But although it’s rewarding, blogging takes a lot of time and commitment, and you want to be sure all your hard work is worth it.

To find out whether you’re ready for that commitment and get you started on the right foot, I’ve developed a list of things to consider before you even create your blog.

1. What are you trying to achieve with your blog?

You’ll find it easier to stay committed to your blog if you have specific goals in mind. Ask yourself exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

Some of the benefits I’ve experienced since I started blogging in 2006 include:

• Speaking and media opportunities
• Building relationships with readers who became clients
• Growing my audience through email and social media

Your goals may be different. Perhaps you want to attract more of your ideal clients, increase traffic to your website, sell digital products, or simply become a trusted resource in your niche. Whatever your objectives, defining them from the start will help you measure your progress.

In fact, if you just start blogging without a goal in mind, you probably won’t see any results.

Setting goals is therefore a very important first step.

 2. Who is your intended audience?

The foundation of a blog today is to know who your readers are, what they need, and what they expect from you.

Effective content marketing is all about creating and delivering content that will appeal to the right people, in the right places, at the right times. To create content that will appeal to the person who is likely to purchase your services, you need to know precisely who that is. For help with this step, read 20 Essential Questions to Identify Your Ideal Customer by Florentina at Moonshot Pirates.

3. What are you going to blog about?

With a clear idea of your target audience and their interests, you can begin to brainstorm topics. Think about the questions your audience asks repeatedly. Those questions often become your best blog posts.

I highly recommend that you come up with a list of broad categories. Sticking to this list will help you to stay focused.

While you’re coming up with topic ideas, start planning the type of content you’ll post, such as full-length articles, list posts, quick tips, videos, and so on.

4. When will you carry out your blogging activities?

You can’t just sit down and crank out a post when you have a break in your schedule. To create the type of content that’s going to bring results, you need to schedule time for the following activities.

1. Planning
2. Writing
3. Adding images and formatting
4. Optimizing for search and readability
5. Publishing
6. Promoting

I’ll describe these in more detail in my next post.

The amount of time you can devote to blogging will directly influence how many posts you can consistently create, based on your schedule. It’s far better to publish one helpful post every month than to publish every week for a month and then disappear for six months.

5. Where will your blog “live?”

If you can incorporate a blog into your existing website, that’s ideal. If you don’t yet have a website, you can choose from a variety of website platforms, with WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix among the most popular.

I usually write about WordPress because it’s incredibly flexible. It can be used for everything from a simple one-page website to a full e-learning platform and just about anything in between. That’s one reason it powers a large percentage of websites around the world, and it’s the only platform I’ve worked with for many years.

WordPress offers tremendous flexibility, but it also has a steeper learning curve than Squarespace or Wix. Like any website, it requires ongoing maintenance, including updates, backups, and security monitoring.

If your priority is getting a professional-looking website online quickly with minimal technical work, Squarespace or Wix may be a better fit. If you expect your website to grow and want greater flexibility and customization, WordPress is worth considering.

Before making your decision, think about your short- and long-term goals. The best platform is the one that fits your business, your comfort level with technology, and the amount of time you’re willing to invest in managing your website.

Want more blogging tips?

Join Blogging Organizers on Facebook, where professional organizers share ideas, ask questions, and encourage one another. It’s a welcoming place to learn and grow as a blogger.

Blogging isn’t about publishing as much content as possible. It’s about consistently creating helpful content that answers your audience’s questions and builds trust over time. Start with a solid plan, stay consistent, and your blog can become one of your most valuable business assets.

Photo © Kayla Butler / Ivorymix

Visit Your Organizing Business to read How to set your new blog up for success and join the conversation.

Understanding Why a Brand Refresh Works

A brand refresh is a targeted update to how you look and sound, while your purpose stays steady. The goal is better brand positioning, stronger retention, and sharper differentiation. A strategic brand refresh helps you change what is dated without rewriting who you are.

This matters because customers decide fast, and your brand should make choosing you feel easy. When your message is clearer, the right people stick around longer and refer you more. It also protects your edge, since competitive advantage is the specific value only you can deliver.

Picture a consultant who has leveled up her expertise and rates, but her website still reads like she is just starting out. Or a bakery that improved its recipes but still looks like a bargain shop online. A refresh aligns your photos, materials, and wording with the experience you actually deliver, so new clients or customers trust the price. With the benefits clear, market research and decision guardrails keep each update tied to business strategy.

Tie Your Refresh to Strategy: Research, Decisions, and Brand Alignment

Once you’re clear on why a refresh matters, the next step is making sure your changes are grounded in real strategy, not guesswork. Earning a business degree can give you the kind of strategic insight and market analysis skills that support every stage of a brand refresh, from spotting shifts in customer needs to making smarter decisions about what to change (and what to keep). If you’re considering building those fundamentals while you keep your business running, online options, like a Bachelor’s of Business Administration, can make it easier to learn and apply new thinking in real time. With that stronger foundation in place, you’ll be ready to tackle practical refresh ideas you can put into motion this month.

Practical Ways to Refresh Your Brand This Month

Pick 2 to 3 moves from this list that match your strategy guardrails (who you serve, what you’re known for, and what you won’t compromise on). Small, aligned updates done consistently beat a big “surprise” rebrand every time.

