Grow Your Business – Writing
Never in my wildest dreams did I dream of being a published author, because I didn’t think I had the skills to write a book. So, why I did write a book?
From 2009 to 2011 professional organizers in the United States were in make-or-break years. In 2008 and 2009, the United States labor market lost 8.4 million jobs. People were cutting out all discretionary expenses, and that included professional organizing services.
My phone was not ringing, and people were not signing up for my webinars, online training, or live seminars. Many professional organizers left the industry because they were experiencing the same and needed to find employment to pay their bills. Or, if they did not provide the primary source of income for their family and that person lost his or her job, they now needed to find a way to have a steady income.
Interestingly though, many people who lost their jobs and couldn’t find employment wanted to start their own business. They had time on their hands and were watching HGTV and, you guessed it, Mission Organization, Clean Sweep with Peter Walsh, and Neat. These shows sparked a desire in many to start a professional organizing business, but they had little financial resources to do so and didn’t know how to start a business. The calls I received from people about my training program were to say they would love to take my training program, but they could not afford it.
I, too, suddenly had time on my hands, and I was fortunate that the recession did not impact my husband’s employment. As he can attest to, when I have time on my hands, I find a way to fill it! I decided that if the participants couldn’t come to me and couldn’t afford the online version of my training program, there must be a way to get the information to them.
Because what I’m passionate about is making sure those in this profession represent the industry as experienced and knowledgeable professionals.
I decided to write a book that covered my training program content, not the depth of the material but the surface—enough to give the information needed to get started. Writing a book was not an easy task. It was painful. I was accustomed to writing in bullet points and then speaking at some length to each bullet point. But I persevered, and with the help of an editor, Get Rich Organizing was self-published in August 2009.
I didn’t write a book to get rich. I knew I wouldn’t sell millions of copies because millions of people don’t want to become professional organizers—thank goodness! I wrote the book to fill a need for a niche population. I’m glad I did! I have met and heard from hundreds of people who have purchased Get Rich Organizing, about how it was an invaluable resource to them in the development of their business and how they would not have succeeded without that information. Those words are worth all the pain it took to write the book!
My advice is never to think you can’t do something because you don’t know how to, or you don’t believe you have the skills to. And, hire experts if you need help. Isn’t that what we teach our clients after all?
After ten years since writing Get Rich Organizing, I decided it was time to revise, update, and expand it, and is now published under a new title Mastering the Business of Organizing: A Guide to Plan, Launch, Manage, Grow, and Leverage a Profitable, Professional Organizing Business.
I have grown my business with multiple streams of revenue, fourteen to date. My book revenues are one of those streams. I’ll be sharing with you in future blogs several more revenue streams to grow your business.
Have you written a book on organizing? Please share the title of your book if you have. Or, are you thinking about writing a book? If you are, what is holding you back from doing it right now?
