We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jill Yesko Diana a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jill thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a client that you appreciate them?

We created a card line just for our company to congratulate, motivate, and encourage our clients to achieve organizing and downsizing success. Eventually, our industry partners and colleagues also wanted to use these cards in the same way, but as a soft marketing campaign as well. Clearly Noted Cards was born in 2008 and has thrived in the organizing and downsizing industry since then. We appear at conferences in the exhibition hall, and continue to send caring and thoughtful messages to leads, current clients, and vendor partners (i.e. realtors).

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My first career out of college was in the mental health field, which is the core foundation of my entire career. This role taught me how to connect those in need to the proper resources and ensure they received the necessary care and services. It was a natural progression for me to go from social work to psychiatric hospital administration before starting Discover Organizing in 2003.

When I founded Discover Organizing Inc., a professional organizing, downsizing and move management provider, my goal was to build the company on compassion. I wanted to create a space where those in need could feel understood and cared for and learn how to create lasting organizational systems through education.

To fulfill our customer’s growing needs, I expanded services and began offering photo, memorabilia and virtual organizing, as well as life transition services, such as packing and unpacking services, which led to becoming a National Association of Senior and Specialty Move Managers® (NASMM) member. I am also a member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO), earning a Certified Professional Organizer® designation in 2007, the inaugural year of the certification program.

After becoming a professional organizer, I enhanced my existing project management skills with extensive education. I attended conferences and courses through NAPO, ICD® (Institute for Challenging Disorganization) and NASMM and studied countless books from organizing experts and psychologists. This commitment to education has empowered me to work more deeply with those with hoarding disorders. As a result, I published “I’m Right Here: 10 Ways to Get Help for Hoarding and Chronic Disorganization,” a supportive resource book for those experiencing these conditions and a guide for caregivers. Over the past two decades, I have shared my knowledge at multiple national conferences, major corporations and local events, aiming to inform and empower others on the power of productivity, household decluttering, home and office organization and downsizing for life transitions.

At Discover Organizing, we believe one of the most important goals for organizing and decluttering is to make space for the life you want to live, allowing for a productive and stress-free home.

Unlocking simplicity is our mission for every client.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Speaking in the community has been our best source of attaining new clients, next to word-of-mouth referrals. Educating and entertaining an audience has always been enjoyable for me, so I hope that comes out when I provide content at the front of the room. Establishing myself as an expert is one thing, but having a group of people who truly are motivated to learn new ways of decluttering or improving their home spaces is another – it adds some excitement and energy to the room. I always get 10% of the room to hire our company at a minimum. Those people have made a connection to the “why” they need to get organized or make habit changes, and they prove to be lifelong clients!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I can equate every moment of “almost drowning” to having too much overhead and not paying attention to the numbers.

A lot of us who have been in business long enough to remember the recession in 2008-2009 (and a bit beyond) can recall the fear of having to restructure or close shop. I was willing to do the former when my debt had reached unmanageable numbers. I had missed something BIG when I opened my new organizing store in late 2007. I had been doing very well financially as a service provider since 2003, and a bank gave me $50K to open the store, but when the recession hit, I realized I had basically brought the equivalent of a knife to a gunfight.

I was undercapitalized going into the retail business and was not prepared to staff a store while trying to provide the service. The store worked in the sense that it drove our service business way up, but the albatross of a brick-and-mortar, along with the utilities, inventory, and staff required to keep it profitable was too much of a burden. I filed Chapter 11 and then recovered within a year, but it was a very tough year.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.discoverorganizing.com
• Instagram: discoverorganizing
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/discoverorganizing
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillyesko
• Twitter: https://x.com/DiscoverOrder
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DiscoverOrganizingIncMedia

Image Credits
Nathan Yesko