5 Mistakes That’ll Hurt Your Professional Organizer Salary

Before we delve into potential factors that can hurt your professional organizer salary, it’s first important to better understand the sort of income you’ll be making in this role.

To start, it’s worth noting that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” figure that all professional organizers make. Where you live, the demand, your qualifications, and so much more will all affect the amount of money you can potentially make.

That said, I can give you a general idea of average incomes, based on current information available online. Here’s what I found after doing a little digging:

One of the most crucial mistakes you can make is to lack the emotional traits needed as a professional organizer.

Oftentimes, organizing is a sensitive task for clients. They may be going through a significant life change. Furthermore, they may feel like they have no time to get themselves organized. Alternately, perhaps they’re just feeling embarrassed by their messy space.

If you lack empathy, your clients will see you as someone who doesn’t care about their feelings or belongings. In turn, this will be detrimental to your professional organizer salary and career as a whole.

To avoid this mistake, it’s important that you really get to know your client. Asking the right questions and listening are the keys to being an empathetic professional organizer. Plus, these are the cornerstones of excellent customer service.

It’s crucial to gather as much information as possible during the initial consultation. As a result, you’ll be able to better understand the clients’ emotional connection to certain belongings. Just because an item may appear as junk to you, does not mean it’s not a prized possession to them.

So, as you approach each job, ensure to have a client-centric approach. Develop a genuine understanding for the client. Moreover, always be patient and reserve judgement.

Showing empathy, care, and understanding are essential components to being a great professional organizer. However, being properly trained and certified by an accredited design school is also significant, too.

After all, to handle a client’s belongings and organize their home with care requires the right knowledge and skill-set. Moreover, clients will always choose an organizer who’s been professionally trained and certified over someone who has not. Again, you need only ask yourself: would YOU do the same, if in their position?

Not being professionally trained and certified will make it extremely difficult to find good customers. When you do land a client, the results you produce could wind up leaving much to be desired. Either way, this will majorly limit your booking potential in the future.

To avoid this mistake, I highly advise those who want to be professional organizers to get trained and certified. Personally, I recommend QC Design School as the way to go for SO many reasons!

Firstly, QC Design School’s Professional Organizing Course comes with interactive, practical assignments. Plus, you’ll also receive instructional videos, as well as full-color textbooks that are both fun and full of great information.

Secondly, you’ll be provided with comprehensive tutor feedback after every unit you submit for grading. Your QC tutor is guaranteed to be a reputable, working professional organizer. As a result, you can be rest assured that you’re learning from the very best!

My tutor, Lianne Cousvis, was very thoughtful and helpful to me. In addition to being an interior decorating and design professional, she also happens to be a fellow QC Design School alumnus! I had the best learning experience in my Professional Organizer Course. I’m forever grateful for all I learned and the incredible tutoring I had from Lianne.

Along with showing empathy and having the right professional training, it’s critical that you also have business training and know-how. As an entrepreneur, there’ll be a lot you’ll have to take into consideration. Some examples include (but are not limited to):

In my opinion, QC Design School is phenomenal for this very reason. They help you become a well-rounded professional organizer who has both proper organizing training AND proper business training. This additional training helps you learn how to:

This is yet another great aspect of QC Design School’s distance learning. Every one of their courses offers a full, optional unit devoted entirely to business training. I can’t stress enough that even though this unit is technically optional, you’d be doing yourself a major disservice by skipping over it!

To avoid this mistake, the simplest solution is to ensure that your professional organizer course includes proper business training!

Another major mistake a professional organizer can make would be to lack the entrepreneurial drive and skills needed to start and sustain a successful business. For instance, if you don’t consider all the costs that needed to operate and sustain your business, you can really hurt your professional organizer salary in the long run.

Once again, we circle back to the importance of sufficient business training!

Ultimately, having an entrepreneurial drive lies within you and you alone. QC Design School is here to offer exceptional business skills and an amazing online, international network. With that, you can have access to networking possibilities with other designers from all around the world!

How cool is that!?

That said, it’s important to take the time to start, grow, and sustain your business properly. It’s also essential to use all your available resources. Give your all to each client, because you never know who may wind up referring you to your next client!

The last mistake I want to touch upon is undercutting your service rates. A lot of hard work, thought, and time goes into the work of a professional organizer. With that, it’s important for you to value your work and create a fee structure that is right for YOU.

Look, I get it… When you’re just beginning your career, you might worry that you’ll scare off potential clients by setting your prices too high. But I’ll let you in on a little secret:

So long as you thoroughly research your local competitors, and get a proper idea of the current industry standard, you will NOT set your rates too high or scare anyone away!

Is anyone surprised that, once again, the way to avoid this mistake is by getting ample business training? If you take advantage of the business training offered at the end of QC’s Professional Organizing Course, I promise that you’ll learn EXACTLY how to set your rates just right.

Thank you for reading my article! I hope I’ve helped you with identifying and avoiding 5 common mistakes that’ll help you keep your professional organizer salary steadfast and strong.

If you enjoyed reading this article, please leave a comment below. Let me know any additional mistakes that you can think of, that I didn’t mention on this list.