How This Former Teacher Went From Earning $500 a Week to Building a $2M Business | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E8
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00:36and support. Save 20% off honeylove by going to honeylove.com slash profiting. Quo is an AI powered phonesystem that brings your calls, texts, and contacts together in one place. Try Quo for free,plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. As always, you can findall of our incredible deals in the show notes or at young and profiting.com slash deals.Of the amount of money that moves in the United States,68% comes from households.The government, military, and us, that is what is our economy.Like, if the household stops spending, the world shuts down.
01:09We're joined by Lisa Woodruff,founder and CEO of Organized 365 and creator of the Sunday Basketto unpack exactly how organized 365 profits.When I started Ph.D., we're a $2.5 million company.We're still 60% profitable.We were profitable the last two years enough that we could do profit sharing,I really loved doing for my team.What are the top three things you could recommend for somebody to do right now to get better organized?
01:37My husband asked that question often.Number one, stop doing your housework hidden.If you live with people, they should be watching you vacuum, fold laundry, do dishes.If everybody else is having fun, you have fun too.Number two.So you were also selling work systems and organization.Why did you decide to sunset that part of your business?especially if it was making, I guess, how much money? A million dollars a year. It was making a million
02:03dollars a year. And it's interesting thing about my company that I realized is, Lisa, welcome to how weprofit. Thank you so much for having me. I think this is going to be such a great conversationbecause so many entrepreneurs, even though their business seems really organized and amazing,they actually are very unorganized in their home. And I personally have always dreamed of having anorganization business because I feel like it would be so lucrative. And so when I got your emailinquiry, I was like, this would be a really cool episode to really unpack how somebody makes moneyoff of an organization business. So welcome. I can't wait to unpack all of it. How would youdescribe Organized 365 in one sentence? So what people think when they hear organized 365 is exactly what
02:52you said, like, oh, I need you to come organize my house. And that is what I teach you how to do, but reallyorganized 365 is an online school and coaching program where I teach you the skill of organizing so that yourhouse get organized, but along the way you also learn time management, productivity, planning,and you step into being the CEO of your household. Amazing. So basically, you've expanded into havingprograms and courses and master classes, essentially, which is super cool. But I love your origin storybecause I feel like it's going to be very inspiring for our young improfitors. So you wereactually a teacher and you didn't become an entrepreneur until age 40. Tell us about that.Right. In my 20s and 30s, I was a stay-at-home mom and I did a lot of direct sales companies.
03:39I was in 23 different direct sales companies. Oh, wow. And I made money in a lot of them. And then whenmy kids went into middle school, I went back to teaching again, thinking, oh, this is the time. I canstep back into teaching. But the needs of our family and our extended family were beyond what I could doduring non-school hours. So yeah, at the age of 39, I quit my teaching job. And I was like,I am just going to have to be self-employed because I need flexibility of time. So I joined anotherdirect sales company. And I started the blog, Organized 365. No idea how I'd make money,but I knew that was a good SEO keyword. And I knew I loved to talk about organizing.Something that I love about your story is that sometimes rejection actually helps redirect you.
04:20So you actually quit your job because they told you you're a bad teacher.They did. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, they did. Like, I was missing a lot of work and I was even taking time off unpaid just because our family needs were beyond what we could cover during the non-school hours. And so I was being held back by my headmistress of the school after a parent-teacher conference that did not need to be done the Thursday before winter break. And I really needed to get home one of my kids was sick. My personal kids was sick. And so she said, you know, we have to have a conversation because you're nota really good teacher. And I was at that time teaching middle school math, Montessori style,so I had 16 students and I had 16 different lesson plans. I was doing a great job teaching.But whether I was or wasn't, it really didn't matter because my boss didn't value me anymore.And so if my boss didn't value me, and I was definitely not being a good wife, I was definitelynot being a good mom at my house I didn't even recognize. I was like, who am I doing this for?Like it was only $500 a week. That's how much money I was making.
05:23That was it.And now she makes over $2 million a year in her business.So who's laughing now?Like you're making way more than any of the teachers at that school because you becamean entrepreneur and took your career and your earning potential in your own hands.So you started this blog.You called it Organized 365 from the start.Yes, because there were some really big bloggers in Cincinnati.
05:50So I was in a blogging group.I had had a blog in 2009.So I understood SEO keywords.That's all I understood.All these bloggers got like really great deals with Procter & Gamble and all these other big consumerpackage.I could never land any deals.Like I have never got, I've never gone viral.
06:06Like any of the things that you would normally do in business, I have not done.So I started the blog.I started working with the direct sales company.And a couple months into the blog, I had this huge home show.Like if you've ever been to a direct sales party like Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, like just a fewpeople go.25 people were there.Okay.
06:22I was like, Maria, why are all these people here? And she goes, oh, well, everybody wants to know what a professional organizer has to say. I was like, I'm a professional organizer. I had been charging people to go in their houses and organize their offices for direct sales or organize their kids because I was a teacher. I didn't realize it was a marketable skill, even though I was already charging people for it.Interesting. Okay. So you had this blog. You were like on the side charging people at what point we're like, oh my gosh, like, I'm going to actually create this organization business.Yeah, I create things really fast. I think that's because I'm a teacher, so content is like no big deal to me.So I found that out in March of 2012 by April of 2012. I had a five-page website and I was already selling professional organization services. Yeah.So you were charging about $5,000, correct?No, at that time, I was charging $40 an hour, two and a half hour minimum. So it was $100 to have me come to your house.Oh, my gosh. At the end, it was $5,000 for the week to organize your whole house with my team.Okay, tell us the whole journey of how you started the organizing service part of your business.
07:27Like from the beginning, how did you get started? How much did you invest? How much did you charge? How did that evolve?Yep. I could do it really quick. So I started at $40 an hour because I was earning $35 an hour cleaning houses, so I should make more.Okay. Just five bucks extra. Just five bucks action. I did a two and a half hour minimum because I thought I could do two houses in one day. You can't.So then I quickly moved to a four hour minimum. So now I was making.$200 because I raised my rates to $50, like in the summer going into the fall.Yes.Then by November of the first year, I hired somebody to work with me, and I paid her, I think,$25 an hour.
08:03So now I was charging $100 an hour if we both went.So I was making money on when she worked also.And then by the time I started the podcast at year three, I wasn't doing any of thein-home organizing.I was just vetting the clients.I could actually quote them over the phone and know if it was going to work or not.I would send my team out to do the job.they just wanted to work whenever I had a job.
08:22They didn't want to collect money.They didn't want to do anything related to that.They only wanted to organize.So for three years, I did in-home organizing, and then three years I had a team do it.And then year six, we went all in on the courses and the products, and I dropped thein-home professional organizing entirely.Okay.And the pricing for that is $75 an hour per person, so it was $150 for the team because I would
08:43send two people, five-hour minimum, so it was $750 a day.We would quote, a whole house in one week was $5,000.and I would come too, and we'd get the whole house done in one week.Got it.Okay.Now, were you making money on that business?Oh, yeah.Why did you decide to stop?
08:57Like, how did you think, like, okay, I'm going to make more money doing the productsand courses?Like, for me, I think I would have went the root of franchising it than getting other peopleand other cities and, like, making it this, like, huge brand of, like, we were going to,because there's nothing like that that exists.So I feel like it's a great market.There's a reason for that.I don't tell me.
