
You can say it one of two ways.
Either I'm lazy or I'm justtrying to be very efficient.
(08:07):
Whichever way that you wanna phrase it.
But guess what?
It works.
I get clients, I bookclients, I go to their houses.
I do the work in their houses.
I have found in the course of my businessthat doing all of that extra stuff, unless
a client specifically asks for it for me,it's just not time that is well spent.
(08:31):
The other thing too that I will sayabout, providing an exceedingly extensive
document with everything that a clientneeds to think about and a whole
project plan and things like that.
What I find in the clients who contact me,and again, this is business specific, but
the clients who contact me are extremely.
Overwhelmed, they're exhausted.
They have stuff everywhere.
(08:52):
Their kids are driving them crazy,their spouses are driving them crazy.
Their stuff is driving them crazy.
And if I send them an exceedingly longproposal or a lot of paperwork or a lot
of stuff, I'm adding to the overwhelming.
And my goal is to make it assimple as humanly possible
for someone to work with me.
Now there is a very good chancethat you are listening to this
(09:14):
and saying to yourself, wow,this doesn't sound professional.
This doesn't sound like it's,a very buttoned up business.
And you know what?
If you really love providinga proposal and all sorts of
things, please continue doing it.
What I want you to think about is ifyou're like, I'm spending hours and hours
and hours doing all of these things, then.
(09:37):
That is something that Iwant you to think about.
Is it actually necessary?
If this is something like, forinstance, providing a detailed written
proposal or something more buttonedup than what I do with my clients.
If it's something that you feel reallystrongly about that you want to establish
as your brand or your service or the wayyou go to market, or if you were saying,
(09:58):
we are a full service provider and we aregoing to give you a polished, professional
experience from start to finish, if that'ssomething that you feel like, by the way.
I just made it sound like I don't providea professional experience to my clients.
I do, trust me.
Um, but if these are things you feellike are extremely important to your
part of a process, whatever thatlooks like for you, please do it.
(10:22):
But is your client expecting it andare they doing something with it?
If you are giving them a five pageproposal with everything that could
possibly be thought of, first ofall, I just want you to think about
are they just gonna take this plan?
And do it themselves.
Have you just given them a DIY plan?
No.
If it was a DIY plan, maybe they would'vealready done it themselves, but still
(10:45):
you're giving them a roadmap for free.
Okay.
The second thing I'm gonna ask is, couldyou provide the same experience that you
want to provide if you're giving thema five page proposal, could it be a two
page proposal or could it be accomplishedin one simple page or one simple email?
I just want you to dial down the amountof work you're doing that might not
(11:07):
be as value added as you think it is.
One of the things that I think abouta lot is the number of homes that I
have been into where I have organizedand I have found folders of other
organizers, proposals and other thingsthat are buried under a lot of other
paperwork, things like that, thathas happened to me multiple times.
(11:27):
I do have clients occasionally who say,you know, like they might be nervous
about the process, or they mightreally just need more information.
And I find that if someone is reallystruggling and I feel like it's going
to be a hindrance to the sales process.
That if I don't provide them thisthing, then they may not book.
I will do the extra work if they arereally like, Hey, I need to understand
(11:52):
more about how this process works.
I have had clients who have asked for thattype of thing and I have given it to them.
So I'm not saying that I won't doit if it's necessary, but I'm going
to tell you something else aboutthe most recent time I did that.
Where there was a guy who was really justnot understanding the process, and he
(12:12):
said he wanted to know more specificallyabout how we will tackle his house, what
order we would go in, that type of thing.
And I spent a, a decentenough time, uh, on it.
I did not give too much away.
So this is another key thing is, um,I did not go through detailed like,
we do this process and this is howwe sort and this is how we, you know,
(12:35):
because I'm not giving him a DIY plan.
Okay?
Giving too much away is not a great plan,but I did put together a plan for him.
I said, this is what we would do.
Ask me if that guy booked with me.
He did not.
So I just want you to think,am I going to do all this?
And like, then it doesn'teven yield a client.
So especially if you do thisfor every single client that
(12:56):
comes to you in the process.
Let's say that you were providinga detailed proposal to every
single person that comes to you.
I want you to think about yourclosing rate on those clients.
You know, if your closing rate is ahundred percent and you think it's
because you give them a really detailed,wonderful product proposal, keep doing it.
If it's not a burden on you, but I wantyou to go through your process and go,
(13:21):
what am I spending my time on, and isit actually yielding what I think it
is, or do I think I have to do this?
One thing I ask people to do, sometimesif you come to me in a one-on-one coaching
situation or some somewhere in my groupand someone's talking about, I'm just
spending way too much time on backendstuff in my business, I'm spending tons
of time doing proposals and space plansand things that I am not getting paid for.
(13:44):
What people tell me is I'mspending so much time on things
I'm not getting paid for.
Obviously there are times in ourbusiness where we have to do things.
