How to become a professional organizer

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You must get training and education, obtain a CPO certification, and gain a client base in order to become a professional organizer. For more details on these steps and the skills you must hone to become a professional organizer, use this guide:

Get training and education. Not all professional organizers have a college degree or even specific training.
Many professional organizers just have a knack for organizing and use those skills to find work in the field. However, most professional organizers have at least a high school diploma or equivalent.
There are different avenues you can pursue to hone your professional organizing skills and professional certifications you can earn to legitimize them.
Obtain a CPO certification. Earning a CPO (Certified Professional Organizer) certification is one way to validate and promote your skills in the field.
The CPO certification can be earned from the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO). This credential is a great addition to your resume as a professional organizer; it exhibits the fact that you have the skills to perform the job in a professional capacity.
It is not a requirement to work in the field; however, gaining this certification will boost your chances of employment and help you to stand out amongst your competitors.
To obtain this certification, you need a high school diploma or equivalent. NAPO also requires candidates to show proof of at least 1,500 hours of paid work in the last five years as a professional organizer. You must pass a written test consisting of 125 multiple-choice questions; some of these questions concern the code of ethics professional organizers must follow.
Members of NAPO must pay a yearly fee of $275. Again, all of this is optional, but it is likely to improve your employment opportunities as a professional organizer.
Gain a client base. After you have completed your training and earned your CPO certification, you can now look to offer your services as a professional organizer to a larger client base.
A good place to start is with friends and family that might need the assistance of a professional organizer. It is important to take before and after photos (with permission of your client) of your professional organizing work to showcase your abilities and gain more clientele.
You might also consider initially giving free consultations. This is a great way to showcase your skills and lure more clients, or even gain referrals.
You need to market yourself as a professional organizer. To do this, use the internet, and your local community, if necessary, to make your services known to the public.
Social media is a very useful marketing tool. You should create social media accounts for your professional organizing services and try to gain friends and followers. You can post about your organizing services and pricing. This is where those before and after pictures come in handy. You can post them to show your skills as a professional organizer and gain new clients.
You should also develop a website for your professional organizing services.Your website should include your before and after photos, prices for your organizing services, and contact information, as well as things like customer testimonies about your services. Make sure your social media business accounts link to your website and vice versa.
There are many free and inexpensive ways to create a website, or if you have some extra money on hand, you can hire a website designer to develop a professional website for you.
A great form of marketing for professional organizers is word of mouth. And for this strategy, all you have to do is provide excellent professional organizing services to clients and ask them to recommend you to other possible clients and customers.
You can also incentivize your clients to make recommendations by offering them perks, like free professional organizing services for referrals.
You can also promote your services the old fashion way by creating fliers or brochures and handing them out at events. Or posting them at community centers with permission, like libraries, public gyms, and other places.
You can also see if you can put up fliers in small businesses like coffee shops. Oftentimes, these establishments will have a tac board that is dedicated to community events and services.
Just make sure to include your contact information on any promotional materials, some also employ the use of a number of tabs on a flier with their phone number on each tab, so interested parties can take your number.
Another great way to promote yourself is to create business cards. This is relatively inexpensive, and then you can hand them out at events or whenever you meet a possible client in public.
Skills needed to be a professional organizer. There are many skills you should seek to develop and hone to become a professional organizer.
Organizational skills are the most obvious and important. This includes being able to spot organizational problems and issues, then the ability to evaluate them, and then ultimately form a plan of action that can improve the organization of an environment.
You should develop these skills both in your personal life and professionally to keep them consistent. This requires you to keep an organized home and office space. Utilizing space appropriately and in a way that is visually appealing is also an important facet of these skills.
Problem-solving skills are essential for a professional organizer. These skills are used daily on a daily basis when professional organizers do their tasks.
You must be able to identify the organizational problems of a client's environment and effectively come up with solutions. Having strong problem-solving skills will help you stand out as a great and reputable professional organizer.
Communication skills are also critical for professional organizers. They must communicate effectively with clients if they want to do their job properly. You need to be able to get on the same page as your client in terms of their wants, needs, and goals for your professional organizing services.
You want to try to avoid miscommunication and conflicts at all costs. Organizing a space in a client's home can be a sensitive issue, so you must be sure to keep all communication open and clear.
Empathy is an important skill to develop as a professional organizer because it helps you to understand your clients. Oftentimes, you are going to encounter situations where certain items could be thrown out, recycled, or donated, and your client won't see it that way.
You need to empathize with their attachment to certain personal items, so you can delicately suggest different strategies for the organization. This also helps encourage more effective goals with clients.
Attention to detail is essential. An adept professional organizer has a keen eye for detail and will often spot things that their clients can't. This also helps you to elevate yourself to the level of a professional organizer instead of a home organizer.
Creativity is another skill used on almost a daily basis in professional organizing. Certain problems require creativity to come up with the proper solution. This also comes into play when trying to make the environment you are organizing visually and aesthetically pleasing. Creativity is also utilized in problem-solving and attention to detail.

Skills	Percentages
Community Outreach	13.28%
Social Justice	9.89%
Outreach Efforts	6.35%
SEIU	6.24%
Public Speaking	5.25%

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