Wausau Pilot & Review
Editor’s note: This sponsored weekly feature shares the stories of locally-owned and operated businesses and organizations in the Wausau area, highlighting the products and services they offer and the ways they contribute to the metro area’s unique flavor. Learn how to feature your business by emailing [email protected].
This week’s featured Wausau business is Organizing Central, LLC. Owned and operated by Professional Organizer Melissa Sullivan, this business offers the perfect solution to managing your stuff, from small closets to an entire home. Sullivan works with clients side by side to reduce clutter, sorting through kitchens, closets, toy rooms, bedrooms and other spaces. Once the clutter is handled, she’ll organize what remains, creating a system that makes sense to each unique client. Her goal is to ensure that system can be maintained long after her work is finished. If a move is in your future, Sullivan also offers custom unpacking services to ensure your new home is organized just the way you like it – for maximum comfort and enjoyment.
Call for an appointment at 715-446-0762 or see the contact information below to connect online or by email.
Here, Melissa shares her passion for her career, her methodology and process – and what to expect when working together to organize your space.
Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, and what drew you to this business?
I’m originally from West Bend and lived in Milwaukee for almost 10 years. My husband is from Wausau and we moved here from Milwaukee 17 years ago. While in Milwaukee, I started a professional organizing business called The Mess Manager LLC. But when we moved to Wausau, I had a newborn and a toddler at home and was working part-time from home managing a nonprofit, so I never got my organizing business restarted in this area. Now that the newborn is a senior in high school, I’ve moved on from nonprofit work and I’m rejoining the field of professional organizing. I have always gotten great satisfaction from organizing things — I was that kid who was always reorganizing her Barbie clothes and her sticker collection, and now I’m that woman who straightens up the candy while waiting in the grocery store checkout lane!
When did you open the company, and what services do you offer?
I started Organizing Central LLC in May, and the response thus far has been great. I specialize in organizing homes and busy families. I can help with just about any area of your home, such as kitchens and pantries, closets, laundry rooms, mudrooms, kids’ spaces, and home offices. I also offer unpacking services for people who have just moved into a new home to help set up the space in a functional and efficient manner right from the start. I can also help with household routines and systems to manage the paperwork, schedules, and mental clutter that comes along with family life.
What can clients expect when they work with you? Take us through the experience!
First, we’ll schedule an in-home consultation during which we can look at the space to be organized and I can learn more about what is not working in the space. At the end of the consultation, we’ll schedule our organizing sessions. I work in three-hour sessions, and we’ll schedule as many as we think we might need to complete the project. On the day of the session, first we’ll work together on decluttering the area. We’ll take everything out and sort into categories using my “DEAL With It” decluttering strategy: Donate, Eliminate, Archive, and Live With It. The items in the “Live With It” pile are then categorized and organized into a workable system. I’ll check in a couple of weeks after our work is complete to see how things are working, and clients are welcome to contact me anytime with questions as well.
Tell me what a day in the life of a professional organizer looks like.
Each day can look a little different depending on whether I am doing client work that day or working in my home office on the administrative side of the business such as answering emails, website maintenance, social media, etc. My client sessions are typically three hours long, and depending on the size of the project we may do two sessions in a day with a break in between. I also leave time on my calendar for free in-home consultations with new potential clients.
How do you work with each client to determine how to organize their space?
We will spend some time during the initial consultation and then again in at the beginning of the first organizing session assessing the space and what the issues are. I’ll ask a lot of questions of the client to determine how she uses the space in her day-to-day life and what’s not working. For example, for a closet organization, I might ask the client how she gets dressed in the morning. Does she wear the same type of clothes each day or does she have a separate work wardrobe? Does her mind tend to group things into outfits or does she pick out one shirt and one pair of pants separately? Organizing a person’s clothes into rainbow color order will look very pretty, but it’s not going to be a workable system for them if they aren’t a visual person who stands at their closet door in the morning and says “Today I’d like to wear a blue shirt.” So the key is to really get to know the client and organize a system for her and the way she thinks, not how I or someone else thinks it should be.
Let’s face it – a lot of us have way too much stuff. What do you say to someone who feels overwhelmed by their possessions, unsure where to start?
The mantra I teach my clients who have a hard time letting go is to “Bless and Release” your possessions that are no longer serving you. The problem many people encounter getting rid of their stuff is that it’s not just “stuff” to them. For example, if you receive a gift that isn’t your particular style, you might hang on to it for years out of guilt because the gift giver is someone important to you. If you find a way to honor the person and the happy memories that the unwanted gift represents, it’s easier to let it go so that someone else can enjoy it. This is where a Professional Organizer can really be a useful partner. It’s like having a “Clutter Coach” to walk you through the process of honoring what the item has represented in your life so you then feel as though you can release the item itself while hanging on to that feeling of joy that it once brought you. I encourage clients to take photos of items they have a hard time letting go of so they can hang on to that memory without needing the physical object.
What do you wish more people knew about what you do?
When I mention I’m a Professional Organizer, some people think I provide home cleaning services. Your home will definitely be cleaner at the end of the process, but professional organizing is different in a couple of important ways. Typically a cleaning service will arrive when you’re not at home to clean, and then come back on a regular basis to repeat the process. As a Professional Organizer, we will do some cleaning that is incidental to the organizing process, such as wiping down the pantry shelves, but our goal is to create a system that you can maintain on your own so repeat visits for the same area are infrequent or not needed at all. Another difference is that instead of working alone as a cleaning person would, I work with the client for a good portion of the project so we can make sure the system we’re setting up will work for them after I’m gone.
Also, some people are nervous to contact an organizer out of fear of being judged. Inviting someone into your home to sort through your clutter is a very intimate experience. I’m a member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO), and I abide by the NAPO Code of Ethics. Two of the key tenets are to provide non-judgmental services and to protect client confidentiality at all times. Although I encourage referrals and positive Google reviews if a client is comfortable sharing, I will never reveal who my clients are or the details of the work we’ve done together.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
The most challenging part of the job can be the physical aspect on certain projects. Most jobs are typical rearranging and sorting items, but sometimes I find myself moving heavy shelving, lifting huge objects, etc. It’s definitely motivated me to step up my fitness game!
How about the most satisfying thing? Or, at the end of the day, what makes you proud of what you do?
I love to get emails from clients a few weeks after we’ve worked together saying how wonderfully the newly organized space is working for them. And once after a project organizing a kids’ space, the little girl hugged me and said “Thank you for finding my toys!” Now that’s a great day at work!
At the end of the day, what do you want customers to feel when you’ve finished a project with them?
After we have finished a project, I want the client to energized, as though a weight has been lifted. Sometimes we don’t realize the amount of friction and negative energy our clutter is bringing to our everyday lives, and it can be a great relief when the clutter is gone. I also want them to feel empowered to maintain the organizational system on their own. And hopefully, we’ve built a last relationship where they feel they can call or email me in the future with their organizing questions or just to chat!
Connect with Melissa Sullivan and Organizing Central, LLC:
- By phone: (715) 446-0762
- Email: [email protected]
- Online at Organizing-central.com