That we're not gettingdirectly paid for, right?
Like we're not getting anhourly rate for doing it.
Um, there are backend things inour business that you, they are
just simply a part of the salesprocess, the cost of doing business.
Okay.
(14:05):
But I would urge you, and thisis something that I have had
people do, and they have beenvery eye-opening experiences for
the organizers, do a time audit.
Here's what a time audit is.
Uh, the way that I alwaysthink about it is lawyers.
So people who are attorneysbill in usually 15 minute
(14:25):
increments of their time.
If a lawyer spends three minuteslooking at something, that client gets
billed for 15 minutes of work, evenif it was only three minutes of work.
Okay?
So I always think about that15 minute increment Now.
Whatever works for you.
You could say you could make it30 minutes, 20 minutes, but I want
you to start keeping track of theamount of time you're spending on
(14:48):
backend parts of your business, okay?
Because this might turninto revenue for you.
A time study of your days.
Okay, do it for one week or two weeks.
The most value, I think, is when you gettwo weeks, because one week, you know,
each week is so different, you mightnot get a good representation of your
time, but I just want you to simply writedown, and it does not have to be complex.
(15:11):
You just say, it was 25minutes to drive to my client.
It was four hours to work at the client.
There was a 30 minute time in whichI was doing donation drop off.
When I got home, I had45 minutes of email.
I wrote a proposal thattook me an hour and a half.
Break down also, if you have the abilityto do it if it's not too burdensome,
what does that email look like?
(15:33):
So when I'm spending time doing emails,am I responding to clients via text
or email of questions they have?
Then I want you to start thinkingabout, do I have clients that
are kind of starting to pushthose boundaries a little bit?
I know people who have gotten into atrap where, and by the way, I myself have
fallen in this trap on many occasions.
(15:55):
Okay?
So if you think that I'm perfectabout this, I am indeed not.
Um, but there are some clients that are.
Higher, uh, you can say highermaintenance, higher touch, higher
requirements where they startemailing and texting constantly.
They might be anxious about their project.
They might just be someone thatneeds a lot of reassurance.
So are you spending a lot oftime working outside client
(16:19):
hours with client questions?
Okay.
Do you have a client who's textingyou all the time and it's really
starting to be a drain on your time?
So I want you to startcategorizing in this time audit.
Oh my gosh.
I spent 20 minutes replyingto Betty Sue's texts.
When you start to do this timeaudit, you will start to find
(16:40):
things that will probably shock you.
Um, you know, like, soif you have an iPhone.
If you ever open up your screentime, um, the screen time app and
you go, oh my gosh, I spent how muchtime on text messages last week?
Uh, I, I had that happen to me one day.
I had a, a client, and by the way,this was more of a per personal
(17:03):
response than a professional response.
This was a, a long-term client, thatI have a personal friendship with as
well as a professional relationship.
And she was asking more of a personalquestion than a professional question, and
I was not actively working on a projectwith her, but I missed a text that she
sent and the next day she sent me this.
Quite direct text that was like,you didn't respond to me yesterday.
(17:26):
And that really hurts my feelingsand I just very simply responded.
Um, I opened up my screen time and Isaid, yesterday I got 270 text messages.
I'm really sorry that I didn't see yoursor I spaced on it it's not personal.
I'm really sorry.
I just get a lot of texts and you mightbe saying, uh, 7, 270 texts a girl.
(17:49):
I got 780 yesterday.
I don't know what it looks likefor you, but the point of my story
is you are probably going to findthings that are going to be shocking.
Like, oh my gosh, I spent three hoursputting together a lookbook for a client
and I'm not getting paid for my time.
The next thing I want you to doafter your time audit is, two
questions I want you to ask.
What am I not getting paid for?
(18:11):
And are there thingsthat I am doing too much?
If I don't believe that I'm doing toomuch, what can I do to make sure I'm
getting compensated for that time?
Now, it's not necessarily that you'regoing to say, oh, I'm gonna start charging
the client for every single minute I'mgonna start billing like a lawyer does.
It might be that you tell aclient I would be happy to do a
(18:32):
comprehensive space plan for you.
I bill that out at $75 an hour, andthen you say to the client, if you'd
like to put a cap on the amount oftime I spend on that, that's fine.
Let me know what you're thinking.
It could be that you say you aregoing to raise your hourly rates.
You're going to say, I'm gonna raisemy hourly rate $15 an hour so I
can account for some of this extratime that I spend on my back end.
(18:55):
I feel like I'll be getting paid for that.
It might make you feel better if youcould feel like you're starting to
get compensated for some of that.
Is this thing that I'm doingthat's taking this much time, is it
actually providing value or revenue?
Is it necessary?
Does the client think it's necessary?
Is it truly necessary to do my job?
(19:15):
I will tell you that Ipersonally do almost none of
this, and I'm doing just fine.
