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How can I leverage this strength?

Itsmeantonios

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One of my major strengths (at least I think so!) is my attention to detail and inability to cope with an untidy living space. I apologize for the long thread but I wanted to try to paint a picture as best I could.

For example, a few years ago I was dating this girl. She was incredibly untidy. Her apartment was so bad that every time I was at her place I would feel physically uncomfortable. I'm talkin' clothes EVERYWHERE (She was a manager at a fashion store and thus had a mind boggling amount of clothes), kitchen a disaster, things strewn about all over the living room and bedroom. She had bought these 2 shelves from IKEA but they sat un-assembled in her livingroom for weeks. Her apartment was extremely unkept, but she worked so much that she didn't have time to clean it up. The mess clearly didn't bother her, otherwise she would have cleaned it up, however it was absolutely unbearable to me. I could not be at her place without cleaning something up.

One day while she was at work, I tidied up and cleaned her entire apartment top to bottom, built both of those shelves and populated them, put things away, cleaned up the kitchen, put all of her clothes that were laying around into a huge pile in the bedroom. She had 2 cats, and this pretty nice big floor rug, which had cat hair basically embedded throughout. To illustrate my compulsion I used her cat-brush which was like these fairly fine wire brushes designed for pulling hair out of your cat and keeping it in the brush, to literally brush her entire rug while vacuuming it at the same time, several times over (because that's how much it took to get the hair out) until it was literally a different colour when I was finished. The colour it was intended to be!

When she got home from work, she was basically mouth agape, like "whoa" but the first thing she said was "but that's not where the shelves are supposed to go."

I was mildly crushed in that moment. My thoughts were basically "Really? That's the first thing you say? That's not where the shelves go? What about "Wow, thank you so much." That was one of the first indications to me that the relationship was likely not going to work out. I could live with her being a messy person, some people just are, and that's the way they are and I am OK with tidying up. But that was kind of a nasty thing to say after how much work I had done. Later that evening I also said hey, you have an ungodly amount of clothes. Maybe we should go through them and sort them into KEEP, DONATE, DISCARD piles and whatever you keep we find a place for. She was onboard with it and it was a nice bonding activity. We threw the discard pile into the dumpster, took the donate pile to goodwill, and found a place for everything that remained. Sadly the relationship didn't work out in the end (for several reasons but mostly because it was long distance and I couldn't afford to keep seeing her)....but I digress.

Another example is much more recent. I'm staying with a friend of mine and to give us both some space, and myself some space to set up my computer workstation etc, I tidied up and cleaned out the entire garage and workshop by myself in 2 days. It's difficult for me to paint a picture for you, but the space was an absolute disaster. He treated the workshop and garage basically as a dumping zone for things he didn't want to bring in the house. It was filled with trash, boxes, clothes, old girlfriends' things, random things that should be at his business' workshop, tools, just....absolutely horrific in my eyes. I even assembled all his old girlfriend's things, called her myself (she's somewhat of a mutual friend) and was like hey, there's all this stuff here, I'll send you a whole bunch of photos and you can tell me what you want to keep and I'll bring it back home (we are all originally from the same town) and give it to your parents next time I go back. She was like whoa, wtf? I left all that stuff there? crazy. Yeah, ok, I'll go through it and let you know.

I use it as my office now, complete with enough space to use my VR headset, with plenty of room to spare.

My buddy had not actually been in the workshop since I tidied it up because he never really has any reason to go in there but he came in the other night and was like whoa...it's so clean in here! I'm just like :cool: yep. You literally could not even see the floor when I started. To go from the entry door to the garage you had to climb and walk over stuff.

Anyway, with the backstory complete, does anyone have any ideas how I can leverage this strength. This... compulsion for tidiness into a business? Cleaning companies already exist, there are several of them set up in this city already. My friend has one come to the house every friday morning. So, just being another cleaning service, I don't know...unless I can set myself apart in some way.

A few years ago I tried to turn this compulsion into a side business while working my normal job. I set up a facebook page and regularly posted in the city's community facebook group. I made the idea a little more broad and called my facebook page "Let me do that for you!" It was likely the wrong approach, but my idea was that in this particular city, there were a lot of people with excess money (it was an oil town) and not a lot of excess time (many had families and worked long hours). I thought, hey, if I have a bunch of free time in the evening, I can use that time to do things for people. Run their errands, clean up their house or their office, etc. I didn't recall having any inquiries, but looking back at the email I associated with the page I did actually have 1 request from a person from out of town asking me to go serve a legal document that required it to be served in person, not mailed. After obtaining some more information from the potential client, I was concerned for my own safety in this task and turned it down (the people he was asking me to serve this document to were reportedly violent drug addicts he was trying to evict. His own words. Yikes). As my normal job's demands increased, this idea fell by the wayside, and since I wasn't getting any requests, that was an easy thing to ignore / let go. Checking Facebook now, I can see there are actually a few pages with that same name, one of them still appearing active. At the time I made my page I didn't see a single page with that name, so maybe people saw mine and stole the name idea :D

Lately, since I'm now unemployed, I've been again trying to think of how I can leverage this strength. A cleaning business in and of itself is not fastlane though, and I'm not sure it really satisfies CENTS.