09:18So in November, when I hired somebody,to work with me, I'd replace my $500 a week teaching salary. And then it was, I think,a year and a half later when I had my first 10-figure month. Now, what's interesting when you'regoing for a 10-figure month, my highest month before that was $7,000 a month, and that month,I made $17,000 a month. So sometimes it's a lot more. And at that time, we were doing in-homeprofessional organizing. I was starting to specialize in paper organizing. So I'd collect bankers,boxes of paper for $250 and bring it into my basement. I had three or four people,working on my basement, organizing paper. And then I used to be a creative memory scrapbook consultant.
09:55So I was also making scrapbooks for $900 per scrapbook in my bedroom at night when I wasmy husband. And all those things came together and made $17,000. So yeah, you could scale that,right? Especially like in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I'm from, everything but the house is headquarteredthere. So I met the owner and I was talking about like what they do when someone passes away and theygo in and they sell everything in the house and they get it ready for sale. That's what theyoriginally did back then. And I said, what do you do with all the paper you find in the house?And she goes, what paper? And I said, you do everything but the house and paper. So I had this ideathat I'd go collect all the paper and I'd build a warehouse facility where I'd process the paper
10:33next to where they processed all the other things that went through there. And I could have grownthat way. And I could have grown the in-home organizing. But there have been a couple ofcompanies that have started doing that franchising. There is so much liability. Like I had a clientwhere we broke something.So I also had a client, you know, sometimes when you're organizing people's houses,there are animals like mice or, you know, and I had one of my employees fell on a joband it wasn't serious, so it didn't turn into anything, but I was like, whoa, this is way moreliability than I want.
11:07And then if I did the paper processing thing, which I still would love to do, oh my gosh,you have people's like bank accounts, the social security numbers are like, it's just waymore liability than I wanted.So I was like, okay.And also, I was landlocked with time.Your dollars are built on your time.Yeah.And so I was scaling this team and I love growing teams.
11:25So that was great.But it was only going to be so scalable.And I really wanted a business that where you can make money when you sleep.Yeah.And like you, like to your point, it's just like any other agency business.Like for me, I have a social media podcast agency.And I love that side of the business.But I purposely am like, I'm having 20 clients, max, white gloves.
11:47two pods for social, like two pods for production, and I don't want to keep growing the agencybecause you just have to keep hiring and hiring. It's like very people intensive. So this gave youa way to scale your IP and all the knowledge that you accumulated without having to have all theextra people, right? Yeah. And I think the other thing that happened in year three, which is why I startedthe podcast and started pivoting away already at year three, was that in-home professionalorganization is really expensive. And it doesn't last. Like, no matter who does it, even if I do it.Like, it doesn't last. Like, if you didn't do the organizing and you didn't learn the skill, I have tokeep coming back, which is great if you're rich. And it's great for me. But it's not great for you
12:30if you move away or I'm not available. And I started realizing that my clients that were reallysaying, I only have this much per month, but they had me come back month after month after month,we're learning the skill of organizing. I was teaching them how to organize. And I was like,okay, if I can figure out how to teach this virtually, how would you do that? So the podcast wasnot video, still isn't video today, because I want you in your kitchen thinking about what you'reorganizing when I'm talking, not looking at my kitchen going, I wish I had those counters,I wish I had those dishes, I wish I, you know, you're just kind of listening and I'm teaching you.Yeah, I'm definitely going to ask you about the podcast and why it works so well because that's like
13:10a big marketing channel for you. But first, let's talk about your.business overall. So what was your peak, like how much money we were making on the service businessper month? Yeah, before we flipped and totally got rid of it, we made $400,000. And I remember we wentfrom like, yeah, we went from like 140 to 400. And I went to my accountant, and this is important,I went to my account and I said, we're going to make more money next year. And we were just in LLC.So all that money like flows through your tax return. And I knew I was getting ready to buyproduct. So I was going to need to have some retained earnings. She's like, that'll be fine.So I went out and I found a tax lawyer and changed my whole tax structure, which is just a good thing.
13:46Okay.Because $400,000 going through our personal taxes plus my husband's salary, we would have had to give like 50% of that to the government.I wouldn't have been able to utilize it inside of the business to actually grow to the next level.That's what happened to me for at least two years of my business, where everything was flowing through my LLC and I lost so much money.It's actually one of the reasons why I moved to Austin and we changed some of our business structure.So talk about the business structure change.what did you do exactly? Yeah, so I used a company out in Nevada and I met with a tax lawyer. I said,here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm going. I'm going to do this for a long time. And he actually
14:22set up a C-corp, which is not normal. Like normally you'll take your LLC and you'll tax it as an S-corp.But he actually made a C-corp because I was going to have employees, I was going to have physical product,and I need to retain earnings in order to order inventory. But he had me keep the LLC and he said eventually taxed it as an S-corp.And he had me keep the original company and all the intellectual property in the S-Corp and createthe C-Corp for the new company that was going to have the website, the W-2 employees, because I didn't haveW-2 employees before then, and the inventory and the loans and the liability.Got it.What is the benefit of that?
14:56Like, does it help you sell?Like, what does it do?So the benefit is a C-Corp is its own entity.Like, when you have an S-Corp, it's still you, it's still your personal tax return.You'll get a K-1 and all the money still flows through your Social Security number, even if you havean EIN number, and you basically zero out the company every year and you take all the distributionsor whatever you do with it. Okay. In a C-Corp, currently, it's taxed at 21% flat. So let's say youhave $100,000 in profit. You pay $21,000 in taxes, and now you can use that remaining $79,000
15:28to buy inventory or whatever. That $79,000 can just sit there in a bank account and you can havethat rainy day fund. I haven't figured out how you do that in an S-Corp, because it's your money. You've alreadypaid taxes on it. So if you use S-Corp money that you've already paid taxes on, you're actuallymaking a loan back to the business, and I can't keep track of all that.Yeah, BAM, I genuinely feel ahead of the curve with AI for the first time, because last year,I felt like I couldn't see the value from it. I would use AI, and it would give me back dumbresponses, and I was using chat to BT, like a search engine to draft an email here or there,but I wasn't using it effectively. So I went to Mindstone's AI Breakthrough weekend with my business
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19:41And please support our show by telling them that young and profiting sent you.Experience a new standard in comfort and support with Honeylove.Go to honeylove.com slash profiting for 20% off.But I do want to ask you about what you learned, even though you sunsetted the service part of your business,it really gave you like hands-on knowledge of like different customer types, differentproblems, how you solve them. So sometimes, even though your start of your business isn't whereyou end up, it's very important for your journey and the knowledge that you gain from thehands-on experience. A hundred percent. I mean, hands-on experience beats everything and having
20:22done it for six years. Like, I remember stories about what works and what doesn't work. And havingto wrestle through some of those things are really important. Also, you make a lot of money reallyfast in a service business that really can help you get started because I didn't have any money tostart my company. I just went from zero to, you don't even need investment. Like you go there. It's the same waywhen I started my social media services like I was writing the posts, you know, like it's you isthe investment. Yeah. And the longer you're in business, I'll be in business 15 years by January.You're going to grow and evolve as a person. Your understanding of the problem you solve is going togrow and evolve. And you should be sunsetsing, like really big parts of your company every once in
21:03while as you keep growing pivoting and changing.Yeah, it makes sense.Okay, so take us back to the kinds of people that you saw when you were organizing.Like, what are the different, like, profiles that you saw?Yeah, so when I started organizing, the first package I had was the mommy makeover packagebecause I was a mommy.And so the mommy makeover package was four areas.New boobs, new ass.