It might not work for your process,it might not work for you in your
business, for your brand, foryour, uh, team, anything like that.
But I will tell you based on workingwith all different kinds of people
in all different kinds of situations,in all different kinds of organizing
business, almost everyone has thingsthat they're resentful of doing because
(19:42):
it's taking a lot of time away, andI'm not entirely sure that all those
things are actually value added.
Is what I'm doing.
Taking time away from otherrevenue producing activities is
another question I wanna ask you.
So as an example, if you're spendingthree hours on a space plan for one
client who probably isn't even expectingsomething as extensive as a giving them.
(20:06):
If that three hours could have beendone in 30 minutes and a one pager,
and then you spend two and a half hoursworking on your SEO, I would argue
that is revenue producing activity.
Small ball versus big ball is somethingthat I want you to think about.
Am I playing small and working onsomething for one client, or could
(20:26):
I be working on something thatmight impact a lot of other clients
and a bigger part of my business?
One thing that I hear all the timeis I don't have time to blog when I
tell people it's important to blogfor SEO, I don't have time to blog.
So then I just sometimes ask, howmany reels did you do this week?
How long did it takeyou to do those reels?
(20:48):
Uh, the, that can be time that ishidden or you think is, uh, you
know, valuable time on your business.
Is all of the stuff that I'm doingdriving my business forward, or is
it just a check the box activity?
Here's another thing I want to throwin here that I want you to think about.
If you are a person that does a lotof product with clients and you find
(21:11):
yourself going, we're spending so muchtime, I'm giving them six different
options for every single space, andit's taking them a long time to decide.
Now they're texting me all the time.
I want you to simplify that process.
As well.
In the Organizing Essentialscourse, I created a sample
lookbook that people can use.
And what I recommend is if you're on aproduct heavy project, you give it to
(21:33):
clients and you start to get an idea oftheir aesthetic, um, you know, the things
that they like, that type of thing.
And I find when you give clients toomany choices, it reminds me of a time.
I had a client who had a huge atticplayroom, and it was basically
like a Toys R Us was in there.
(21:53):
There.
I have never seen so manytoys and so many things.
I mean, just really, reallycrazy amount of toys.
And she was so angry because she said,my kids constantly tell me they're bored.
And I'm like, yeah, 'cause theyhave too many things here and
they're overwhelmed and they.
Are bored because theyhave too much choice.
So our clients are the same way.
(22:16):
Again, we don't want them tobe fused and overwhelmed by
700 choices for their product.
Create a lookbook, get an idea ofthe aesthetic, and then you can
nail down what are the specifics.
But if you have something whereyou need to give them a choice,
I would suggest three choices.
One, two or three.
Okay.
And you might do good, better, best, uh,you know, you know your clients better
(22:38):
and everyone's gonna be different, dofewer things, and get better results.
Another thing that we covered on a callrecently is someone was having scope
creep on a project, so this is anotherthing that can really steal your time.
So scope creep in this case was she hadgone to a client and she said, okay,
here are some things you can choose from.
(22:59):
This is what I recommendyou buy for the project.
And she gave her a comprehensivelist of the things that she
thought the client needed.
All the client needed to do is say, check.
I'm good with the budget,I'm good with the client.
I'm good with the products.
The client has now spent hours andhours searching for her own stuff.
She has decided she wants to doa search for her own things and
(23:19):
she keeps emailing and texting theorganizer saying, what about this bin?
What about this bin?
What about this basket?
The organizer was starting to getoverwhelmed 'cause it was just.
Text after text.
By the way, clients often thinkthey're the only client that we're
working with and they don't realizethat they might be one of 10 clients
we're working with at that time.
So if you're texting me, 10 otherpeople might be texting me too.
(23:41):
I just said, you gotta, you gottastop this right now and you need
to tell that client, okay, we justneed to do a quick process check.
So what's included in yourpackage or what is included in
my services is what I sent you.
That's the list ofthings that I recommend.
And if you don't want to use thosethings, if you want to go out and
buy things on your own, totally fine.
(24:01):
But you'll need toprocure those on your own.
And if you want me to start giving input,I'm happy to do that, but I will have to
start the clock on these conversations.
Okay?
So what's gonna happen otherwise, andwhat was happening with this organizer
is she was spending an inordinate amountof time going back and forth with a
client and not getting paid for it, andit was not adding value to the project.
(24:23):
Scope creep can be a lot of things.
It can be that a client startsto push boundaries a little bit.
It can be that you're starting to beasked things that are not part of the
package that they got, um, and you mightfeel, you know, compelled to do them.
That can take a lot of different forms,but I want you to make sure that you
(24:45):
are not allowing scope creep to alsotake revenue away from your business.
I will also tell you if you're reallynervous, like if you're someone
who's like, Melissa, I write a fivepage proposal and you're telling me
not to, and I think that this is,this is wrong and you're an idiot.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to do a little A/B test, okay?
