Did you know the average American loses one year of their life searching for lost items?

Do you need a professional home organizer to declutter your life?   

Consider these questions: The laundry basket is overflowing with dirty clothes – problem is it’s not the only one?  Is the temporary home office still in the dining room from Covid? Too much stuff but you want less stuff?  Family members don’t visit as much due to the mess? 

If those issues haven’t been a call to action just yet, per the National Association of Professional Organizers you're probably not alone – don’t give yourself a hard time.

It's true, per NAPO, we're wasting a year of time!  NAPO also states all that clutter is proven to increase stress and depression.

The decluttering process may seem like a daunting task, but there’s good news.  For starters, per NAPO, you can save 55 minutes a day when your space is organized be it a tidy office or a tidy home, or both under one roof. Your mental health will improve. 

Last year is gone. It’s a New Year. This can be your year for an organized home and Andrea can help.

 Andrea shares 5 takeaways from this episode of Close The Deal. Com: 

1. Why she became a professional organizer
2. How she got started as an entrepreneur
3. Some of the unique challenges of being an entrepreneur in this field
4. How she has grown her organizing business
5. How  she landed national PR for her organizing  business starting with the Washington Post

Connect with Andrea:

https://www.dexterousorganizing.com/

Linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-hancock-608a8420/

Did you know only 30% of closet space is used efficiently per Home Edit?   

10 Practical Tips to Organize Your Home

1.  Declutter as you go. Make that your new habit. Items you no longer need or use, let them go.

2.  Schedule a deeper dive. Do that every two weeks perhaps or once a month.  Purge again to prevent clutter from accumulating.

3.  Clean your closets first. Start in one of your favorite rooms that you spend a lot of time in. Start with the closet. Clean it out from top to bottom.  If there’s a second closet, do the same. Use all the "new" extra space and start to declutter the whole room. Enjoy your clean room.

Use that for motivation and move on to the next closet in the next room.  Celebrate one entire room at a time.  Appreciate the small wins. Before you know it

you will have done the entire home. 

4.   Find a place for high-use items.  Be it on a shelf, in a closet, on a table, or kitchen counter, assign designated locations for high-use items so you no longer have to hunt for them. Make them easy to access. 

5.  Find a place for low-use items. Do the same as above putting those items in a less accessible location. 

(Make a special note to where special items or important items are stored – sometimes we can hide them from ourselves creating a new problem)

6.  Develop Your own storage system. Create your own system using containers, clears bins, or baskets. Visit your local container store for ideas.

Get a label maker creating labels for each bin. An easy way to keep items organized in bins and draws is with rubber bands or zip lock bags. Designate shelves or

drawers for certain items only. (you will spend less time at the end of the day hunting in a draw if all items belong to a certain family of items; i.e. a socks only drawer) 

 7.  Use unused Vertical space. Make better use of unused space to get items off the floor. Install shelves, and use hooks.

8.  Find new space. – Use under bed organizers, over door organizers, lazy susans in the kitchen, find the knock and crannies and put them to use.

9.  Have a no duplicates policy. Keep only what you need and use (especially helps in the kitchen, bathroom, and linen closets (how many out-of-date medicine bottles and worn-out towels do we need:))

10. Consider seasonal items. (i.e. holiday decorations, winter clothes vs summer, etc) Find storage areas you can dedicate to swapping out containers or bins as seasons change.

11. Evaluate and repeat. What’s working? Keep doing it. What’s not…start the process over for that room or closet. Repeat. 

Side note: An organized home helps you sell your home for more and faster.

Did you know an organized home may sell for up to 6% more than a cluttered home according to StagedHomes.com

Show Notes with Andrea Hancock

[00:00:00] Andrea: As I got into it, I realized it's not about the stuff as much as it is about the person.  seeing the same things over and over and over and over, and everyone thinks they're so much different. Oh, this is the worst you've ever seen. I know. I haven't seen this problem before and I'm like, actually.

Ewell: That is Andrea Hancock. She is the CEO of Dexterous Organizing in one of the busiest cities in the United States. What she's talking about is what she sees when she goes into a house and the house is in disarray. Maybe it's just one room, and her job is to organize that space or that entire.

Now, if that's you, this episode is a hundred percent for you. I can relate to it to a degree. Covid blew up my home bringing two offices into the house. 

[00:01:00] So you're listening to the Close The Deal.com Podcast. 

