START A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZING BUSINESS HOW TO HOLD CONSULTATIONS

It's Melissa Merrill here at Pro Organizer Bootcamp.

You're here for consultations 101, this epic masterclass that I've put together for my

professional organizer community.

So, come, Grats, you've made the choice to become a pro organizer after doing some reflecting

and realizing that you have all of these natural organizing gifts and talents already

within you.

But there's a lot more that goes into pipelining, prospecting, and getting you clients

into your sales funnel.

You probably came here today to learn all about how to streamline your consultation

process so that you can stop wasting time, money, and energy on the wrong clients

for your home organizing this.

So, what I want you to do is get the full value of this masterclass by

closing out all of those other tabs that might be open to turn your phone off or put

your phone away and really use this time to focus on your business goals.

Grab a notebook and take some notes because I'm going to be covering a ton of action

steps in a short amount of time.

If you're a go-getter like me, then I just know that you'll have the urge to go and do

all of these things right away.

But keep in mind, none of these secrets work alone.

So, I want you to watch the entire masterclass all the ways to the end for the first

time, take good notes, and please don't run off and start doing any of the steps that

I talk about until you get the full picture and the support that I've been offered.

This is for established home organizers that have already worked their first few paid

jobs, have an online presence in some way, whether through a website, social media, or

maybe service pro marketplaces, and for women who know that they're met to use their natural

organizing gifts and talents to run a profitable business as a pro organizer.

So, in today's webinar, I'm going to cover the top three processes to keep in mind

when converting your leads into book and paid clients.

I'm talking to women who are ready to take their home organizing business to the next level.

Women who have already validated their market and know that their pro organizing skills are super

valuable in their local community.

And women who might be struggling with their feelings of self worth,

worrying about things like, can I actually do this full time and have a steady flow of clients?

So, if you're ready to turn your side hustle into a full time endeavor or if you want to stop going through that

feast and famine cycle of having tons of clients some weeks and zero clients for weeks after that,

then this is the master class for you.

This session isn't about how to start an organizing business or how to get list of online or how to

space plan and put systems in place.

This session is all about the things that you might be doing in your home organizing business

that are costing you time, money and energy by not booking your dream clients.

From what I've seen in over 10 years of running my own organizing company,

the wrong way of doing it is driving to every potential client's house or an in-person

consultation, constantly playing phone tag with your prospects,

not owning your skills and vision as the expert organizer and CEO of your company,

so your letting prospects walk all over you, having ways you many drop off points in your booking process

that make it complicated and difficult for people to actually book you and pay you.

So stop the madness.

Today's topics are going to be all about the customer journey including potential drop off points

and dead zones in your process, why I vote strongly against in-person consultations

and how to convert those window shoppers to superfans of you and your business.

So here's my promise to you today.

In this master class, I'm going to share my top three most important fixes to your sales process

to ensure your business doesn't flop before it even grows legs,

but before we get into all the good stuff.

Let me check in with you really quickly and just see where you're at.

Does this sound like you?

You're paying for leads to come through Angie or some tag or y'all,

but then never actually getting the potential client on the phone.

You're busting your butt driving all over town to give free consultations,

but getting told, I'll just do it myself afterwards when following up with your prospects.

Or maybe you're not even following up at all.

You're having trouble with knowing what to say to convey the value of what you offer

and why your clients absolutely need a professional organizer aka you in their life.

We were for felt like that.

I'm here to tell you that all of those experiences are just symptoms of your bigger,

your bigger problem.

You think your problem is that you just don't have what it takes

or that the pro organizing market is saturated

or that there's too many other organizers in your area.

Yet all around you, other organizers are creating booming businesses

while you sit on the sidelines.

If any of that sounds like you and I good news, you're about to learn how to solve the real problem

and effortlessly escape those symptoms.

That's right, all of that is just a side effect of a bigger problem.

The real problem is that your sales process needs a few tweaks to make it an easy and seamless process

for customers to book you and, of course, pay you.

It's only because you haven't dug deep into these three points that I'm without to share with you.

Making this quick tweaks in your business will not only change your process for the better,

but it will make bookings way more efficient and streamlined.

So imagine calling your prospect actually answers the phone at the time that they scheduled with you.

Imagine not having to play phone tag and go back and forth a million times just to get some basic info for their appointment booking.

Imagine knowing exactly what to say to speak to the emotions of your prospect and why they need to book you ASAP.

So take a deep breath.

There are some simple solutions and I've got you covered before we go too much further.

Let me just take two seconds to introduce myself so that you know who I am and why the heck you should listen to me.