The main one being that it doesn't divorce my income from Time, unless I charged by the square foot or the room instead of by the hour. Then I could work as fast as I want. Entry is kiiiiinda weak. I mean, basically anyone could start a cleaning business. It's not the EASIEST thing to start, but it's pretty easy. Get some supplies, throw it in your car, do some advertising, start a facebook page, voila. But would they have my level of attentiveness? Doubtful. My skill is more detail and organizational than just cleaning. I've been mulling over how I could spin this and I'm just struggling to see anything beyond starting a more specialized cleaning service. I was hoping some outside eyes might have some different ideas.

I think I actually hate cleaning up, as funny as that might seem. A lot of the time my own personal bedroom is a mess, up to a certain point, but then something just *clicks* in my brain and I go into this almost delusional mode of hypercleaning and can't stop until everything is immaculate and in the perfect place. I'm talkin' the coasters on my coffee table perfectly aligned in adjacent corners (at least to the eye). It's not so much the process that I enjoy, it's the feeling. The end result. Looking at the space and thinking wow, I did this, or wow, I got rid of all that useless stuff? How great! I love getting rid of stuff! Whenever I step foot into a messy place, I often have to stop myself from tidying it up because it's not my space and people might take offense.

Honestly, if someone said "I will pay you $X to go through my unruly garage and make it into a usable space." with free reign on what to keep or get rid of (using my common sense, of course, I would sort any questionable items into piles for further consideration by the owner) it would be a freakin heyday. As long as the price was right :D

Thinking back, I'm kicking myself that I didn't take before and after photos of both my x's apartment and my buddy's garage. I could have used them for this idea! I just wasn't thinking about that at the time. I might actually have one more opportunity with his back yard shed which is an absolute disaster as well...
 
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SEBASTlAN

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Itsmeantonios

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Neko

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As it was said, there are professional organizers. There is a market.

Try to get a gig. See with your friends or family. You can try charging a small fee if appropriate.

As of now try to have the best possible service. Show up on time. Be professional. Over deliver.
Best service is sometimes all it takes to dominate.

Ask questions to your customers and listen. The market will tell you what it wants.

Engage the market as fast as possible and you’ll know what to do to differentiate yourself soon enough.
 
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Ronak

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Don't worry about being fastlane at this point, your priority is cash generation. Others have mentioned cleaning/professional organizer gigs. Drop a post on craigslist, facebook, and linkedin, see what happens.
 

Itsmeantonios

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Thanks for the tips. I will start a facebook page and do some basic online marketing to see if I can get any customers. Maybe do some door to door stuff. I noticed while walking around the neighbourhood that a lot of people have some pretty bad looking lawns too, so that was something I wanted to do anyway.

I cleaned my friend's shed today. It was a disaster zone. If it were my stuff I would have just thrown a lot of it away, but he's not here right now and I don't know what he would want to keep. I'm pretty sure he is never going to actually use any of this stuff, but eh, ah well.

Believe it or not the majority of the stuff is still there it's just actually organized and put away nicely, and I took some photos (I have more on my phone) to use as a first "client" on my facebook page / website once it's up!

I actually painted most of this shed myself too. It needs some paint work and he keeps asking "can you paint the shed?" and I keep telling him to buy the paint but he never does. I could just buy the paint and get him to pay me if I want to actually get it done. Probably easier!!

Photo album: View: https://imgur.com/a/TzyeJtp
 

Itsmeantonios

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So far I have:

Set up a facebook page complete with photos of the shed job, description of my services and expected rates

Applied for my business to be listed on Google Maps and completed all the description and services data input. I am currently waiting on verification by way of a post card sent by Google.

I have also discovered another possible business venture while setting all of this up. There doesn't seem to be a good website for Canadian small businesses services or products. The user above linked that Thumbtack website above. Well, there doesn't appear to be anything even remotely resembling that in Canada.

As far as I can tell, the only way for me to get eyes my small business on the internet is:

Directly advertising with Google / Facebook / Whatever

Set up a classified ad on a site like Kijiji which is more well known for buy/sell/trade and property rentals, not small business services. And it's clunky as hell (I hate that website so much, though I use it a lot for buying/selling because it is the most popular site of its kind in Canada.)

Set up a listing on Facebook Marketplace perhaps

I can't find ANY good website for a peer reviewed small business service based listing like that Thumbtack website in the US. Looks like I'm gonna start learning me some web development!!
 