I'm your host, Ewell Smith. Now what you're gonna realize, listening to this show, it's not just about organizing a space that's in chaos. No, it's much more about the personalities. And Andrea learned that real fast after she got into the business in 2012, and she's got a very successful business today.

But she's much as a psychologist as she is anything else? Helping professionals, very busy professionals, get their lives in order. She's been written up in the Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, and Huffington Post. She's also gonna share how she got this business going, how she networked, how she got the word out, and how it grows today.

And she's got a new book she's gonna tell you about as well. So let's welcome Andrea to the show. 

 Andrea, I wanna welcome you to the close the deal.com podcast. Where are you based out of?

I am based out of Alexandria, Virginia, [00:02:00] which for those who may not be familiar, is in the Washington DC metro area

[00:02:05] Ewell: You're right on the edge. I've, I've been,

yes. I, I've walked the hill in DC maybe 15 years in total, two or three times a year. Stayed in Alexandria quite a few times. I came from the association world, so that's the association capital probably of the world. So I spent a lot of time up there meeting our congressional members.

Andrea reveals what trait she's grateful for that's helped her survive and thrive

Ewell: We'll leave that conversation for another day. We’s go sideways with that. Before we get started, what are you grateful for today that maybe helped you get you where you are?

It could be from the past too.

Andrea: Yeah. Well, a lot of people ask, I, you know, I've been in business for about 12 years, and they're like, oh, wow. Well, what does that take? And I often reply stubbornness,

Ewell: Mm-hmm.

The value of stubbornness

[00:03:00]Andrea: So, you know, we often think of stubbornness as a negative trait,  but sometimes stubbornness helps when you're doing something positive.

Ewell: Mm-hmm.

Andrea: when things get hard, I think about my clients and I think about, you know, my, well

Ewell : being

mm-hmm.

[00:03:15] Andrea: and, and where I was when I was working corporate and how I wasn't fulfilled. So that stubbornness leads to success. I'm grateful for that trait that could sometimes be negative, but we'll

Ewell: Did that come from your mom? Did that come from your mom or was that something unique that were you the unique one in the family that was stubborn?

Andrea: Oh, that is definitely not unique in my family and I am definitely gonna say it comes from my dad's side.

Ewell: Okay. There you go. There's another word for it we call tenacity, right?

Andrea: Yes. Grit. 

Ewell: So share a little bit about your background. You just mentioned you started in a corporate world in fact it kind of, you know, how did you get to where the businesses you're in today, and we'll talk about your business. I'm gonna ask that question when we come to that break. What is the problem that you solve?

Andrea reveals why she left the corporate world

But how did you get into it, you made a transition from the corporate world to. Entrepreneurship. Why? Why do you do that?

[00:04:17] Andrea: I think some of them have certain traits that, for us, is just like, it's like fun. It's like our creative outlet. You know, sometimes artists take a lump of clay and it becomes a vase or it becomes a bowl and they're my hands, you know, and my artistic ability did that.

And for me, it must have been something. Maybe within a family member. I never met someone in the past who may have had the entrepreneurial gene or the bug, but, it was so interesting In high school, the superlatives, I was not voted most likely to. Succeed, but I was voted most likely to be a business owner,, which I didn't even think existed.

There was something along that lines, and I think it was because we did have a, we had a, a business school side to our High school and I took accounting, and then I went in college and I took accounting. And that is where I was, and when I say corporate, I mean, you know, I think desk job, but you mentioned being in, in the DC area, a lot of associations. It's also a lot of non-profits,

[00:05:30] Ewell: that's.

Andrea: And so I, worked in the non-profit world for about seven years in the. , side andI loved accounting. but I think when we go back to what, what word did you use? Tenacity

Ewell: It's Yes.

Andrea: I didn't like, office politics.

[00:06:00] And I didn't like, you know, the hierarchy. 

You know, and there has to be some hierarchy for, for control, and I get that, but I feel like, uh, I felt that, I'm an intelligent person why are my ideas not valid? Because I don't have this title, I don't have that position. So, that was one kind of thing that pushed me further into wanting to own my own business. 

Discovering a new world of knowledge 

And then along the way I did join some, you know, multi-level mar marketing businesses. I think like the majority of those who make a little money, but we gain a lot of knowledge and some of them, it's in particular, push you to read certain publications and books. and some of them I can remember.