(25:05):
So maybe on your next five inquiries,three of them, try the new process.
Two of them keep your existingprocess catalog, the amount of
time, detail your conversion rate.
Also, I want you to thinkabout your comfort level.
If you've listened to all this and you'vesaid, I don't think Melissa's right.
(25:26):
I think I really, really, reallywanna do X, Y, Z thing, even
though it takes a long time.
Then go about it gratefully and happily.
But then don't complain about theamount of time that it takes, or that
you're taking time away from otherthings you want to be doing in your
business, or you're, you don't havetime to write a blog, or you don't have
time to do some of the really importantbackend things on your business.
(25:49):
Google Business, SEO, blogging.
Make sure that you are making timefor those backend things that matter
versus the things that might not.
I just want you to do a little test.
What if I dial down the amount of thingsI'm doing for my clients in terms of
the, the backend processes, and isit still successful with the clients?
(26:11):
If you really want to do thesethings, do them gratefully,
don't complain about them.
If you are complaining about them, ifyou're resentful about them, if you
find yourself going, man, I'm spendingso much time on this and it's not
even helping my clients, it's timeto think about something different.
I hope this is helpful, and I hopethat you're able to find some time
sucks in your business and I'm guessingthat there are people that are gonna
(26:35):
find 10 or more hours in their weekbecause they stopped doing something.
Yeah, and if you take that 10 hoursand you go get a pedicure and you
watch something on tv, that's awesome.
Go do that.
It will also make me happy ifyou use three of those 10 extra
hours to say, I worked on my SEO,I wrote blog posts for the year.
(26:55):
I did a bunch of Google Businessposts that would make me even happier.
So go find that time in your business.
And I'd love to hear about it.
Have a great week, organizers.
Hey, pro organizers.
It's Melissa and I hope youare having a great week.
This one today is coming to you basedon a few things that I've seen lately
and just a few things that have beenkind of rolling around in my head, and
I just wanted to get it out becauseit's something that I want you to
(00:28):
be thinking about in your business.
And it's very simply this.
Are you doing too much in your business?
I'm guessing this isn't aquestion that you ask much.
I'm guessing that if you doanything, you are going, I'm
not doing enough in my business.
I need to be doing X, Y, Z, A, B, C. Isit possible that you are doing too much?
(00:52):
If you are making assumptions inyour business that everybody else
is doing this, this, and this, tohave a business and that you also
need to do this, this, and this.
I wanna talk today about whether you arereally needing to do all those things.
Or if you're doing just way too muchand a lot of these podcasts, a lot of
(01:17):
these things that come up are born outof things that people bring into our
inspired organizer group, um, we do alive Zoom coaching twice a month and
there was a question that came up theother day in one of our zoom coachings
where someone said, I'm spending hours andhours working on space plans for clients.
Including furniture.
(01:37):
After we declutter, I give theman extremely comprehensive plan.
I give them a lookbook andthey can pick products.
I give them a detailed, extensive listof what we're going to do next, the
plan of what happens next in detail.
I do space planning, all that kind ofstuff, and I just very simply said,
you're doing way, way, way too much.
(02:00):
And the reason that I want you tothink about some of these parts of
your business is because what I seeso often is women start to burn out
because of all the behind the scenesstuff that is happening in the business.
Yeah, don't get me wrong, there'splenty of behind the scenes stuff
that you have to do in a businessthat is truly important, right?
(02:20):
But what I see sometimes is people areconcentrating on the behind the scenes
things that don't matter or that don'tmatter as much as they think they do
or that aren't necessary to actuallyget the client, retain the client,
continue on the client project, andthey might be neglecting the things
that are really important, and thatwould actually help them get more
(02:44):
clients and do better in their business.
So what I want to challenge you onthis week is, are the things that I am
doing in the back end of my business-are these things that I am providing to
my clients that I'm spending a lot oftime on truly necessary to the process
or something that the client actuallyrequires, or is it something that I just
(03:08):
think that I'm supposed to be doing orthink that everybody else is doing or
think is necessary when it's possiblethat the client themselves does not
require it, does not think it's necessary.
I just wanna tell you a littlebit about how I run my business,
my organizing business.
(03:29):
And, obviously every single one ofus runs our businesses differently.
We have different clients.
We have different waysthat we go to market.
We have different kinds ofservices that we provide.
There is a big difference betweena super high-end luxury organizing
business and the business that I run.
(03:49):
You might listen to what I'm aboutto say about the way that I do my
business and go, Melissa, that's insane.
I would never do that.
The way you're running your businessis not how I wanna run my business.
A hundred percent, absolutely valid.
We all need to run our businessesthe way that we feel good.
But what I want to just point out is whatI run into all the time is people that are
(04:10):
saying, uh, the back end of my businessis really, really overwhelming me.
I have too many things going on, and Ijust want you to ask some valid questions.