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D

Deleted72597

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Being organized is also linked to efficiency and productivity in the business world.
Consider reading "Time Management - Brian Tracy"

If you can find ways of believably convincing businesses that you can help with this, it opens up a bigger market that might also be willing to pay more. There might be psychological research/data to back up such claims. Data/knowledge/research of what an organized home can or does lead to (happiness, calm, spare time, etc.) also sounds like something you can use to convince prospective buyers. Such knowledge might also give you a massive advantage over other cleaning / organizing services.

If you are able to put your doing into teaching, fastlane opportunities might appear.

Your services are needed, and highly valued!

Good luck!
 

Lyinx

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There may be room for an idea like this working for businesses... Somehow..

You mentioned you have attention to detail, how about efficient workflow? Seems like the next step. You would go into a business, observe their operating procedures, and make changes/suggestions to the way things are done and put tools out in an efficient manner.
If you can save a company 5 minutes every day x 5 employees x 300 days out of the year = 7500 minutes or 125 hours

If the company pays their employees $15/hour you would save them $1,875 in one year.

I've been told, companies usually go for any solution that coats them 1/10th of their savings

They save 1875
Their more than willing to pay 187.50 for that information.

If that seems like something you'd be interested in, I'm sure that you could get large consultant fees for this kind of work

This line of reasoning skills that you have can allow you many opportunities, workflow layout, employee scheduling and coordination, warehouse layout, computer automation, robotics, and much more!

If the above seems like something you would be interested in, you could check out things like: lean business, canban, six sigma, the Toyota way, and many more.

Personally, I have a decent touch of detail oriented work, and can make most of the above happen if I want to.
 

Lyinx

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Update after thinking about this for 25 minutes :)
With Covid19 you have folks working from home, they might have very cluttered home offices... Might be willing to pay you to sort everything for them into neat sections.

In my office, I have tons of small wires running here and there (4 computers for 2 people plus 3 printers and phones all connected to networks) and could use someone to organize things. If it would be up to me, probably pay someone to do it, as it is I'll probably end up doing it myself sometime.

Working for someone in the home is quite different than working for a business. People don't operate like businesses (for the most part) so they'll see it as an expense.
Businesses would see your skills as a money making tool for them (more efficient=more money for them) so you can get a lot of things done.

Oh, and start a youtube channel, share tips and tricks... this helps out the small businesses, and when they become busy they won't have time to do it themselves so they will reach out to someone that has time :)

and while you're saving businesses money, share this link with them: Top 10 Money Saving Hacks for Small Businesses
 
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Itsmeantonios

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There may be room for an idea like this working for businesses... Somehow..

You mentioned you have attention to detail, how about efficient workflow? Seems like the next step. You would go into a business, observe their operating procedures, and make changes/suggestions to the way things are done and put tools out in an efficient manner.
If you can save a company 5 minutes every day x 5 employees x 300 days out of the year = 7500 minutes or 125 hours

If the company pays their employees $15/hour you would save them $1,875 in one year.

I've been told, companies usually go for any solution that coats them 1/10th of their savings

They save 1875
Their more than willing to pay 187.50 for that information.

If that seems like something you'd be interested in, I'm sure that you could get large consultant fees for this kind of work

This line of reasoning skills that you have can allow you many opportunities, workflow layout, employee scheduling and coordination, warehouse layout, computer automation, robotics, and much more!

If the above seems like something you would be interested in, you could check out things like: lean business, canban, six sigma, the Toyota way, and many more.

Personally, I have a decent touch of detail oriented work, and can make most of the above happen if I want to.

I like where your head's at but I don't feel confident enough to offer something like that to a business. It makes me feel like I would b e way in over my head.

As it sits, I am a very organized person in my own life but have not thought about how my own organization skills can transfer like that. I think I would get there but I need some experience with dealing with other people's issues to grasp a better understanding.....I think.
 

Lyinx

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crazy wiring17.jpg8b398793c0ef7586e6ed678999b0e6a6--computer-network-pcm.jpg
Do the above photos give you an itch to straighten them out?
Something like this?
8xp0ctfra4f41.jpgf60d90608371382ce55cb1317765df26.jpgunnamed (1).jpg
 
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Itsmeantonios

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Did you get any work yet?
Nope

Checking the FB stats it says I have had some page views so that's something. Still working on how I can raise awareness of my services.

I actually found another post on that kijiji classifieds website for someone offering organizational services, in my same city.
 
D

Deleted72597

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I planned an e-commerce store focusing on items that would help people keep organized.
I don't think I'll create that store, but it made me realize two things.

1. I have an ok - good business name/brand for you if you want it + I would be willing to create a basic logo free of charge.

2. You can branch out into selling items that would also help people being organized.
 
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Lyinx

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Oh god that first one is so terrible. How could a business allow something like that to happen!?!?
Simple.
Hey Jim, we got a new employee on Monday, can you run him an Ethernet cord?
X 50 times (or 100)
I've got a similar best of cords, about once a year I take them all out and redo it, within a year it's back to close the same thing.
Making a new desk/setup that works better
 

Neko

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Nope

Checking the FB stats it says I have had some page views so that's something. Still working on how I can raise awareness of my services.