Think and Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People just to mention a few just really change my perspective.

[00:06:59] Ewell S: [00:07:00] Hmm.

[00:07:00] Andrea: I think it's really fueled that tenacity that I've had in business. I think if my mind wasn't conditioned to, I mean, kind of get out of employee mindset. To entrepreneurship mindset.

I wouldn't have gone this far with this.

What Andrea learned from network marketing

Ewell: Well, you notice an interesting bridge with the network marketing. I think a lot of people do that and a lot of times a lot of people are exposed to those types of books through network marketing for the first time, they don't, they don't see that side.  I'm one of those people along with you, and that's where I got the bug for speaking in front of a group of people.

I'm like, oh, this is fun,. You know? So, and then of course all the motivational speaking that goes with it, and it's all about mindset. All, all the books you just talked about the tie in the mindset. I started this podcast under a different name called Absolutely Mindset and describe that as your through line from start to success to significance.

[00:08:00] And I think that an entrepreneur's journey takes you through the life cycle of success. And then there's a level of significance. Sometimes you don't feel significant. I think when you get caught up in a corporate hierarchy, you're a cog in the. You get the significance of doing work that you can impact people's lives and help people.

So what I want to do, let's talk about the mindset a little bit For you, what does it mean for you? Because you had to make a shift, right? You had to make that jump. What, what? What was the moment that said, okay, enough's enough? , I've done this corporate thing, or I've done working for someone else with a nonprofit. What was it that said, okay, I'm gonna make the jump? And did you do it part-time, uh, on the side, and then make the jump? How did, what did that transition look for you?

[00:09:00] Andrea: It was a bit gradual and then there was a big jump so,I started my business in 2010, and then I was still working my, day job.

Ewell: Okay.

Andrea: And,, because they were a nonprofit, they, they offered benefits other than high pay.

Ewell: All the things they try to lock in with. Yes.

Andrea: Yes, I was able to, request, an alternate schedule and so I had, I think every Tuesday off.

And so I would, I had joined an association of people in my industry and I would do some contracting with them on those Tuesdays, and I would do, and then have my own clients or work with subcontracting on the weekends. 

Ewell So you identified…let's talk about the problem. You identified a problem in the marketplace and you started doing that on the side. Is that what you did on the side?

Andrea: Yes, I did it on

Ewell: That led you to where you are today. All right. So what was, so we're gonna get to, what we'll do is, well, we'll address that problem before the break, and then we'll come back and unpack it a little bit, how you've grown the business and market the business and.

[00:10:00] Andrea: Okay.

Andrea landed on the 2nd problem she could help solve

Ewell: What is the problem that you said, you know, that's the area I can help people and, and, and it gave you the flexibility, which is interesting to be able to do it on the side, which is kind of cool. And you didn't just have to make a cold break.

Andrea: Well, there were kind of two problems for me.  I mentioned I had the entrepreneurial. But I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I did know I didn't wanna do accounting. It was something I loved to do, but I just didn't have the passion for it. I knew it wouldn't be something that I would enjoy doing as a business and… 

Ewell: but then you, then you saw something in the marketplace. How, what did you do, was it a process or you tried a few things and then landed on what you're doing, which you're getting ready to share in a minute? Or was it the first you went to.

Ewell: No, it definitely wasn't the first thing I, I had a little composition notebook that I kept my business ideas in, and my first idea was a concierge service.[ I noticed there were a lot of busy people. I was a busy person when I worked sitting at my desk from nine to five.

There were a lot of things I wanted to get done that I couldn't do. And then the other thing was that the draw for me along with entrepreneurship was having a flexible schedule.

Hmm.

[00:11:18] Andrea: And so I saw if I started a concierge business, I wouldn't have just one boss. I would have a lot of bosses.

Ewell: Okay.

Andrea: To with and, and not so much.

And still, with any business, you have a lot of bosses with your clients, but that was using my time too. You know, to be kind of at their bidding. So I saw the foresight in that and I said, Hmm, I don't know if I wanna do that. I do wanna help people though. And so I was watching a television show, called Clean House and, there was a professional organizer, Linda Cooper Smith is her.

[00:12:00] One day, maybe I'll meet her. But, I didn't know there was a such thing as a professional organizer. So there were several. Team members in this show. There was the host Niecy Nash, and she would dazzle everybody and help the homeowners,, and make the show entertaining.

