Resources in this Episode:

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous! This is episode number 049.

Lisa Woodruff [0:07]
Hi! This is Lisa Woodruff. You’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski, enjoy!

Christine Schlonski [0:15]
I am so excited to welcome Lisa Woodruff back to the show. I had so much fun in the first interview with her. And it was really interesting to learn her story and how tidying up is really helping you to, you know, make more profits create that space for more clients to come in for more amazing things in your life, then when your environment is cluttered. So I am really looking forward to find out more. I also want to invite you before we dive in to hop on over to ChristineSchlonski.com and to sign up for the Empowerment Notes. That is my weekly newsletter, where give you an update on all the podcast episodes of the week. As well as giving you amazing content that is empowering to help you to get to your next level in your business. So hop on over to ChristineSchlonski.com, sign up for the Empowerment Notes and also find all the podcast episodes over there. So have some fun with the show notes, the transcript, the amazing resources, we are talking about all the social media links to the experts. It’s only one click away. Let’s dive into Lisa’s little bio so you know where she is coming from.

Christine Schlonski [1:46]
Lisa is the founder of organize a 365. I already think that gives us a clue. She is the creator of the 100 Day Home organization program, the Sunday basket workshop and the sun Sunday basket workshop paper organization certification program. She’s also a best selling author with the book The Mindset of Organization, Take Back Your House One Phase at a Time & How ADHD Affects Home Organization. Lisa shares her belief that organization is not a skill that you are born with. It is a skill that can be developed over time and changes with each season of life. Lisa has helped thousands of women reclaim their homes. And finally get organized with her focus on functional organizing encouragement and humor through her weekly podcast Organize 365. I’m so excited that Lisa is back. Welcome to the show.

Christine Schlonski [3:00]
Well, I am so excited to have you back on Lisa. Welcome back to Heart Sells! Podcast.

Lisa Woodruff [3:06]
Thank you. I’m having a blast.

Christine Schlonski [3:08]
Yes, this is so amazing. I loved our last interview. And we finished off with the idea that by kind of letting go of things by forgiving yourself for maybe making the wrong purchase decision for bringing things into your house that that are not needed anymore, and letting go of this and really cleaning cleaning out declaring create new space and new energy and make space for things that you value more like, you know, putting it into family time or your business.So can we touch a little bit on this energy thing also in regards to sales and leads because I know that if sales doesn’t feel good to you, then this is probably something you avoid to make these offers to, to invite people to buy from you. And it kind of goes all together at this energy ball of like chaos.

Lisa Woodruff [4:16]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [4:17]
So what have you experienced? And what advice could you give to to the entrepreneurs to kind of get it in the right way.

Lisa Woodruff [4:27]
So yeah, about sales in general. We’re all in the business of sales. If you’re a parent, you know that. Parenting is sales! FYI. So and teaching a sales, you got to convince that middle school boy, that algebra really is going to be for his benefit to get these stages and like we’re all in sales, but people don’t like to hear that they’re in sales. And the reason I really think that you feel if you’re thinking that way that you’re not in sales is because you feel like whatever you’re offering, at least I’ll just speak for myself. I know in the past, like I mentioned, my 100 day home organization program, the other in the other episode, it’s a $500 program.

Lisa Woodruff [5:09]
Now, I know that not everyone can afford that program. But I know everyone who has invested in it has done it. We’ve literally had zero returns of over 1000 people in the program. No one’s ever returned it because when people say is there a return policy is there this, I say no. And if you’re hesitant to buy it, don’t buy it. Like it flat out, say, don’t buy it. Because I’m so confident that I know my program will work and it’s a lifetime membership. And I have so much other stuff that I offer you that it’s free. Like I have a free podcast, I have all these other free things. So if you’re, if you’re worried that what you’re selling that you’re feeling salesy, will if you also offer a piece of that free or at a lower reduced rate, then if they can’t afford the thing that is priced correctly, then they can they can take advantage of the free thing or maybe they’re not ready for what you’re providing.