21:24I didn't know about that then.So it was your laundry room, your closet, your kitchen, and then where, where,your home office was. And I would organize those four spaces, and that's where you spent 80% of yourtime, and that would really make a marked change for women. But then, as I kept going, I startedorganizing women and men who have been divorced. And so now they're in a house on their own.In Cincinnati, we have a couple of Fortune 50 companies, and so you'll come into Cincinnatifor a period of time from the coasts. Yeah. And housing is so cheap in Cincinnati compared to, like,the coasts. And also, we don't have a good rental market at all.
22:03So they'll come in and they'll just buy a house and then they'd need to set up the house.So these were, you know, corporate women who are coming into Cincinnati with or without their families.And they would just have you set it up because having a professional organizer wasn't a big deal.And then there were a lot of women who were in their later years, you know, 60s, 70s, who maybe had lost a spouse.They did a lot of those.Or they were just ready for their next act.And they were like, I'm getting all new carpeting and I'm redoing all this stuff and I'm getting remarried or like that.Yeah.
22:31And then I organized kids too.and I would never let the parents in the room when I organized the kids.That was so fun.So all the different ages, different generations, there's a lot of variety.How about your ADHD clients?They're probably the best.You make the most money on them because they'll never learn.That's like I have a housekeeper and she's probably like, thank God, Hala doesn't fold her laundry
22:53because it keeps me getting some work.So the ADHD is really, really interesting.When I was a teacher before I had children, I was an intervention.specialist. And so often I would get the kids who were having trouble learning whatever it was in theclassroom and I would come up with all these crazy ways to teach them, whatever they needed to learn.And eventually they usually were diagnosed with ADHD. Then my kids ended up being diagnosed withADHD and went to a special school in Cincinnati called Springer School and Center.And I learned even more about ADHD and executive function. Then I had an employee say,
23:27you know, at least it'd be really funny if we found out that you had ADHD and that the Sundaybasket you created was the solution for ADHD. I said, ha ha ha, Monique, that'd be really funny. Well,I then went and got tested and I was like, oh, it turns out apparently I do have ADHD.So now I went back to school. I just got my PhD and my goal with my PhD is to test the Sundaybasket and the executive function and see if it does what I think it does as a school teacher,how I created it. I created it as an intervention for household managers to be able to organizeall the invisible work that we do, just like I would do as an intervention.for anyone else who had executive function issues in school.
24:04And if we find support for that,it will be the first non-medical intervention for ADHDthat will be scientifically shown.What would be the intervention?Like, what would you do?The Sunday basket.Oh, the Sunday basket.You know, we run our households with no school supplies,
24:19with no office supplies, with no operating system.We are 68% of US GDP,and we have no operating systems.Yeah.Every single person has to create them from scratch.So you want household managers,which are usually women, to feel like they're the CEO of their household.Yeah, the more I've grown, organized 365 and the bigger it's gotten as a company,
24:40I've had to grow myself as my understanding of, you know, initially it was just I needed to replace myteaching salary and then I needed to manage people.And now I need to think about the fact that I own a company that someday will be soldas a CEO and that the company has value and all those things that I've learned by doing EOSand all these other things that I've done.And I turn around, I look at my household and I go, oh, my gosh,every single person is running a household, somebody's running every single household,responsible for 68% of US GDP, you're born and you die in a household. Like, it is the economic
25:13entity. We don't do planning days. We don't have operational structures. We don't have school supplies.Like, every single person is cobbling together whatever they're doing at home from printablesoff Pinterest and podcasts they're listening to and whatever the girlfriend's doing or what theyremember their mom doing or like, how are we doing? I can't.we're doing it at all, actually.Yeah, that's so interesting.We haven't put any of those business principles in the household.Young and profitors, a few weeks ago, my main video editor put in his notice due to health
25:43concerns.Now, because it was an emergency and I wish him well, I was in a pickle.He was gone and there was nothing I could do about it.And so I was in full panic mode.The podcast still goes on.I still need promotional clips.I still have sponsors.I can't do this without a video editor.
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29:35So the Sunday basket was your first product.What year did you decide to do it?What made you think like this is going to actually work?And it seems like, so basically what it is,I looked it up.It's like a bin with like lots of folders.It's a project management box.It's a weekly planning system.
29:55As somebody who has ADHD, like, I love that. I love, like, physical, like, colors, like, anything that will, like, make it, like, somewhat fun to do the thing that I'm, like, despising to do.Yeah, I totally trick you. That's my whole goal. So it's just trick people and do things. What is the Sunday basket and talk to us about the evolution of you selling it, how it started, like, how much money were you making it? How much, like, did you invest to create it? How did you talk to somebody in China and get it made? Like, like, what was the story?Okay, so the reason I think you like it, and the ADHD people like it, is because it is physical.Yeah.Because so much of what we do is cognitive and executive function is cognitive.So if you can externalize it, which is my thesis, then you can see it manipulated outside of your head and you could get more done.So the Sunday basket, I actually created it in 2002 when my kids were two years old and six months old and personally used it.And I taught it to people in direct sales because I couldn't get my consultants in direct sales to be profitable because they were always sidetracked.
30:55by everything they had to do in their household. So I was like, well, I'll fix the household thingso that you can actually do your job. Yeah. So then when I started the company,when I was 40, I blogged in podcasts about the Sunday Basket and I created like an e-book rightaway and I sold it for like seven bucks. And then people kept coming around to it was the Sundaybasket that worked. So I was manufacturing the Sunday Basket. Actually, my first manufacturer wasin Dallas, Texas. Oh, nice. Yeah. So we made it here in Texas first and then they saidthan my expectations were too high, which I've heard before. And we do manufacture it in China nowbecause it's a sewn basket. And a lot of people will put up to 20, 25 pounds worth of paper in it.
31:35Wow. So it needs to hold that. So yeah, we decided to manufacture it. So I manufactured it herein Texas. And I could order small amounts because I was using a product they already had and I wasjust making a derivative work off of it. And then when I started manufacturing in China, I actuallypatented it and started creating it. Oh, so nobody, I was going to say, you must have a lot ofcopycats. No, I don't have any. And I actually have my trademarks in England or the UK and alsoAustralia already. So this basket is pretty expensive. Like on your website, it's $250. On Amazon,it's like 180. It's two different versions. Yep. Yeah, one I think comes with like accountability.They both have the box and the colored folders that you see, the workbook, the course, and the
32:18accountability. The one that's 250 also has some extra office supplies, tarrapads and things thatyou'll see me use in videos. If you don't want to have to go back to the store and get things,like just get it all at once. But the 179 one will get you start. It has all the courses,all the accountability. And so I think it's so funny. I'm going to actually push back.Yeah, sure. That you think it's expensive for $179 for a one-time purchase that has lifetimeaccess to co-working. And we've been running the co-working for eight years.Well, I didn't know that the run-a-weekly has. I think to me,me, the basket feels expensive, but the whole offering is not because it's lifetime access.