Then there was the yard sale guy, and then there was the interior designer. So they would basically take a few rooms, clear, clear the clutter, and sell the clutter. Redo the room and the professional organizer would organize and make it functional. So I looked it up and I saw,, the National Association talking about associations of professional organizers and now we're producing and organizing professionals.

[00:13:00] And I joined it and it just clicked it. I'm helping people,, I'm helping in my mind, people. Don't have a lot of time, perhaps,, or they struggle with a skill set. And I, you know, I, it just, I don't know. I, I was just drawn to it immediately and I guess the rest is history.

Ewell: Yeah, and you're in a marketplace where people run. Almost seems twice as fast in than a lot of other cities. DC is just so fast-moving, it's a bubble in and of itself when the rest of the economy is not doing so well. Even DC just keeps going a hundred miles an hour. And you saw it from the inside out. 

How Andrea bootstrapped Dextrous Organizing

Andrea: I did. , because I actually started when I, so going back to the story of 2010. Building my business in 20, the end of 2010. I had it up to my eyebrows with my job. And I remember leaving a meeting from my, supervisor's boss, I mean my supervisor's office, and calling my husband on the phone immediately and I was like, I gotta, I gotta get outta here.

[00:14:00] I'm just, I'm just gonna start saving. A whole paycheck a month until I have this much in the bank, and then I'll have this much for, you know, and, and I pretty much did that. , I went back full time briefly so that I could have my full pay. , I started saving money aggressively and by February 2011, I quit my job and I jumped into this.

But if anybody remembers 2011, we were in a recession.

Ewell: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

Andrea: So it was, it was you. Probably the, if, you know, looking at the best time to open a service business, especially one that, people really don't need to save their lives. , it might not have been the best move, but like you mentioned, DC has been usually sheltered a bit during the recession because of the government and a lot of the stable,  corporations here.

So it wasn't as horrible as it was in other parts of the country. So I was still able to,  make some go of it.

[00:15:00] Ewell: That's the problem you're solving. You're helping folks get organized, keep their lives, and I know you do some other things as well. We'll take a break right here, and when we come back, we're gonna let, I'll let you talk about some of the other services that you do, and then we gonna talk about the marketing and how do you get the word out for your business?

How did you grow your business? , hold on one second, Andrea, and we'll be right back. 

Ewell: If you're frustrated by the amount of leads you're getting online, meaning not enough, well, there's an unbeatable way for you to sell more. We use the CTD Story Sales Sequence to do that very thing working with entrepreneurs like you. Check it out on closethedeal.com. Really easy to find. That's the name of the podcast.

And now let's get back to the show.

Ewell: Andrea, welcome back to the closethedeal.com podcast. Let's pick up on your business, talk a little bit about sort of the services.

[00:16:00] That you, how you solve that problem. Busy people. I mean, in DC they're the busiest people. Every time I'm up there, it's like, I feel like my, my pulse is going a little bit faster. So talk about how do you help these folks? What do you do for them and how do you just, how do you separate yourself from, from other people in the marketplace perhaps?

And then we'll get into the marketing.

Andrea: Okay. So,  I'll start by saying when I first started professional organizing, , I didn't realize that there were so many different tracks and veins or niches that you can get into.

Ewell: Mm-hmm.

Andrea finds her market - and discovers ...

Andrea: I found that I love working with busy professional, especially women. , when I would work with them one on one, there was just a synergy, an understanding,  and it was just a little bit more fun, lot of my clients.

Wonderful sense of humor. I don't know how I, I mean, I have a great sense of humor, so maybe it's just the attraction of like, you know, birds of a Feather. , so it was just fun working with them and because I was helping them do something they, they hated and made it fun it was even a better fit and they just, you know, there was something about it and they just loved working with me.

[00:17:10] Ewell: Mm. 

Andrea: But, there were things I started to that kind of bothered me in, in the professional organizing world. One is there were two camps of people who hired a professional organizer. Those who were somewhat organized and they just didn't have the time and they wanted it done in a way they knew would be functional and maybe their cleaning service or some other service just didn't really, they would put it away and it was neat, but it was like, this doesn't make any sense. 

I don't know where to find this or that and then there's other kind of side where. A person cannot organize for some challenge.

