Professional home organiser?

[Lilly0909]

Hi all,
I am currently self employed and offer cleaning, housekeeping, organising and dog walking services to my local area. Near Saffron Walden :)

I work part time in a school a couple days a week too but now that the summer holidays are coming up I will have some free time to fill.

I am considering rebranding or readvertising myself as a professional organiser only and using this time to test out the demand for something like this as I would be interested in doing it full time. I have only had 2 jobs that were solely for organising since starting in November but I feel it may be because I also offer other services and my adverts do not push too much for the organising. I currently charge £20ph flat rate for all my services. Often my clients ask me to organise a small cupboard when I go to clean but I rarely get any big organising jobs.

My organising jobs have received amazing feedback however I worry there isn't much demand for something like this to work full time.

My question is, have you or would you ever consider getting a professional home organiser?

What would you expect to pay for a full 8 hour day? I have spoken to other local ladies in the industry who charge £200-£250 per day for their services.

I would offer:

• Free consultation
• complete gutting and organisation of every item into sections
• Support for decluttering - I would support you to let go of things that aren't needed or haven't been used in a while.
• 3 week storage of unwanted items in case the owner remembers anything and wants it back. (I have a huge, clean and safe unused garage so wouldn't be an issue) I will offer this only to clients who have difficulty or anxiety letting go of things.
• Free Charity shop drop-offs - my mum runs a charity shop so this is easy and not an issue.
• Tip trips for unwanted items at cost - what would you pay? (I have a van so it's easy!)
• Organisational system that works with the house and family's routines so it stays tidy
• cleaning of cupboards/drawers before anything is put back
• Provide a bespoke list of organisational tubs/dividers etc that can be purchased. I would measure and take pictures of all cupboards/drawers then compile a shopping list so they would be perfect for each individual space. I would then offer to come and fit these for free if the client wants me to order them.

I am also considering contacting hoarder support groups but not sure.

Any opinions/thoughts would be appreciated, please do be honest.

I would expect you to be a member of APDO and to have been trained by them.

I think your charges will reflect where in the country you are. Saffron Walden is probably on the expensive side so you can get away with charging more.

I would love to have someone come in and do this stuff for me but I don’t really know how you go about organising someone else’s home because surely you don’t know what they want to keep and what they want to Chuck away…

I've seen a couple on Instagram - one local to me, one not so much. It fascinates me as I'm the kind of person who probably needs this service - I'm by no means a hoarder, but just not tidy house person!

I'd like to think it was a service I only need once - or at best very infrequently. So, what do you think about repeat / regular customers versus one-offs?

I'd also think its a fairly niche market - its not something everyone would "need" (plenty folk could do this themselves), not everyone who wanted it could afford it, and those of us who probably do need it think we can watch videos online and sort it ourselves! So, how big do you think your market is? Are you prepared to travel? (One of the IG ladies I follow often talks of travelling into London, don't know from where exactly, but I assume she has regular clients worth travelling for)

Maybe you don't need too many customers at once - depending how long an average job would be, 2 customers each 2 days a week plus a day of admin / accounts etc and there's a full-time job. But would it work like that?

What does a fee of £200-£250 per day look like relative to a salary? Not looking for an exact answer there - but what does it mean for your financial planning; and the business plan. Appreciating it's not as simple as that, and not every start-up can afford to pay the owner well.

If I was looking for the service, then yes £200-£250 is probably reasonable - relative to an 8-hour day, equivalent of an hourly wage, plus something towards your business costs etc. I think it'll be reasonable rate - it'll be the volume of work that will be the variable.

Thank you!

It is a job to be done together but the client does not need to be with me at all times. If anything I use my initiative then ask them to double check what has been sorted.

My technique is to work independently at first and sort through everything in the room into these boxes before putting them into sections by purpose of the item. The client would then double check through them.

1. keep (serves a purpose, unique, sentimental, good condition etc)
2. Not sure what it is (we sort through this together)
3. Definitely throw away (obvious rubbish)
4. Not sure (this would be old worn clothes with holes, duplicates, broken items etc. I would never throw away anything like this without a client's approval.) for example if a client has 5 spatulas I would put them in this box and decide with them on which one they use and like the most.