1. Do a one-hour brand audit (before you touch design): Pull up your website, social profiles, packaging, and last five ads. Write down where customers might feel confusion, different tone, mismatched colors, outdated logo files, or unclear offers. Choose one “fix this first” priority based on what your research and positioning decisions already told you.
2. Refresh your logo redesign in a “lite” way: Instead of starting from scratch, try a simplification pass: remove tiny details, tighten spacing, and create a version that works at thumbnail size. Ask for three sizes (favicon, social icon, storefront/print) and two formats (light/dark). You’ll look more modern while keeping recognition, especially important if your current logo has built trust.
3. Lock in brand colors selection with real-world testing: Select a tight palette: 1 primary, 1 secondary, and 1 accent color, plus neutrals. Test it in the places that matter, your homepage buttons, an Instagram post, and a printed flyer, then check readability and “vibe” against your brand guardrails. If it feels off, adjust saturation/contrast before rolling it out everywhere.
4. Create a brand slogan that earns its keep: Draft 10 options using this formula: Outcome + audience + differentiator (example: “Fresh lunches for busy downtown teams, ready in 10 minutes”). Shortlist 3, then run a quick poll with customers or your email list. Your best slogan should clarify what you do in one breath and support the positioning choices you made in your strategy work.
5. Run a focused website revamp on your top two pages: Start with your homepage and your main service/product page, where most buying decisions happen. Because 50 milliseconds is enough time for someone to form a first impression, tighten your headline, swap in sharper photos, and make the primary call-to-action obvious. Set a simple goal (book a call, buy now, request a quote) and remove anything that distracts from it.
6. Sharpen your client-facing materials for clarity: Whether you sell physical products or deliver a service, update your “front door” materials, packaging, proposals, welcome packets, or intake forms, to make three things instantly clear: what it is, who it’s for, and the key benefit. If you sell physical products, do a quick safety and materials check too, since packaging health and safety is under serious scrutiny. Even small tweaks, better labels, clearer instructions, a tidier proposal template, can lift perceived quality fast.
7. Develop one ad campaign concept and deploy it in two formats: Build a single message that matches your strategy (one audience, one promise, one proof point), then create two versions: a short social ad and a simple email/header banner. Track one metric for two weeks (clicks, calls, add-to-carts) and keep what works. This keeps your advertisement development disciplined, creative, but not random.

Brand Refresh Questions Small Businesses Ask Most

Q: What’s the difference between a brand refresh and a full rebrand?
A: A refresh updates what’s already working so you look and sound current, without changing who you are. A helpful brand refresh definition is a sharpening-up of messaging and visuals so you reflect how your company and customers evolve. If your audience and offer are still right, a refresh is usually enough.

Q: How long does a practical brand refresh take for a small business?
A: Plan on 2 to 6 weeks for the first visible improvements, depending on how many touchpoints you update. A smart approach is to refresh one “front door” at a time, like your homepage or your top-selling product page.

Q: What challenges trip people up most during a refresh?
A: The biggest ones are trying to change everything at once, skipping clarity work, and rolling out new visuals without updating the words. Avoid this by setting one goal, one audience, and one primary message before any design tweaks.

Q: How can I use customer feedback without getting ten different opinions?
A: Start with asking your customers for their feedback, but limit questions to what affects decisions: what confused them, what they expected, and why they chose you. Then look for patterns, not outliers, and test one change at a time.

Q: Can I refresh my brand without losing recognition?
A: Yes, if you keep one or two familiar anchors like your name, core colors, or your main promise. Make changes in small steps, and check that your new look still “feels like you” to repeat customers.

Start Small, Stay Consistent: Your 48-Hour Brand Refresh Move

When brand questions pile up, it’s easy to stall, worried about timelines, feedback overload, or getting the “perfect” look before moving. The steady path is a strategic brand refresh: clarify what stays, adjust what’s misaligned, and let decisions be guided by customers and business goals, not noise. That’s where brand confidence grows, because each choice becomes a deliberate signal instead of a guess. A brand refresh works best when it’s focused, intentional, and put into motion quickly.

Photo © budabar / depositphotos

Visit Your Organizing Business to read How to Refresh Your Small Business Brand for Lasting Success and join the conversation.

Now I understand. Lasting change isn’t just about finding the right organizing system, it’s about helping people overcome the mental and emotional barriers that keep them stuck.

For next month’s Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival, the theme is The Organized Mindset. I’m looking for posts that explore the mindset side of organizing and productivity. You might write about helping clients overcome perfectionism, procrastination, overwhelm, decision fatigue, emotional attachment to possessions, limiting beliefs, or any other mental roadblocks that stand in the way of lasting organization.

If you’ve written a post that helps readers change the way they think about getting organized, I’d love to include it.

How it works:

1. Write a blog post about the monthly topic – in this case, the organized mindset. If you’ve written one in the past, most of your work is already done!
2. Submit your post using the form at the end of this post no later than 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday, August 19th.
3. You’ll receive an email once the Blog Carnival is published so you can come back and read some or all of the posts contributed by the other bloggers. They’ll be reading yours too, so get ready for lots of comments and social media shares!

The Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival is a such great way to to attract new visitors to your blog that many people participate on a regular basis, earning the rank of Star, Superstar, Megastar  or Ultimate Star Blogger. It’s also a fun way to get involved with the online organizing community – just ask Linda Samuels!

Check out a few past editions for some examples.

You don’t have to be a professional organizer or productivity consultant to participate, so please share this opportunity with everyone you know who might blog about this topic.

Guidelines

Please read the following Guidelines before you make your submission.

