We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erin Gaskins a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Erin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job?

I started my professional career as an educator. Hired to work for a small, mountain school district in Colorado shortly after completing my degree, I arrived in town a couple weeks before school started so I could move in and set up my home and classroom. Excited to begin, I asked my principal for the curriculum materials I should use to begin planning, to which he replied, “Curriculum? I guess there’s something around here in a closet somewhere. You can look around and see.” There was nothing to speak of. I quickly learned that to be successful, I would have to rely not on what some pre-packaged program was telling me would work with my students, but on what my students were telling me they needed.

It was on this foundation of building relationships with my students, learning from them to help them learn best, that I built, and then ended my long career in education. However, while this technique worked well for me as an educator, over time I found it wasn’t “fitting in” with the changing tide in education that continually encouraged us to put aside everything we learned as teachers in order to teach to a curriculum/teach to a test. The very thing I thought I wanted when I set out teaching, was coming true- much to the detriment of the student/teacher relationship that I had built. It was no longer the right environment for me.

Fast forward a few months. Having left education, a good friend reached out to have me help her organize her home because I was just “good at it”. She saw something in me I didn’t know was really a “thing”. At the time I didn’t know that people actually made a living as professional organizers! We had a great time putting her home in order and, thanks to her and her excitement, others called me for help. There was that little part of me that felt fresh out of college again, wanting to reach out for the “curriculum” on how to be an organizer. But there was a much bigger part of me that now knew that if I stuck with what I knew- talking with my clients, building relationships in order to understand their needs, and creating ways to support them in order to help them feel successful in their own spaces- we would create something special that wasn’t just a repeat of someone else’s curriculum or “recipe” for professional organizing. Rather, we would build something authentic. Out of it, Room Redefined’s relationship-based professional organizing approach was developed, and has now been serving clients for over 7 years!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As I mentioned, I brought my 25-years’ experience as a teacher, program coordinator and administrator in schools to my new role in professional organizing. This on-the-job training provided me with a strong skill set in communication skills, project management, productivity, executive functioning, research, and leadership skills. Most importantly it taught me how I wanted to approach work with my clients and treat my employees.

Room Redefined is set apart from other organizing companies in our relationship-based approach. In fact, we are frequently hired by clients who have worked with other organizers but found the work didn’t fulfill their needs or meet their goals! I attribute this to the fact that we don’t just focus on putting things on shelves, or labeling in pretty bins, but first and foremost the organizing process is about getting to know each client, their unique needs and goals, and the details that will make a space functional and successful for that individual person. It truly is about helping each client’s space support them in doing what they do best, which requires a very different investment.

To accomplish this at Room Redefined, we ask each new client to complete an in-depth new client questionnaire, and then conduct free, in-person consultations prior to beginning any project. This is as much for the client as for us. You see, if we put in the time to get to know the client and see them interact in their space, we learn a large amount that will help us develop successful plans for them. At the same time, they learn who we are, develop trust and the willingness to lean on us to accomplish their goals. The relationship is born, and the work can proceed!

I receive a lot of questions as to why I didn’t just join one professional organizing association or another to start the company. The answer for me is clear. I needed an opportunity to develop a strong relationship with my clients to best understand what their needs were. In the process I have drawn on my own research skills- conducted my own “master’s program” in a sense, reading, following other discussion forums, participating in panels, and meeting with professionals, all to develop a level of expertise that has gone much deeper than a single professional organization, and allows me to serve my clients with a high level of skill and responsibility.

In the last 3 years the Room Redefined team has expanded. I have brought on 4 other team members all who bring their unique set of skills and expertise to our work with clients. The expertise includes interior design, project management, space planning, closet design and installation, general organization, psychology, and business-based organization. Our depth and abilities as a team allow us to work with a wide variety of clients with needs that include general organization, commercial organization, downsizing, pre-/post-move support, decluttering, design consulting, and remodel support.

I am very proud of the unique path we have taken to developing and growing Room Redefined that has allowed us to become the leading, relationship-based organization company in the Colorado region.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

When I was at the point of scaling Room Redefined from a solo entrepreneurship to a team, I came across the book, “Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share your Creativity and Get Discovered”, by Austin Kleon. Right away I was struck by his advice that, “You don’t have to be a genius. Find a scenius.”

Kleon discusses what he feels to be one of the most destructive myths about creativity- that of the lone genius. You know- the person with superhuman talent- think Einstein, Beethoven, Picasso. This person is thought of as largely working alone, shaping their masterpiece in a highly antisocial process.

He contrasts this with Brian Eno’s concept of the “scenius”- in which great ideas are crafted by a group of creative individuals who make up an “ecology of talent”- a whole scene of people who are supporting each other, looking at each other’s work, copying from each other, stealing ideas, and contributing ideas.

Once I hit on this, I realized, this is what I had been striving for in my work team. I didn’t see myself as the lone genius, the boss, the sole person in charge with all of the answers. I had a vision for a company and the way things should be done, but each person that joins us adds to our rich ecology of talent and allows us to deliver a much deeper offering to our clients as a result of their contribution to our team.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

This was and continues to be the biggest learning curve for me as a business owner. I didn’t enter this profession with working capital from which to build it. In fact, I never really planned on building a business. It just sort of happened, and became clear this was what was next for me, and I had to find a way to make it successful. This meant doing the work and reinvesting every dime I could back into the business as is grew.

Room Redefined has primarily always found its clients organically. We started through word-of-mouth. Now we are able to advertise through our website, social media channels, attending events, and expanding our network. That said, we don’t pay for advertising, so we rely on the quality of our relationships and their belief in what we do to continue to spread the word organically. We grow as client demand grows because what we do works!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.roomredefined.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roomredefineddenver/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoomRedefinedDenver/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/77375381/admin/dashboard/

Image Credits

Melanie Fitcher Moonbeam