32:54Yes, and I upgrade it all the time. I upgrade the course and all of that. But I only push backbecause this is my biggest marketing hurdle is we households are responsible for 68% of US GDP.When you say that, what do you mean? I mean that of the amount of money that moves in the UnitedStates, 68% comes from households spending. Because like the rest is.buying groceries and cleaning supplies. Is that what you mean? Yep. The government, military, and us. That is what is our economy. That's why we get stimulus. That's why we reduce. Like, if the household stops spending, the world shuts down. So the household is, we move the world. Yeah. And yet $179 is too much to externalize the invisible load of the head of household and all the projects that usually she does, the bill pay, the menu planning, the mail,this kid's school stuff, all of that.It's a one-time purchase.So I only say that because I truly would like to know,
33:56you know what the alternative is?Paying nothing and just using your brain and forgetting thingsand just running around like...Yeah, living like a hot mess.Like so many people are.Yeah.And so we started a study right as COVID started,and I'm going to get it started again soon.
34:09But we have anecdotally found that the Sunny Basketsaves you five hours per week every week.We just passed 15 million hours savedjust with the baskets have been purchased, and most people DIY it.Okay, let's talk about, like, why the Sunday basket works.Why is it so important to take what is in your head and externalize it?And, like, what are the different categories in the basket that make it easy?Okay.
34:33So I'm going to play a trick on you.Okay.You ready?Okay.I am just coming home from work.Okay.I'm pulling in the driveway.I've got to change the laundry, grab something for dinner, and put my Pilates clothes on.
34:43So I grab the mail as I'm walking in the house because, I mean, I'm walking by it anyway.I start flipping through. I'm like, I should really recycle what I need to recycle. You don't want tobring that in the house, right? That's a productivity hack. So I get in the kitchen. I've recycled what I needto recycle. I put the mail down. I grab what I need to eat. I go change for Pilates. I get in the car.What did I forget to do? Telling about dinner? No. I grab my dinner. Everyone I've done this with,can't remember. It was changed the laundry. Now I'm on my way to Plottis and I have forgotten to changemy laundry. This is why you need a Sunday basket. We have a to do list. We know what we're doing.We have a plan for our day.
35:21And all of the other things like the text message that comes in, the phone call, the getting the mail, the kids ask your request, the dog is barking needs to go out.All these things derail us from what we're already doing.And you can only remember so many things in your working memory, usually about three.So when you picked up the mail, you dropped the laundry.And the laundry was the thing you actually needed to do today.The mail can wait until Sunday.So the mail all just goes in the Sunday basket.then people think, well, the Sunday basket is only a male thing.
35:48I would never open up the Sunday basket.I'd be like, I'll see next year.That's the easiest example.Once you start using the Sunday basket, you realize, oh, my gosh, there are so many thingsI'm trying to hold on to in my head.So, for example, I get this sourdough bread delivered, but I don't, I need to change thedelivery date because I don't need more sourdough bread or I get water delivered to the houseand I'm out of water, so I need to speed up when I'm going to get that water.
36:13Like, we're trying to remember all of these things.I just write all these notes to my.myself, throw it in the Sunday basket. And just like you plan in business every week,you should plan at home every week. So every week, the things that everybody does is whatever'simportant, the phone calls you have to make, the bills you need to pay, the ordering, the groceries,getting ready for errands for the week, anything that's done that needs to go into a binder,we'll go in a separate section. And then whatever the other projects are, are going to be you-dependent.And there are four categories. Anything related to your house? So like maintenance or getting money for the
36:45person that's going to clean it, all of that. Anything related to the people, including pets thatlive with you, and what are they going to need for the week? Anything financial related. And then the onethat I always created for and didn't really start until this year is anything related to you.What do you want to do? And we're so busy always checking things off the list. We don't actuallyget around to anything we want to do at home. I have such bad ADHD. I'm going to just share this withmy listeners that I didn't check my mail for like four months and I had a $40,000 check in the mailthat got like expired because I waited over 180 days and I got another $40,000 check,thank God that got resent to me. But that's how like what if you can't even check your mail?
37:31Well, a lot of people are overwhelmed. ADHD, not ADHD, almost everyone, especially of every woman today,is overwhelmed. So the Sunday basket usually takes about six weeks to set it up. And then the beginning,all you're doing is going, oh my gosh, I can't believe I miss this. Oh my gosh, how can I be this disorganized?I can't believe that, you know, everybody has that same story. But after about six weeks, you go,okay, I'm kind of on top of the fires. My dumpster fire is smaller now. Yeah. If it's in a Sundaybasket. And I'm just going to pull out and tackle whatever I can each week. And then you start torealize, you know what, this to do list is never going to go away. So I need a better perpetualto-do list where I could pull things out as I could do them, instead of just trying to make a really
38:09big list and check it all off. What was any like hurdles or challenges in relation to actuallymaking the basket? We don't have enough time. So when we were making the basket here in Texas,it was actually a paper over cardboard box that was glued together. And they do actuallymanufacture in China. They just bring it in here. Well, China's really bad with glue. So then likethe third version, like we're like, this would be.cute, we're going to do like a lattice pattern.Whatever we did on that pattern made the glue not sticks.So then all the boxes were like coming apart.
38:42The colored slash pockets that come in it, the first four orders were all wrong.And the first order was like 100% defective.Like 100% defective.It was so much money.So I just went live in Facebook and I was like, okay.So good news, the slash pockets are here.Bad news are all defective.And I'd already collected money.
38:59I said, so here's what we're going to do.You're going to get two for the price of one.I'm shipping them all out anyway.and we're just going to go with it.And my audience has always been so supportive.They were like, yay, we got double the slash pockets.But our perspective, like the holes weren't punched right, whatever.They, like, just took it and they went with it.
39:17But the funny thing about if you do do physical organizing or physical products,the first thing that I did was one set, the rainbow set of slash pockets.And I had those shipped to my house because, I mean, I worked from home.Yeah.So the truck came.and there were a lot of boxes, which filled my garage.And the other order was coming, which was four times a size.And I had not, when you think about doubling a business, well, if you're doubling an online
39:44business, whatever, get more customer service people.If you're doubling a physical products business, I was like, I need a place right away.So we got like 250 square foot place.Two months later, we're in 400 square feet.Six months later we're in 1,500 square feet.I was like, wow, this doubling thing really takes up a lot of space.Yeah, so you have to charge a lot for it.and include the other services. So at what point did you always have the other services involved with it?
40:10Yep. Okay. So that was a start into courses and programs. Yeah. So because I was a teacher,I really love physical products and apparently ADHD, so I really like physical products.And what I know to be true in organizing is that you learn organization best in analog.Digitization is increasing productivity, an individual of the person, but analog is universal.everybody can sort paper. But when you go to digital, it's like, well, what kind of phone do you have? What kind of cloud service do you have? Like, it's all very different, but paper is paper is paper. So I love taking it to that basic level. And I like office supplies. Like when my mom would take me to Office Max as a kid, I didn't want to go to the Office Supply Store. So I like Office Supplies. And Office Supplies over time have really gone downhill. They weren't as bad when I started making them, but now, like, they're bad if you look. Like they have not been in-Yeah.They're basic.And since COVID, like, half of the binder manufacturers have gone out of business.
