My latest organizer interview features Pamela Wong of Zen N Organized, who specializes in home office and small office organizing in Oakville, Burlington, Mississauga, Toronto and surrounding areas. She also offers whole home decluttering and organizing and preparing homes for sale.

Pam and I first met in 2016, when I spoke to the Halton-Peel Chapter of Professional Organizers of Canada about social media. I’ve had the honor of managing her website for many years since then, and recently had the pleasure of redesigning it. More on that later.

Hi, Pam! Thank you for being here. My readers would love to know how you approach a new organizing project!

I approach every new project with an open mind. Every client is different but each one contacted me because of an obstacle that they’d like to overcome. Through my conversation with them and an assessment, I learn and understand the specific challenge(s) that they are facing, what their needs and wants are, and find appropriate solutions for their needs.

Coincidentally, the last organizer I interviewed also had “Zen” in her business name. How did you come up with YOUR business name?

I wanted a business name that encompasses both the east, where I was born and the west, where I live now and how my clients would feel after the space is decluttered and organized. The word zen has Asian roots and it conveys the feeling of calmness, which is exactly what I wanted.

What’s the biggest challenge you currently face in your business?

I’m currently working on a few large projects and am dedicating majority of my hours to these projects. As a result, I am falling behind on my non-billable work, e.g. administration and bookkeeping.

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve discovered about running an organizing business?

I never thought I would need to strive for a work-life balance, but owning a business is a 24/7 job. It never stops! There are so many aspects with a business, and I find myself always working on something.

What’s your favorite organizing product? 

My favourite organizing product is one that fits my client’s specific challenges. It may be a portable accordion file, a stackable tray or a wall mount filing system.

What do you like to do when you’re not working?

I like to spend time with my friends and family and to travel.

What’s the most interesting place you’ve visited?

Oh, so many places.  One of my favourites was Rome, not just because of the history, the culture and the food, but our tour guide in Rome was my friend’s uncle who happened to be a Vatican priest!

What else should we know about you?

I have been in business for over 10 years now and as a Gold Leaf Member of the Professional Organizers in Canada, I continue to find new things to learn.

How did you become a Gold Leaf Member of POC?

I’ve been a member in good standing and have had my business for over 10 years.

I’ve also accumulated over 100 volunteer points as a member of the Ethics Committee of the POC National Board and as a past Chair, Vice Chair and Treasurer of the POC Halton-Peel Chapter.

Pam, thank you very much for telling us about your organizing business!

Now that you’ve learned a bit about Pam, I’d like to tell you about her recent website project.

Background

My Care Plans include a yearly Personalized Website Review, which involves going through the site to identify possible design and/or functionality updates that will increase traffic, appeal to visitors, and ultimately help my client to reach their goals.

Although people were finding Zen N Organized through the search engines, Pam wanted to increase traffic from her target market, leading to more inquiries and ultimately more business.

It had been several years since her site had launched, and the design had become somewhat dated.

One aspect that she wanted to incorporate was to make her site more accessible to people with visual impairments.

In addition to an updated design, I recommended that she start to offer a newsletter, as email marketing is a very effective way of keeping your name in front of people who aren’t ready to contact you for services.

At the same time, Pam decided to break up with her hosting service and move to my Managed Hosting for improved security, performance, and reliability.

Approach

Pam shared some of the websites she likes, and specifically why she likes them. She also shared a photo that included the colors she’d like, and from that, I created her new color palette.

She created Google docs outlining the content for each new and existing page of the site and shared them with me, along with a selection of photos, including before-and-afters, stock photos, and her professional headshots.

As a solopreneur, I knew that Pam had limited time to devote to marketing, and that it wouldn’t be practical for her to write a newsletter in addition to her blog. I suggested we set up an email campaign that would automatically send new blog posts to subscribers, allowing her to increase her reach without taking on additional tasks.

Although there are WordPress plugins that can do this, they’re fairly basic and don’t allow you to offer a freebie and have it automatically go to new subscribers. Pam wanted to offer a variety of tip sheets, so we chose AWeber, one of the few email marketing services that allows you to set up RSS-to-email campaigns on their free plan.

Pam and I communicated by email throughout the project, connecting online or by phone as needed. It was a pleasure to work with someone so organized and efficient!

Results

I had a lot of fun creating Pam’s new site and I’m really pleased to show it off. More importantly, so is she! Here’s what she said:

Updating my website could have been a daunting task but Janet made the process easy and efficient.  I began by giving her my ideas and visions, and then I followed the list of things she needed from me.  She was patient with me even when I had a couple of delays due to the large client projects that I was working on at the time.

Click on the screenshot to check it out.

Who’s next?

If you’d like to be interviewed for Your Organizing Business, simply fill out the questionnaire.

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