137 | One Year Later: Lessons Learned After A Year In Business with Kim Snodgrass of Rustic Home Organizing

One year ago, we introduced you to brand new business owner Kim, who had just opened Rustic Home Organizing in Portland, Oregon. Melissa caught up with her almost exactly one year later to hear about what she learned (the good and the bad!) about starting an organizing business. Kim is an open book about what she thought she knew, and what she realized she didn't know at all...and everything in between.  If you want to catch up and remember what she said last year--hit up episode 97 of the podcast, "Taking A Leap: Lessons from a Business Launch." LINKS FOR LISTENERS: Learn more about our Inspired Organizer® community: click here Kim's beautiful website!! click here Connect with Kim on social: click here Get our free workshop, The Pro Organizer's Profit Plan, by heading to poroadmap.com A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE: Melissa Klug: It was one year ago, almost exactly a year ago that we had you on the podcast, and you were at that time a baby organizer. You had just started your business and the other day I was like, oh, I know, because I talked to you a lot how far you have come in that year. But I want everybody to hear how far you have come in this year, and I want you to talk about all the things you've learned. And so I'm just, I'm thrilled that you agreed to be here with us today and do your year wrap up.  Kim Snodgrass: Absolutely. I'm excited to, this is very cool to be able to share everything that has gone on in the last year. Yeah.  Melissa Klug: All right, let's just start out, let's give everyone a recap. When did you start your business? Where are you all that good stuff?  Kim Snodgrass: Technically started in November of 21 but I launched in January of 22. So my business is technically established in 22. I went full board, jumped with both feet in and just started plugging away, listening to lots of podcasts coaching doing all the things to get myself a foundation to be able to start my very own organizing business. Been organizing, obviously my entire life as most organizers have, with the exception of you. . That's right.  I started late. You started a little late, but so it just became more of my journey to becoming a business owner. Not as much the organizing piece of it.  Melissa Klug: So what would you give yourself on a scale of one to 10 when you first started out? So a year ago at this time what would you rate yourself in terms of like, confidence, business, knowledge, all of that kind of stuff?  Kim Snodgrass: Oh boy. Confidence. I would say on a scale of one to 10, my confidence was about a two. Okay. On a good day, . And then I think today I'm, I'm, I'm on the upper end and depending on how much sleep I get the night before, I'm anywhere between an eight and a 10. Okay. by the way. Sleep is very important. But what people don't understand is unfortunately projects live in your brain, in your sleep, and so the Tetris game goes on while you're sleeping and that can sometimes interfere with the REM sleep. It does. But definitely confidence has played a huge part in my success.  Melissa Klug: So let's last year, let's talk about that because yes, you and I have been working together for a while. Yeah. And it was it at the beginning because we all, by the way, this is not just you, it's all of us. All of us struggle with confidence on sometimes a daily basis, , sometimes an hourly basis, if I'm being honest. Like what were some of the things that got you from a two to an eight slash 10?  Kim Snodgrass: I started to write down some notes today about things that would be important for me to share. And the very first thing I wrote down was being okay with mistakes. Yeah. And those mistakes can range from the back end of your business to being in the home and realizing when you left, oh, that was a really bad idea of what I just implemented. I really need to fix that. But being okay with those mistakes so you don't beat yourself up over it. And the biggest thing you take away from those mistakes is learning. You have learned what you're going to move forward in in your next job. I think that is gonna be what I have learned. The most this year is being okay with my mistakes and being excited when I make 'em, because they're getting me to a much better place.  Melissa Klug: I I would love for this needs to be like, I don't know, a t-shirt, a billboard, alike. What I, I don't know, because I think that a lot of organizers struggle with perfectionism and by the way, that's a great trait for an organizer, right? We want people to, you know, give people beautiful homes, but that can also sometimes manifest as like, oh, I made a mistake. I'm gonna beat myself up about it for the next 16 weeks. And being able to say, you know what? I did that I learned from it, and I'm gonna not do it in the future. Yes.  Kim Snodgrass: Yeah, definitely.So yeah, be okay with your mistakes. I made some mistakes right off the bat. I invested a lot of money, which you don't have to, to start an organizing business. Correct. We've all talked about that. But it was important to me to do that and I, I went a little overboard. And that's okay. I'm okay with going overboard because it's helping me in this next year. But I do wanna rewind just a little bit. So, at the beginning of 2022, I came up with a couple words. They were gonna be my words for the year. And one of them was outsourcing. And I did that and I'm so happy I did that. But it also made me realize it's important to outsource when you're ready for that outsourcing. And as a. An organizer new in the business. I outsource so many things right away, but what I didn't realize is for myself, I wasn't ready for all of that. I didn't have the bandwidth, you know, technology is not my strong suit. So I thought, okay, I have to outsource all of it. Everybody will do it for me. But you still need to understand when you outsource, you still have to understand it. You might be able to pay somebody to do it and get it all set up for you, but unless you're paying somebody to work for you on a daily basis, which some organizers have you have to still learn how to maneuver within those programs or apps or whatever you invest your money in on.