41:09Because for a while, like, nobody was using planners or binders.I literally just bought a new weekly planner.And it's, like, super colorful.And I use it every day.And I love it.And I'm like, I can't believe I wasn't writing anything down anymore.And I feel so much more productive now that I'm actually writing things down.It's pretty crazy how much more productive you can get just by writing things down.
41:30Well, I think when we first went digital, we were more productive,digital because we had so many analog systems.And we're like, we were putting it all into one thing.We're putting it all into a Google calendar or all into a Word document or whatever.But now, I mean, there are so many digital things that I use.I can't remember where anything is.So now paper seems more simple.Like everything kind of goes around.
41:51So crazy.Okay.Let's talk about your audience and your marketing channel.So you've got a great podcast, 25 million downloads.I'm going to try to have you in my network and get you some sponsorship money, maybe one day.You've accumulated this audience and what you do is so visual.So, like, I would assume that you would want to show everything and be visual.But you've had really great success just talking to people.
42:16Why is that?Well, one, I don't want the complexity of digital.Like, to have to have your hair done and then are you going to wear the same outfit?Yeah.It's a pain in the ass.Yeah.And once you get your house organized, what am I going to do?Make a mess to then show you how to make it clean.
42:31And then whenever you're thinking about visual,for me, okay, I was a stay-at-home mom, now I'm in a multi-generational family, my grandkidslive with me, like I share all those, that information, but 60% of my audience is not marriedwith kids under the age of 18. And once I found that out, I was like, whoa.Really? Yeah. Now that I'm my PhD, I know that it is. 81% of Americans are not married withchildren under the age of 18. It's only 17.9%. So I want to help any person.of any age, anywhere in the world, and any size dwelling, get organized. And so I don't have amommy makeover package anymore. I'm really getting down to what are the basics of what we need
43:14to get organized. We have housework. We have organizational work. We have invisible work that goesin the Sunday basket, which is administrative. We have information work. And then we have thework of self-actualization in a home. That is my theoretical orientation that I'm going to be doingresearch on. Everything else, like, if you have kids, if you're a caregiver, if you're settlinga state if you're planning for the holidays. Some people do all of those things, but not everybodydoes all of those things. So what are the universal things we need to organize as humans that are lacking?And then what are the things that are extra that you can add on for your family? So you feel likebecause you're just a voice, you can speak to everyone. Yes. And I talk much more theoretical
43:53and big picture and teaching you how to think about things, teaching how to think about your time,think about productivity, how to reorganize your house for the phase of life that you're inversus how the house was designed to be used.Let's stick on that for a moment because I feel like people are curious about like,how can I get better organized?How can I better manage my household?What are like the top three things you could recommend for somebody to do right now or todayor this week to get better organized?
44:28What are three things they can do?Okay.Number one, stop doing your housework hidden. So, like, step on a stage and do your housework. If you live with people, they should be watching you vacuum, fold laundry, do dishes. Like, don't do it when they all go off to work in soccer or wherever they go. And you're like, oh, finally, the house is quiet. I'm going to do the dishes. Don't do that. I know it's great. So don't make it invisible. You call us invisible labor. Yeah. If everybody else is having fun, you have fun too. Like, and when everybody else is here, do the housework with them. They can help or not. But it's,least they'll see that it's getting done. So that's number one. Why, though? Because then it makesit more appreciative or? Well, it makes it not invisible. Because when you do it when everybody else isnot in the house and then everybody else is in the house and they're doing leisure and you don't feellike you have time to do leisure because you need to do other things, then you are frustrated withthem and they don't understand what the big deal is. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So that'd be number one. Number two,
45:24organize your spaces first. Organize your closet, your bedroom, your backpack,your laundrom, like whatever impacts you organize that first, because number one, it will stayorganized a lot longer than any of the family spaces. And number two, you will start living anorganized life. And so you will feel better because we default to everybody else around us andorganizing all of them. And then they don't appreciate it. It gets unorganized. And then again,we get frustrated. Yeah. And they're like, why are you met? Okay. Okay. So that'd be the second one.And the third one is, what is the one thing that has just been bothering you? And you're like,if I just had time to work on this thing.
46:00Like, use paper plates and order take out in and then work on that thing.So, like, for me right now, it's my nutrition and my wellness.So I'm really trying to dial in, like, now I'm hungry and I want to eat, but now I know allthe food is bad, so I don't have any of the good foods, so then I just don't even know what toeat.So I really need to take some night and figure out what to eat because I can be hungry.Yeah.So we talked about this word, invisible labor.
46:22And I noticed that you create a lot of, like, terms in your marketing, things that I'venever heard of before, and you coined them. And I'm curious how that impacts your stickiness to youraudience, the way that they resonate with you. Like, why do you come up with all these terms?And give us some examples. Okay, great. So Invisible Labor is definitely an academic term.It's not my own. So I just want to make clear with that one. But I think it's just the teacher.Like, how do you, through a podcast, help someone who's in their own home, think about their homedifferently so that they can make decisions and make change. So I have to like explain and giveexamples of other households that might be similar to yours and then give you a business analogy or
47:05a different analogy and then apply it to the home. So one would be Swiss cheese organizing.So Swiss cheese organizing actually came from when my kids were at this learning disability schooland they talked about how an ADHD brain has Swiss cheese learning because of the executivefunction deficits. Like one day the student will know their colors and the next day they won't.And that's, you know, Swiss cheese learning was coined by one of the teachers there.So I took that and I applied it to organizing.And I was like, okay, well, women, we're like, I'm going to take my house back and I organize the kitchen and the toy room and the family room and I do it all weekend long.And then I get to Monday.
47:42I'm like, house looks great.And then the next Friday, it's a mess again because you're organizing spaces that aren't going to stay organized.But if you organize your bathroom, your bedroom, your closet, those spaces will stay organized.and now you can get your whole house organized in a year.You have an order of operations problem, not an effort problem.So I'm pulling that in from being a math teacher.Like, you remember order of operations?Like the pandas thing.
48:05So I'm applying that.And then I did a whole series on that where I was like, you must subtract, which is declutter.And then you must add.And then you must, you know, organization multiplies your time.And I did all these little analogies around math.Another one is golden windows.So I talk about when there are these unique periods of time where everybody wantsto get organized, September.
