5 Critical Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Professional Organizer Business

Mistake #1: Lacking business skills and know-how

After the first couple of years in business as a Professional Organizer, I noticed several NAPO members’ businesses collapse. I was curious why their businesses failed, so I asked some of them. The primary reason wasn’t that they didn’t have organizing skills or couldn’t organize others; they didn’t know how to manage and grow a business. This is why I formed the Institute for Professional Organizers™. To teach others who aspire to become a Professional Organizer how to work with clients and, more importantly, launch, manage, and grow their business.

The Fast Track Method Training Course will provide you with the business skills you need, including:

• How to write a business plan, financial plan, and marketing plan
• Job agreement and business policies
• How to charge for your services
• How to communicate your value to clients
• Startup forms
• What to pack in your tool bag
• How to select a business name to attract your key client
• How to register your business
• Marketing and branding your organizing business utilizing an elevator speech, tagline, network of power partners, developing a successful website, 100 marketing approaches, and the 30- minute marketing formula.
• How to determine your business entity type and legal needs
• What you need to know to be tax savvy
• Creative time focused on your business name, look, and feel
• You will receive exceptional materials for not only your first year of business but for the life of your business.

Mistake #2: Can’t organize others

You love to organize, and you even have fun organizing your friends or family members. What about organizing a stranger’s kitchen or garage? There are various personality types, barriers to organizing, and mental health issues to navigate and understand to organize others successfully. Working with chronically disorganized clients, who have ADHD, or who hoard requires specialized training and experience.

The Fast Track Method Training Course will introduce you to specialized client populations and resources for obtaining training and skills to work with them. You will also learn how to organize every space in a home, including the typical habits that cause disorganization, how to create organized zones, product solutions to aid organization, new habits to maintain organization, and the estimated time to organize.

Mistake #3: Waiting for clients to find you

One of the other reasons I heard professional organizers’ businesses fail was because they weren’t actively marketing to their key clients. Instead, they were waiting for the phone to ring or an email to arrive in their inbox.

The Fast Track Method Training Course provides you with more marketing approaches than you can dream of with real practical ways to implement them. You will receive 12 organizing newsletters to add your branding to and instantly send to your contacts. Plus three organizing workshops and all associated materials for you to market your business.

You will learn how to develop a successful website and search engine optimization (SEO) secrets to ensure clients will find you first.

Mistake #4: No process for organizing

Organizing is easy for you; it is just something innate that comes naturally. So, how will you communicate that to someone who doesn’t understand “everything has a place”? This is the key to working with clients. As Professional Organizers, our goal is to transfer skills to our clients. Having a tried and true process, such as our 5 Steps to Organizing®, will give you the tool to communicate organizing skills to your clients and provide you with confidence. The Fast Track Method Training Course will teach you the 5 Steps to Organizing® in great detail.

“This training experience exceeded my expectations. I learned so much about starting a business and starting a career as a professional organizer.

Anne has been an incredible resource to have, and it means a lot to have her as a mentor for the following year.

The 5 Steps to Organizing process is very helpful and will be an excellent reference working with future clients.

Anne is very supportive, and you can tell she genuinely cares about her students’ success.“

Marguerite Firth

Mistake #5: Not writing a business plan

Your business plan is often an afterthought, if it is ever addressed at all. The real value of creating a business plan is not in having the finished written plan in hand. Instead, the value lies in the process of researching and thinking about your business systematically. The act of planning helps you think things through thoroughly, study and research if you are not sure of the facts, and look at your ideas critically. It takes time now but avoids costly, perhaps disastrous, mistakes later.

I didn’t write a business plan the first two years I was in business, and I didn’t experience any growth in my business either. Since writing my business plan and updating it each year, my business has experienced significant growth, even during tough economic times.

“I am very pleased with the training experience that I received with Anne. It went beyond my expectations! I was challenged to complete a much-needed business plan. Anne took me through the business plan step by step and helped me think about important things that I had not considered.  I feel that her program is very thorough, and her personality makes it a joy! “

Stacey Shriver

It typically takes several weeks to complete a good plan. Most of that time is spent researching and rethinking your ideas and assumptions. But then, that’s the value of the process. Our Fast Track Method Training Course will guide you through a simple yet highly effective business plan model that will keep you on track each year you are in business and the opportunity to grow profitably year over year.

You can make many more mistakes if you don’t know how to run a business and work with clients. Do you want to figure them out on your own, costing you thousands of dollars in lost revenue, or worse, a failed business? Or, do you want to learn how to run a successful, profitable professional organizing business and how to work with clients who will be singing your praises over and over?

Save yourself time, money and frustration. Immediately start your training and education to become a successful professional organizer business owner with our The Fast Track Method Training Course  and do what you love to do—ORGANIZE!