1. You may submit an article you’ve written and posted on your own blog, a post you’ve written for someone else’s blog, or a guest post on your blog.
2. Multiple entries are allowed if you publish posts by multiple bloggers or guest bloggers on your site, and each entry is by a different author.
3. All submissions must fit into the theme The Organized Mindset.
4. Submission deadline is 11:59 pm EDT on Wednesday, August 19th.

The Blog Carnival will be published on Thursday, August 20, 2026.

Please use this form to submit your post. I’m looking forward to reading it, and to helping you get free exposure for your blog!

By participating in the Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival, you agree to receive Your Organizing Business once per week and From the Desk of Janet Barclay once per month. You will be able to unsubscribe at any time.

Photo © Janet Barclay

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Call for Submissions: The Organized Mindset and join the conversation.

Selling Is More Than Selling

Your goal during the “selling” phase is not to show off how wonderful you are — it’s to develop a rapport with the other person, to express some e p for their situation, and to help find a solution to the problem at hand. And along the way, you will need to educate the client about the benefits you have to offer if you ever hope to make a sale. So let’s focus on a few tricks for making yourself seem valuable to the client (the only way I’ve found to really “sell” yourself). I’d like to share some of the techniques I use to close a sale, from the perspective of professional organizing:

Practice Telling People What You Do

When I first started talking to clients, I was tentative and hesitant about my abilities — I came across as unsure about what I had to offer. But I joined a networking group and found that I was expected to give a short speech each Friday morning describing what I do and how it helps people. I also hosted booths at a couple of business expos, which allowed me to introduce myself and my services over and over again to a number of different people.

The more comfortable you can get with saying, “This is what I do and here’s how you will benefit and here’s why I’m different than the rest,” the more you sound like you know what you are doing. Start out with a one-minute “elevator speech” — what you would say to someone in an elevator when they ask, “so, what do you do for a living?” Say it over and over again until it’s second nature. And then work on a second one that focuses in on a different aspect of what you do. And another. And another. Keep going until you can stand up in front of any potential client and comfortably spout off why they should hire you.

Give A Free In-Home/In-Office Consultation

I don’t know if you do this — but as a service provider, I found it essential to building up my client base. Some people will tell you to charge for a consultation — but why would I pay you to find out if you are worth hiring? Some people will tell you to do a phone consultation — this is fine for some potential clients, but other folks want the reassurance of meeting you face to face.

As a professional organizer, I’ve found that some people want to show me their stacks and piles and have me say that it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen. I think of a consultation not as a time when I can plan out what I’m going to do for the client — because honestly, I’ve seen their problems a million times before and it’s not that different from client to client. But it’s a time when I can audition for the client — build some rapport, show off my fabulous personality , dazzle them with my expertise and professionalism, and explain the way I work. But most importantly, it’s a time when I can sit in front of them, pen and contract and calendar in hand, and say, “When do you want to get started?” Much harder to turn me away, then. And you’ve made a personal connection like you just can’t do over the phone.

Don’t Be In A Hurry To Talk About What You Do

Get the client to talk first. If you immediately start telling the client all of the great things that you do in your business, you will lose them in the first 5 minutes. You have to let them begin by telling you where the pain is. I encourage my clients to tell me how badly life sucks because they are disorganized. I empathize, saying things like, “that must be frustrating,” I rephrase their pain (when they say ,”I feel so overwhelmed,” I say “It can be hard to stay on top of it all”), and I share stories of other clients who have gone through the same thing — but I don’t solve their problem yet.

You want to do two things here — first, let them know that you really understand; and second, you want them to feel the reality of their situation so much that you will look like a superhero when you tell them how you can take that pain away. Once you’ve gotten them to pour it all out, talk about how their lives will be better once they hire you. Don’t talk entirely about techniques and systems — talk about feelings. I find myself saying things like, “And once we get your filing system straightened out, you’ll be able to find anything you need in 3 minutes or less — won’t that take a lot of stress off of your shoulders?” — and the answer is always a grateful “Yes!”

Be Persistent

Some clients need a lot of following up before they are ready to hire you — especially if you offer a service that deals with a difficult or overwhelming problem like disorganization. I’ve contacted clients for a year and a half before all of the planets aligned — and their calendar, wallet, and willingness to change matched up — and we started working together. When a client says he/she wants to work with you but doesn’t have time right now, say, “Well that’s no problem. I certainly understand when your schedule gets overloaded. How about if I call you at the end of February to see how things are going?” Not, “I’ll call sometime down the road,” but I’ll call at a specific time during a particular month. Many times they’ll say, “Well actually, you can call me in a week and I should be ready then” — or they might say February is too soon, call me in June.

But you have done two things — you’ve kept the line open and you’ve taken the responsibility for initiating action off of them (which most clients really appreciate). Many times, I’ll do this over and over again, calling every few months (“Hi, you had asked me to check back with you about doing some organizing in February, so I’m just giving you a call. How’s everything going?”) until they are ready. Persistence is the key.

Assume That You Already Have The Sale

When you finish your spiel with a client, don’t ever say “do you want to set up an appointment?” — instead say “When do you want to get started?” Don’t give them the option to say no. I always ask people, “So what’s your time frame for getting started?” That makes them think a little differently than saying, “When do you want to set up an appointment?” Or say, “Well, I’ve got Tuesday afternoon and Friday morning free next week — which works for you?” Be in charge of the situation and you’ll see a lot more leads become clients.

These techniques will in no way guarantee that every potential client who crosses your doorstep will become a paying customer. And remember, marketing and running a small business is a numbers game. The more people you contact, the more people will turn into clients. But you increase your odds greatly when you give each person the full and complete attention he or she deserves — and when you use every weapon in your arsenal to convince them of your professional value.