About all of the things you'redoing and do they make sense?
So I'm going to tell you how I run mybusiness and uh, just give you an, an
opportunity to say, oh, interesting.
(04:31):
She has a successful organizing businessand she doesn't do all these things.
Now, I will also say, becauseI run Pro Organizer Studio Home
By Eleven is my side hustle.
Okay?
So.
You could argue that we don'tlove the phrase side hustle.
You can call it passion projectwherever you want, but it is
not my main source of income.
So far this year.
(04:52):
I have side hustled my way into $45,000in revenue in my organizing business.
And this is how I run it.
I do not do a lot of the thingsthat other people do, so I just
wanna point out it is possible.
So this is how I run my business.
I do not provide detailedproposals to clients ever.
(05:16):
When someone contacts me about organizing,we have a phone consultation, and at
this point in my business, when I'vebeen operating it for a long time, and
because it is not my main business, Iwill typically do a video consultation
instead of an in-person consultation, bythe way, occasionally I will go in person.
(05:37):
Uh, a couple weeks ago I had an elderlywoman who said that if I made her use
FaceTime, she would be devastated.
Those were her exact words,so I said, okay, no problem.
I'll come to your house, butI will most often do a video
consultation with a client.
They walk me through their house andthen we will talk about the plan.
(05:57):
I will say to them, Hey,here's what I'm thinking.
Here's a little bit more about how I work.
This is what I want you to consider.
And then we will book the firstsession, or they will say, we need
to think about it, and they'll comeback to me whatever way that develops.
One thing I will say, because I don'thave a team and because I have a little
(06:18):
different schedule, because of ProOrganizer Studio being my main job,
I am not booked five days a week withorganizing, so I have a little bit of
flexibility in my schedule, so pleasetake that with a grain of salt As I talk
about my process, obviously you haveto fit things the way they work for you
and your team, but I know that therewill be a lot of organizers who will
(06:40):
measure at the consultation, and thenthey will buy all the product and they
will install it on the day they come in.
I personally do not do that.
I will declutter with a clientand then I'm going to determine
what we need for a project.
I will go out and buy that for thespecific project and bring it on.
I don't provide a proposal.
I'll just talk to them aboutwhat I think it's going to take.
(07:02):
To finish their project, sothere's no written proposal.
By the way, I also do not make anypromises about the amount of time
that a project is going to take.
I always tell them that everybody wantsto know the exact number of hours it's
going to take, and that I have justfound that that is something that I,
I don't do because there are so manythings that can come up in the process.
(07:22):
And I haven't worked with themyet, so I don't know their speed of
making decisions and how many thingsthey're going to wanna keep and what
we are going to have to reorganize.
So I always tell them after we'veworked together a couple times, I
will have a better idea of how fastwe will be able to get things done.
But.
I do not tell them.
This is how long I thinkit's going to take.
(07:44):
I will often send an email with justa few business details such as, here
are my rates, here's how paymentworks, all that kind of stuff.
And then I will just say, Iwould love to book with you.
Let me know when you're ready to start.
I keep it incredibly simple.
Do you know why?
You can say it one of two ways.
Either I'm lazy or I'm justtrying to be very efficient.
(08:07):
Whichever way that you wanna phrase it.
But guess what?
It works.
I get clients, I bookclients, I go to their houses.
I do the work in their houses.
I have found in the course of my businessthat doing all of that extra stuff, unless
a client specifically asks for it for me,it's just not time that is well spent.
(08:31):
The other thing too that I will sayabout, providing an exceedingly extensive
document with everything that a clientneeds to think about and a whole
project plan and things like that.
What I find in the clients who contact me,and again, this is business specific, but
the clients who contact me are extremely.
Overwhelmed, they're exhausted.
They have stuff everywhere.
(08:52):
Their kids are driving them crazy,their spouses are driving them crazy.
Their stuff is driving them crazy.
And if I send them an exceedingly longproposal or a lot of paperwork or a lot
of stuff, I'm adding to the overwhelming.
And my goal is to make it assimple as humanly possible
for someone to work with me.
Now there is a very good chancethat you are listening to this
(09:14):
and saying to yourself, wow,this doesn't sound professional.
This doesn't sound like it's,a very buttoned up business.
And you know what?
If you really love providinga proposal and all sorts of
things, please continue doing it.
What I want you to think about is ifyou're like, I'm spending hours and hours
and hours doing all of these things, then.
(09:37):
That is something that Iwant you to think about.
Is it actually necessary?
If this is something like, forinstance, providing a detailed written
proposal or something more buttonedup than what I do with my clients.
If it's something that you feel reallystrongly about that you want to establish
as your brand or your service or the wayyou go to market, or if you were saying,
(09:58):
we are a full service provider and we aregoing to give you a polished, professional
experience from start to finish, if that'ssomething that you feel like, by the way.
