Are you wondering how to become a professional organizer? Some people are natural-born organizers, and some are not. If you have the knack to organize clutter, know how to handle your time and schedule tasks in advance, and are asked for advice and encouragement from family, friends, or acquaintances, you have all it takes to be a skilled organizer.
Skilled organizers aim to make it easier for their clients by collaborating to create a personalized method to coordinate them. Skilled organizers also teach their clients the skills they need to use the system efficiently to handle their climate, paper stacks, and time successfully. A skilled organizer’s services range from storage space preparation to the relocation of an entire office, from the reorganization of room space in a home to a home office’s management.
If you are a brilliant organizer, you enjoy working with people, and you have an entrepreneurial spirit, a career as a professional organizer could be the right one for you. Skilled organizers help their clients set up tailored programs to send orders to their rooms and office spaces, their paper as well as electronic files, and their approach to organizing and achieving objectives. Read about how to prepare for a career as a professional organizer, learn about the skills and training required, and achieve success in this fast-growing field.
Creating a practical, neat, and organized home is the number one priority of a professional organizer, but, as with any work, their day-to-day tasks require a raft of softer skills — and these non-organizing skills can make a difference between a professional organizer and a great one.
Who is a Professional organizer?
Professional organizers are people that use their abilities and expertise to declutter and rearrange environments, quarters, homes, or offices for customers, creating confusion and clutter organizations. They sort through objects, papers, images, collections, memorabilia, and similar belongings, either on their own or side-by-side with the client. They build structures and environments that are clean, ordered, clutter-free, and efficient. The resulting spaces allow their occupants to be more active, effective, and relaxed.
Skilled organizers may have specialties, such as photo organization, home organization, office organization, record organization, preservation of family history, or time management. They often run the gamut from those that actually help others’ tide up’ to others with a specialized degree that treats hoarding disorders and other mental or physical problems resulting in chronic disorganization.
Professional organizers carry orders to everything from office file systems and medical records to family budgets and bedroom closets. They help companies and individuals gain more control over time and space, minimize tension, and improve efficiency through the provision of knowledge and ideas, structure, and robust organizational structures.
While some professional organizers can coordinate just about everything for a client, others specialize in a specific field. Those who specialize typically select an environment that relates to the sector in which they served before becoming organizers. For example, an organizer who has previously worked in banking may specialize in the organization of financial matters, such as billing and retirement accounts. Other specialties include the organization of residential or office rooms, the design, and organization of closets/storage, the management of relocations, the management of documents or filing systems, the organization of memorabilia, and time and space management.
What Does a Professional Organizer Do?
There are certain abilities that many professional organizers have in order to fulfill their duties. Through reading through the resumes, we were able to narrow down the most popular skills for a person in this role. We also observed that many of the above-noted analytical abilities, collaborative skills, and leadership skills are resuming.
When it comes to the most critical skills needed to be a professional organizer, we found that 21,2 percent of professional organizers included organizational structures, while 13,6 percent of resumes included office space and 9,1 percent of resumes included storage solutions. Hard skills like these are helpful when it comes to fulfilling important job responsibilities.
Professional Organizer Job
The job of a professional organizer is as varied as those individuals who choose it as a career. The common duties, across the board, include discarding, decluttering, categorizing, and organizing personal or business spaces or items to enhance appearance and functionality. Most professional organizers are self-employed and work directly with clients.
A professional organizer may take on a hands-on role of purging and organizing items or may instead assist the client with creating organizational systems to allow a client to perform the tasks of purging and organizing on his or her own. The professional organizer serves, in part, as a designer and must be familiar with various storage products and solutions. Whatever solutions they create must fit with their client’s lifestyle and be something the client can maintain on their own.
Additionally, professional organizers must recognize the difference between disorganized clients due to time constraints, lack of interest, or lack of knowledge and those who have chronic disorganization issues due to mental or physical disabilities. For clients involving these chronic disorganization issues, professional organizers can help but may also refer the client to other skilled professionals who can provide specialized services to address those mental or physical issues.
Many professional organizers provide services for the elderly and for those relocating from a longtime home to a smaller one or otherwise downsizing their possessions. Some assist business owners or families in creating efficient workspaces. Still, others help prepare nurseries for newborns. In addition to organizing specific areas of the home, professional organizers assist with organizing financial records, medical records, personal collections, electronic files and information, photographs, family memorabilia, and miscellaneous documents.
Work Environment
Professional organizers work primarily with their clients in residential or office settings. An organizer typically travels to the client’s residence or workplace, incurring a substantial amount of travel time. Individuals who are assisting others in creating more organized, efficient spaces will need to shop for organizational solutions such as filing cabinets, shelving and storage systems, containers, and other materials.
