Of course, with any business, there is a lot to take into consideration such as insurance. You have to have insurance to make sure that you are fully and legally covered at all times. Before you are able to do that though, you might want to start small. Offering cheap help to friends and family is at least enough to get started on paying the mortgage and it will give you a chance to practice your organizing skills. When your friends and family are impressed by your skills, they will be likely to spread the word of your services and hand out business cards. Word of mouth advertising is a great way to build up your business as a professional organizer.
Another thing you will want to do is to take pictures of everything that you do. Take before and after pictures of the areas you are organizing and use those as a part of your Internet organizing. Create a website for your services and make sure that you keep up with your expenses in order to keep that Internet advertising up and running. The more you advertise the more jobs you will get and the easier it will be to cover your mortgage and business insurance payments each month. Over time, you should be making enough money to completely cover all of your expenses and then some.
One thing that you need to make sure that you are doing is pricing yourself correctly, especially in the beginning when you are new and still trying to build your reputation. For example, if the going rate for your area is $40 an hour, advertise your services for $30 an hour. This will give you an advantage and ensure that you have a good amount of customers coming to you. As your reputation grows and you become more and more experienced, you will be able to increase your hourly rates.
The next thing you have to do when starting out is gathering up all of the materials you need, especially for advertisement. Go for the business cards and the magnets, as these are great ways to get your name out there. Since there are a few good online sources for free or discounted business cards, this should not be a major expense that you will have to worry about. If you can, create some flyers that you can post at the grocery store or library bulletin board. The more advertising you do the better.
Make sure that you are writing up a contract that you will have your clients sign. This not only helps with your insurance but it will ensure that you and your client are on the same page when it comes to your hourly rate and the additional budget that they should have set aside for the purchasing of organizing materials. You might want to have a discussion with potential clients before it even gets to the contract signing stage, just to make sure that they even have large enough budgets for you to work with. For example, if they can barely afford your hourly rate, they cannot afford your services.
It also would help if you became a certified professional organizer, although it is not required to go into business for yourself. You can visit many online organizations to become certified and it really does not take a lot of time or money to do. You will find that if you have a certificate to show someone, you can make more money.
When it is all said and done you will be thrilled because you are able to pay your mortgage and all of your other expenses by doing something that really interests you. You will not only enjoy your work but you will also be helping other people get their lives organized.
