I was asked to present at the Chicago Women’s Conference this month. When this article comes out, I will have already been on the “Turning Passion to Profits” Panel, and in preparing my notes and message for the conference attendees, I realized that I have never shared publicly, or at least not in my podcast and newsletter, my company’s origin story.

So, let me catch you up to where I’ve been, how I got here, and where I think “Here” is today!

Passions to Profits, let’s think about that! And I love that idea. And I absolutely turned something that I love to do into a business for myself.

So here is the story:

I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and went to the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, for undergrad, where I earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management, with minors in psychology and musical performance. Long term / big picture, I hoped to work in HR some day, helping people to do their best work and live their best lives.

I was fortunate, more fortunate than many of my fellow grads, and had a job offer in my field before graduation. It was the early 90s, and not everyone could find a job.

I moved home to Kalamazoo on a Sunday, bought my first car on Monday and started my retail management job on Wednesday. The pool and spa company where I worked the summers in college had asked me to manage one of their locations, and I did. I worked in retail for a year. I liked the company, and my co-workers and our customers, but I’m not fond of retail. I had continued to take classes at home to expand my administrative skills when the store was closed for the winter, and I became a health unit coordinator, or unit secretary, depending on where you worked. By the Spring, I had two job offers, one at a hospital in my home town and one at a hospital in the Chicago area where my then-boyfriend-now-husband lived, so – that is how I came to Chicago and also to Health Care Management.

I worked as a Health Unit Coordinator for 2 years, and then started at the University of Illinois at Chicago as the Residency Coordinator in the Department of Medicine, handling 130+ internal medicine residents during their residencies. I loved the job and my co-workers and residents, and I was getting closer to what I truly wanted to be doing, helping others to do their best work and live their best lives. In addition, as an employee at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I was able to pursue a Master’s Degree for free. I completed half of the course work for a Masters In Health Professions Education.

Health Professions Education was where I was spending my professional time, supporting the learning of medical school students and internal medicine residents. I was getting closer and closer to what I imagined that I wanted to be doing, and definitely closer to where I am now, espcially now that I am an adjunct professor or visiting instructor at three community colleges, teaching adults in career training programs.

I took a pause on my Masters when I went on a medical leave to have our first child. He’s 27 now. I returned to UIC half time, and within a few years, had baby #2. He’s 24 now.

When we had baby #2, we realized we were outgrowing our 2 bedroom home, and soon bought a new home. We bought the home from an estate, and the family we bought it from left many furniture items behind, telling us we could do whatever we wanted with them – use them, sell them, whatever. I would like to think they were being kind. However, I am smarter now, and would never agree to that again, but I digress.

The Spring after we moved into our second home, we decided to have a garage sale to part with the unneeded items from our old home and the current home. I had never had a garage sale, and I turned to technology. Yes, I went online to research how to have a garage sale. One of the websites I visited said – “If you have a lot to sell, consider hiring a Professional Organizer to help you.”

Say what now?

I said “Professional Organizer?! That is a thing?! I don’t want to hire one, I think I want to be one!!”

I checked out the link to the National Association of Professional Organizers, or NAPO.net, researched more about the idea, and let the thoughts percolate for a few years.

I was working half time in an office in downtown Chicago. Driving or taking the train, my husband and I were both an hour away from home. And as my kids grew, I realized I needed to be home more, and have more flexibility. I struggled with finding someone to take my son back and forth to pre-school, or managing things like the dreaded call from daycare when someone gets sick.

So I decided to start my own Organizing Business, to be home more and have greater flexibility. Now, I realize, as I look back, not everyone would do I would do. But it was logical to me at the time. I would be my own boss, I could set my own hours. I have a degree in Business Management and experience in administration and management and I knew I could manage my own business.

I looked at start-up tasks: deciding what I wanted to specialize in, joining the professional organization, purchasing insurance, purchasing the tools to do the work. There was not much guidance out there at the time in getting started, but our industry is much better now about supporting new organizers in getting started. I had an amazing mentor, a professional organizer in my community, who let me pick her brain for HOURS! I appreciate Pamela to this day and try to pay her kindness forward by answering questions for new and prospective organizers just like she did for me!

In Summer, 2003, I had decided what areas of professional organizing I wanted, and didn’t want!, to specialize in. I ordered my business cards, wrote a letter (yes a lettter!) describing the company I was starting and asking friends and family to help me spread the word. I took a deep breath and mailed the letter and business cards to 70 people (yes 70!). Then we went on a vacation with family for a week. I had calls from my first two clients when I got home, thank you, Rita and Brian. And there is a lot of life and learning in between now and then, but here I am.

I was then and am now aware of my skill set and strengths. I have excellent organizational skills, communication skills and the desire to help others, all three required for the type of career I was proposing. I was also aware of my weaknesses, and managing those is important for sustainable success. And relatedly, I was slow to identify areas that weren’t necessarily strengths or weakneses, but more importantly, were the areas where I need assistance. I have gotten better, but I am still not good about asking for help.

However, circling back to the beginning of this article, I knew, in life, that I wanted to work with people to help them be the best they wanted to be. I wanted to do that with people, for people. And here I am.

Hello,

• I’m  Colleen Klimczak, CPO.
• I am an organizational and productivity coach and a certified professional organizer.  I own Peace of Mind Professional Organizing, LLC.
• Since 2003, I have been helping my clients live better lives through organizing, and organizational and productivity coaching.
• I support my clients and my community with
  • coaching,
  • in-person and virtual organizing,
  • my weekly Podcast called Your Organized Life with Colleen Klimczak,
  • a free weekly virtual productivity session called Finish Line Friday,
  • a free weekly email newsletter and
  • regular content on Facebook and Instagram. 
• I also offer presentations and professional development to groups and companies.

If you are thinking of starting a business, here is some wisdom you didn’t ask for but that I want to share with you all the same:

• Know your skills. And also know what skills you lack. Be ready to figure out ways to compensate for skills you lack, or to learn the skills.
• Know what you do NOT want to do. Prepare to hold firm to that. I tell potential professional organizers that their first step is to go to the NAPO.net website and figure out what they DO NOT want to do.
• Look at your industry – how to enter, what barriers to entry you may need to overcome, and what other people are doing.
• Be ready to find out you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do. But here is the good news, you can figure out almost anything, if given the time and creativity and imagination and resources.
• Success or failure are not a reflection on your value as a person.
• Trying to “do it all results” in opportunity costs. You are the talent. You likely cannnot and should not “do it all”. Which leads me to:
• Who is on the team? Who are your experts? Start thinking like a CEO, and look at what your company needs, even if it is a company of 1. You may fill many of these roles yourself, but every company, big or small, needs:
  • accounting (tax planning, big picture planning)
  • bookkeeping / accounts payables and receivables
  • operations like administration / scheduling / correspondence
  • legal / insurance
  • social media marketing / advertising
  • website creation and maintenance
  • strategic planning
  • HR / hiring
  • Industry specific support like: productions, editing, publishing, or purchasing, manufacturing, packaging, shipping
• Ask for help, and I mean, employees or services. You needed to ask for help long before you realized you need help.
• Overnight success takes YEARS!

Thanks for sticking with me, to the end of this article or episode, sure, but more importantly thanks for sticking with me along the path. Whether you and I met in 2003 or before, or any time since, I am grateful to you for being part of my story!