Lisa Woodruff [5:56]
But you need to really be thinking about who you’re meant to serve. Like, who is your target audience who are your most successful clients or customers, whether it’s a service or a product. Think of your top three clients that you’ve ever had, who were a pleasure to work with, who enjoy paying you the money, who paid on time and paid what you’re worth, and maybe even sent you a thank you note. And when you left that relationship, you felt like it was a win win a win for you and a win for them. Think about those relationships, what was best about that, versus maybe another client. And you just have to realize that your product and service is not for everyone. It’s for the people that you’re uniquely created to serve. And for the people you are uniquely created to serve by not selling what you are gifted to create, you’re actually doing them a disservice. So you may not have 3000 clients, you may have three clients. But those three clients, you may provide the very best service.

Lisa Woodruff [6:51]
So really, sales is a confidence thing, a confidence thing on your part really doesn’t have much to do with the product or service that you’re providing. It’s an knowing that you are providing the right service for the right price for the right target customer that you have. And that’s internal work.

Christine Schlonski [7:07]
Totally, it comes down to clarity.

Lisa Woodruff [7:10]
Yeah, yeah.

Christine Schlonski [7:12]
Well, it comes down to de-cluttering your mind?

Lisa Woodruff [7:14]
Yeah, it just, you know, we undervalue what we’re most gifted at. Like, as a professional organizer. I couldn’t believe people would pay me to organize their house. Are you kidding? Like, I’ll do that for free. When I was a kid babysitting, you’re going to pay me to watch your kids, I get to pretend that I am. This is my house. And these are my kids. And I’m in like, if you feel it’s so much joy for you, that you would do it without earning money. That’s your unique gifting. And that provides so much value for the end user that it is worth money, you are giving them peace of mind you are, you’re freeing them up for what is next for them to go out and live their best life.

Christine Schlonski [7:57]
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And, and that’s what makes it so difficult. Because people want to do it for free so they so excited about it, that they, you know, jump on every possibility, opportunity to serve. But it’s really important to have that mindset that it is an energy exchange.

Lisa Woodruff [8:16]
And I can tell you when my mindset shifted on. This was very recently actually, someone said to me, I was going out and doing something else free. I was creating some whole program for someone who couldn’t afford the program that I had. And I was creating from scratch. And they said to me, I don’t remember who it was, they said, you are going to go spend 15 hours on this thing to give it to people who can’t afford the program that you have already created. Where’s that 15 hours coming from? And I was like, Oh, well, I’ll just do it at night. She said yeah, your husband and your kids. So you are willing to take the extra time to create this for free, or do that extra coaching call or give them this extra something but that time is good way from your husband and your kids. And bottom line is any service that you’re providing someone else could provide it for someone else. But no one can be a spouse. And no one can be a parent. So if you are sacrificing your time with your children and your spouse in order to give something free to someone who doesn’t want to pay what you’re worth, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?

Christine Schlonski [9:26]
I love that. And I would add like also time you have this you the time you take good care of you.

Lisa Woodruff [9:32]
Oh yeah. But we don’t. We don’t qualify that.

Christine Schlonski [9:35]
We have to we have to include that.

Lisa Woodruff [9:38]
Because I love giving like, so that’s okay for me to give my time. But I literally was giving away my husband’s time. That’s what I was giving away.

Christine Schlonski [9:46]
Wow.

Lisa Woodruff [9:47]
And he was never gonna say anything about it.

Christine Schlonski [9:50]
Yeah.

Lisa Woodruff [9:51]
And we could justify it, especially as entrepreneurs. We’re working.

Christine Schlonski [9:55]
Oh, yeah. So get that one. Wow. That’s, that’s such an interesting story. And I’m so sure that so many people can relate.

Lisa Woodruff [10:05]
Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [10:06]
So stop giving away the time of the people you love most. Get your priorities, right.