Want to talk to colleagues about sales strategies  – or anything else?

Join the POPS Circle, where organizing and productivity professionals share ideas, experiences, and encouragement.

Copyright Ramona Creel, all rights reserved. Used with permission. Photo by stockyimages / DepositPhotos.

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Closing The Sale With Your Next Organizing Client and join the conversation.

For the July edition of the Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival, we’re exploring Organizing for Creativity. I asked my readers to share their tips, strategies, experiences, challenges, and/or successes, answering such questions as:

• How do you keep track of ideas?
• What systems help you move projects from inspiration to completion?
• How do you organize your workspace, supplies, schedule, or digital files to support your creative pursuits?

As you read their posts, please connect with the bloggers on social media, leave comments, and/or share your favorites with your network. Please share this one too!

And one more submission that somehow didn’t make its way into the above chart:

Linda Samuels – Fun Behind the Scenes View of Professional Organizer’s Office

I’d like to thank everyone who participated in this month’s Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival. If you didn’t submit a post, feel free to join us next time, when our topic will be The Organized Mindset. The deadline for submissions is 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, August 19th.

Interested in reaching even more readers?

If your product or service would interest professional organizers, productivity consultants, or their clients, consider sponsoring an upcoming edition of the Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival! It’s an excellent way to maximize your exposure and support this growing community.

Photo © Janet Barclay

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Organizing for Creativity – Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival and join the conversation.

One of the best ways to achieve this is through your blog navigation. You want to make it as easy as possible for readers to find the type of information they were looking for in the first place.

Let’s take a closer look.

Depending on your score, you might have the urge to do a little housekeeping on your blog. Before you jump into that, here’s a bit more information about the various blog features I mentioned in the quiz.

Categories

Categories act as a Table of Contents to your blog. Unlike a book, where related information is organized into chapters, you might blog about a certain topic several times over the span of many years. Organizing your posts into clearly defined categories will help readers find those posts with little effort.

I’ve worked with a couple of clients who hadn’t categorized their posts from the start. One was quite new and only had a few posts, but the other had more than1000 published posts over a 10-year period. In both cases we were able to break their current and future content into a few distinct categories. Now their readers can find the information they want, quickly and easily.

In other words, categories are good. Going overboard is not so good.

When I started blogging back in 2006, I wrote about anything that crossed my mind, creating new categories on the fly. I discovered that instead of being a helpful guide, a long list of categories makes it difficult for readers to figure out where to go next.

Before starting this blog three years later, I developed a list of the categories I would blog about. Taking this step has kept me focused on those topics, and helped keep my content organized for my readers at the same time.

Categories should be broad enough to contain multiple posts, with minimal overlapping. If one post fits under three or more different categories, you probably have too many.

Even though one of my clients had previously pruned her blog categories list, she felt it could be even more streamlined. After reviewing her categories, we were able to eliminate five without leaving any posts uncategorized.

Your categories should be clearly named so they’re meaningful to your audience.

Tags

Don’t make the common mistake of confusing tags with keywords. Tags are not the same as keyword metatags (which no longer have any SEO value anyway). They are a navigational aid for your readers, so don’t overwhelm them by offering multiple options for the same concept.

If tags are already part of your system, keep them useful and consistent. If you’ve never used them, don’t feel like you need to go back and add hundreds.

If you’ve been using tags for a while, you may need to do a little clean-up. Here are a few ways you can do that.

1. Delete any tags with no posts associated with them.
2. Look for tags that are basically the same, e.g. blogging help, blogging tips, blogging advice. Choose the best one and delete the others.
3. Delete tags with very few posts associated with them. If your reader loves a post and clicks on the tag, but the only post that comes up is the one they’ve just read, you’ve just lost them.

In most cases, each post will have a list of its tags at the beginning or end, linked to other posts with those tags.

Related Posts

Linking to related content within your blog is a great way to keep readers on your site.

As you write a new post, include a link to one of your earlier posts when it’s appropriate. You’ll see an example of this later in this post. Leave a comment to let me know if you find it!

WordPress and other popular blogging platforms offer a number of options for automatically displaying posts which are similar to the current one, but selecting your own “You might also like” links tend to get more attention.

Search

If you’ve been blogging for a year or longer, a search box could be the most important feature of all. People today are very busy and have short attention spans. If someone is looking for specific information, they don’t want to scroll through pages of your archives just to find out whether you’ve ever covered that topic in your blog. A search box will let them locate wherever you’ve used a specific word or phrase, regardless of how you’ve categorized or tagged your posts.

Search functions aren’t all created equal! Make sure the search experience on your blog is actually useful.

Relevanssi is a useful WordPress plugin that allows you to give your readers better results.

Archives by Date

By the way, the Blog Archives one was a trick question, with no points either way.

On most business blogs, archives by date have very little value to readers. How likely is it that someone will go to your blog specifically looking for a post you published last May? Unless it’s connected to a particular event, it’s not likely at all. Do you even remember when you wrote your own posts?

Resource Pages (also called topic hubs or resource libraries)

A category page simply shows all posts in that category, usually in chronological order. A resource page takes things a step further by creating a guided path through your best content.

Think of it like a curated bookshelf. Instead of asking visitors to browse through dozens of posts and figure out where to start, you hand-pick the resources that will help them most.

For example, a blog about organizing or productivity might have resource pages such as:

• Start Here
• Organizing Paperwork
• Time Management Strategies
• Home Office Organization
• Creating Systems and Routines

Each page might include a brief introduction, your most helpful posts on that topic, and links to any tools, downloads, or other resources you recommend.