I actually found another post on that kijiji classifieds website for someone offering organizational services, in my same city.

- Propose your services to family and friends.
- Ask them if they know someone who would be interested.
- (If safe) Walk around your neighborhood and try to spot disorganized sheds. Propose your service door to door or with a flyer.

Don’t be afraid of talking to people. You’re selling a service. You can’t avoid interactions.

You should focus on getting your first gig and making sure the person you help is 120% satisfied. Once you did it, focus on the next one.

Get the ball rolling. Once you have momentum, customers will come to you.

Don’t be passive. Be proactive.

Written on my mobile.
 

Itsmeantonios

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I planned an e-commerce store focusing on items that would help people keep organized.
I don't think I'll create that store, but it made me realize two things.

1. I have an ok - good business name/brand for you if you want it + I would be willing to create a basic logo free of charge.

2. You can branch out into selling items that would also help people being organized.
Thanks, but I have come up with a name and logo I am happy with already :)
 
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Itsmeantonios

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- Propose your services to family and friends.
- Ask them if they know someone who would be interested.
- (If safe) Walk around your neighborhood and try to spot disorganized sheds. Propose your service door to door or with a flyer.

Don’t be afraid of talking to people. You’re selling a service. You can’t avoid interactions.

You should focus on getting your first gig and making sure the person you help is 120% satisfied. Once you did it, focus on the next one.

Get the ball rolling. Once you have momentum, customers will come to you.

Don’t be passive. Be proactive.

Written on my mobile.
Definitely. I don't have any family and just my 1 buddy in this city so that's a bit limited.

But I definitely need to get out in the neighbourhood. I'm struggling with focus at the moment. I want to build video game assets with a 3D modeling software, so I've been working on that, as well as weighing pros and cons of getting a 3D printer right now because I do have some physical product ideas as well that I would like to prototype, and that comes with a time investment of learning how to use the software as well, as well as working on this.

So yeah, I need to focus. My mind is very spread out at the moment.
 

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You might want to read this :


I’ll take a guess and say that you might be afraid of taking action.
Real action.

Maybe because you have internalized fears, doubts, scripts.

You might be afraid of « selling » you’re services to real people. Maybe you fear getting rejected.
Hint: You will. But don’t worry. It’s normal and you’ll survive.

Maybe you think you’re not good enough to help someone.

Whatever it is. It makes you an action faker.
Forget the facebook page. Forget the ads on gig websites.

Just take a minute and think.

What is the next action you can take that will get you closer to helping someone?

Imagine I am a cartoon villain that kidnapped your family. I tell you to get your first gig by the end of the week. If you fail to help someone, you’ll never see them again.

What are you going to do?

Written on my mobile.
 

Lyinx

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One of my major strengths (at least I think so!) is my attention to detail and inability to cope with an untidy living space. I apologize for the long thread but I wanted to try to paint a picture as best I could.

For example, a few years ago I was dating this girl. She was incredibly untidy. Her apartment was so bad that every time I was at her place I would feel physically uncomfortable. I'm talkin' clothes EVERYWHERE (She was a manager at a fashion store and thus had a mind boggling amount of clothes), kitchen a disaster, things strewn about all over the living room and bedroom. She had bought these 2 shelves from IKEA but they sat un-assembled in her livingroom for weeks. Her apartment was extremely unkept, but she worked so much that she didn't have time to clean it up. The mess clearly didn't bother her, otherwise she would have cleaned it up, however it was absolutely unbearable to me. I could not be at her place without cleaning something up.

One day while she was at work, I tidied up and cleaned her entire apartment top to bottom, built both of those shelves and populated them, put things away, cleaned up the kitchen, put all of her clothes that were laying around into a huge pile in the bedroom. She had 2 cats, and this pretty nice big floor rug, which had cat hair basically embedded throughout. To illustrate my compulsion I used her cat-brush which was like these fairly fine wire brushes designed for pulling hair out of your cat and keeping it in the brush, to literally brush her entire rug while vacuuming it at the same time, several times over (because that's how much it took to get the hair out) until it was literally a different colour when I was finished. The colour it was intended to be!

When she got home from work, she was basically mouth agape, like "whoa" but the first thing she said was "but that's not where the shelves are supposed to go."

I was mildly crushed in that moment. My thoughts were basically "Really? That's the first thing you say? That's not where the shelves go? What about "Wow, thank you so much." That was one of the first indications to me that the relationship was likely not going to work out. I could live with her being a messy person, some people just are, and that's the way they are and I am OK with tidying up. But that was kind of a nasty thing to say after how much work I had done. Later that evening I also said hey, you have an ungodly amount of clothes. Maybe we should go through them and sort them into KEEP, DONATE, DISCARD piles and whatever you keep we find a place for. She was onboard with it and it was a nice bonding activity. We threw the discard pile into the dumpster, took the donate pile to goodwill, and found a place for everything that remained. Sadly the relationship didn't work out in the end (for several reasons but mostly because it was long distance and I couldn't afford to keep seeing her)....but I digress.