48:23January. Yep. When you turn a milestone birthday, like 40. Spring cleaning. Have a baby. All that stuff. So some areuniversal. Like everybody wants to get organized in September. And some are unique to you. You're getting married and you'returning 40 and you're having a baby or whatever it is. And you can stack these golden windows. And then you havea lot of energy. And this is when you should really go deep on getting organized. Why is it that sometimes,like, I'm in the mood to clean and I'll notice that there's stuff everywhere. And then other times, like,even notice that it's messy, like as an ADHD brain? I don't know, but I could guess. So I'lljust say for myself, sometimes it's like, okay, it's messy, but I really don't have the energyor I'm really excited about something I'm doing a business. So I'm like, whatever. Yeah. And then other
49:10times maybe it'll be like, I'm stuck on something at work or I'll be like, I really need tofigure this out, but I can't figure it out. And I'll come home and I'll be like, this place is amess. And I'll put all my energy into organizing the house. And as I do that, I get the breakthrough forthe business. So I find that a lot of times when we do some of that kinesthetic work, at least formyself personally, I'll make breakthroughs in other areas. Yeah. How are people finding you mostly?Like, how are you getting your sales? Where are the different channels? We talked about yourpodcast. Like, if you could break down, like, where you get a majority of your sales or thedifferent channels? I don't know. You don't know. I don't know. I don't know. She just said,
49:47I don't know. I don't know. So, um, I'm on Instagram. I don't know. So, um, I'm on Instagram.I pulled everybody onto my own app.So we're not on Facebook.I mean, I have accounts on Facebook, but I haven't been on Facebook in like six years becausepeople like to organize in private.Yeah.And people don't want like Facebook having all their information.So I have my own app.
50:04I have a custom coded website.Like I'm not on Shopify.I am in Amazon just for one product.So yeah, I'm not in a lot of the places all the other people are.So that's kind of a problem.I do have the podcast and people do refer the podcast.I have books.People will find me when I'm on other podcasts like yours or I do a summit.
50:22or things like that.But, no, I've never been able to, like, dial it in.This is how you, like, turn this big of it.Really? What about SEO from your website?It's so, like, word-heavy.I'm assuming you get a lot of traffic from there.You don't know?People will say they find me.
50:38Somehow they end up on the podcast, and that's where they.When you want to grow, like, do you care about growing?Yes.Yes, I do.What do you do?What do you do?So, yeah, that's a great question.The only time I ever ran ads was we were running ads in February.
50:52February of 2020 and we ran them until May of 2020, I do think they kind of worked. But just likeyou said, I mean, you've looked at everything in the company and you're like, the Sunday basket'stoo expensive. Well, an ad, I mean, you see what I'm saying on Facebook. That's not people aren't going tobuy a hundred and 79 dollar basket. The podcast works for you because you're building trust.Yes. You're getting people to like listen to your voice, feel connected with you, listen to youevery day until finally they're like, yes, I wear them down. Lisa's giving me so much advice. I'm going tobuy her $250 basket and get this started.And at least I get something physical in the process.
51:28It's probably easier to make the course sale in 2026 with a physical product, to be honest,because courses are kind of going a little downhill.But talk to us about your model of your course because it's actually you're involved.It's more of a, is it like live kind of like group coaching?Yeah, so I didn't finish that earlier.There's always three components to anything that we sell.There's a physical product.Okay.
51:51There's an online course, like an on-demand course, and then there's some kind of a co-working.So in the Sunday basket, you get the Sunday basket, you get the online course, and then about 40 out of 52 Sundays from 5 to 630 Eastern, there's one of two people that will lead a Sunday Basket Club.The productive home solution, we don't have a physical product anymore, but that's our whole system to organize your entire house.And then Tanya on Thursday will lead you in, like, what does that look like in her house with twins that are 12, whereas I am, you know, an empty nest or an house.And then my live components are when I do planning days. So now I'm taking you up to that level five CEO thinking leader of the house.So this is like the VIP premium package. So how much is somebody spending on that?So the planning day right now is $250 per session. Okay. It's a live event. So we just charge. And once you're in that, you can get the subscription, which drops it a little bit. And many people can join that.Many people can join that. We have a thousand people in it.
52:47You have a thousand people in it and they join every, a thousand people join the call.A thousand people are in the subscription plan and they have been for like five years.Okay, cool.And we have very, very little turn.And they show up on Sundays and do it with you.So this is the planning day.It's kind of like quarterly planning and business.It's kind of modeled after the EOS model.
53:04So it's a two-day event, a Thursday and a Friday.Thursday we prep and we get ready and we pull all of our resources and clean out our Sundaybasket and get all our binders ready.And then I do a four-hour live and there's a six-week replay where we go through likethinking through our time and thinking through our housework and our goals and objectives and plan outour house, all the things we want to do in our house for the next 120 days. We do this three times ayear. Got it. Okay. I feel like we need this like more broken down. I don't get what you do yet.So what is the- Maybe this is my problem.
53:36Welcome to Howie Profit Therapy. I'm just kidding.Yes, yes, thank you. Product ladder. Tell us your product ladder. Like what is the lowest entry point to work with you to the highest?Sunday basket $179.Okay.The productive home solution is $12.50 that's organizing your house.Does somebody go is and organizes your house?No, you have to organize your own house.I teach you how, I know.
53:59It's a 52-week, never-ending program.Exactly.And there's a good point to that.So this is not designed for people who are too rich for that.Like, that's what in-home professional organizers for.This is for the people who are like, I don't have $75 an hour to pay a professional organizer.Yeah.But I will learn the skill.
54:16And also just getting back to like, we're running an enterprise.Like we are running the household engine.And this is the, like if you are an entrepreneur, and I said, okay, it's going to be like$3,000 for you all the operations systems you need.You'd be like, where can I sign up?But when we're talking about a household, we're like, $750 to do all the informationmanagement.That's so much money.
54:39Aren't those just binders?No, they're like the life, like they're the operating system.They KPIs, the processes that you would have in business.for your household, they will help you if somebody has to step in as power of attorney, power ofhealth care, settle your estate. These are real things that are going to happen in all households.Yeah, and help save you time and efficiency so that you can make more money, do whatever you needto do. Okay, so we're on the second stage. Yeah, so it's Sunday basket, organizing the house,the productive home solution, the paper solution is 750, and then you go to planning days. So we have a
55:10monthly and a quarterly planning. And you pay $250 a week. $250 per year.planning session. They're only three a year, so $750 a year. Got it. 750 a year and it's a planning sessionwith you involved. Yes. It's really cool. You're helping people and you're making money doing it.And so you've got a pretty small team, right? You've got nine people you mentioned. What are all thedifferent roles that you have right now? So we have full-time graphic designer, a full-time finance, one that'spart-time finance and warehouse. I have a chief of staff. I have an executive assistant.I have somebody else who works in the warehouse. Customer service. There's me. There's me. It sounds likeyou need a marketing person, maybe. Yes. We had a marketing person. We probably do need a marketing
55:58marketing is me right now. And something that I heard you say earlier in the conversation is thatyou've never been viral. You're like, I did this all. You have like a $2 million business.You've never been viral. You've got a great podcast though, which is really great long form content.you built a great blog.What are your thoughts around the fact that you've never gone viral,but you still have a successful business?Yeah, I'm not really sure.When I started the PhD, we're a $2.5 million company,
56:27and we maintain that for four years before we sunset our work product,and now we're at $2 million.And it's really, the customers, once they really buy into doing the products,like once you have the Sunday basket,then you want to make all the other things.Got it.So you have really great LTV.Oh, yeah.
56:43So your customers are really going up the product ladder.And they're just buying more office supplies.Interesting.And they're using this system in other ways.Awesome.And do you think there's a lot of word of mouth happening?No, you know why?People don't want to tell people when they're doing organizing and or if you tell other people
57:01when you're doing organizing, people are like, yeah, have her come to my house.She doesn't come to her house.Never mind.That sounds like work.So what I realize is a lot of people don't want to do the work of getting organized.But the people who do are usually leaders in their other roles.And so they see the value of getting this organized because it will give them time so they can have more time for what they're uniquely gifted and created to do, which may be volunteering.It may be growing a business.