I'm Melissa Marl, a speaker, author coach, course creator, podcaster and youtuber here at Pro Organizer Boop.

I started coaching women just like you in 2019 after I decided to give back to my pro organizer community.

I used my 10 plus years of organizing expertise to help you grow your own business.

So are you ready to jump in? You have your kind of paper and now it's finally time to get started into the note taking part.

So process change number one.

Let's take a minute to talk about the customer journey.

Close your eyes.

Are they closed? Seriously close your eyes.

In vision, your dream client.

Where does she live? What does she drive? What does her home look like inside? Does she have kids? Is she married?

What's her income and education level?

Okay, open your eyes.

Let's assume that your dream client has been hearing all about the magic of hiring a pro organizer.

Maybe it was from her best friend who recently worked with an organizer and is now obsessed with decluttering.

Maybe it's from a girl in the local mom's group who swears by quarterly playroom purges.

Maybe it's from one of the popular shows on TV that we all are watching at home.

Wherever she heard about your professional organizing business, she's starting to feel like she needs to hire an organizer ASAP.

So wherever she heard about this idea of pro organizing, maybe it was the, you know,

tiding up with Marie condo show or one of these shows that we're seeing.

Wherever she heard about it, she's just starting to get that inkling like,

hmm, what is this whole organizing thing?

Are there any people around me that do this and why do I need one, right?

So she hops on her computer.

She heads over to Google, types in, professional organizer near me,

and sees a bunch of Google my business pages from local organizers with listings.

Maybe a Yelp page or two and then maybe some links for task grab it or thumbtack or find my organizer.

She clicks on your website, cents about 54 seconds poking around,

which, by the way, is the average time that consumers spend on websites across all industries,

according to a study completed in 2021.

And after those near 54 seconds, she decides she wants to look you.

But wait, there's no call to action or CTA on your website.

There's no easy button to book a call with you.

There's a phone number, but now it's not a good time and she's doubts about actually being ready to get rid of her clutter.

Clutter is emotional, after all, plus maybe you're on another job and not available anyway.

Or maybe she's doing this search late at night after the kids have gone to bed,

and it's too late to call after business hours.

Oh, dead.

That lead just went dead in the water.

She goes about her evening routine to bring with you guys about you and your website the next day.

YX, this is what I call a dead zone.

Think of your last 10 clients that you could have bought because of minor holes like the ones I've illustrated here.

The truth is, your dreamy ideal client has every intention of booking you.

But then she gets busy. She gets distracted.

The kids need something. Her husband comes home.

She has to run into a meeting. Her phone rings. She's checking out the grocery store.

Life happens. So don't let your leads go dead in the water.

A super simple tweak is make it very clear on your website how they can schedule a call with you.

Using a modern scheduling platform. I'm talking three to five buttons like my website that's here on the screen now.

Right on the homepage, glaring in their face buttons that say things like book or free consultation free call get a quote.

Let's chat.

My favorite scheduling tool is called tidy how at the time of this recording, it's just $29 for a lifetime deal unlike other major platforms out there.

One that rhymes with schmallingly, for example, that can cost over $100 every single year.

If you're using the premium version.

If you want to use tidy towel, job this link down for later.

It's bit.ly slash organizer calendar.

This will direct you to my favorite business at Marketplace called App Simo.

And you can simply use the search bar to type in tidy cow and get $10 off.

So not only is it 29, but it's going to be 19 at the time of this recording.

And that's a lifetime deal. You're not going to have to pay that every single year like other Marketplace is far.

So what you're seeing here on the screen is a copy of my actual website for my professional organizing business.

Yes, I still organize homes after a whole of these years.

And I tried to make it really clean, really simple, not too much text, not a ton of images.

It's not distracting and you're not flashing lights and pop ups everywhere.

It's pretty easy and there are 1, 2, 3, 4 options for them to book their call with me.

I make it very clear with that CTA that call to action is.

So here's what my tidy towel consultation booking page actually looks like.

Super simple. How's my name? How's my company name? How's the photo with me?

Because you need to build that no like trust factor.

People actually need to know who they're calling.

Hey, are you the actual face of the business?

What do you look like? They want to start to build that trust factor with you right from the get go.

So this is what mine looks like and this keeps the process easy peasy for your prospects to book a free consultation with you over the phone.

I emphasize over the phone here because that brings me to an next point.

Process change number two.

Stop the in-person consultations.

When I first started my organizing business in 2011, I would take any and every consultation I could get.

Want me to drive 45 minutes out to your house and have coffee with you and your husband.

Here you will like story.

Sure. I'm there. Want me to sit for an hour in traffic just to get to your house and you're not even home because you forgot.