Another example is much more recent. I'm staying with a friend of mine and to give us both some space, and myself some space to set up my computer workstation etc, I tidied up and cleaned out the entire garage and workshop by myself in 2 days. It's difficult for me to paint a picture for you, but the space was an absolute disaster. He treated the workshop and garage basically as a dumping zone for things he didn't want to bring in the house. It was filled with trash, boxes, clothes, old girlfriends' things, random things that should be at his business' workshop, tools, just....absolutely horrific in my eyes. I even assembled all his old girlfriend's things, called her myself (she's somewhat of a mutual friend) and was like hey, there's all this stuff here, I'll send you a whole bunch of photos and you can tell me what you want to keep and I'll bring it back home (we are all originally from the same town) and give it to your parents next time I go back. She was like whoa, wtf? I left all that stuff there? crazy. Yeah, ok, I'll go through it and let you know.

I use it as my office now, complete with enough space to use my VR headset, with plenty of room to spare.

My buddy had not actually been in the workshop since I tidied it up because he never really has any reason to go in there but he came in the other night and was like whoa...it's so clean in here! I'm just like :cool: yep. You literally could not even see the floor when I started. To go from the entry door to the garage you had to climb and walk over stuff.

Anyway, with the backstory complete, does anyone have any ideas how I can leverage this strength. This... compulsion for tidiness into a business? Cleaning companies already exist, there are several of them set up in this city already. My friend has one come to the house every friday morning. So, just being another cleaning service, I don't know...unless I can set myself apart in some way.

A few years ago I tried to turn this compulsion into a side business while working my normal job. I set up a facebook page and regularly posted in the city's community facebook group. I made the idea a little more broad and called my facebook page "Let me do that for you!" It was likely the wrong approach, but my idea was that in this particular city, there were a lot of people with excess money (it was an oil town) and not a lot of excess time (many had families and worked long hours). I thought, hey, if I have a bunch of free time in the evening, I can use that time to do things for people. Run their errands, clean up their house or their office, etc. I didn't recall having any inquiries, but looking back at the email I associated with the page I did actually have 1 request from a person from out of town asking me to go serve a legal document that required it to be served in person, not mailed. After obtaining some more information from the potential client, I was concerned for my own safety in this task and turned it down (the people he was asking me to serve this document to were reportedly violent drug addicts he was trying to evict. His own words. Yikes). As my normal job's demands increased, this idea fell by the wayside, and since I wasn't getting any requests, that was an easy thing to ignore / let go. Checking Facebook now, I can see there are actually a few pages with that same name, one of them still appearing active. At the time I made my page I didn't see a single page with that name, so maybe people saw mine and stole the name idea :D

Lately, since I'm now unemployed, I've been again trying to think of how I can leverage this strength. A cleaning business in and of itself is not fastlane though, and I'm not sure it really satisfies CENTS.

The main one being that it doesn't divorce my income from Time, unless I charged by the square foot or the room instead of by the hour. Then I could work as fast as I want. Entry is kiiiiinda weak. I mean, basically anyone could start a cleaning business. It's not the EASIEST thing to start, but it's pretty easy. Get some supplies, throw it in your car, do some advertising, start a facebook page, voila. But would they have my level of attentiveness? Doubtful. My skill is more detail and organizational than just cleaning. I've been mulling over how I could spin this and I'm just struggling to see anything beyond starting a more specialized cleaning service. I was hoping some outside eyes might have some different ideas.

I think I actually hate cleaning up, as funny as that might seem. A lot of the time my own personal bedroom is a mess, up to a certain point, but then something just *clicks* in my brain and I go into this almost delusional mode of hypercleaning and can't stop until everything is immaculate and in the perfect place. I'm talkin' the coasters on my coffee table perfectly aligned in adjacent corners (at least to the eye). It's not so much the process that I enjoy, it's the feeling. The end result. Looking at the space and thinking wow, I did this, or wow, I got rid of all that useless stuff? How great! I love getting rid of stuff! Whenever I step foot into a messy place, I often have to stop myself from tidying it up because it's not my space and people might take offense.

Honestly, if someone said "I will pay you $X to go through my unruly garage and make it into a usable space." with free reign on what to keep or get rid of (using my common sense, of course, I would sort any questionable items into piles for further consideration by the owner) it would be a freakin heyday. As long as the price was right :D

Thinking back, I'm kicking myself that I didn't take before and after photos of both my x's apartment and my buddy's garage. I could have used them for this idea! I just wasn't thinking about that at the time. I might actually have one more opportunity with his back yard shed which is an absolute disaster as well...
I also think a professional organizer service would work. But first check out the demand and competition in your area. Maybe you can target a particular niche, like organizing homes for sale, before they go on show, or getting vacation homes stocked & organized before they are occupied for the summer. Whatever you do, record on video and post on You Tube. You could be the next Marie Kondo.
 