[00:18:00] It could be, physically they were unable. They broke a leg and they moved and they couldn't put, put their stuff away or there were challenges where what we could now say neurodivergent they're in, in the neuro, they had a neuro divergency. And what that entails is someone who may have ADHD,  someone who may have, anxiety or depression.

And usually, when you have ADHD, there's a combination of that. Someone who may have maybe on the autism scale or have some other, learning. Challenge, where it affects their executive function in some way. And so, a lot of these people, very intelligent individuals, and they do so much good in their careers they could literally be brain surgeons.

I've worked with  a couple of people, and, uh, you know, who are in those types of careers and they're just, I can't figure out how to put systems in my own home. Something's wrong with me. Or they feel shame and guilt around that. And so,

[00:19:05] Ewell S: Do they sit there and stare at the pile of papers and just say, oh, the pile closed. They're like, what do I.

Andrea: Absolutely.

Ewell: I can relate to that

Andrea: Okay, Yep.

Ewell: The clothes, I can handle. The papers, not so much.

Andrea: Yeah, I, I mean that was, that's one thing, a lot of times and, or sometimes people will say, if you just put the system in place for me, I can follow it. I just don't know how to put the system in place. , and so, I started doing a lot more, blogging and,  little things to kind of address the things I was I was hearing.

Ewell: Mm-hmm.

Andrea invested in herself to help the business

[00:20:00] Andrea: and so I even started, , Educating myself in coaching. , and there's a specific vein of organizing coaching that I was, learning. I never got the designation of COC, which is Certified Organizer Coach, but I did take all of the foundational courses and that really opened my mind to the fact that organizing is a skill that most people have.

Can learn. But what a lot of people are doing, and I even say a lot of people in our industry are already naturally organized people and they may not have a neuro divergency. So a task they're not. They're a task like folding the laundry or putting, knowing where to put the laundry, uh, or knowing how to file your papers is not a big deal for them.

They have the executive functioning, they have the way to figure those things out. And so it's kind of like someone who naturally knows how to play an instrument and has been maybe in the music industry for years. teaching someone who is just wanting to play the violin for the first time.

[00:21:00] And some people are good at transferring those skills and some people are just like, they can't remember what it was like to be the beginning. So,  I really wanted to be more on the camp of helping people understand that. These tips and tricks and books. Cuz I mean, we're in clients' homes and we see all the organizing books.

They've attempted to do this, it's kind of like just going into a, a clothing store and pulling off a piece of a t-shirt without looking at the size and then taking it home and getting like, it doesn't fit. I'm a horrible person.

Ewell: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

Andrea: mean, it's the same thing. It's like taking this tip. And it is just not the way you think.

Shame and guilt play a role for her clients

[00:22:00] It's not the way you organize it's and then trying to fit it on you, and then feeling shame and guilt because it's not working. So, in between and talking about the mindset it's hard to actually get past a challenge when there's shame and guilt in front of you. So with mindset, we have to really sometimes overcome those things and help that first.

Ewell: So you're as much a psychologist, almost

Andrea: and, you 

Ewell: a, in a lot of ways.

Andrea: and that's where I was going like. Most organizers start, I think, and I can't say every, but this is how I started thinking that organizing is about the stuff. It's about bins and labels and, you know, pretty organizing systems. And 

Ewell : Yes, and you know, I've been there, I could see the expression on the person's face because like, we'll hire a service person to come into our house. And the house can be a mess. Especially since Covid, because I started working out of the house. My wife brought her office from her non-profit into the house and our house blew up and I was like, oh my God.

[00:23:00] Letting people in the house. And it does, it's, it's psychologically, I'm like, I guess that really is a shame. . You feel ashamed cuz my house was neat and now it, it blew up. So I put the pieces back together. I never really thought of it that way. That's very.

Andrea: And on top of it, thinking about a professional organizer who obviously your life is perfect, coming and looking at my mess,

Ewell: Right? Yeah. And then you compound it with, if it's one person, it's one thing, right? But then you got two people living in a house, or when you got the family, the kids everything else. That gets even more complicated.

Andrea: Oh, absolutely.

Ewell: Cause are you ever, are you ever challenged by the. Your client to say, okay, this is the stuff we need to get.

Andrea mediates between spouses

We need to get rid of so much stuff. But then a spouse says, Uhuh, we're not getting rid of that. That was my granddaddy's.

[00:24:00] Andrea: All the time

Ewell: Yeah.