Resource pages are especially useful for older blogs with years of content. They give your best posts a “second life” and help new readers discover information they may have missed.

You don’t need to create dozens of them. Start with the topics that are most important to your readers and your business.

Enjoyed these tips?

Join Blogging Organizers on Facebook and connect with other organizers who are sharing ideas, strategies, and inspiration five days a week. Learn, ask questions, and be part of the conversation!

Best Practices

Here are a few of the strategies that have worked for me.

• Choose your categories up front.
• Display your category list prominently, in a sidebar, in your footer, or even in its own menu.
• Stick to your chosen categories as closely as possible, unless your business or blogging strategy changes.
• Keep one category sufficiently broad that you can go off-topic from time to time. Just don’t call it Uncategorized. That looks like you either forgot or couldn’t be bothered to “put it away.”
• Use your category list to organize your blogging ideas.
• If you delete tags or categories, redirect them to the new ones to avoid breaking any links.
• Make sure your Search box won’t display content you don’t want anyone to find, such as a Thank You page. The Search Exclude plugin for WordPress is great for this.
• If you’ve been blogging for a really long time, you’re probably proud of that, and you should be! But there’s no need to have a list of dates as long as your arm taking up valuable screen space. Simply mention in your bio that you’ve been blogging since XXX. Or, if you really want to keep your Archives by Date, display them as a dropdown list.

This is a newer strategy that I haven’t implemented on my own site yet, but it’s definitely on my radar:

• Create resource pages for your most important topics, especially if you have a lot of older content that is still valuable.

How did you do on the quiz? Feel free to share your results in the Comments.

Photo by Dmitry Rukhlenko / depositphotos. Quiz created with Gravity Forms.

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Your Blog Has Great Content. Can Readers Find It? and join the conversation.

Students often ask me what CRM (client relationship management) application I recommend for a professional organizing business and do they need one. Let’s talk about CRMs.

When I started my organizing business in 2003, the CRMs available were geared for medium size businesses or larger ones. If the CRMs available today that focus on single-owner businesses or businesses with a few employees were available in 2003, I would have set my business up on one.

Instead, I mostly automated my business workflow without a CRM using the following applications:

• Website (client intake and engagement)
• Mailchimp (build a leads/client list and stay in touch)
• Acuity Scheduling (schedule client sessions)
• Square (invoice and collect payments)
• Quickbooks (client database and business accounting)
• Zoom (client assessment and virtual sessions)
• Google (email and client information sharing–Docs, Sheets, Forms)

How I have automated my client process without a CRM:

Client Inquiry

I receive 99% of my leads/inquiries on my website, where a viewer is easily directed to my Get Started page, which begins the client intake process where they:

• Are prompted to select a date and time for a 15-minute discovery call (Acuity Scheduling integrated with Zoom)
• Read and sign my client agreement (a form created in Acuity Scheduling with embedded code on the Get Started page)
• Complete my needs assessment form (created in Acuity Scheduling with embedded code on the Get Started page)
• Upload project photos
• When I worked on site during the pandemic, I required proof of Covid-19 vaccination uploaded
• Schedule discovery call

Client Books Session

• After the discovery call, I email the client (not automated) to schedule a session, including a link to book client project sessions (the link is generated from Acuity Scheduling)
• The client books their organizing session
  • Confirmation emailed (automated email generated from Acuity Scheduling after scheduled)
  • Reminders are emailed automatically from Acuity Scheduling

Client Pays Invoice

• The client pays the invoice for the session (linked with Square), which is triggered when they book their session
• I manually enter the invoice and payment in Quickbooks

Client Session

• Conducted virtually in Zoom
• Information sharing is done by email with links to Google Docs

Project Completion

I email my client after project completion (not automated), including

• a note of thanks
• request a 5-star Google review (provide link)
• link to book future projects, and
• request they complete a satisfaction survey (Google form)

I think the most significant component I am missing is the automation of tracking leads and converting them to clients.

However, Mailchimp does a good job with auto-responder emails after someone requests the free offer on my website.

So, let’s talk about CRMs, and you can decide if one is right for your business.

What is CRM?

Quite simply, CRM is Client Relationship Management. From Wikipedia, Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.^[1]

Why do you need a CRM?

A CRM gathers customer interactions across all channels in one place. Managing centralized data helps your business improve customer experience, satisfaction, retention, and service.

Having your client information in one place improves workflow seamlessly, and task automation eliminates repetitive work. Let’s look at how your workflow could flow in a CRM:

Client inquiry (website contact us page, a form created in CRM templates). The client information is captured from the contact us page and stored in the CRM, which can be populated into scheduling, form templates, and invoicing.

• The client books a discovery call (integrated with an online scheduling tool or part of the CRM app)
• An email is sent to the client to complete a needs assessment questionnaire-an online form created in CRM templates (automated in CRM)
• An email is sent to the client after the discovery call to schedule a session (automated in CRM to be sent X minutes after the discovery call)
• An email is sent to the client confirming the project session (automated in CRM to be sent after booking)
• An email is sent to the client reminding them of the project session date/time (automated in CRM to be sent X hours in advance of the session)
• Invoice client (automated in CRM to be sent after booking or after completion of session)
• A thank you email is sent to the client after project completion (automated in CRM to be sent after the final session)

Other Features and Benefits of a CRM

Integration

CRMs can integrate with other applications such as Quickbooks, Zoom, Zapier, Calendars, eMail, Square, Paypal, Mailchimp, etc., avoiding duplicate data entry.

