Recently I was reflecting on how I got my start in this business and where I’m at today. I’ve come a long way in building my professional organizing business, yet today I find myself at ground zero in marketing my services as The Organizing Lady. That is because I have a new company name and a new website and people are not finding me as easily as they used to.
See, starting HandyGirl Organizers in 1994 meant going to a lot of networking events, passing out flyers all over town, running ads and pounding the pavement visiting businesses to leave my brochure. It also meant putting a website on this new thing called the Internet of which I wasn’t sure anyone would find, let alone search for it.
For 19 years I had grown my HandyGirl business into a profitable enterprise until I had to retire from it due to body-health issues at the time, and turned the business over to my daughter who had worked with my organizing clients for 10 years. I focused my attention on my other skill sets – like web design, internet marketing and video production – all of which I learned on behalf of building my HandyGirl company.
It wasn’t until a year ago that I decided I was well enough to get back into “the biz” and established myself as The Organizing Lady to service the Valley areas while HandyGirl aimed at servicing the other Los Angeles city areas closer to my daughter’s location.
By this time, I’ve accumulated 21 years in the business of professional organizing. The rewards had always kept me going over the years, no matter how hard the work was. I knew I had made a difference in many people’s lives and wanted to continue making a difference. But my expertise and experience has not given me a leg up in the industry.
Times have changed and people seem to be shopping for professional organizers like shopping for a good pair of shoes, except the best fit isn’t always their choice. Often times the choice is about the lowest price. And many of the newbies in this profession start out below industry rate standards, which makes the competition more stiff.
With the economy the way it is today, who can blame them? But to lessen the value of my service is something I have not been willing to do. Because my 21 years of experience, knowledge and skills is what I bring to the table for my clients and my rates are actually way below the value in that (since other veteran organizers charge $100 /hr or more).
Writing this is more like therapy for me, since I’m not even sure people will be reading this. After all, my new website hasn’t climbed to Google’s page one ranking (yet) and people are not finding me as easily as they used to. But if you are reading this, you may gain a little more understanding of my roots and where I started and will know me a little better. After all, knowing me better is liking me better. I hope.