At the end, want me to spend well over the a lot of 30 minute consultation time with you in your home.

Hearing about all your drama only for you to say, I think I can just do all this myself. Thanks for coming back.

You bet.

That is the worst feeling.

If you've been there, you know this.

Women in my organizer group can't come to me all the time.

Complaining that they wasted hours on a potential client.

Only to get told that there has been things the services to expensive or things for an idea is I'm just going to DIY or whatever it is.

It can be heartbreaking after all that excitement of actually getting that person in your sales pipeline.

Looking in the consultation meeting them and then.

Blom blom.

No payment.

No booking.

Talk about a quick way to burn out.

So I want you to stop wasting your time, your money, your energy on those in person consultations.

Unless you're a major successful organizer already booking those coveted $10,000 in up projects.

Save your sanity and switch to phone consultations.

It's time to value your worth as an organizer and put those skills and talents to good use.

Don't burn out before the race has even begun.

When I switch to phone consultations, my whole business changed.

It's seamless calendar bookings easy.

No free old phone calls where I could walk around in case as much as I want.

I'm a phone talker and a walker if you're anything like me.

You relate to that.

I could jot down notes while they were talking about their needs so that I could go back to them later.

I could clean my house while chatting.

Cleaning is like my therapy might be like me in that regard as well.

So it was so much easier for both me and the client to do a phone consultation.

And by the way, skip the FaceTime calls, the video chats, the Zoom consoles.

People are usually embarrassed about their clutter in case you haven't noticed.

There are sometimes even feeling humiliated by it.

No one wants to do here and make up just to jump on a quick phone call with you.

And don't even get me started on older clientele trying to understand tech and all of that goes into a video chat.

No one really wants to show me their masks sometimes.

People are embarrassed about their clutter, right?

They're humiliated by their masks.

They are already on the fence of like, oh, do I really want somebody to come in and see this, you know, disaster zone, right?

So you might be thinking, how long I know what the space looks like without a video, Melissa.

Once you get a few of these calls under your belt, you'll start to learn the social cues, the tones and the attitudes of your prospects.

You can listen for red flags like for hoarding.

If you're not an organizer that serves the hoarding population, I don't think in most art.

We try to save those fun jobs for clinically trained psychologists or social workers most of the time.

You can listen for things like orange flags like people trying to book a service for a spouse or a parent.

Don't even get me started on those.

And if you absolutely have to, you can ask them to text you a couple photos of the space.

The key here is to be clear in your messaging that you offer no judgment organizing.

You can go to your prospects mind it is you can tell them things like you've seen it all or you don't have to worry ready to help you.

Remember, clutter is emotional and most people are embarrassed about their masks.

So back to my whole point about making this process easy for your clients.

It same goes for the consultation.

Macy's as easy as freaking possible for them.

Get them talking.

Understand their true pain points.

Don't give way all your secrets.

Just convey that you're the qualified expert in this space and that they need your life changing service.

It's time to stop letting people walk all over you.

You know how to organize better than that or they wouldn't be calling you.

The process and exude confidence and clarity that shows you're the expert and you're ready to tackle their project with ease.

Don't know how to convey that on a phone call.

Okay, I've got you covered here is my next point.

Process change a number three.

Stop the dry and logical explanation of your business upset it before I'll say it again.

Flutter is emotional logically explaining what you do by talking about things like.

You're uniform or what you bring in your organizer toolkit or the type of label maker that you use or the fact that you bring your own trash bags or whatever else you tend to over explain.

You don't care about clients don't care how you bake the cake.

They just want you to bake the cake.

If you were to walk into a bakery and who and all the beautiful pastries.

You wouldn't step behind the counter and ask the baker how many eggs went into that one or more type of better was used for this one.

You don't care you would simply pick the cake you wanted to eat and buy it.

So stop over explaining yourself and your service.

The key on these consultation phone calls is to tap into the emotions of your potential client listen to those trigger words that they are saying to you directly over the phone are giving you all of your ammo.

They're already you with the ammo to seal the deal they're telling you everything that they need your job is to simply listen.

They might be saying things like, I feel like I'm drowning under all this stuff.

When I walk into that room it gives me so much anxiety.

The garage is a huge point of contention between me and my husband to the point that it's affecting our marriage.

We're about to move and I'm so overwhelmed I don't even know where to start.

Think of those statements.

There's always emotion when a client is conveying that they think they need professional help and would like to hire an organizer always always comes back to the emotions.

It's your job to tap into the emotions of what they're saying.

It's not about boxes and bins and pretty pantries.