Client Portal

You can exchange information with your clients in a CRM. Organize your client’s forms, emails, invoices, and tasks in one place. Clients can access their portal on your website with a password.

Custom Triggers

Customize workflow actions to be triggered by specific conditions or at certain times.

Task Reminders

Create task reminders within a workflow for you and your team to stay on track with each project.

Tags & Statuses

Use workflows to tag projects and change statuses for quick and easy organizing.

Autopay

Set up recurring invoices that automatically collect payments.  For example, 50% at booking and 50% at project completion.

Client Reminders

Send automatic reminders to notify your clients about incomplete forms or upcoming payments.

Reusable Templates

Create templates for workflows, forms, proposal packages, canned emails, and more.

How do I find a CRM?

Google! Here are a few to start with:

Dubsado – best for small businesses and solopreneurs, attractive templates, focus on workflow automation. Their website was the easiest to navigate and locate customer support.  $35-$55/month or $335-$525 per year. You will receive a discount code if you attend a short webinar; mine was 50%.35

Hubspot – best for any business. Their website is also very easy to navigate. Free products or premium products start at $20/month for 1,000 contacts.

Jobber – best for scheduling and dispatching teams, time tracking, and expense tracking.  $49-$149/month

Honeybook – best for small businesses and solopreneurs. $29 – $109/month

SMMware – professional organizing and move management industry specific. Their website feels a bit clunky to navigate.  Starts at $30/month.

How do I choose a CRM?

Price

The price of CRM software can vary widely based on the number of users, the extent of the software’s functionality, and the company’s specific needs. And ask for a discount code! Many CRMs offer trial software periods to let you try out their CRM features and functionalities.

Easy to set up and use

Many CRMs put a strong emphasis on ease of use. Find a tool with good data visualization that provides streamlined apps.

Customer service

Look for a customer support team in your business’s time zone with good support and a large user community to quickly resolve setup difficulties.

The Bottom Line

CRMs are about increasing sales, saving you time and money, and giving customers a seamless process for interacting with your business. Only you can decide if one is suitable for your business or not.

Want to ask your colleagues about which CRM or other software they recommend?

Join the POPS Circle, where organizing and productivity professionals share ideas, resources, and support.

Photo by denisismagilov / DepositPhotos

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Let’s Talk About CRMs and join the conversation.

One reason may be personality. We all approach time, space, routines, and decision-making differently, and understanding those differences can make it easier to create organizing systems that feel natural and sustainable.

One framework that can help us explore these differences is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®), a personality assessment designed to identify preferences in how people take in information, make decisions, and interact with the world.

While personality type doesn’t determine how organized someone is, it can influence organizing preferences and habits. That’s one of the reasons I became fascinated by the connection between personality type and organizing, and eventually developed organizing profiles for each of the 16 personality types.

What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and how does it work?

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, or MBTI®, is a self-report questionnaire designed to help people determine their personality type. Here’s how it works.

Your responses to the assessment questions indicate your preferences in the following four areas:

• Direction of focus and source of energy
• Taking in information
• Making decisions
• Dealing with the outer world

Let’s look at each of those areas closely.

Direction of Focus and Source of Energy

People who prefer Extraversion direct their energy and attention outward. They receive energy from interacting with people and from taking action. People who prefer Introversion like to focus on their own inner world of ideas and experiences. They receive energy from reflecting on their thoughts.

If you prefer Extraversion, you are likely to:

• Act or speak before thinking
• Think best when talking to other people
• Take the initiative in making contact with other people
• Have broad friendships with many people
• Prefer spoken communication
• Tolerate noise and crowds
• Get restless without involvement with other people or activities
• Be equally at ease in a group or one-on-one
• Share personal information easily
• Become impatient and bored when your work is slow and unchanging

If you prefer Introversion, you are likely to:

• Think before acting or speaking
• Think best when alone
• Usually let other people initiate contact
• Have a few deep friendships
• Prefer written communication
• Avoid crowds and seek quiet
• Get agitated without enough alone time
• Prefer communicating one-on-one
• Share personal information only after trust has been established
• Become impatient and annoyed when your work is interrupted and rushed

Ways of Taking in Information

People who prefer Sensing like to take in information that is real and tangible – what is actually happening. They are observant about the specifics of what is going on around them and are especially tuned into practical realities. People who prefer Intuition like to take in information by seeing the big picture, focusing on the relationships and connections between facts. They want to grasp patterns and are especially tuned into seeing new possibilities.

If you prefer Sensing, you are likely to:

• Gather information through your senses: sight, sound, feel, taste and smell
• Look at specific details
• Deal with known facts
• Live in the present or past, enjoying what is or what was
• Learn step-by-step through observation and imitation
• Trust experience more than inspiration
• Prefer precise and exact information
• Appreciate and enjoy traditional and familiar ground
• Communicate by presenting the facts and details first
• See predictability as vital to your relationships
• Prefer to use existing skills rather than to take the time to learn new ones

If you prefer Intuition, you are likely to:

• Gather information by way of a “sixth sense” or a hunch
• Look at patterns and relationships
• Deal with possibilities
• Live in the future, anticipating what might be
• Learn by seeing connections and through general concepts
• Trust inspiration more than experience
• Prefer approximations and generalizations
• Appreciate and enjoy new and different experiences
• Communicate by presenting insights and ideas first
• See change as vital to your relationships
• Enjoy learning new skills for the challenge and novelty involved

Ways of Making Decisions

People who prefer Thinking like to look at the pros and cons of a situation and base their decisions on logical reasons and consequences. Their goal is to find a standard or principle that will apply in all similar situations. People who prefer Feeling like to base their decisions on personal values. Their goal is to create harmony and to treat each person as unique.