Andrea: or very often, I should say, very often, , yeah, you can have a person who's a saver with a person who is a minimalist obviously I, you know, and where I'm reaching for is it's not necessarily anything wrong with either until it inhibits, you know, your quality of life or your ability to, to find things when you need it.

Ewell: And that could, I bet you, you see creates a lot of friction in some relationships,

Andrea:  Absolutely and sometimes we get caught in the middle. You mentioned earlier, so people think we're psychologists or therapists, and so they're talking to us, you know, well, she doesn't do blah, blah, blah. This is his. And I don't think that of a...

Ewell: Oh Lord. There you're, and they want you, and they're wanting you to pick sides probably

Andrea: Oh, absolutely.

[00:25:00] Ewell: okay, we'll come back to the business in a sec, but how do you navigate that? How do you, that's that's a tough spot to find yourself in. How do you walk that path?

 Andrea: We focus,

Ewell Smith: on focus on, focused on something,

Andrea: on the goal

Ewell: Okay.

Andrea: and listening. Cause sometimes it's people who just wanna be heard. They feel like their spouse isn't listening to them. And so someone else, and you, you can just say, oh wow. , that's an interesting perspective. Oh, I understand. Or you laugh, you know, I bring humor to it, we'll laugh it off.

Or, you know, I try to make it light. I try not to bring any shame or guilt to any side. , and just getting to the root of it. So why am I here is the issue and, 

Ewell : in for a reason That's. 

Andrea: assure people I'm here to help

Andrea talks about her first client

[00:26:00]  Ewell: So tell me about the business today. What does that look like for you? I'll look at your website. You cover pretty, uh, it looks like you cover the DC area pretty well., how did you get started? How did you find your first client? And then how did you start to grow that business? Give us a snapshot of what the business is today, and then, you can tell us how you grew it.

Andrea: Yeah. , I first started, of course, a lot of us start with family and friends. , just kind of announcing, Hey, I'm starting this new business. , would you be interested in my services? 

And then you get some before and after and then you start putting it on the website and then you find a service provider, places where people are looking for these specific services. I will never forget, what I call my stranger first, stranger client. It wasn't a referral from a friend. It wasn't a friend or family member. I had no idea who this lady was. She was super far from my house. But when I, and I first walked into her home, she told me she only had one room that needed organizing.

But when I first walked into the house, It was really the whole house needed organizing and I was very green. I didn't know how to distinguish a lot of clutter from hoarding. So at first, I was like, oh my goodness, this lady might be a hoarder. I quickly realized that she was not a hoarder.

Hoarding is the inability of psychological disorders to be able to distinguish. What's valuable and get rid of things.  What happened to her? She was divorced, a

Ewell: Mm-hmm.

Andrea: She moved from the house to a two-bedroom condo, split level. She was renting, and she was a manager or, or executive at a large company.

But, I don't know why she did this. I suspect it was to fill her time because of the divorce, but she would also work part-time jobs on the weekends. And because her schedule was so full and she didn't downsize correctly, It caused some issues. 

[00:28:00] So, I suspect too, it was, she was used to living in a two-income household and now she's down to a one-income household.

That might have been it, but her goal was to take that one, one of the guest rooms to a room that she could rent out.

Ewell: how did she find you since 

Andrea: quite honestly, I don't remember. I wanna say, I might have listed myself on a, like, Professional Organizer's listing site or something like that. This was literally 12 years ago. So, well, you know what, like 10 years ago, so I don't remember.

How Andrea markets her business

Ewell: So how do you market the business today? Cuz you've, you've grown to such a large footprint and you have a team of people working with you too now.

How many, and how big is your team?

Andrea:  we have right now four employees and from time to time we use subcontractors, uh, when we, when it's time-sensitive and we need that set of hands. So, a lot of it was a lot of networking. , a lot of, , changing my [00:29:00] website, finding out really who my target market is.  We, I mentioned before how reading was great for my mindset.

I did a lot of research on marketing, and I think, you know, if you think about websites 10 years ago, the main focus was the person, the person was about so and so, and that was what we found out marketing was about the person's problem you're solving. And so I, in 2014, I. Changing that. 

And I talked, I made little avatars of who my favorite clients were and I put that on the website., and I remember that's when things really started taking off. , people would actually,  mention, I read your website and you were talking about me  so I knew I had to work with you.

