Creative Ways to Attract Clients for Your Professional Organizing Business
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When I interviewed Professional Organizer Business Coach Jen Obermeier last spring, she also sent me a great article about marketing your organizing business. Some of her recommendations would have been difficult to implement during lockdown, but now that things are re-opening, I think you’ll find them very useful.
If you’ve just started your professional organizing business, congrats! This is the beginning of an exciting new adventure.
So, you’re ready to hit the ground running and start thinking about ways to attract clients.
You already know you rock at organizing, your favorite place on earth is The Container Store, and you #ROYGBIV every closet in your home, but creating a steady stream of new clients for your business is uncharted territory for you. To successfully establish your business and make it profitable, you’ll need to master marketing your services to potential clients.
The good news is that it’s very possible to successfully market your organizing business with a small budget. To do this, you’ll need to be proactive, think creatively, and also be persistent. Use these tips to start marketing your business now!
Use Social Media To Your Advantage
Social media isn’t just for sharing funny memes and photos. You can actually leverage the free tools within these platforms to help attract potential clients to your business.
For example, you can use Facebook groups to assert yourself as an industry expert and build trust. Take some time to determine who your ideal client is, then figure out what types of groups they may be members of on Facebook. Is it a woman in a business group? Maybe a group for working moms?
Join a few of these groups, and then dedicate some time each day to add authentic value from your professional point of view. Figure out where they hang out, what they care about, and if you have friends in common. Over time, you’ll build trust with the members of that group, which can easily lead to them reaching out for help with organization.
Regardless of the platform you choose, the main goal for social media is to focus on what you love and enjoy and then talk about it! It’s exciting that you have your own business, so shout it from the rooftops! You never know who is listening that could really use your services.
If you stick to doing what you love and providing solid, professional advice, clients will naturally find you.
Network, Network, Network
While there’s a lot to be said about joining in on the conversation and being active on social media, there’s still nothing as authentic as in-person networking.
Do some research into local conferences, meet-ups, trade shows, BNI groups, and other events where your target audience may be hanging out. Go to these meetings and events with your business card and plenty of confidence.
You might even consider networking with your competition. You never know when another organizing business may be at capacity and need to refer clients elsewhere. That’s where you come in and save the day!
When you get yourself out there and make human connections with potential clients, they get to know you face-to-face, which can result in connections that can land you organizing clients faster than you thought possible. (And there’s nothing better than being referred to a client by another entrepreneur that you can now call a friend.)
Host an Organizing Workshop
There are a lot of potential clients out there that probably know they could use some help with organization but aren’t sure they really need to hire a professional organizer. In fact, they may not even know what a professional organizer does.
A great way to gain exposure, promote your skills, and potentially land new clients is to host an organizing workshop. A local library where moms frequently visit with their children is a great place to start. Advertise your event around town and on social media once your event location has been determined to spread the word.
By attracting potential clients to your workshop, you’ll have an opportunity to show them what you do and why they need your services in their life!
Some ideas for workshop themes include purse organizing, holiday decoration prep and desk organization. These workshops are the perfect way to spread the word about your business, have some fun, and make new connections that can turn into new clients.
…And even if the workshop doesn’t land your dream clients immediately? Use photos from your event to repurpose for Instagram or blog posts to recap your message. Building authority is the name of the game.
Get Excited and Get to Work!
Attracting new clients to your professional organizing business doesn’t need to feel daunting, costly, or impossible. There are so many ways that you can get your business and yourself in front of the right audience. And the best part is that you don’t even need to be certified to get started!
Remember, it all comes down to genuinely and authentically showing up, whether online or in-person, with the passion and love that you have for what you do and a desire to help others. The rest will fall into place, and you’ll soon have a client list to be proud of.
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I’ve been considering doing a workshop or a webinar. Maybe this will be the year to get that plan in place. Thanks for the idea!
It’s a good way to get your name out there. See “Related Posts” below for some ideas to get you started.
I have found social media and offering free workshops helpful to market my business, but recently putting time into google my business has been most beneficial.
In-person workshops have been out of reach for a while. I wonder whether they will pick up again or if so many people are comfortable with online events now that they won’t be as well-attended…
All of these are excellent guidelines, overall. Social media is definitely what of the best ways to present your expertise in a “helpful” and non-salesy way. I find it more appealing and useful for the purpose of networking and joint ventures, vs. security clients, as I find that my clients are less likely to use social media for non-entertainment purposes. But again, I’ve been late to the party re: turning my in-person workshops and presentations into virtual ones, and that’s definitely worth considering.
I’ve found the same thing – people don’t look for businesses on social media. They might ask for recommendations from their network, but that’s not the same thing.
Marketing our business is a lot of work. I know you have to be consistent for a very long time to see results. You offer so many great suggestions.
I found networking with colleagues, in the same field, has been priceless. You have to let go of the competitive edge and be open to learning, guiding, offering helpful information and being supportive.
All good ideas – like the others I’ve thought about hosting a workshop now that we are things are coming into a new normal.
I find social media helpful for branding. It’s a good way to test the messages that you want to get out there and to see who is interested in the content.
That is a good idea! I read about it several years ago in a post by Andrew Chen: How to use Twitter to predict popular blog posts you should write, but I’ve never actually tried it – at least, not deliberately.
All of these are excellent suggestions, and in my almost 30 years in business, I’ve done all of them at different times. The key is to think of marketing as something you consistently do. It’s not a one-and-done type of activity. For me, it’s been helpful to pursue multiple paths for attracting new clients. For example, when I first started Oh, So Organized!, social media wasn’t a thing. I relied on print advertising, networking with peers and other business professionals, giving workshops, PR, and client referrals. Now it’s rare that I do any print advertising. In the past decade, I added social media and blogging to the mix. With my business pivot to only offering virtual (instead of in-person) organizing, my online presence is beneficial for reaching potential clients. I am no longer limited by geography and can help clients globally.
Thanks for the creative ideas! I love word-of-mouth referrals. These potential clients are more willing to take a chance. I enjoyed working with friends and their homes early, then asking them to write testimonials for my organizing website. I did this several times, and it resulted in a lot of referrals. You can even share the testimonials on social media platforms through low-cost local area advertising. Some local area costs could be as low as $5.00 US a day, especially if you are the only one in your area. It is something to look at when you only have a little bit of money. Stories are huge now, and platforms are sharing them more than posts, so making stories with pro tips could be an option for you. Include a location to narrow the reach.
All of these marketing suggestions can work well. I find workshops the most difficult one. Getting your own space and advertising it can be hard to get enough people to come. I prefer doing workshops for groups that invite me to come and do one. The attendance is better and I don’t need to do much work on the logistics. Whatever marketing technique you pick from the list the key is follow-up. Invite them to become friends on Facebook and then invite them to your group or page, connect with them on LinkedIn, connect on Alignable, invite them to meet for coffee in-person or virtually or have them fill out a question card so you get their email address and can respond to their question.
Julie, I agree with you about it being hard to get people to sign up for workshops you run yourself. I tried that a few times and was very disappointed. It worked best when I was aligned with at least one other business or organization.
In person talks at the local library have been a wonderful source of referrals for me – I prepare a brief talk and then open it up to Ask the Organizer and often the library has to kick us all out. People get a chance to get their questions answered, see how you answer them, and use their spidey-senses to see if they could work with me. It’s such a fun way to connect with people and potential clients and I’m excited to get back to it when you-know-what is in the rear view mirror.
I’ve always found the Q&A session the best part of speaking.