Transcript of How This Former Teacher Went From Earning $500 a Week to Building a $2M Business | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E8 

Of the amount of money that moves in the United States, 68% comes from households. The government, military, and us, that is what is our economy. Like, if the household stops spending, the world shuts down.

We're joined by Lisa Woodruff, founder and CEO of Organize 365 and creator of the Sunday Basket, to unpack exactly how Organize 365 profits.

When I started PhD, we were a $2.5 million company. We're still 60% profitable. We were profitable the last 2 years enough that we could do profit sharing, which I really loved doing for my team.

Oh, cool. What are the top 3 things you could recommend for somebody to do right now to get better organized?

My husband asks that question often. Number 1, stop doing your housework hidden. If you live with people, they should be watching you vacuum, fold laundry, do dishes. If everybody else is having fun, you have fun too. Number 2.

So you were also selling work systems and organization. Why'd you decide to sunset that part of your business? Especially if it was making, I guess, how much?

A million dollars a year.

It was making a million.

A million dollars a year. A year. A year. An interesting thing about my company that I realized is—

Lisa, welcome to How We Profit.

Thank you so much for having me.

I think this is gonna be such a great conversation because so many entrepreneurs, even though their business seems really organized and amazing, they actually are very unorganized in their home. And I personally have always dreamed of having an organization business because I feel like it would be so lucrative. And so when I got your email inquiry, I was like, this would be a really cool episode to really unpack how somebody makes money off of an organization business. So welcome. I can't wait to unpack all of it. How would you describe Organize 365 in one sentence?

So what people think when they hear Organize 365 is exactly what you said, like, oh, I need you to come organize my house.

Mm-hmm.

And that is what I teach you how to do. But really Organized 365 is an online school and coaching program where I teach you the skill of organizing so that your house get organized. But along the way, you also learn time management, productivity, planning, and you step into being the CEO of your household.

Amazing. So basically you've expanded into having programs and courses and masterclasses essentially, which is super cool. But I love your origin story because I feel like it's gonna be very inspiring for our young and profitters. So you were actually a teacher and you didn't become an entrepreneur until age 40. Tell us about that.

Right. In my 20s and 30s, I was a stay-at-home mom and I did a lot of direct sales companies. I was in 23 different direct sales companies.

Oh wow.

And I made money in a lot of them. And then when my kids went into middle school, I went back to teaching again thinking, oh, this is the time I can step back into teaching. But the needs of our family and our extended family were beyond what I could do during non-school hours. So yeah, at the age of 39, I quit my teaching job and I was like, I am just going to have to be self-employed because I need flexibility of time. Mm-hmm. So I joined another direct sales company and I started the blog Organized 365. No idea how I'd make money, but I knew that was a good SEO keyword and I knew I loved talking about organizing.

Something that I love about your story is that sometimes rejection actually helps redirect you. So you actually quit your job because they told you you're a bad teacher.

They did. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, they did. Like, um, I was missing a lot of work and I was even taking time off unpaid just because our family needs were beyond what we could cover during the non-school hours. And so I was being held back by my headmistress of the school after a parent-teacher conference that did not need to be done the Thursday before winter break. And I really needed to get home. One of my kids was sick.

Mm-hmm.

My personal kids was sick. And so she said, you know, we have to have a conversation because you're not a really good teacher. And I was at that time teaching middle school math, Montessori style. So I had 16 students and I had 16 different lesson plans. I was doing a great job teaching, but whether I was or wasn't, it really didn't matter because my boss didn't value me anymore. Yeah. And so if my boss didn't value me and I was definitely not being a good wife, I was definitely not being a good mom. I, my house, I didn't even recognize. I was like, Who am I doing this for? Like, it's, it was only $500 a week. That's how much money I was making.

Oh my God. That was it.

$500 a week.

And now she makes over $2 million a year.

Yeah.

In her business.

So yeah.

Who's laughing now? Like, like you're making way more than any of the teachers at that school. Mm-hmm. Because you became an entrepreneur and took your career and your earning potential in your own hands. So you started this blog.

Mm-hmm.

You called it Organized 365 from the, from the start.

Yes, cuz there were some really big bloggers in Cincinnati. So I was in a blogging group. I had had a blog in 2009, so I understood SEO keywords. That's all I understood.

Mm-hmm.

All these bloggers got like really great deals with Procter Gamble and all these other big consumer package. I could never land any deals. Like I have never got, I've never gone viral. Like any of the things that you would normally do in business, I have not done.

Mm-hmm.

So I started the blog, I started working with the direct sales company. And a couple months into the blog, I had this huge home show. Like if you've ever been to a direct sales party, like Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, like, okay, just a few people go. 25 people were there.

Okay.

