The Pros and Cons of Starting a Professional Organizer Business

Rustic wooden office desk, neatly organized with paper tray, laptop computer, mobile phone, pen, post it note paper, scissors, stapler, calculator and iPad.
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Professional organizers are usually people who are highly organized themselves. They have a knack for knowing where everything goes and enjoy sticking to the system they have created.

If you are one of these highly organized people, and you're also interested in helping others reach the same level of organization, starting a small business as a professional organizer may be an excellent business idea for you.

Professional organizers can work with many types of people and businesses to help them clean out their accumulated clutter, get organized, and create a system for managing documents or possessions going forward.

It's not always easy to do, especially for those who are not organized by nature, making this a potentially lucrative business idea if you have the skills needed to excel in this area. You can work with individuals in their homes, home-based business owners, and traditional companies as well. Here is what you need to know before getting started.

Benefits

Professional organizers work with both individuals and companies to help them create and maintain organizational systems so they can become more efficient and productive. Some benefits of professional organizing as a small business include:

  • You don't need any specific training or education to be a professional organizer.
  • Your target market can be extensive.
  • You can sell ongoing services by organizing one part of a business or home at a time.
  • You can gain a sense of accomplishment by helping others get organized and teaching them how to maintain it.
  • There is a lot of information and training on organizational systems and philosophies available online.
  • You can help people with chronic disorganization and other disorders.

Challenges

Some of the potential challenges of a professional organizer business include:

  • It can be difficult to figure out what differentiates you from the competition.
  • You have to be comfortable entering the disorganized and cluttered homes and offices of your clients.
  • You may need to find your client's comfort level—with both physical and digital organization—in order to fully help them.
  • Most professional organizers have high levels of patience and empathy.
  • There are several certifications commonly used in the industry that you may need to invest in to remain competitive.