I just made it sound like I don't providea professional experience to my clients.
I do, trust me.
Um, but if these are things you feellike are extremely important to your
part of a process, whatever thatlooks like for you, please do it.
(10:22):
But is your client expecting it andare they doing something with it?
If you are giving them a five pageproposal with everything that could
possibly be thought of, first ofall, I just want you to think about
are they just gonna take this plan?
And do it themselves.
Have you just given them a DIY plan?
No.
If it was a DIY plan, maybe they would'vealready done it themselves, but still
(10:45):
you're giving them a roadmap for free.
Okay.
The second thing I'm gonna ask is, couldyou provide the same experience that you
want to provide if you're giving thema five page proposal, could it be a two
page proposal or could it be accomplishedin one simple page or one simple email?
I just want you to dial down the amountof work you're doing that might not
(11:07):
be as value added as you think it is.
One of the things that I think abouta lot is the number of homes that I
have been into where I have organizedand I have found folders of other
organizers, proposals and other thingsthat are buried under a lot of other
paperwork, things like that, thathas happened to me multiple times.
(11:27):
I do have clients occasionally who say,you know, like they might be nervous
about the process, or they mightreally just need more information.
And I find that if someone is reallystruggling and I feel like it's going
to be a hindrance to the sales process.
That if I don't provide them thisthing, then they may not book.
I will do the extra work if they arereally like, Hey, I need to understand
(11:52):
more about how this process works.
I have had clients who have asked for thattype of thing and I have given it to them.
So I'm not saying that I won't doit if it's necessary, but I'm going
to tell you something else aboutthe most recent time I did that.
Where there was a guy who was really justnot understanding the process, and he
(12:12):
said he wanted to know more specificallyabout how we will tackle his house, what
order we would go in, that type of thing.
And I spent a, a decentenough time, uh, on it.
I did not give too much away.
So this is another key thing is, um,I did not go through detailed like,
we do this process and this is howwe sort and this is how we, you know,
(12:35):
because I'm not giving him a DIY plan.
Okay?
Giving too much away is not a great plan,but I did put together a plan for him.
I said, this is what we would do.
Ask me if that guy booked with me.
He did not.
So I just want you to think,am I going to do all this?
And like, then it doesn'teven yield a client.
So especially if you do thisfor every single client that
(12:56):
comes to you in the process.
Let's say that you were providinga detailed proposal to every
single person that comes to you.
I want you to think about yourclosing rate on those clients.
You know, if your closing rate is ahundred percent and you think it's
because you give them a really detailed,wonderful product proposal, keep doing it.
If it's not a burden on you, but I wantyou to go through your process and go,
(13:21):
what am I spending my time on, and isit actually yielding what I think it
is, or do I think I have to do this?
One thing I ask people to do, sometimesif you come to me in a one-on-one coaching
situation or some somewhere in my groupand someone's talking about, I'm just
spending way too much time on backendstuff in my business, I'm spending tons
of time doing proposals and space plansand things that I am not getting paid for.
(13:44):
What people tell me is I'mspending so much time on things
I'm not getting paid for.
Obviously there are times in ourbusiness where we have to do things.
That we're not gettingdirectly paid for, right?
Like we're not getting anhourly rate for doing it.
Um, there are backend things inour business that you, they are
just simply a part of the salesprocess, the cost of doing business.
Okay.
(14:05):
But I would urge you, and thisis something that I have had
people do, and they have beenvery eye-opening experiences for
the organizers, do a time audit.
Here's what a time audit is.
Uh, the way that I alwaysthink about it is lawyers.
So people who are attorneysbill in usually 15 minute
(14:25):
increments of their time.
If a lawyer spends three minuteslooking at something, that client gets
billed for 15 minutes of work, evenif it was only three minutes of work.
Okay?
So I always think about that15 minute increment Now.
Whatever works for you.
You could say you could make it30 minutes, 20 minutes, but I want
you to start keeping track of theamount of time you're spending on
(14:48):
backend parts of your business, okay?
Because this might turninto revenue for you.
A time study of your days.
Okay, do it for one week or two weeks.
The most value, I think, is when you gettwo weeks, because one week, you know,
each week is so different, you mightnot get a good representation of your
time, but I just want you to simply writedown, and it does not have to be complex.
(15:11):
You just say, it was 25minutes to drive to my client.
It was four hours to work at the client.
There was a 30 minute time in whichI was doing donation drop off.
When I got home, I had45 minutes of email.
I wrote a proposal thattook me an hour and a half.
Break down also, if you have the abilityto do it if it's not too burdensome,
what does that email look like?
(15:33):
So when I'm spending time doing emails,am I responding to clients via text
or email of questions they have?
Then I want you to start thinkingabout, do I have clients that
are kind of starting to pushthose boundaries a little bit?
I know people who have gotten into atrap where, and by the way, I myself have
fallen in this trap on many occasions.