57:25It may be leading in corporate America or whatever.But they know that they've been organized and successful over here.So they need to be organized and successful over here.And I don't think you have a lot of competition.I can't imagine that there's a ton of courses available for organization.Am I right?Most of the courses that are out there aren't as complete, and they focus on one niche, which is mostly married women with children.So they're not looking at a woman that is not married.
57:53Or you go into the productivity space or time management space, and they can teach you a time management or a journal or some systems, but they don't have the home organization piece.Okay.So you have like a more holistic approach to manage the entire household.Yeah.So you were also selling work?systems and organization. Why did you decide to sunset that part of your business?Especially if it was making, I guess, how much money? A million dollars a year.It was making a million dollars a year. That was making a million dollars a year. So I was doing
58:23these home planning days three times a year, trimester, and I was doing quarterly planning dayswith people in work. Okay. So that was a recurring product. And then the Sunday basket,same exact product. We called it a Friday work box. And that is the box I originally created backwhen I was doing direct sales, and now I had my whole team profitable because I taught them thatpink leads to purple, leads to blue, leads to green. So marketing pink leads to purple productsand customers leads to team members to support those leads to revenue. Okay. And so once youlearned that in direct sales, you made money. But if you didn't learn that, like you only focused onone color and you never had a well-rounded business enough to make money. Okay. So I moved that into
59:04organized 365. But the problem was I had eight of these boxes.all things I had done,entrepreneur, direct sales, teacher, corporate,like everything I've done.So I was teaching it that way.Then I made it just one box,but I'm an entrepreneur.So when you are an entrepreneur,
59:22pink leads to purple,leads to blue, leads to green.When you are an employee,green leads to blue,leads to purple,leads to pink,because the entrepreneur is the onethat comes up with the ideas
59:32and the marketing and the new.And as an employee,you have administrative tasksthat you work with a team onto create the productthat fulfills the CEO's vision.Okay.And to truly make that line what it needed to be,
59:44I needed to create two products,one entrepreneurial and one employee.And I could have done it.But what I found was I was spending so much time figuring that outthat I was not iterating on the home.And there are thousands of people who do this.And I'm the only person that does the home at the level that I do it.And so I burned the boats,
01:00:05just like I got rid of the in-home organizingwhen it was making almost half a million dollars to start something that was making nothing.I did it again. And now I'm like, okay, I see we need monthly CEO sessions. I see we need a planner.I'm coming out with the planner next month. I see we need a state court. So I'm like, I see nowthe pieces that are already missing and what I'm creating because we still have so much work athome that is not operationalized. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. So even though it wasmaking money, it was profitable. Was it profitable? Yeah. Okay. You still shut it down because you felt like it wasslowing you down with your core competency and eventually, like, you want to make $5 million,
01:00:4010 million more millions on your organization business. That's interesting. It is interesting.Well, you can only do so much. Like you as the individual CEO, visionary creator, can only doso much. Yeah, you got to focus. That's the name of the game. So it's like if you're losing focus,trying to develop something that you aren't even necessarily like the top expert in the world on,And that's probably also what you're feeling.You're like, I know how to organize.I had that business.Now you're getting your PhD to learn more about that.
01:01:14Yeah.How do you think your PhD is actually going to help you in your business?Yeah, my husband asked that question often.That's why we're coming out with this productive home CEO theoretical framework.It's a podcast series now.It'll be a book next year.And then that will be the theory that I ground all my research in.So to have research theory, you have to have a book.
01:01:34So I'm going to create the book. And then I'm going to go and run a lot of studies. So I'm going to self-fund my studies and get them published in academia and elsewhere. And that will be like IP that you can sell with your business, right? So once you publish it in academia, they own it, kind of like if you traditionally publish a book. But yes, it is IP. And this is taking household management to a level that's that's never been studied before. The last time psychologists studied household management in this way was all the way back in the 30s and 40s.When the Lillian Gilbrith did efficiency studies, she was the cheaper by the dozen lady.Okay.She was a psychologist.And so she studied household efficiency.And then academia moved into economics.And that's where we were in the 60s and 70s.And that's when consumer packaged goods were like, yeah, let's target that homemaker.
01:02:22And they created the homemaker out of scratch.Like it was a marketing gimmick, the stay-at-home mom, which I bought into hookline and sinker and loved it.And then we've moved into the feminist, you know, women are doing more labor and visible.labor, the burnout and the mental load of women, which is real and definitely needs to be studiedin academia. We've been studying that since the mid-80s. Okay. My thing is, okay, yeah, that's true,but I can't get my husband to do something different. I can't get my kids to do something different.I can only impact me. And so me, as the head of my household, how can I support myself other thanjust downloading Pinterest printables and things like that? Like, I need an operating system. I need a way
01:03:02to operationalize what I'm doing.I need a way that I have a system that I can put in place in our parents' homes, that Ican put in place in my kids' homes, that I can put in place in my sister's home if I needto step in and be her power of attorney or her power of health care as opposed to runningall their households on all their systems.So that's really what I'm going to focus on.So let's talk about margins, profitability.So right now you're not doing the home services anymore.
01:03:30you really got your products that you just went over.What is your margin on all this?Like how much profit?How much are you spending?What is your biggest cost centers and doing all these different courses?And it's interesting thing about my company that I realize is because I am the manufacturerand I'm the distributor in one company, we actually don't do markup between manufacturerto distributor to end user.
01:03:54Okay.But I could.Like if we were to end up like in Target or something.We would have the manufacturing.We would package that.And then there would be a, you know, cost for that product.We just go straight from manufacturing to end use.So it looks like there's a lot more margin than there is.
01:04:11And because a lot of it is online, you know, I already made the course.So there is no hard cost in that anymore.I continue to update it, but there isn't a hard cost.Other than, like, you and the other people that have to show up on the Sunday planning days and stuff.Yeah.So when you look at the P&L, like the actual physical products is low.like 10 to 15 percent. Shipping is like 7 percent. So you're like, oh my gosh, you have like 80 percent margins.No, you don't because we have warehouse fees. We have warehouse employees. We have customer service.
01:04:40So then you take it down to like, okay, we can lump all that into operating expense.And that's probably like 40 percent. So we're still 60 percent profitable. But if I'm the face of thebrand and I'm creating everything, I'm not in that. I'm over in GNA. Research is down in GNA.You know, all the other team members are down in GNA. So how?how they do it on a P&L, like what's considered profit and not profit.We were profitable the last two years enough that we could do profit sharing,which I really loved doing for my team.It was great.