Lisa Woodruff [10:14]
Yeah. And, create something great is free. I mean, my podcast is free. Some people will say like, everything you have is paid. I’m like, dude, there’s like over 200 hours of free podcast. Plus, there’s a bunch of other stuff that’s free as well. But I mean, if you have something that’s good, that’s free that then you can go back and say, Oh, no, that, you know, go started podcast number one, you have free offerings out there that are high quality.

Christine Schlonski [10:38]
Oh, I think everybody has everybody.

Lisa Woodruff [10:41]
Yeah, you just don’t value them.

Christine Schlonski [10:43]
Yeah, because it comes, you know, it’s so natural to jump.

Lisa Woodruff [10:46]
Right! Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [10:47]
Do it. Exactly. I have that often that people say, Well, this just totally changed my mindset, or this has changed my life. And, you know, it was just the one thing I’ve put out for free.

Lisa Woodruff [11:01]
And there is transformation in the transaction. It’s true, like, you could give out so much stuff free. And you wonder why people aren’t getting the results when they put money behind what they want to do. They, they treat it differently, they bring a different energy to it, they prioritize it. So by you taking away the fact that they need to give money as part of the transaction, they miss out on some of the transformation they can achieve with your product or service.

Christine Schlonski [11:29]
Yeah. And I mean, if we have them, look at ourselves, we we can see that that when we get stuff for free, how we value it, and sometimes they don’t show up the way like when we paid five figures, right.

Lisa Woodruff [11:42]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [11:43]
It is a different game,

Lisa Woodruff [11:45]
Specially five figures.

Christine Schlonski [11:50]
All right. I love that. So I mean, you seem so confident has it always been this way?

Lisa Woodruff [11:57]
I’ve always been a confident person, but not and charging what I’m worth, and you want everybody to like you, right? Like, I’m always afraid people aren’t going to like me, or it’s not going to work. But I have put seven full time years and now I have employees on my team. And I have a warehouse we have physical products. And I’ve invested a lot of our savings into this business and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my programs and services work. Like if you want to get your home and paper organized. You are going to do it in one year with my products if you buy into the program. Like I just it just flat out works. So because it works and the testimonials that I get from my audience, like every day, we get so many like how this has changed their lives. That adds to your confidence. As you as the snowball starts to grow, and you become profitable and people start telling you how your product has literally changed their lives, then you stand in the confidence that they have given you from their transformation. Their transformation with your product gives you confidence.

Christine Schlonski [12:57]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s definitely so if a person is still a little bit afraid of sales, I mean, they get the idea always sell, but still, you know, going out and asking for money can be such a big task.

Lisa Woodruff [13:12]
Yeah.

Christine Schlonski [13:13]
Now you’re saying, Well, you know, confidence comes from all these amazing testimonials. While maybe I don’t create enough testimonials yet,

Lisa Woodruff [13:21]
Right?.

Christine Schlonski [13:22]
So, how can I start on that journey with confidence and, you know, going out for great customers and testimonials, if I’m not feeling confident?

Lisa Woodruff [13:33]
I think you need to start where you are, I think you need to start with one. So if you’re not running a service business, like if you only have a product this is harder and and what I’ve observed lately, with most successful entrepreneurs that are now hitting six, seven, and eight figures in their businesses, if you trace them all the way back to their roots start start watching and tracing them all the way back. They started year one with a service business, and it’s the service business part of whatever your online program or product or anything is going to come out with, which is where they got all their knowledge and expertise.

