From Reader's Digest – December 2003
Earn Your Living From Home (excerpt)
Professional Organizing
What keeps professional organizers in business is that the rest of the world is so, well, disorganized. People hang on to things – broken appliances, ill-fitting clothes, ancient documents – and lose efficiency as a result. Professional organizers help people regain control over their spaces and lives.
When Susan Portnoy of Montreal helped her sister, who was recovering from surgery, move into a new house in 1996, she had no idea she could put her inborn efficiency to professional use. Unpacking 101 boxes and getting the house ready in four days came naturally to her. "It was only when friends said they'd pay me to do this," says Portnoy. "that I realized I might have a marketable skill."
Portnoy started out by developing and teaching time- and space-management courses at a local community centre.
The response from her students convinced her of the need for her services, and she set up a home business called Organized Success. "My first clients were Orthodox Jewish families with ten or 12 kids," she says. "The mothers were overwhelmed." With input from all family members, Portnoy created chore wheels that helped everybody divide up what needed doing. Next she tackled the children's rooms. "Parents have told me their kids' marks went up by 15 percent after I'd got their work spaces in order."
One of Portnoy's major business coups was to secure Tommy Schnurmacher, a local broadcasting personality, as a client. "I called his radio show to see if he might want to interview me," she recalls. Instead Schnurmacher hired her to organize his home. In two visits, Portnoy created a colour-coded filing system that impressed Schnurmacher so much he did end up interviewing her on his show, which prompted 85 listeners to call her.
Corporations also began to call. When hired to organize a business space, Portnoy first tours the premises and interviews each executive. She and the company president then decide on an action plan, which generally involves "dec1uttering offices, creating better filing systems, deciding what to keep and what to throw out, and teaching employees how to deal with interruptions from co-workers or ringing telephones."
With hourly rates approaching $100 for individuals and $150 for corporate clients, Portnoy is so convinced of the field's possibilities that she is training her daughter to join the business. "Together," she says, "we hope to take it to a new level."