Ewell: did you promote the website? Did you, or was it ar? Was it organic?

[00:30:00]  Andrea: I think a lot of it was organic through Google, cuz Google was kind of, you know growing along the way and making them. Site known. And then social media was starting to get bigger, for businesses. , there were a lot of places you could list your business. , right now there are a few that come to mind, like Home Advisor, which used to be Service Magic.

 Angie's Lists, Yelp. Thumbtack right now is another one. , and those sites, , some of them, either the client pays for the lead or you pay for the lead, uh, the business pays for the lead. And those sites really are big SEO engines, right? So if a person is looking for something, then it drives them to that site and then they connect.

The, or the person looking for the service to the service provider so those were some, and then right now it's a lot. We have, we have probably repeat business and, you know, new business that drives and then referrals.

[00:31:03] Ewell: So referrals, 

Andrea: referrals, Mm-hmm.

Ewell: Do you do any paid marketing? Right. or paid, uh, ads or of any kind, or is it you've built the business to that point where it's all primary word of mouth.

Andrea: I wouldn't say primarily, but it's a lot of word of mouth, and those actually are the best clients because again, birds of a feather. So if we did a good job for their friend and they understand what they're looking for, then we're. , do a good job for, the referral because, they have a similar situation and they don't, there's a lot of vetting that doesn't happen, you know, doesn't have, don't have to do a lot of selling

Ewell: Right. So that leads me to, your book,

Andrea's first book

talk about your book. And is that, is that, is this Journey helping craft that book?

[00:32:00] Andrea: Yeah. So I also, I will add to the growing my business. , There were books and there are also coaches. So I met my current business coach at what her event, a viral networking event last November. , and I started coaching her. And so she going, knowing that I'm wanting to go more onto the, like, the thought leadership or the content and coaching side of things says, Hey, you need a.

Ewell S: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. 

Andrea: and so I love networking, and that's one of the reasons why I went to her, uh, conference. But,  I am one of, uh, several co-authors in the book, this book, viral Networking for Drastic Results, Strategies to Get Known, get connected, and get paid. And so, It's very interview style. , she asks several questions about like how networking has benefited my business and why it's important to me, and how we go about networking, and she asks, you know, several of us who have, uh, also. 

[00:33:00] Have several successful businesses and I've just been enjoying reading it too because you know of course, I knew what my story was about to read all my colleague's stories is great. , and just really understanding what networking is. I think some people, and they start off in business, they think it's standing in the room.

With a glass of wine throwing out your business card and collect a lot of business cards that then sit on your desk. And the reason why I know that is that we work with busy people and that's where, there's a, there's a well of cards on their desks that they don't know what to do with.

But really understanding what networking is, and building relationships. and in a business like mine, 

Ewell: It's all relationships. Yes. And you know, I go back to your, roots. So you shifted gears cuz you were an. So that's a, that's one side of the brain. And you get to the creative piece of creating a business, and then now you're tasked with marketing and building relationships. And you intentionally found mentors, mentorship to help you through that process.

Andrea's expertise at trade associations paid off

[00:34:00] But there's also a piece that comes at, I think, helped you along that way, and that's by the fact that you worked with the trade association and you started. By finding an organization that could help you. And so many people overlook that. I come from trade association with leading trade associations, and there's such a wealth of information and just a natural network without even having to go find people.

They're already there at the conference when you go to the conference. And that's why people, and even if you go back to your days when you were network marketing, I put that in air quotes, so people listening, It's about going to meetings and meeting people all about.

Andrea: Exactly. I was, I was trained.

[00:35:00] Ewell: Yeah. So you were trained by network marketing and you were trained by working for a non-profit association. So if you had to say from the book, what is one of the key takeaways that you would suggest to people? who might be looking at starting their own business and doing the same thing, that same type of work or similar type of work. That, or it may be something totally different than what you would suggest to them.

Andrea: I would say know your objective when you're networking, who do you wanna?  But also realizing that networking is about building relationships, as I mentioned, and finding, people who you know, like, and trust. and if you are in a business like mine, where sometimes people ask, Hey, do you know, uh, blank blank fill in the blank?

 It's imperative that you find someone that you can introduce to them. Actually will deliver because if you don't, it looks bad on you as well. 

So, networking has been twofold for me. Not just,, finding businesses, but finding,, professionals that can help my client and their problems. Cuz you know, we've organized the paper, now you realize you gotta do your taxes from two years ago.