Lisa Woodruff [14:06]
So I started as an in home physical Professional Organizer. I’ve organized hundreds of women in Cincinnati. So I understand what a house looks like with a 20 year old mom, a 40 year old single woman, a 60 year old grandmother, like I’ve been in all of these homes. So when I write my emails, or I talk on my podcast, literally, my audience will say, it’s like you have hidden cameras in my house. How do you know? Like on December 26 of podcasts, like so, right? Did you take Christmas decorations down but nobody wants you to? They’re like: how do you know this stuff? How do you how do you know exactly what I’m thinking every day when I wake up? Because I have studied the female American homeowner like for seven years non stop, like I have researched her you know, I know her better than she knows herself. If you know your client better than they know themselves, then you can use their language in your sales. And it all starts with building a relationship. Like I wouldn’t say hi, Christine, how you? Do you want to work box? She’d be like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Could you please go away? But you know, I’ve gotten to know you guys on the podcast. You’re like, Oh, she’s kind of interesting, like, she’s not even a business podcaster. But I like her ideas. That kind of makes sense. Maybe she can relate that to her house. I’ll go listen to her podcast. You’ll listen to my podcast for a couple of months and then you might say, all right, she’s talking about this Sunday basket 1800 times. It’s $97. I’ll try it and see if it works. Oh, that worked. Maybe you’re not going to get to work box for six months, six months from now. You’re like, dang, I wish I would have bought it when she when she was on Christine’s podcast, I’d be further ahead. But it’s it’s relationships. Like you’re building real relationships with people. How are you building a real relationship with your audience? Are you on Insta stories? Are you in a podcast? Do you have a lead magnet for a newsletter, email, follow up, funnel, pick one of those and then put all of your effort in that for 30 days. How can you make it better? How can you make it the best? How can you market it to the right people and really start the conversational relationship. They’ll tell you what they want. And then when you create it, they will buy it. It’s all about the relationship. Not the product.

Christine Schlonski [16:10]
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I totally I totally understand. And I love the idea about putting the effort for 30 days to to make it well, I don’t really believe in perfect, but you know, as good as you can.

Lisa Woodruff [16:26]
Done is better than perfect. Progress over perfection.

Christine Schlonski [16:29]
Yeah, exactly. Because if that can hold you back big time. So as long as it works, and it’s about the relationship, it’s about having a communication to understand the other person. And I think if they feel that you really care.

Lisa Woodruff [16:46]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [16:46]
They are authentic, you know, that you show up and not everything, and your life is perfect. So they can actually relate.

Lisa Woodruff [16:54]
Yep, yeah,

Lisa Woodruff [16:56]
That makes a big difference.

Lisa Woodruff [16:58]
And start with, you know, like, let’s say you’re going to do webinars, so I do webinars in my business, and I call a master classes. And, you know, the rule of webinars is, don’t ever tell them, there’s going to be a replay because you want them to be on their live, right, because you’re selling something. Well, my target market is homeowners, lot of them have corporate jobs are in direct sales. They have I mean, they’ve been on a webinar before, but they don’t run webinars. They don’t know the marketing behind webinars. And you know what they’re thinking I’m not available Tuesday at two o’clock, is there going to be a replay? I mean, the amount of emails we get, is there going to be a replay? You know, what we do now, on the registration page, I say there’s going to be a replay that’s like a big No, no, in the online marketing space. But for my audience, they’re like: Oh, good! Bing sign up. Whereas they don’t want to take a space from somebody else who’s going to be live because they’re working at that time, they won’t take a space, you need to understand your audience. So learn from online marketing. But then realize that the majority of people who are going to work with you are not online marketers, they don’t realized. They don’t understand how Insta stories work and they’re going to go away after 24 hours. They don’t have 5000 people they’re following on Instagram. So you have to make it to the top of their feed. They’re following for people you’re at the top of their feed stop worrying about that, you know, like, think about your target audience. If you’re if you’re targeting online business owners, you got to be super ninja about all that you’re targeting homeowners or whatever. It’s something else. Think about how your target market is consuming an email delivery a webinar your social media, they’re probably seeing more than you think if they’re not in the online marketing space.

Christine Schlonski [18:39]
Yeah, yeah, I saw you. I think it’s all about learning about that. Perfect customer.

Lisa Woodruff [18:45]
Yep.

Christine Schlonski [18:45]
And then also understanding that this perfect customer might have a lot of you in them.