(15:55):
Okay?
So if you think that I'm perfectabout this, I am indeed not.
Um, but there are some clients that are.
Higher, uh, you can say highermaintenance, higher touch, higher
requirements where they startemailing and texting constantly.
They might be anxious about their project.
They might just be someone thatneeds a lot of reassurance.
So are you spending a lot oftime working outside client
(16:19):
hours with client questions?
Okay.
Do you have a client who's textingyou all the time and it's really
starting to be a drain on your time?
So I want you to startcategorizing in this time audit.
Oh my gosh.
I spent 20 minutes replyingto Betty Sue's texts.
When you start to do this timeaudit, you will start to find
(16:40):
things that will probably shock you.
Um, you know, like, soif you have an iPhone.
If you ever open up your screentime, um, the screen time app and
you go, oh my gosh, I spent how muchtime on text messages last week?
Uh, I, I had that happen to me one day.
I had a, a client, and by the way,this was more of a per personal
(17:03):
response than a professional response.
This was a, a long-term client, thatI have a personal friendship with as
well as a professional relationship.
And she was asking more of a personalquestion than a professional question, and
I was not actively working on a projectwith her, but I missed a text that she
sent and the next day she sent me this.
Quite direct text that was like,you didn't respond to me yesterday.
(17:26):
And that really hurts my feelingsand I just very simply responded.
Um, I opened up my screen time and Isaid, yesterday I got 270 text messages.
I'm really sorry that I didn't see yoursor I spaced on it it's not personal.
I'm really sorry.
I just get a lot of texts and you mightbe saying, uh, 7, 270 texts a girl.
(17:49):
I got 780 yesterday.
I don't know what it looks likefor you, but the point of my story
is you are probably going to findthings that are going to be shocking.
Like, oh my gosh, I spent three hoursputting together a lookbook for a client
and I'm not getting paid for my time.
The next thing I want you to doafter your time audit is, two
questions I want you to ask.
What am I not getting paid for?
(18:11):
And are there thingsthat I am doing too much?
If I don't believe that I'm doing toomuch, what can I do to make sure I'm
getting compensated for that time?
Now, it's not necessarily that you'regoing to say, oh, I'm gonna start charging
the client for every single minute I'mgonna start billing like a lawyer does.
It might be that you tell aclient I would be happy to do a
(18:32):
comprehensive space plan for you.
I bill that out at $75 an hour, andthen you say to the client, if you'd
like to put a cap on the amount oftime I spend on that, that's fine.
Let me know what you're thinking.
It could be that you say you aregoing to raise your hourly rates.
You're going to say, I'm gonna raisemy hourly rate $15 an hour so I
can account for some of this extratime that I spend on my back end.
(18:55):
I feel like I'll be getting paid for that.
It might make you feel better if youcould feel like you're starting to
get compensated for some of that.
Is this thing that I'm doingthat's taking this much time, is it
actually providing value or revenue?
Is it necessary?
Does the client think it's necessary?
Is it truly necessary to do my job?
(19:15):
I will tell you that Ipersonally do almost none of
this, and I'm doing just fine.
It might not work for your process,it might not work for you in your
business, for your brand, foryour, uh, team, anything like that.
But I will tell you based on workingwith all different kinds of people
in all different kinds of situations,in all different kinds of organizing
business, almost everyone has thingsthat they're resentful of doing because
(19:42):
it's taking a lot of time away, andI'm not entirely sure that all those
things are actually value added.
Is what I'm doing.
Taking time away from otherrevenue producing activities is
another question I wanna ask you.
So as an example, if you're spendingthree hours on a space plan for one
client who probably isn't even expectingsomething as extensive as a giving them.
(20:06):
If that three hours could have beendone in 30 minutes and a one pager,
and then you spend two and a half hoursworking on your SEO, I would argue
that is revenue producing activity.
Small ball versus big ball is somethingthat I want you to think about.
Am I playing small and working onsomething for one client, or could
(20:26):
I be working on something thatmight impact a lot of other clients
and a bigger part of my business?
One thing that I hear all the timeis I don't have time to blog when I
tell people it's important to blogfor SEO, I don't have time to blog.
So then I just sometimes ask, howmany reels did you do this week?
How long did it takeyou to do those reels?
(20:48):
Uh, the, that can be time that ishidden or you think is, uh, you
know, valuable time on your business.
Is all of the stuff that I'm doingdriving my business forward, or is
it just a check the box activity?
Here's another thing I want to throwin here that I want you to think about.
If you are a person that does a lotof product with clients and you find
(21:11):
yourself going, we're spending so muchtime, I'm giving them six different
options for every single space, andit's taking them a long time to decide.
Now they're texting me all the time.
I want you to simplify that process.
As well.
In the Organizing Essentialscourse, I created a sample
lookbook that people can use.