If you prefer Thinking, you are likely to:

• Decide with your head
• Base your decisions on logic
• Consider all the pros and cons
• Value fairness and reasonableness
• Analyze information
• Tend to question other people’s findings
• Notice ineffective reasoning
• Choose truthfulness over tactfulness
• Prefer brief and concise communication
• Show caring more impersonally
• Be task-oriented in the workplace

If you prefer Feeling, you are likely to:

• Decide with your heart
• Base your decisions on personal values – what you like or don’t like
• Consider the impact of your decisions on other people
• Value harmony and compassion
• Understand people
• Tend to agree with other people’s findings
• Notice when people need support
• Choose tactfulness over truthfulness
• Prefer social, friendly and even time-consuming communication
• Show caring through personalized words and actions
• Be relationship-oriented in the workplace

Ways of Dealing with the Outer World

People who prefer Judging like to live in a planned, orderly way, seeking to regulate and manage their lives. Sticking to a plan and schedule is important to them, and they are energized by getting things done. People who prefer Perceiving like to live in a flexible, spontaneous way, seeking to experience life rather than control it. Detailed plans and final decisions feel confining to them – they prefer to stay open to new information and last-minute options.

If you prefer Judging, you are likely to:

• Have a decisive, planned and orderly lifestyle
• Like a definite order and structure
• Prefer to reach conclusions
• Enjoy finishing things
• Desire to do the right thing
• Dislike surprises and last minute changes
• Work before play
• Respect and feel comfortable with traditional relationships
• Work best with a plan
• Like checking things off a “to do” list

If you prefer Perceiving, you are likely to:

• Have a flexible, adaptable and spontaneous lifestyle
• Like going with the flow
• Prefer to keep things open
• Enjoy starting things
• Desire to have many experiences
• Like surprises and last minute changes
• Seek opportunities to combine work and play
• Feel hemmed in and restricted by traditional relationships
• Work best when you can deal with issues as they come up
• Ignore your “to do” list, if you even make one

Your preferences in these four areas combine to form YOUR personality type! As there are 16 possible combinations, there are 16 personality types, each with its unique organizing profile.

My Work with Personality Type and Organizing

After completing the MBTI® Qualifying Program in 1999, I became fascinated by the relationship between personality type and organizing style. Over time, I gathered information through online surveys, workshop participants, individual clients, and extensive reading on personality type and organizing.

I used what I learned to create organizing profiles for each of the 16 personality types, highlighting common organizing strengths, challenges, and tendencies. These profiles reflect patterns I observed in my research and experience, not hard rules – every person is unique, and factors like lifestyle, habits, family responsibilities, work demands, and technology also influence how we organize.

You can check them out here:

While my organizing profiles were developed through MBTI training, research, surveys, and experience, personality-based organizing has evolved over the years. Today, there are many approaches that recognize an important truth: organizing is not one-size-fits-all.

Resources about Personality Type and Organizing

There’s no shortage of resources about personality type and organizing style!

In addition to my own surveys and experience, I incorporated information from some of the following books into my organizing profiles. If you’re eager to learn more about personality type and organizing style, I encourage you to add them to your reading list.

• Lifetypes, by Sandra Krebs Hirsh & Jean M. Kummerow
• Out of Time: How the Sixteen Types Manage Their Time and Work, by Larry Demarest
• Looking at Type in the Workplace, by Larry Demarest
• Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types That Determine How We Live, Love, and Work, by Otto Kroeger & Janet M. Thuesen
• Work Types, by Jean M. Kummerow, Nancy J. Barger & Linda K. Kirby
• Procrastination: Using Psychological Type Concepts to Help Students, by Judith A. Provost
• Type and Time Management, by Sharon Fitzsimmons
• Type Talk at Work: How the 16 Personality Types Determine Your Success on the Job, by Otto Kroeger, Janet M. Thuesen & Hile Rutledge

Since then, Productivity Leadership Coach Ellen Faye has published Productivity for How You’re Wired: Better Work. Better Life., a guide to help you develop strategies that work for you, which is based on the MBTI framework.

Want to talk about personality type – or anything else?

Join the POPS Circle, where organizing and productivity pros share ideas, experiences, and encouragement.

More Recent Thinking About Organizing Style

Although the organizing profiles on this site are based on Myers-Briggs personality type, newer books and frameworks explore the idea that organizing systems should be adapted to individual preferences, habits, energy, and ways of thinking. If you enjoy exploring why certain systems work for some people but not others, you may find these resources interesting.

• The Clutter Connection: How Your Personality Type Determines Why You Organize the Way You Do by Cassandra Aarssen describes organizing styles and habits, with a practical, non-one-size-fits-all approach.
• Organizing for Your Brain Type: Finding Your Own Solution to Managing Time, Paper, and Stuff by Lanna Nakone and Arlene Taylor suggests ways to adapt organizing methods to an individual’s cognitive preferences.
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear is not not personality-based, but contains useful insights for understanding why systems stick (or don’t).

Learning about personality type and the way it influences our relationship with time and space was one of the reasons I decided to become a professional organizer in the first place, and I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating too.

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Organizing for Personality Types and join the conversation.