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One of my major strengths (at least I think so!) is my attention to detail and inability to cope with an untidy living space. I apologize for the long thread but I wanted to try to paint a picture as best I could.

For example, a few years ago I was dating this girl. She was incredibly untidy. Her apartment was so bad that every time I was at her place I would feel physically uncomfortable. I'm talkin' clothes EVERYWHERE (She was a manager at a fashion store and thus had a mind boggling amount of clothes), kitchen a disaster, things strewn about all over the living room and bedroom. She had bought these 2 shelves from IKEA but they sat un-assembled in her livingroom for weeks. Her apartment was extremely unkept, but she worked so much that she didn't have time to clean it up. The mess clearly didn't bother her, otherwise she would have cleaned it up, however it was absolutely unbearable to me. I could not be at her place without cleaning something up.

One day while she was at work, I tidied up and cleaned her entire apartment top to bottom, built both of those shelves and populated them, put things away, cleaned up the kitchen, put all of her clothes that were laying around into a huge pile in the bedroom. She had 2 cats, and this pretty nice big floor rug, which had cat hair basically embedded throughout. To illustrate my compulsion I used her cat-brush which was like these fairly fine wire brushes designed for pulling hair out of your cat and keeping it in the brush, to literally brush her entire rug while vacuuming it at the same time, several times over (because that's how much it took to get the hair out) until it was literally a different colour when I was finished. The colour it was intended to be!

When she got home from work, she was basically mouth agape, like "whoa" but the first thing she said was "but that's not where the shelves are supposed to go."

I was mildly crushed in that moment. My thoughts were basically "Really? That's the first thing you say? That's not where the shelves go? What about "Wow, thank you so much." That was one of the first indications to me that the relationship was likely not going to work out. I could live with her being a messy person, some people just are, and that's the way they are and I am OK with tidying up. But that was kind of a nasty thing to say after how much work I had done. Later that evening I also said hey, you have an ungodly amount of clothes. Maybe we should go through them and sort them into KEEP, DONATE, DISCARD piles and whatever you keep we find a place for. She was onboard with it and it was a nice bonding activity. We threw the discard pile into the dumpster, took the donate pile to goodwill, and found a place for everything that remained. Sadly the relationship didn't work out in the end (for several reasons but mostly because it was long distance and I couldn't afford to keep seeing her)....but I digress.

Another example is much more recent. I'm staying with a friend of mine and to give us both some space, and myself some space to set up my computer workstation etc, I tidied up and cleaned out the entire garage and workshop by myself in 2 days. It's difficult for me to paint a picture for you, but the space was an absolute disaster. He treated the workshop and garage basically as a dumping zone for things he didn't want to bring in the house. It was filled with trash, boxes, clothes, old girlfriends' things, random things that should be at his business' workshop, tools, just....absolutely horrific in my eyes. I even assembled all his old girlfriend's things, called her myself (she's somewhat of a mutual friend) and was like hey, there's all this stuff here, I'll send you a whole bunch of photos and you can tell me what you want to keep and I'll bring it back home (we are all originally from the same town) and give it to your parents next time I go back. She was like whoa, wtf? I left all that stuff there? crazy. Yeah, ok, I'll go through it and let you know.

I use it as my office now, complete with enough space to use my VR headset, with plenty of room to spare.

My buddy had not actually been in the workshop since I tidied it up because he never really has any reason to go in there but he came in the other night and was like whoa...it's so clean in here! I'm just like :cool: yep. You literally could not even see the floor when I started. To go from the entry door to the garage you had to climb and walk over stuff.

Anyway, with the backstory complete, does anyone have any ideas how I can leverage this strength. This... compulsion for tidiness into a business? Cleaning companies already exist, there are several of them set up in this city already. My friend has one come to the house every friday morning. So, just being another cleaning service, I don't know...unless I can set myself apart in some way.

A few years ago I tried to turn this compulsion into a side business while working my normal job. I set up a facebook page and regularly posted in the city's community facebook group. I made the idea a little more broad and called my facebook page "Let me do that for you!" It was likely the wrong approach, but my idea was that in this particular city, there were a lot of people with excess money (it was an oil town) and not a lot of excess time (many had families and worked long hours). I thought, hey, if I have a bunch of free time in the evening, I can use that time to do things for people. Run their errands, clean up their house or their office, etc. I didn't recall having any inquiries, but looking back at the email I associated with the page I did actually have 1 request from a person from out of town asking me to go serve a legal document that required it to be served in person, not mailed. After obtaining some more information from the potential client, I was concerned for my own safety in this task and turned it down (the people he was asking me to serve this document to were reportedly violent drug addicts he was trying to evict. His own words. Yikes). As my normal job's demands increased, this idea fell by the wayside, and since I wasn't getting any requests, that was an easy thing to ignore / let go. Checking Facebook now, I can see there are actually a few pages with that same name, one of them still appearing active. At the time I made my page I didn't see a single page with that name, so maybe people saw mine and stole the name idea :D

Lately, since I'm now unemployed, I've been again trying to think of how I can leverage this strength. A cleaning business in and of itself is not fastlane though, and I'm not sure it really satisfies CENTS.