We would work through the 'not sure' box together to decide what is kept.

We would then work through the 'keep' box to decide if it is really needed. Ie has it been worn/used in the last 6 months.

Does your service involve taping my 2 year old to the wall so he can't get it all out of the cupboard again? If so, I'm sold!

Thanks so much I didn't know that existed! They have a course coming up in September which I will definitely take. I'm going to test the waters by keeping my rate the same and advertising more for organising. If things go well I'll definitely invest into that!

That's exactly what I'm worrying!
Cleaning and dog walking is obviously a regular job but people only need an organiser on a one off. Even then it's a large expense and can often be done yourself.
The issue for many people is they feel overwhelmed, don't know where to start or have trouble letting go; those would be the people who contact an organiser.
Money-wise, I'm not looking to be rich but just be comfortable paying my bills and save up. I can't see this job coming with any more expenses than travel and business insurance - let me know if you think of any more!
My fear is I won't have enough work to be able to do this full time and support myself but I may as well give it a try whilst I have this free time over summer

Also I am happy to travel with petrol cost covered. Would be down to talking to the individual client about that as very long journeys may involve an overnight stay etc.

If you are doing it a lot you may not be able to do tip runs, as they may consider it commercial waste as you are being paid. A tip run with a few bags for a client every couple of weeks fine but if you start turning up multiple times a week it will be suss

Thank you!

😂😂😂😂

Who's your target market? Presumably you need people rich enough to pay, but not so rich that they have FT housekeepers and interior designers to do it all for them.
You could target time poor, busy professional families? Neurodiverse people?

Actually the latter would be a good market.

DP and I are both neurodiverse (him autism, me ADHD), we manage to get the essentials done but that's about it. I would LOVE for someone to come in and make us a system, taking how our brains work into account.

I.e. executive dysfunction/bad short term memory means I often forget where things belong, or where I picked them up from, even though I've organised it myself! I get easily distracted and leave things lying around. Some useful tips I found online include creating 'chuck boxes' where I can sweep everything into and tidy up later.

Which works great, but then I leave too many things in it, and can't find them!

So as a service company, no you won't have the same upfront expenses as say a cake-baker in that you don't have raw material / component parts to buy, nor purchase of equipment. However, in just a few posts of advice, I reckon you've got about £750 costs through your professional body registration, the course and commercial waste registration. OK they might not all be annual, and you'll have a choice in some - but good examples of not underestimating the costs of actually running the business.

Does the ADPO provide insurance - or is that another expense?
Accounts, tax returns, cost of running an office (even if it is in your home).

Its all do-able, just don't under-estimate that because it's only you & your time, there won't be much else in the way of running expenses.

I use a Declutterer. She makes half her money selling items on eBay (she splits the profit with the client- she has a proper storage unit, photo studio, mannequin and has to pack everything).
One of her main things is helping people move or when someone has died. She also has a psychology qualification and works through the council with hoarders (the council pays).
I used her when I was downsizing.
She is a single mum of three kids and has one full time one part time employee. She also has a rubbish removal guy, handyman and others she can recommend as needed. She is extremely organised!

Following with interest as this is something I've done several times for free with family and friends but I really enjoy it and would love to turn it into a job. I've always assumed it wouldn't be profitable but have never looked into it properly.
Good luck getting set up with this! Sounds like you are on your way already.

I have used prof organisers a few times. All but one have been great. I think I paired about £350 a day in London, the one who was cheaper wasn’t good.

it seems to me that most people who do it full time either offer ongoing support (like a couple hours a month to keep on top of things and get bills paid etc) or they also do photo organising (surprisingly seems to be a lot of this) or both.

Definitely join the association for personal organisers if you can. Support for people with ADHD or chronic disorganisation is an increasingly big thing and as these people are most likely to need ongoing support thus might be a good area to try and focus on (if you have the interest/patience)