Certification, Licensing, and Special Requirements
There are no licensing requirements for professional organizers. Likewise, certification is not necessary, but the Certified Professional Organizer credential provides credibility and a way to document advanced skills, knowledge, and experience. Certification is normally available from the National Association of Professional Organizers; this certification is given to all organizers who have paid 1500 hours or more (within three years) and passed the Certification Board for Professional Organizers (BCPO ®) test. Re-certification is required every three years.
Why Get Certified?
With all this practice, why are we certified? Through taking courses and keeping up with the latest ideas, tactics, tools, and technology, we are committed to growing our value to our clients and the broader community. We help to extend the reach and scope of the body of information of our discipline.
What is the other value of certification? It gives prospective clients the ability to assess the degree of education and expertise the professional organizer has earned. The BCPO and ICD only offer certifications to those who have obtained a professional experience and education commensurate with the qualification.
Finally, the supervision of certification procedures by the BCPO and ICD requires the authority to investigate allegations of ethical breaches. This increases the power to enforce administrative penalties and/or revoke certification.
The practice of professional organizing advances all of the above, either typically (for the CPO) or for the expert in chronic disorganization (CPO-CD), improving the expectations and ethics we practice.
How To Become a Professional Organizer
If you are very interested in being a professional organizer, how much education you need is one of the first things to consider. 53.0 percent of experienced organizers have a bachelor’s degree, we’ve decided. We find that, in terms of higher education levels, 17.2 percent of experienced organizers have master’s degrees. It is possible to become one with just a high school degree or GED, even though most experienced organizers have a college degree.
While there are no educational qualifications for the occupation, organizers usually seek professional qualifications for prospective clients to obtain valuable experience and reputation. National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), which provides access to a wide range of training programs and resources, is the most known professional organization. NAPO offers training on realistic subjects such as organizational values, evaluations of needs, and time management techniques.
When studying how to become a competent organizer, selecting the correct major is often an essential step. We found that they earned bachelor’s degrees or master’s degrees more when we studied the most common majors for a professional organizer. Sometimes, we see other degrees on professional organizers’ resumes, including associate degrees or diploma degrees from high school.
You will find that you will be helped to become a professional organizer through experience in other careers. Many experienced organizer jobs, in reality, require experience in a position such as an administrative assistant. In the meantime, in positions such as office manager or internship, many experienced organizers often have prior career experience.
How to Get Home Organizing Experience
One thing is for sure, whether you want to try becoming a CPO or not: you will need a lot of practice, experience, testimonials, and before and after photos to help land your first customers.
The fact is, you may get all the world’s certifications and look amazing on paper, but people want to see outcomes and evidence that you have the expertise to back it up.
You may be wondering,’ If I don’t have any customers yet, how do I get to experience as a professional organizer? ‘To that, we’re saying, get out and start seeking jobs wherever you can! Ask your family, colleagues, employers, and other acquaintances if your services will interest them.
In return for positive testimonials and before and after evidence, you can offer your services at a discounted rate. Join and get out there with networking groups and spread the word about your service. With other up-and-coming entrepreneurs who want to develop their brand and credibility, you can also share services.
But don’t underestimate the strength of a marketing campaign well put-together. If you know what to target and how to target, you can easily drum up a new business without any years of experience.
Marketing Your Organizing role Business and Attracting Your First Clients
Whenever you’re ready for your new career to get the ball rolling, it’s time to hit hard on your marketing strategy. Here are our top 3 tips for your new experienced organizing company marketing.
1. Get that website up and running
Anyone can create a website today, and it is a natural part of your job and overall marketing strategy to document your work, so you should have plenty of content for it. Your website will act as your storefront, your resume, and your business card.
It should be full of convincing data and photos of you, your services, and your results. Bonus points if you have a forum that enables you to offer useful tips to your guests and an opportunity for them to get to know you on a deeper level.
2. Start networking!
Both online and offline transactions include networking. Join a local business community, get affiliated with the local chamber of commerce, and make sure that you are on social media.
On every social platform, you don’t have to be present and involved but select a few that will give you the most bang for your buck. To start, think about Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Create your profiles and get engaged with your target audience by posting and communicating with them.
3. Try some paid ads
These are all fantastic outlets to spend some money in to get your brand name out there. Facebook Advertising, Instagram Ads, Google Ads. These ad platforms allow you to get an amazing super granular in your targeting so that you can target your ideal, perfect customers literally.
Your investment in online advertising will net you an amazing ROI when done properly and allow you to grab your first few customers quickly.
A professional organizer can make a lifelong impact on their clients. Now that you know how to get started, your new career awaits!
Skills Needed to Become a Professional Organizer?
You need to have experience and competence in business and organizational skills to become successful in a career as a professional organizer
Business Skills
Business skills will help you market your services to the market you have described as your “target market.” They will also help you sustainably expand your customer base by learning how to set up and function within a business budget. Such abilities include:
- Understanding how to put yourself to attract your perfect customer
- Knowing how to protect a customer after you have attracted them
- Awareness of how to launch and run a simple website or a blog
- Able to express your importance clearly to prospective customers
- A knowledge of the legal, insurance, and tax protection your organization needs.