Lisa Woodruff [18:53]
Yes, yes.

Christine Schlonski [18:55]
I think that that was something that really took me a long time to understand, because I was always looking like for the perfect customer. And then you, you know, you get taught like, you know, create this avatar, and what can you come up with? And all of a sudden, like, after years of kind of clicked, I was like, Ha, maybe that’s me, like five years, 10 years ago.

Lisa Woodruff [19:18]
Exactly. You removed? Yes, yes. And you don’t need 100,000 people. Like you have 1000 people in my program. And I’ve got 10 employees. I mean, you don’t need thousands and thousands of people. You really don’t.

Christine Schlonski [19:31]
You don’t? Yeah, you just need you just need the focus and therefore I love the idea of pick something really, really for it for 30 days. Like make it as good as you can get the right get in front of the right people right get you leads and make sure you have that communication.

Lisa Woodruff [19:53]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [19:55]
So wondersful. So well you started out in as a teacher and in direct sales.

Lisa Woodruff [20:02]
Yeah, we’re we’re we’re way past where we started, Christine were like, over a business land. I don’t even have a business podcast. I told you. I’ll talk to you about anything.

Christine Schlonski [20:11]
Yeah, that’s, I love it. I just love it. So can you share with us what you do if things don’t go the way you hope? Like, what do you do for harmony in your life? I mean, it seems like you get up in the morning you do you two routines. You don’t need to rest, your do the whole day. You drop to bed, you sleep seven to eight hours. And there you go again, right? So what I say anything you do, like when things don’t go the way you want them to, to get the harmony and balance in your life? Like how do you deal with challenges?

Lisa Woodruff [20:49]
Yeah, so I’m 47. I think that’s important. Because if you’re listening to this, and you’re 27, I mean, I’ve just lived longer not like I know more, I’ve just looked longer. I started my business when I was 14. I think that’s important, too. So the 40th year for women is a huge life changing year. I mean, if you haven’t been there yet, do not worry about it is awesome. That is so great. And I hear 50s better. So I’m all for it. So I’ve grown my business in my 40s. My kids were school age when I started middle school age when I started. So I didn’t start with little babies. But I would say that this whole growing of Organized 365 for me has been the transition from mentally being a stay at home mom to being a corporate business owner just been huge. It’s been a huge mental mindset shift. It had nothing to do with my kids or my children are where I live, or even the business. It’s all been internal work that I’ve been doing. And if I had to pinpoint one thing, I would think it would be moving from living a reactionary life to a proactive life. Everything in my life is my choice. And even when I started this, I was overwhelmed, in debt had just quit my job, the whole family was falling apart. But I drew a line in the sand on January 1st of 2012. And I said, from here on out, it may not go right. But it is all going to be under my control. One thing my sister and I now all we always say to each other, which I can’t remember where I heard this either, is, even when bad things are happening. We just say everything happens for me.

Lisa Woodruff [22:19]
Everything happens for me. So may not seem like it’s happening for you right now. But it is happening for you in the future. And I also used to look at every obstacle and problem that came up in my business as something that was trying to hold me back or something, I had to hire someone to fix for me. And now I look at all of those as building my entrepreneurial business muscles. And that I had to go through those roadblocks and problems and situations. So I’d be prepared for the bigger ones that were coming later. And I’m really just growing my business muscles. Everything happens for me, I’m in control of my thoughts. I’m in control of my life. And I can, you know, I could pro-actively choose what I want to do. And the biggest one happened a couple years ago, when I started to realize that emotions are thoughts like, you can literally I’m not saying if someone passes away, you’re not going to be sad. Obviously, you are. But there there are a lot of times where I could have gone either way with my emotions. And when I was younger, I created a lot of drama, and now I don’t.

