South Florida Women in Business with Stacey Schweiger {south florida personal branding photographer}
I had the pleasure of working with Stacey, the owner of Sunshine Organizing during a personal branding shoot, and I absolutely loved everything she was doing with her business and her philosophies behind her methods of organizing spaces. With everyone being home more than normal these days, it is the perfect time to organize your home and spaces; when you clear the clutter physically, I find that it clears your mind mentally too.
Tell us about your business:
Sunshine Organizing provides professional organizing services for clients in Dade, Broward & Palm Beach counties. Specializing in transforming residential spaces with a design-focused perspective, we partner with clients to address a wide range of organizing goals. It’s all about sharing expertise and customized support for people seeking change in their home environment. With an individualized approach for each client, no two projects are alike. Some days it’s a new home relocation, unpacking and setting up essential areas like kitchens and closets. Other times working with existing homeowners, we collaborate on clutter challenged areas and perform a comprehensive edit before the organization happens. There’s a lot of finetuning of outdated, inaccessible or ill-used storage spaces and introducing new solutions and systems to accommodate the changing lifestyle needs of the household.
What made you decide to become a professional organizer?
My path to becoming a professional organizer was unconventional; I’d worked in public relations and as an attorney so my formal education led me in different career directions. As a wife and mom, refining the art of homemaking was a constant focus that turned into a passion for home organizing. Ultimately, the decision to start a company of my own was a combination of timing and rising to the challenge of navigating a new industry to grow in a creative profession that had been a long-term pastime.
What were your first steps to starting your business? And if you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?
As I went into business mode, registering a domain name and officially filing with the state were the initial concrete steps. I also focused on logo design and developed the website. And just as my chic new business cards arrived and I was finally ready to venture out as a professional organizer….quarantine hit! I tried to make the most of quarantine time to continue research, reading, listening to podcasts; I discovered NAPO (the National Association of Productivity and Organzing Professionals) and affiliated with the national and south Florida chapters. I completed online education with NAPO, and within a short time I was out in the world as a professional organizer!
If I had to do it all over again, I would devote fewer hours each day (and night!) in the earliest stages. While the prospect of a becoming a first time biz owner solidified into reality, a rush of excitement about the endless possiblilites took over. The burst of creative energy lasted a good, long month before I realized I needed to develop a more structured, sustainable work schedule for myself even during startup mode. I was suddenly working around the clock, and that was inconsistent with each and every prong of my five-year plan! COVId-19 didn’t factor into the plan either, but that gift of bonus shelter-in-place time and that initial surge of creativity helped me accomplish a lot in a short time.
What is the biggest challenge about owning and running your own business?
As of now, nothing is a challenge unless I choose to view it that way! As a new business owner, I’m focused on using preconceived challenges as learning opportunities. Maximizing technology in the business arena still has me in a learning curve, though. I’ve been riding the wave of zoom life and adapting to a virtual world in many ways, but I have a feeling that technology will remain a “learning opportunity” for me! If and when the time comes, this will probably be an area where I would elect to outsource and delegate.
What is the most rewarding thing about owning your own business?
Since it’s still early days for Sunshine Organizing, I continue to discover many rewarding aspects of being a busines owner all the time! A major one is being able to redefine “work” on my own terms, and independently build a viable business. I’m a perpetual “student of life,” so my startup enables me to pursue new educational opportunities about both home organizing and cultivating a boutique business. It’s uniquely gratifying having designed a career path that aligns my personal and professional values where I can connect with clients and deliver a service that has an immediate, positive impact.
Where do you see your business heading in the next few years?
Going forward, I envision steady growth for the home organizing industry as a whole and for my business in particular. I believe work from home scenarios will continue beyond the Covid crisis, as well as flexible options for students to attend school from home. These and other factors will likely lead to increased demand for professional organizing services so our home spaces can adapt to suit emerging needs. I expect more relocation projects on the horizon, and I would love to grow the interior styling segment of my business and continue to incorporate feng shui practices.
Do you have a morning routine or schedule that helps maximize your time and productivity?
I definitely do! I started a meditation practice a few years ago and incorporated some advice from Deepak Chopra who suggests to begin each day with RPM – rise, pee, meditate. It worked so well from the start that it instantly became a consistent part of my daily routine. My morning meditation is the main tool that definitely boosts my productivity (and creativity, a lot else) by helping prepare me for the business of the day to come. Another morning staple for me is making old fashioned To-Do Lists (with corresponding boxes to check off upon task completion). I’d used the method of making lists & checking off tasks generally throughout the years,, but recently it’s evolved into a mainstay of my daily routine. It ends up serving a dual purpose – it provides a schedule of goals specific to each day and is positive reinforcement for accomplishments (or a reminder for the next day’s list if it’s “one of those days”).
If you could give one piece of advice to someone who is starting their own business, what would it be?
In the wise words of one of my favorite t-shirts…. TRUST YOUR GROOVE.
Are there any particular resources or tools that you recommend to other small business owners that have helped you run your business?
I found Wix to be most user-friendly for website development. Their templates are plentiful and highly stylized; I feel like anyone could succeed with that if I did! I would also suggest tapping into all the no- or low-cost resources to learn about a new topic (like running a business in general or something industry specific). I visited a library for the first time in years, checked out lots of relevant books, listened to podcasts, and explored social media to identify and learn from established organizers. Finally, exploring professional associations and networking have been invaluable to me in growing my business so far.
How do you balance work, family and fun?
Creating, maintaining, and continually adapting for a lifestyle balance is a never ending work in progress for me. I guess I combine them as much as I can??? I prioritize family above all. My husband and our two teens have spent unprecedented time together at home during this quarantine phase, and to date we still all love each other & have fun together! I derive a lot of creative enjoyment from client projects, so a large part of starting my own business was being able to incorporate my idea of fun into my new career .
What is an accomplishment that you are very proud of?
My children are kind, loving, sincere people with really nice manners
If you were stranded on an island and could only have three things, what would they be?
A hammock, a candle & matches
When you are not at work, where can we find you?
Life has changed a lot lately, but it’s still on the yoga mat, on dog walks, and extra time at home cuddling with my hubby watching foreign programming and trying to figure out where and when we can schedule a vacation again!