- Knowing how to market your services accurately
Organization Skills
Having expertise in different personal and technical organizations can help you offer organizational structure creation services to your customers competently. It will also help you inform consumers about managing certain processes and appreciate the importance of doing so. Such abilities include:
- Capable of successfully evaluating the needs of the client
- Capable of developing an operational action plan
- Capable of designing tailored organizational strategies that function with each customer.
- Able to operate within the budget of a customer, using items they already own (such as storage bins)
- Capable of sourcing and recommending top items from organizations
- Capable of keeping up-to-date knowledge and developments from the advanced organizer industry
- Capable of inspiring and teaching others to coordinate
- Capable of working successfully with a range of customer types using techniques
Characteristics Needed to Become a Professional Organizer
You need to have those personal attributes to enjoy performing the duties of a professional organizer. It is important to take pleasure from your work duties and your career, as it helps you maintain a very positive attitude towards your job, leading to a long and prosperous career.
- Enjoy coaching and advising others.
- Enjoy helping others gain more influence in their time and space.
- They are interested in the personal gratification derived by helping people learn the organization’s life skills.
- An interest in becoming self-employed and managing the initiatives you are taking on
- Ability to function well with a wide range of individuals
- Willing to experience periods of modest economic success when developing your customer base.
Earnings and Benefits
Professional organizers’ earnings differ widely in terms of training, experience, a form of service provided, and geographical region. Organizers can start with an hourly charge of $25 to $35, while those with more experience can charge up to $125 per hour. Some organizers charge a day to raise as much as $1,500 for an eight-to ten-hour day.
If they are self-employed, as are the majority of professional organizers, their earnings would depend largely on the number of clients in which they have and how much they charge for their services per hour or per project.
The amount of money which professional organizers make will also rely on the following factors:
- The field in which they operate
- The setting in which they operate (e.g., rural, urban or suburban)
- What kind of organization they do (e.g., business, personal, etc.)
- The sum of experience of the organizer;
Advancement Possibilities and Employment Outlook
Advancement in this sector depends on gaining a reputation for delivering quality service. Some skilled organizers are moving from smaller rural markets to more lucrative metropolitan areas. Others start their own business after holding positions in large management firms.
The professional organization is rising rapidly, mainly due to people’s increasing demands by the complex information age technology. More and more people turn to organizers to help them bring in order facets of their personal and professional lives.
Who Creates Jobs for Professional Organizers?
The majority of top professional organizers are self-employed as owners of their corporate organizations. Jobs for trained organizers, however, still occur in the capacity to work for others.
Whether self-employed or working as part-time or full-time employees of a corporation, experienced organizers are often recruited by the following types of organizations and individuals:
- Homeowners and tenants
- Small business owners;
- Home decorating companies
- Office/business decoration companies
- Independent professional organizers;
- Competent association of companies (home or office)
The employment structure of skilled organizers can depend on several factors. For example, it may also depend on their personal preference; some experienced organizers may only want to think about helping people get organized without thinking about the business side of things, such as attracting customers and wondering where their next check comes from.
Others may prefer to be self-employed because they are drawn by the possibility of determining their hours and earnings. The choice of employment structure can also depend on the availability of work; some experienced organizers may end being self-employed due to a lack of suitable jobs.
Key Takeaways
As a professional organizer, you can market yourself as a general organizer and specialize and narrow your offering to a particular form of organization. Your expertise and preferences will help you direct how you want to define your target client base. You may even have some experience doing technical organization as a side hustle. If so, you may already have an idea of how you’re going to specialize.
You don’t need special qualifications to become a professional organizer. In reality, the Qualified Professional Organizer (CPO) qualification can only be obtained after the organizer has performed more than 1,500 hours of paid work over three years and has passed a professional competence est. However, it is strongly recommended that those wishing to advance their career as professional organizers show high professional and ethical expectations to their clients.
To be a well-skilled organizer, you need to have outstanding customer service and people’s skills, as contact with clients is one of the most important tasks of the job. You can also improve your organizational skills through NAPO training and qualification programs or other professional groups. Attending industry conferences will further develop your experience and help you network with other experienced organizers.
Conclusion
If you’re interested in becoming a competent organizer on the sidelines or want to make it your full-time occupation, your potential to excel lies in how well you can market yourself and land customers.
Of course, you do need the right skills and personality traits to be successful. As most entrepreneurs know, having the first few clients is critical to building your brand and building trust as a new business owner.
By following our guide and guidance, you’ll soon see that learning how to become a professional organizer can be a very lucrative and satisfying career – all that takes a little talent, persistence, and good old-fashioned hard work.
Also read