01:05:10This year we weren't as profitable.Because you're developing because you dropped that product prime.We're still profitable, but not.Oh, that's amazing that you did profit sharing with your employees.Can you share a little bit about that, like how you actually did it?Yeah.So, again, back to that C-Corp and S-Corp.So the S-Corp can have retained earnings at the end of the year,
01:05:28whatever the profit is, like in an S-corp, it would just flow through to the business owner,or they could distribute it if they want to, but if they don't, it will just flow through to them.When you're in a C-Corp, you have to make a decision.Like, I've pulled a W-2 salary.I also get royalties.And then at the end of the year, what is the profit?So I think each year we had like $200,000 in profit.So then when you have that $200,000 in profit, you could pay your 21% tax, $42,000,
01:05:53and then just keep the rest of the $160,000 in the company and just add it so that you,you can use it to buy things.Okay.Or you can distribute it to yourself, like as a business owner.You could just do that.Or you could do what's called profit sharing.So when you do profit sharing, that's going to be means tested, which means that we have a 401k.We do a company match of 4%.
01:06:14So we already check the box of one of the means testing.And then they look at the entire employees, everyone that qualifies and they do all theseactuarial things.And they come back and they say, okay, if you distribute $100,000, this is how it wouldbreakout. If you distribute 150, this is how it would all break out. And I remember when my husbandgot two profit sharing distributions probably 20 years ago, the company he was with was bought,and it was about to be sold. And so the business owners wanted to take money out of the company,and it was advantageous to them to do it as a profit sharing. So he got like, it was a lot of money,
01:06:48like $20,000 or something like that in one year in profit sharing, which all goes into your 401K.And he talks about that all the time and how meaningful it was. So I was like,I want to do that with my employees one day. So we did that two years in a row. And sometimes people won'tsee that as a real benefit because they're like, well, but that's in my 401k. I can't spend it today,especially if they're younger, even though it'll grow so much bigger. So I also try to do bonuses as wellbecause it's like money now, money later. Yeah, really great. Where do you think you're the strongestin your business? I think the fact that I am research back going to do my own research, that I understandthe entire lifespan of the adult cycle, that I have a complete.
01:07:26from decluttering to organizing to increasing productivity and beyond scope, like the depth ofmy research is and my knowledge is really strong. I also think one of your strengths is just yourjourney. Like the fact that you're a teacher, so you're really good at teaching, you can come upwith words and analogies, and then you did the like physical organizing for people. So I feelit's also your journey, which I think is the case for a lot of entrepreneurs. Like your journey isalso your strength.is weaknesses. What do you think your biggest weaknesses are? I think one of my biggest weaknessesis I don't know how people find me and I don't know how to have more people find me.
01:08:07You definitely need to think about how are you going to create marketing channels,especially with a 60% margin. It's like how are you just going to get more customers in the door?And I think honestly, like as a marketer myself, I think it means you've got to like actually lean intosocial media and get on camera. Yeah. Or you don't even need to necessarily get on camera. It could bewriting on social media. Like, I don't know, but I just feel like you need to embrace the fact thateveryone's on Instagram and TikTok. Oh, I'm on Instagram every day. You're on Instagram every day. Yeah,but I'm not doing a good job of it, obviously. And it's like you need to be like DMing people and bringingthem into your world and having webinars. And it's really cool that you've got this podcast and I think that's
01:08:54working, but if you want to like 2x, 3x, 5X of business, I think it's really about getting outthere.Yep, agreed.Yeah.That's why I'm in Austin.Yeah.I mean, she's getting out here right now.All right.
01:09:08Opportunities.Where do you think your biggest opportunities lie?I think that there are a lot of opportunities, and I try, even though I like to go afterevery shiny penny.I'm trying to be very strategic with what I say yes to and what channels we go to next.we could do brand partnerships.You know, I could start speaking on stages.I already have six books, but I plan on continuing to publish about a book a year.
01:09:35So we have a lot of opportunities.I think research is probably the biggest one, though, when we can start having someacademic support for these products specifically in the home, like you do for any other thingthat's in a business.You know, those all have academic testing behind them.I want to do the study, find support, replicate my own study.and then offer my products to independent researchersto be able to see if they can also replicate the study
01:09:59to see if there's support for these.I think like an ADHD line, products, courses,just for them, like, I think that could have worked really, really well.And there's a lot of entrepreneurs with a lot of moneywho have ADHD.Okay, threats.What's your biggest threats?My company will have to be sold.
01:10:19Like, it's not going to go to my kids.But I want to work until I'm 80.Martha Stewart was 80 when I made that.that goal, I think she's 83 now. Dan Sullivan is 82 or whatever. I'm like, okay, well,if they can make it to 80, I can make it to 80. So that's 26 more years. Like I have quite a fewyears of working. But if you're the face of the company, how is that going to work?We're creating an AI right now. I'm doing that Delphi AI. And I'm creating two of them,one for our home-based products and one for the CEO line. And so you're going to be
01:10:46voice chat with that 24-7. So that's one way. Yeah. Who knows what are going to beMaybe like Dave Ramsey approach, like get other like faces in there.I did.Yeah, you did?Yep, I tried it.It didn't go well.I mean, your intellectual property is your intellectual property.Everybody's going to put their spin on things.
01:11:06And when you create something as truly unique like I've created, people want you.Like, is there a second Oprah?I'm not saying I'm Oprah.I'm just saying, you know, is there a second Brunei Brown?Is there a second Mel Robbins?No.I mean, people want that person who's created that, you know,know, community or that feeling or that intellectual property, I don't think it's something that you
01:11:26could just, like, democratize. Yeah. So when you go to sell your company, it will be like all thecourses and the materials and the, and the content essentially. Yeah. So Franklin Covey is now apublic company. Okay. But back in the day, you know, it was the Covey books and the Covey planner,but now it's like multiple hundreds of million dollar company. And it's no longer associated withthe person.Got it. I've been really good at making sure that I have patents and trademarks and copyrights and all of that kind of thing. So I think as far as that goes, that's not a threat. My biggest threat is people just don't want to do work at home. They just don't want to do it. People want to pay for it. But if you can't pay for it, you got to learn. Well, they don't even want to pay for it. They just want it to magically go away or not be a thing or AI robots. Yeah. Hopefully. Don't work. And anyway. Yeah. Well, this has been such an awesome conversation. I feel like we learned some.so much about your business. My last question to you is, if you wanted to double the size of yourbusiness, what steps would you take today? So doubling the size of the business, I just did a
01:12:35reader survey, you know, finding out what my audience wanted, and then I reversed engineered.How can we give them what they want? Because you find the value in existing clients. You know that.Yeah. Yeah. And how do you reach these existing clients? Do you have like an email list that you target?I do have an email list. We have a private app. So every course has its own thing inside of the app. And then you can also get in the app for free. I'm on Instagram. I do podcast episodes. So they hear me there. But our email list is really engaged. So I got a lot of responses from the reader survey.Very cool. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on how we profit. Where can everybody learn about you and everything that you do?Thank you so much for having me. The website is organized 365.com.I'm organized 365 on Instagram, and the podcast is organized 365.Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on how we profit.
01:13:29Thank you.And that, yeah, fam, is how Lisa and organized 365 profits.What stood out to me today is that Lisa is not just selling organization.She's naming a problem millions of people feel, the invisible work, the paper piles, the mental load,and the overwhelm of running a home.And when a founder can name the problem better than anyone else,create a system around it, and build trust through the years with teaching and podcasting,that becomes a real moat.
01:13:58Thanks for listening to How We Profit Wednesdays, the Young and Profiting series where real entrepreneursshare real numbers, real margins, and the real story of how their businesses actually work.I'm Halitaha, and I'll see you next time.
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