Lisa Woodruff [23:21]
So my kids are so funny. If they come in, and they’re like, not feeling good. I was no, you’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine, you’re fine. So my husband was sick the other day, and my daughter comes in. She’s 17. And she says that, does he have a fever? And I said, No, she goes, he’s fine. And she walked away. And I was like, Yeah, like, you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. Or the other thing we always say is, what’s the worst that can happen? My family members have a lot of anxiety. And I just started saying, What’s the worst that can happen? And then they start telling me I was like, and and and they get out all the worst case scenarios. And then they go do whatever it is. I said, Did any of that happen? No. So now I hear them saying all of them, what’s the worst that can happen? You’re fine. What’s the worst that can happen? Now, of course, there’s sometimes when you’re not going to be fine. But those are few and far between. Like, we make up so much stuff where we actually are fine. And the worst that we think is never going to happen. So save the drama for when it actually you’re not fine. And there is something that you need to be worried about.

Christine Schlonski [24:18]
Yeah, I love that. The active instead of reactive, yes, I always say like, follow your heart. Yes, you know, the active part because you make the decision what feels good at this moment, what I decision for you right now, like be present. And I think that’s very difficult to to start that journey. Because we’re so conditioned to always worry or we have people in our lives that always worry and that tell us the news and that make sure that we are informed about the latest trend.

Lisa Woodruff [24:52]
Oh, my goodness,

Christine Schlonski [24:55]
which is going to help, right.

Lisa Woodruff [24:57]
But also not only is our family in influencing that we have so much on our plate, we can’t possibly get it done. So we can’t stop long enough to breathe or think or shift into productivity. Shifting into productivity means you’re literally going to stop balls are going to fall and things are going to fall apart because it takes time a solid maybe couple weeks for you to turn this ship around to be proactive. And and it takes time to start going in the other direction. But that’s when you start making true progress.

Christine Schlonski [25:32]
So to finish off this episode, what kind of advice would you give from your experience of somebody has never attempted to be proactive to start?

Lisa Woodruff [25:46]
So I would say my Sunday basket is when people learn to be proactive with their paper. So I have this Sunday basket program $97. It’s this box with these different folders. And I teach you how to use them. And it moves from going through your mail when you get it or putting it on the kitchen counter or putting it anywhere in your house and all these different things that you have to do. And your receipts you have to file into one box. And you go through it on Sunday. And yeah, it takes 90 minutes, sometimes three hours to go through it on Sunday. But after six weeks of doing this, you stop reacting to paper and requests as they come in through the week. So if you have kids that need to have a special treat next week at school, you literally write that on a note, drop it in the Sunday basket, all the mail right in the center basket receipts from everything you’ve purchased right in the Sunday basket, the batteries that need to be fixed on something, you drop the whole thing in the Sunday basket. Everything that can wait until Sunday waits until Sunday. And then on Sunday, you set aside this large chunk of time to process through all of that and plan your next week. And as you build that muscle of deferring things to Sunday, it will help you plan the next week because we’re so used to when our spouse our kids, and email comes in replying right away because we’re afraid we will forget to do it. So you have to retrain your brain to wait until Sunday. And then you go through every day on Sunday. That this does not work. I repeat, this is not work if you create a box and label it Sunday and put things in there and don’t go through it on Sunday. Because the only question you asked yourself was cannot wait until Sunday. They can wait until Sunday. It goes in the box only if you’ll go through it on Sunday.

Christine Schlonski [27:20]
I love that advice. Wonderful. Thank you so so much Lisa for sharing all this knowledge with us. And yeah, just loved it. Thank you. Thank you. I have to say, I just love this episode. This is so much fun. And I mean that energy this woman half is amazing. How would your life be if you were organized? How would your life be if she knew exactly that each thing in your environment has a meaning has a place and there’s also enough space for having that energy level.

Christine Schlonski [28:00]
I really, really hope you enjoyed the show and make sure you hop on over to ChristineSchlonski.com and check out the show notes. Have a look at the transcript and at the amazing resources we have mentioned and also all the social links to connect to Lisa are on that page. So it’s just one click away. Thank you so much for listening in. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. Bye for now.