It's about lifestyle changes and reversing old habits to put your clients back on the path to success in their lives and in their homes.

Organizing is such a game changer in the lives of your clients.

And you know that old saying and we have two years and one mouth for a reason.

The idea here is to listen more than you talk during your consultations.

Meal your phone if you need to.

Let them go on and on about their stress and what's going on in their life and then when they're out of stopping point use their own words to repeat back to them what they said.

It could look something like this.

I appreciate you sharing that with me.

I have 100% confidence that I can help you get through the garage and make sense of it all.

It's time to get rid of the anxiety stress and overwhelm that this is calling you and honestly this type of project excites me.

Let's start with one session so we can see how we work together and gain some momentum in making decisions on what to keep toss and donate.

My goal is to give you peace of mind and lift this way off your shoulders.

Then stop talking.

Don't ramble on.

Let them absorb what you just said.

See how that's different from saying something like, yes, I work my knee through Saturday and I book my clients for four hour sessions and sometimes I bring my own bids but we can also use what you happen.

Maybe if there's other areas of the space I can take a look at that too and are you going to be a whole time are you working or will your kids be there?

Oh yeah, I use this really cool label maker, I think you're going to love it.

I'll be sure to bring trash bags for the donations. Oh shoot. And by the way, what charity do you want to donate your stuff to?

Oh, hmm, that didn't work because my kid has a dentist appointment. What about next Thursday?

Whew, that sounds stressful. They're already stressed by their clutter. They don't need to also be stressed by you and your service.

That is a quick way to lose your client before they even get started.

Speak to their emotions.

Let them talk use their own words to repeat it back to them that you understood that you comprehend it and that you're there to solve their problem and win the job.

Deep breath, we've made it through the three tips, but I have a free gift for you that I want to share before you go.

When we just talked about customer journey, the tensile dead zones in your process and how to convert window shoppers into superfins.

So now it's time to get unstuck in your business.

Get strategic eyes on your business processes with someone who's been there.

We all need a mentor, especially when starting something brand new and making a career pivot.

Today, I promised to share the three most important fixes to your sales process to ensure your business doesn't flop before it even grows legs.

Cut the fun tab, cut the thin person consultations and cut the dry logical explanations of the value that you provide.

Sure, you can always join our pro organizer bootcamp Facebook community online or listen to the pro organizer bootcamp podcast and check out the rest of the videos here in this YouTube channel.

But take it for me, what I've learned over the years in my own business is that countless free downloads and tons of tips and tricks from all over the internet is only going to get you so far.

You can continue spending every day spinning your wheels on how to get more clients going crazy trying to figure out why people are canceling rescheduling or not looking you at all.

Or you can work with an expert in this field and grab your ticket to the front of the line by working with a mentor.

Here's what I have for you.

I've set aside time on my calendar to jump on the phone with you and chat about your business stream, schools and frustrations.

I'm ready to speak with you personally about how you can apply these principles to your sales process today.

Whatever your biggest frustrations are, I've seen it and I know how to overcome it.

We'll hop on the phone for 20 to 30 minutes and I'll help you get clear on the next steps forward in your business.

You can look at free call with me at pro organizer bootcamp.com.

All you have to do is find a time that works best for you and I can't wait to meet you and give you personalized support while learning all about what you've tried and where you want to go.

Just head to pro organizer bootcamp.com to learn about my current programs and set yourself up for success.

Oh, and let me mention one more thing.

These free calls aren't for everyone.

These calls are reserved for organizers who already have a few jobs under their belt, maybe a website or social media channel or two.

Organizers who have a passion for organizing and absolutely know that this is their biggest strength and gift in life.

And organizers who are sick of not getting paid what they deserve and are tired of empty calendars.

So if that sounds like you book your call at pro organizer bootcamp.com now.

On the other hand, these calls are not for organizers that want to keep playing small with a passion project or an expensive hobby and not an actual legit business.

They're not for people that aren't ready to invest in mentorship and get to the next level.

And they're not for organizers that are one foot in and one foot out in their business sit on the sidelines and not motivated to reach new levels of success.

As I mentioned, this is only for women who are ready for new levels of success and to finally invest in their passion project as an actual true business.

I've worked with multiple coaches and mentors over my years in business and I know how powerful it is to have personalized support, not only in accountability, not only a cheerleader but a true strategist that's been exactly where you are and knows how to get you to the next level.

I firmly believe that you're already naturally gifted and talented with the skills to become an awesome organizer. Now we just need to get to the clients to make your business shine. Let's strategize on the next steps for you and you're organizing business. I look forward to seeing your call on my calendar and cheers to your success.