We were lucky to catch up with Jackie Citerony recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jackie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

This really isn’t a crazy story. It’s a story of how professional organizing helped a client during a very difficult time in her life.
Professional Organizing isn’t just about lining things up and making them look pretty- although that is the icing on the cake!

Often people find themselves completely overwhelmed during major life transitions. Buried beneath boxes, filled with a lifetime’s accumulation of belongings, one client reached out for immediate help. Let’s call her Kathy.

Kathy was panicking- a real-life, heart pounding, fear-inducing, panic attack. The stress of downsizing her family from a big house to a small apartment, coupled with a contentious divorce, had finally broken this typically rock-solid woman and mother of three.

So why on earth would she call an organizer and not run to her doctor? Because she knew…
She knew that these hard-hitting feelings were temporary, and if she could just find her way through this ridiculous maze of boxes the movers had dumped, she would be okay. And she was absolutely right.

Within an hour of my arrival, the cardboard boxes were broken down and their contents sorted by category. My client was able to relax while she decided what to donate. Absolutely convinced that this tiny kitchen would never accommodate all of her things, especially not the huge Kitchen Aid mixer, she trusted me to make it happen. It was a challenge, but I absolutely knew this would help her well-being more than anything else in the world.

Soon enough, the boxes disappeared and the donations were whisked away to serve another life and bless someone else’s day. By dinner time, Kathy’s son was baking salmon and making his nightly popcorn, in the special “popcorn zone” I’d created just for him. Best of all? Everything fit, every last piece, even the giant mixer! Labels were printed, spices were sorted onto risers, and even the paper towels had a home.

As she stood in awe and admiration of her new space, her heart rate slowed. The fear had lifted. She exhaled a huge sigh of relief and said “I’m actually going to like it here! We’re going to be better than okay. I can breathe now.”

And this is what Label Me Organized does best. We help you declutter, donate, put away, and polish up your place. We help you make space for whatever it is that matters most to you. In turn, you will feel better, breathe easier, and very wisely, maximize the space you have right there in front of you.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

If you’re looking around your house thinking, “I just can’t live like this anymore”…

If you’re embarrassed to have company because your house is in such disarray…

If you’re afraid to walk by that overly cluttered closet for fear it will burst open and spill out everywhere…

There’s hope! I help you tame that overwhelm! By working with me, you’ll find more space, flow, simplicity, and ease so you can breathe easier and fall in love with your home again.

I’m Jackie Citerony, owner of Label Me Organized, a boutique organizing company that calms the chaos in any space. I take time to listen and to understand exactly how you need your space to function. I customize my organizing solutions exclusively for you and your family- and no two families are alike.

Whether you’re preparing for a move, getting ready for house guests, or want a whole-home organization makeover, we’ll work together to declutter, donate, and make space for whatever matters most to you.

Let go of the mental and emotional overwhelm that your messy pantry and cluttered closet are costing you. Let’s work together to get you organized, once and for all. Then, coming home will be a pleasure!

Side effects of an organized home include: breathing easier, waking up with more joy and inspiration, and a sense of calm that will ripple throughout your entire life.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

I’m a Southern girl from New Orleans. We were raised to write thank you notes to everyone and for everything! I try to share a little of that Southern hospitality with my clients in the form of handwritten thank you notes. I even put a stamp on them and send them through good ol’ snail-mail.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve always operated from a client-centric approach- my client’s come first and they must be happy with the job Label Me Organized does for them! I’ve worked hard to bring them the very best of myself and my professional organizing acumen. Initially, I thought it was critically important to provide a written estimate of how long their project might take. I’d say all the right things, such as “this is not a promise, but it should take around 12-15 hours”. I’d say my hit-miss rate on actual time spent was 50/50.

What I had to unlearn was the idea that things were actually predictable. It’s just not possible to forecast how much clutter is buried within every drawer, or how long it takes someone to sort through a room full clothes, and make decisions on what to donate. So I’ve allowed myself to lighten up about that, and I’ve become more comfortable charging hourly, without a firm idea of when we’ll be done. I’m still every bit as upfront with my clients, I’ve just stopped assigning a number of hours to the work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.labelmeorganizedsd.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/labelme.organized
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/labelmeorganizedsd
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/labelmeorganized