Productivity and organizing aren’t always about doing more, faster. Sometimes, they’re about making life feel a little less bumpy, and my readers have shared posts describing what helps life run more smoothly for their clients and themselves.

They’ve written about mindset shifts, creating better habits, organizing spaces that support daily routines, staying on track when life feels chaotic, and more.

As you read the posts listed below, please connect with the bloggers on social media, leave comments, and share your favorites with your own network.

Thanks to everyone who contributed this month!

I’m now accepting submissions for the next Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival, when our topic will be Organizing for Creativity. Submit your post as soon as you’re ready – any time before 11:59 PM EDT on July 15th.

If you offer a product or service that would interest professional organizers, productivity consultants, or their clients, maximize your exposure by sponsoring an upcoming edition of the Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival.

Photo © Janet Barclay

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Life in Flow – Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival and join the conversation.

Client Background

Angela discovered and communicated to me that when her son was diagnosed with ADHD, she too was diagnosed with ADHD. When a child has ADHD, one or both of the parents have ADHD. Angela was relieved to find out there is a reason why she is the way she is, and now with medication, she was eager to clear her clutter and set up systems to keep her home organized. Angela contacted me in 2003, my first year in business, and I had no clue how ADHD affects a person’s ability to organize.

Condition of the Environment

Level 1 on the Clutter-Hoarding Scale. A beautiful home. Most spaces cluttered. Paper (years of it) was kept in beautiful baskets and bags. Every time the cleaning service came to clean the home, all surfaces were swept of paper into these baskets and bags and then never looked at again.

Techniques Used to Work with Angela

We spent several days sorting those years of bags and baskets of paper. Then I set up a prepackaged file system for her and taught her how to use it by filing the papers she kept into the system. Once we completed that process, I had apparently gained her trust, because Angela said to me, “Anne, I have a room I would like to show you that I think I want you to help me with.” I said, “Great, where is this room?” She said, “Upstairs. It’s the bonus room.” For those who are not familiar with a bonus room, for the past two decades or more, American homebuilders have expanded homes from having one- or two-car garages to three or four. Above the garage, they build a vast space and call it the bonus room, meaning the homeowner can use the area however they want. And therein lies the problem; it is an undefined, un-purposed space.

I asked Angela what she wanted to do in this space. She gave my question some thought and replied, “Well, I like to decorate the house for the different seasons, so I want to store home décor here. And I like to create memory books and other craft projects. Maybe play the guitar and hang out.” Angela defined her space as her “creativity center” to give it purpose to help us determine the criteria for what would stay in the creativity center and what didn’t belong there. The technique is defining the purpose of the space and what activities will take place in the space to determine what remains and what is jettisoned.

The next week, we sorted and purged her bonus room based on those activities.

Other Techniques For Working with Clients With ADHD

Find out how and where clients work the best. ADHD individuals are sometimes distracted by sounds that may not distract others. And others with ADHD do better with music playing while they organize and complete tasks.

• Timers or an alarm clock help ADD clients to stay on schedule. Timers also help teach clients how to estimate time—how long tasks take.
• Visuals are usually a must for ADHD clients. Calendars, wipe-and-write boards, Post-It notes, or pictures are a few visuals that create reminders for the client.
• Assist clients in making homes for things where they use them. This way, they won’t get distracted looking for lost things.
• A key technique I use is to have the client ask questions out loud. Hearing what one needs to do can move the decision-making process along.
• Teach your clients to do one task at a time—no multitasking! Examples of this include collecting trash from all over the house at the same time or putting all dishes in the dishwasher at one time.

Any Resistance

Not great resistance. Angela wanted to keep more than I recommended—mostly paper, because of fear. But overall, she was highly motivated to clear out the clutter. Once she was on medication for her ADHD, everything became three-dimensional, where before the clutter was wallpaper to her, and she didn’t see it.

Results

Angela has maintained the space since August 2003, she lost fifty pounds as a result of our work together, and she has taught friends how to set up a paper management system.

More magazine interviewed Angela about the best investment she ever made in her life, which was hiring a professional organizer. A few quotes from the article I would like to highlight are:

“‘Give me a pile of mail, and you might as well strangle me,’ Angela Coel says. At least, that was the old Coel. For years, although she managed to stay ahead of the curve at work, Coel always felt as if her ‘tail were on fire.’ And when she quit her job to stay at home with her kids, her chronic level of disorganization overwhelmed her.”

“Then, in 2002, Coel was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, began taking Ritalin, and started looking at things differently. Rather than seeing her problems as a moral failing, she began to view them as practical issues to be fixed. She decided to get help from someone whose skills complemented her own—a professional organizer.”

What I Know Now That I Wish I Had Known Then

• How difficult it is for a person with ADHD to get anything done—the daily struggles they have.
• The ADHD client feels tremendous shame because they often hear that they are “lazy,” “don’t care,” and “are slobs.” They constantly feel judged.
• The value of coaching, either integrated with the organizing, or one person working with her as an ADHD coach and another as the side-by-side organizer. Clients with ADHD benefit greatly from coaching to be accountable, stay focused, and receive positive affirmations about their progress.
• An understanding of how to reduce distractions and keep clients focused and activated during the organizing process.
• Medication helps tremendously to “activate” someone with ADHD; otherwise, they know they need to be doing something but can’t get started.

Want to talk to colleagues about working with neurodivergent clients?

Join the POPS Circle, where organizing and productivity professionals share ideas, experiences, and encouragement.

Visit Your Organizing Business to read Working With Clients Who Have ADHD – A Case Study and join the conversation.