The main one being that it doesn't divorce my income from Time, unless I charged by the square foot or the room instead of by the hour. Then I could work as fast as I want. Entry is kiiiiinda weak. I mean, basically anyone could start a cleaning business. It's not the EASIEST thing to start, but it's pretty easy. Get some supplies, throw it in your car, do some advertising, start a facebook page, voila. But would they have my level of attentiveness? Doubtful. My skill is more detail and organizational than just cleaning. I've been mulling over how I could spin this and I'm just struggling to see anything beyond starting a more specialized cleaning service. I was hoping some outside eyes might have some different ideas.

I think I actually hate cleaning up, as funny as that might seem. A lot of the time my own personal bedroom is a mess, up to a certain point, but then something just *clicks* in my brain and I go into this almost delusional mode of hypercleaning and can't stop until everything is immaculate and in the perfect place. I'm talkin' the coasters on my coffee table perfectly aligned in adjacent corners (at least to the eye). It's not so much the process that I enjoy, it's the feeling. The end result. Looking at the space and thinking wow, I did this, or wow, I got rid of all that useless stuff? How great! I love getting rid of stuff! Whenever I step foot into a messy place, I often have to stop myself from tidying it up because it's not my space and people might take offense.

Honestly, if someone said "I will pay you $X to go through my unruly garage and make it into a usable space." with free reign on what to keep or get rid of (using my common sense, of course, I would sort any questionable items into piles for further consideration by the owner) it would be a freakin heyday. As long as the price was right :D

Thinking back, I'm kicking myself that I didn't take before and after photos of both my x's apartment and my buddy's garage. I could have used them for this idea! I just wasn't thinking about that at the time. I might actually have one more opportunity with his back yard shed which is an absolute disaster as well...
Organizing is a very valuable service. My assistant keeps me organized, but I know it's a whole industry out there. And there are those who get paid well for their skills. I tend to be minimalist so being organized is very important to me. My mom was a hoarder so I hate messes. Take some pictures of your work. Generate some ideas. Market. Make some contacts. Talk less about your past and do more!
 

YoungPadawan

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Itsmeantonios

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You might want to read this :


I’ll take a guess and say that you might be afraid of taking action.
Real action.

Maybe because you have internalized fears, doubts, scripts.

You might be afraid of « selling » you’re services to real people. Maybe you fear getting rejected.
Hint: You will. But don’t worry. It’s normal and you’ll survive.

Maybe you think you’re not good enough to help someone.

Whatever it is. It makes you an action faker.
Forget the facebook page. Forget the ads on gig websites.

Just take a minute and think.

What is the next action you can take that will get you closer to helping someone?

Imagine I am a cartoon villain that kidnapped your family. I tell you to get your first gig by the end of the week. If you fail to help someone, you’ll never see them again.

What are you going to do?

Written on my mobile.
It really pissed me off being called an "action faker." Probably because you were right!

It prompted me to get business cards made up same day service and walked around my neighborhood. I was really scared, because I've never gone door to door before. I approached houses that were for sale or had someone outside in their yard or garage... So nerve wracking!!

I didn't get any clients but I handed out a few cards. It kinda feels like a kick to the groin when someone is like no, and won't even take your card either...I just need to get over it and keep going. I need to come up with something proper to say because I really did not sound very professional and was kind of stumbling with my words. I didn't have anything prepared and was just excited to get my cards and go out there.

Practice makes perfect though I guess so I will come up with something I can say without thinking too much and go back out again.
 

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It really pissed me off being called an "action faker." Probably because you were right!

It prompted me to get business cards made up same day service and walked around my neighborhood. I was really scared, because I've never gone door to door before. I approached houses that were for sale or had someone outside in their yard or garage... So nerve wracking!!

I didn't get any clients but I handed out a few cards. It kinda feels like a kick to the groin when someone is like no, and won't even take your card either...I just need to get over it and keep going. I need to come up with something proper to say because I really did not sound very professional and was kind of stumbling with my words. I didn't have anything prepared and was just excited to get my cards and go out there.

Practice makes perfect though I guess so I will come up with something I can say without thinking too much and go back out again.

Congrats for getting out there pal.
Some peoples are dicks. Don’t take it personally.

BTW I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m trying to help you.
There is a truckload of action fakers on the forum and out there.
I was an action faker too. I still am sometimes.

For you’re script :

Think about the benefits you’re customers can except.
Benefits are way more powerful than features.

Think about common objections and prepare answers.

