What It's About
Professional organizer helps others clean up!
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Melisa’s advice to anyone in a place of change is to ask yourself, “What do I want, and what will make me more fulfilled?” From there, write down what comes up for you and see where you can make changes to align with that. Melisa enjoyed organizing homes and after doing it for several years, discovered that she enjoys empowering others more than doing the physical work herself.
Fun Fact
Believe it or not, Melisa grew up in a hoarding household. Her dad grew up very poor and, while he is well-off now, has a hard time letting go of things. She took the opposite approach of how she grew up and turned it into a profitable side hustle.
Notes from Chris
Episode 958
Long before the Konmari method of organizing was popular, Melisa Celikel was using her own method for organizing homes on the side for family and friends. After reading The $100 Startup, Melisa saw that she could turn this into a side hustle and make money from it. She made a website through Wix and set up an LLC from LegalZoom. From there, she started Let's Get You Organized. At the time Melisa was working long hours for a Forbes 100 company and only had time for one or two clients on the weekends. Charging as little as twenty dollars an hour, she enjoyed the process of helping others declutter and purge of things that no longer served them. It was rewarding to support people in this way. She knew what it was like to grow up in a home of clutter and wanted to create space and freedom for others. As the years went by, Melisa found her clientele expand more from busy moms to divorcees and shop-a-holics. While Melisa loved serving her clients and supporting them directly, she was becoming emotionally and physically drained. She would spend an average of four hours at each home talking through which items to let go of, and use a lot of physical womanpower lifting and moving heavy items. She was also feeling the burnout from working long hours at that day job. While she was making a good salary, she felt the need to reorganize her own life. She began to evaluate what she liked about both her job and her side hustle, making note of how she could combine skills from both to create something of her own. From there she began to declutter her own business and organize it into a full-time endeavor. Melisa got creative and developed a four-week Professional Organizer Mentorship Program for women wanting to get into the decluttering world. After all, she herself had learned the value in creating something that earns extra income for you while also making a difference for others—so she also knew that there was value in teaching her skills to other women. Making this change from being the organizer to being the mentor created new sources of income for Melisa, and raised her profit margin. In 2018 she profited $15,000 from the change and is on track to doubling that number in 2019. Melisa’s advice to anyone in a place of change is to ask yourself, “What do I want and what will make me more fulfilled?” From there, write down what comes up for you and see where you can make changes to align with that. Melisa enjoyed organizing homes and after doing it for several years, discovered that she enjoys empowering others more than doing the physical work herself. And through that transition, she was able to quit her day job and launch her own business utilizing her strengths in consulting and organizing. In the future, she hopes to expand her Let’s Get Organized mentorship program to empower even more women to become professional organizers and learn the value of being compensated from running their own side hustle or business.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Let's Get You Organized: Clean up your act—head on over to Melisa's website to learn more about this side hustle!
- Wix: The online website building platform that Melisa used to set up her website for Let's Get You Organized
- Actress Becomes Organizational Director of Organization: After chasing her dreams of being an actress, this soap opera star charts a new course as an organizational maven
- Yoga Teacher Cleans Up with Home Organizing Business: After attending a live podcast taping, this longtime side hustler starts a new project that helps people declutter while donating items to local refugees
- Hungover Accountant Starts “Morning After” Party Cleanup Service: Hungover after a night of hosting a party, an Australian accountant comes up with an unusual cleaning service that goes on to earn $30,000/year part-time
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