I know. A tax professional, let's not, you don't have to worry about that. Let's solve that problem too. So having, a strategy, having a why, and then knowing that it's about building relationships. So it's after the networking event, getting in one to one, having a coffee, having a Zoom.

A zoom has made it so much easier to have those one-to-ones. , and getting to know a person, not only what they are. But you know, what other little things that you might connect with them on? Oh, oh, my dog goes to that groomer and then keeping good notes and records about who you're talking to, checking up and following up with them, seeing what's going on and then ultimately also figuring out how can you help them,

Because if someone's gonna refer you, referred them to someone else, or you've helped them with a problem, more than likely they're gonna remember you.

How Andrea got her press - a common theme

[00:37:00] Ewell: Absolutely. One more thing. You've got some good press too. I was looking at your site. I mean, you've got some great press, as a matter of fact. Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Huffington Post to name a few. How did you find that or did they find you or is that, was that intentional, or is that something that just kind of…

Andrea: It was not, it was, it was desired, but never at the, at that time that I got into those things. something that I was going after. Let's go back to networking. 

When that's how I got into the Washington Post. I was in a group kinda like a mastermind group for women entre. and then we would break that large metro DC area group into little neighborhood groups that we would meet.

 [00:38:00] Monthly I believe. And someone knew someone of a journalist who was writing a story on people who help or service provider. And not just service providers, I would say therapists, counselors, coaches. , and I fell into that professional organizer who do a service that helps change people's lives.

And so virtually, I, she had me meet with a person who had a challenge. , I would pretty much coach them or give them advice from afar. They would implement that advice. And then she wrote a story on the challenge, the advice, and the outcome. And that ran in the Washington Post. 

Ewell: Pretty good. 

Andrea: yeah, and I 

Ewell: A lot of people work hard to get a lot of trade associations to work really hard to get written up.

Andrea: Oh, I, I know the cost of pr and I think, and this is a little secret. Once you're in a publication like the Washington Post journalists don't feel like they need to vet you as hard, and so you kind of get, you know, a request again to, uh, you know, give a tip or something later.

[00:39:00] Ewell: That is so true. You get in the Washington Post or the New York Times, and great media begets more media. That's so true. Well, I wanna thank you for your time. This has been fantastic. Where can people find you, where, especially if they're in the DC market, where, how do they find you?

How do they get in touch with you?

Andrea: Yeah, so 

Ewell: too?

Andrea: Our website, has ways to, you know, have a discovery call with us.  We are co-branding to also the Dexterous Lifestyle. That will be our group coaching and consulting, side of the business. Big awareness is coming out that, there is a connection between being organized and your mental health. And I think the pandemic really helped emphasize that. I think people were able to escape

their disorganization for they go to work, they go to the bar, they go, you know, out. 

[00:40:00] And now they were stuck and it was like this vicious. Like, I'm depressed and my environment is depressing me, and now I'm more depressed than they we're trying to get out of it. So go to our website, DexterousOrganizing.com and all of that information should be there.

[00:40:18] Ewell: And I'll include the links in the show notes. So when people cgo to the closethedeal.com site, they can find your story and your site's beautiful. People check out her site. And I wanna thank you that, Andrea, this has been fantastic.

Been fun. Let's stay in touch cause uh, I think this will be a great follow-up to see where you are another year or two cuz it sounds like you've got a vision for where you're going so I'm excited for you.

Andrea: Yeah, thank you. I definitely follow up. I would love to see where I am in a year or two too.

Ewell: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

[00:41:00]  And that is a wrap with Andrea. Wow. What a wonderful lady. I love that conversation. I love her tenacity, her grit, and as she says her stubbornness, Um, look at the beginning of the show. I mentioned Our house had blown up, bringing my wife's office into the house, my office, into the house thanks to Covid, and finally getting some of our space back organized.

And my sanity is, uh, sanity. Improved and also my productivity has improved. So there's a lot of merit and a lot of value to what she does. Check out her website, dexterousorganizing.com, and she can be a resource to you. And if she, if you're not in the DC area, she can probably help you find somebody in your area that does what she does, dexterous organizing.com.

 So I want to thank you as usual as we grow this podcast. And again, I wanna ask you a favor, make this intentional for yourself and make this a great day. We'll see you at the next episode. Bye.