Think about ways to look professional in the eyes of the prospects. For example, in the way you dress, the way you speak and you’re stance.

People will trust you more. That’s important. You are asking to enter their homes to organize their things. If they get the impression you’re shady and trying to rob them you’re going to get rejected 100% of the time.

I can also recommend reading PRE-SUASION by Robert CIALDINI.

Don’t get discouraged by failures. Each one brings you closer to you’re next success.

Written on my mobile.
 

WJK

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Congrats for getting out there pal.
Some peoples are dicks. Don’t take it personally.

BTW I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m trying to help you.
There is a truckload of action fakers on the forum and out there.
I was an action faker too. I still am sometimes.

For you’re script :

Think about the benefits you’re customers can except.
Benefits are way more powerful than features.

Think about common objections and prepare answers.

Think about ways to look professional in the eyes of the prospects. For example, in the way you dress, the way you speak and you’re stance.

People will trust you more. That’s important. You are asking to enter their homes to organize their things. If they get the impression you’re shady and trying to rob them you’re going to get rejected 100% of the time.

I can also recommend reading PRE-SUASION by Robert CIALDINI.

Don’t get discouraged by failures. Each one brings you closer to you’re next success.

Written on my mobile.
I would do a sheet of before-and-after photos of my work. And then, in time, put them on my web site. A color photo sheet is cheap when you print it yourself. And put one or two into a sheet protector that you can show people. They hold it in their hands and then they'll hand it back. Most won't want your copies for themselves. You can start with... "What IF your garage looked like this -- rather than this?" as you wave your hand around. I'd even do some free jobs in exchange for my before-and-after pictures. You must find the fun and meaning in what you do.

For example, I just set up a new office space. It's just for me. And it's been a real pain to get setup. I thought it should be easy after all of the offices I've set up over all these 44 years in business -- yes, it has been that long... Anyway, my friend told me that I'm being a perfectionist. I was shocked. I've always thought of myself as a down-to-earth, get it done person. But, on further soul searching, in this situation, I knew how I want it to look and I knew how I want it to work. It's a very small space so I had to think through how I was gonna use that tiny space for the various tasks. And, most of all, I had to think about what was going to make me happy for the next few years. I'm at my desk, in my new office, glancing out the big window in front of me at the Alaska woods. The birds are flittering around in the trees and it's a beautiful day. The layout and the organization in my office connects me with the wonderful place where I live and my life here.

That's the reason for what you do -- making people happier in their lives. Isn't pursuing that goal worth your discomfort of meeting new people?
 
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Itsmeantonios

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Congrats for getting out there pal.
Some peoples are dicks. Don’t take it personally.

BTW I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m trying to help you.
There is a truckload of action fakers on the forum and out there.
I was an action faker too. I still am sometimes.

For you’re script :

Think about the benefits you’re customers can except.
Benefits are way more powerful than features.

Think about common objections and prepare answers.

Think about ways to look professional in the eyes of the prospects. For example, in the way you dress, the way you speak and you’re stance.

People will trust you more. That’s important. You are asking to enter their homes to organize their things. If they get the impression you’re shady and trying to rob them you’re going to get rejected 100% of the time.

I can also recommend reading PRE-SUASION by Robert CIALDINI.

Don’t get discouraged by failures. Each one brings you closer to you’re next success.

Written on my mobile.

I'm not doing well with door to door. I was doing better but I'm not sure it's the right way to go. No one seems interested, so I'm either not selling my service right, or people just aren't interested.

I think I need a different marketing strategy...or just a whole lot more time going door to door to figure out what works and what doesn't.
 

WJK

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I'm not doing well with door to door. I was doing better but I'm not sure it's the right way to go. No one seems interested, so I'm either not selling my service right, or people just aren't interested.

I think I need a different marketing strategy...or just a whole lot more time going door to door to figure out what works and what doesn't.
I door knocked in the real estate business for years. And you will get better IF you really work at it. Cold calling is the same kind of thing. BUT, I quickly got over my fear of strangers and new people. I learned how to approach people and have a sense of humor about it -- no matter what they said or did. You need to "get your foot in the door." You need a portfolio of projects. You need to get the money gleam out of your eyes. The best book I ever read about selling that helped me the most was "How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling" by Frank Bettger. It's a very old classic and full of good solid tips on how to do it. I read it when I started in 1976 and it's still as true today as it was then.

Oh, and for the record, I cried every day for the first 3 months I was in the real estate business. People were mean to me and I didn't know how to sell. There was no sales training at that time. The people in my office were brutal to me. I was a very young, tender, and terrified little girl. I can say with full assurance that I-ain't-that-person-no-none-more! I not only survived -- I thrived. Today if I was drop shipped to a strange town with empty pockets, and a box of stuff to sell -- by dinner time I'd be having a good dinner with newfound friends, and a nice room rented for the night. And I probably have a job offer to start the following morning. Oh, how 40+ years of hard-won experience can change a scared little girl's life!
 

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