And what I recommend is if you're on aproduct heavy project, you give it to
(21:33):
clients and you start to get an idea oftheir aesthetic, um, you know, the things
that they like, that type of thing.
And I find when you give clients toomany choices, it reminds me of a time.
I had a client who had a huge atticplayroom, and it was basically
like a Toys R Us was in there.
(21:53):
There.
I have never seen so manytoys and so many things.
I mean, just really, reallycrazy amount of toys.
And she was so angry because she said,my kids constantly tell me they're bored.
And I'm like, yeah, 'cause theyhave too many things here and
they're overwhelmed and they.
Are bored because theyhave too much choice.
So our clients are the same way.
(22:16):
Again, we don't want them tobe fused and overwhelmed by
700 choices for their product.
Create a lookbook, get an idea ofthe aesthetic, and then you can
nail down what are the specifics.
But if you have something whereyou need to give them a choice,
I would suggest three choices.
One, two or three.
Okay.
And you might do good, better, best, uh,you know, you know your clients better
(22:38):
and everyone's gonna be different, dofewer things, and get better results.
Another thing that we covered on a callrecently is someone was having scope
creep on a project, so this is anotherthing that can really steal your time.
So scope creep in this case was she hadgone to a client and she said, okay,
here are some things you can choose from.
(22:59):
This is what I recommendyou buy for the project.
And she gave her a comprehensivelist of the things that she
thought the client needed.
All the client needed to do is say, check.
I'm good with the budget,I'm good with the client.
I'm good with the products.
The client has now spent hours andhours searching for her own stuff.
She has decided she wants to doa search for her own things and
(23:19):
she keeps emailing and texting theorganizer saying, what about this bin?
What about this bin?
What about this basket?
The organizer was starting to getoverwhelmed 'cause it was just.
Text after text.
By the way, clients often thinkthey're the only client that we're
working with and they don't realizethat they might be one of 10 clients
we're working with at that time.
So if you're texting me, 10 otherpeople might be texting me too.
(23:41):
I just said, you gotta, you gottastop this right now and you need
to tell that client, okay, we justneed to do a quick process check.
So what's included in yourpackage or what is included in
my services is what I sent you.
That's the list ofthings that I recommend.
And if you don't want to use thosethings, if you want to go out and
buy things on your own, totally fine.
(24:01):
But you'll need toprocure those on your own.
And if you want me to start giving input,I'm happy to do that, but I will have to
start the clock on these conversations.
Okay?
So what's gonna happen otherwise, andwhat was happening with this organizer
is she was spending an inordinate amountof time going back and forth with a
client and not getting paid for it, andit was not adding value to the project.
(24:23):
Scope creep can be a lot of things.
It can be that a client startsto push boundaries a little bit.
It can be that you're starting to beasked things that are not part of the
package that they got, um, and you mightfeel, you know, compelled to do them.
That can take a lot of different forms,but I want you to make sure that you
(24:45):
are not allowing scope creep to alsotake revenue away from your business.
I will also tell you if you're reallynervous, like if you're someone
who's like, Melissa, I write a fivepage proposal and you're telling me
not to, and I think that this is,this is wrong and you're an idiot.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to do a little A/B test, okay?
(25:05):
So maybe on your next five inquiries,three of them, try the new process.
Two of them keep your existingprocess catalog, the amount of
time, detail your conversion rate.
Also, I want you to thinkabout your comfort level.
If you've listened to all this and you'vesaid, I don't think Melissa's right.
(25:26):
I think I really, really, reallywanna do X, Y, Z thing, even
though it takes a long time.
Then go about it gratefully and happily.
But then don't complain about theamount of time that it takes, or that
you're taking time away from otherthings you want to be doing in your
business, or you're, you don't havetime to write a blog, or you don't have
time to do some of the really importantbackend things on your business.
(25:49):
Google Business, SEO, blogging.
Make sure that you are making timefor those backend things that matter
versus the things that might not.
I just want you to do a little test.
What if I dial down the amount of thingsI'm doing for my clients in terms of
the, the backend processes, and isit still successful with the clients?
(26:11):
If you really want to do thesethings, do them gratefully,
don't complain about them.
If you are complaining about them, ifyou're resentful about them, if you
find yourself going, man, I'm spendingso much time on this and it's not
even helping my clients, it's timeto think about something different.
I hope this is helpful, and I hopethat you're able to find some time
sucks in your business and I'm guessingthat there are people that are gonna
(26:35):
find 10 or more hours in their weekbecause they stopped doing something.
Yeah, and if you take that 10 hoursand you go get a pedicure and you
watch something on tv, that's awesome.
Go do that.
It will also make me happy ifyou use three of those 10 extra
hours to say, I worked on my SEO,I wrote blog posts for the year.
(26:55):
I did a bunch of Google Businessposts that would make me even happier.
So go find that time in your business.
And I'd love to hear about it.
Have a great week, organizers.
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