I was like, Maria, why are all these people here? And she goes, oh, well everybody wants to know what a professional organizer has to say. I was like, I'm a professional organizer. I had been charging people to go in their houses and organize their offices for direct sales or organize their kids because I was a teacher. I didn't realize it was a marketable skill even though I was already charging people for it.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So you had this blog, you were like on the side charging people. At what point were you like, oh my gosh, like I'm gonna actually create this organization business?

Yeah, I create things really fast. I think that's because I'm a teacher, so content is like no big deal to me. So I found that in, out in March of 2012, by April of 2012 I had a 5-page website and I was already selling amazing professional organization services. Amazing.

Love that. Yeah. So you were charging about $5,000 $5,000, correct?

Per house? No, at that time I was charging $40 an hour.

Okay.

2.5-hour minimum. So it was $100 to have me come to your house.

Oh my gosh.

I think then it was $5,000 for the week to organize your whole house with my team.

Okay. Tell us the whole journey of how you started the organizing service part of your business. Like from the beginning, how did you get started? How much did you invest?

Mm-hmm.

How much did you charge? How did that evolve?

Yep. I could do it really quick. So I started at $40 an hour because I was earning $35 an hour cleaning houses, so I should make more.

Okay. I did. Just 5 bucks extra.

Just 5 bucks extra. I did a 2.5-hour minimum because I thought I could do 2 houses in 1 day. You can't.

Mm-hmm.

So then I quickly moved to a 4-hour minimum. So now I was making $200 'cause I raised my rates to $50. Mm-hmm. Like in the summer going into the fall.

Yes.

Then by November of the first year, I hired somebody to work with me. And I paid her, I think, $25 an hour. So now I was charging $100 an hour if we both went. So I was making money on when she worked also.

Nice.

And then by the time I started the podcast at year 3, I wasn't doing any of the in-home organizing. I was just vetting the clients. I could actually quote them over the phone and know if it was gonna work or not. I would send my team out to do the job. They just wanted to work whenever I had a job. They didn't wanna collect money. They didn't wanna do anything related to that. They only wanted to organize. So for 3 years I did in-home organizing and then 3 years I had a team do it. And then year 6, we went all in on the courses and the products and I dropped the in-home professional organizing entirely.

Okay.

And the pricing for that is $75 an hour per person. So it was $150 for the team cuz I would send 2 people.

Okay.

5-hour minimum. So it was $750 a day. We would quote a whole house in 1 week was $5,000 and I would come too and we'd get the whole house done in 1 week.

Got it. Okay. Now, were you making money on that business?

Oh yeah.

Why did you decide to stop? Like how did you think like, okay, I'm gonna make more money doing the products and courses. Like for me, I think I would've went the route of franchising it, then getting other people in other cities and like making it this like huge brand.

Yeah.

Of like, we were gonna, cuz there's nothing that like that that exists. So I feel like it's a great market.

There's a reason for that.

And there's a reason why. All right, tell me.

So in November when I hired somebody to work with me, I'd replaced my $500 a week teaching. Salary. And then it was, I think, um, a year and a half later when I had my first 10-figure month. Now what's interesting when you're going for a 10-figure month, my highest month before that was $7,000 a month, and that month I made $17,000 a month. Mm-hmm. So sometimes it's a lot more. And at that time we were doing in-home professional organizing. I was starting to specialize in paper organizing. So I'd collect bankers' boxes of paper for $250 and bring it into my basement. I had 3 or 4 people working in my basement organizing paper. And then I used to be a Create-A-Memory scrapbook consultant. Okay. So I was also making scrapbooks for $900 per scrapbook in my bedroom at night when I was younger.

A hustler.

And all those things came together and made $17,000. So yeah, you could scale that, right? Especially like in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I'm from, Everything But the House is headquartered there. So I met the owner and I was talking about like what they do when someone passes away and they go in and they sell everything in the house and they get it ready for sale. That's what they originally did back then.

Hmm.

And I said, what do you do with all the paper you find in the house? And she goes, what paper? And I said, you do everything but the house and paper. So I had this idea that I'd go collect all the paper and I'd build, build a warehouse facility where I'd process the paper next to where they processed all the other things that went through there. And I could have grown that way and I could have grown the in-home organizing, but there have been a couple of companies that have started doing that franchising. There is so much liability. Like I had a client where we broke something. So I also had a client, you know, sometimes when you're organizing people's houses, there are animals like mice or, you know, and I had one of my employees fell on a job and it wasn't serious, so it didn't turn into anything. But I was like, whoa, this is way more liability than I want. And then if I did the paper processing thing, which I still would love to do, oh my gosh, you have people's like bank accounts, the Social Security numbers, like, it's just way more liability than I wanted.

So I was like, okay. And also I was landlocked with time. Your dollars are built on your time.

Yeah.

And so I was scaling this team and I love growing teams, so that was great, but it was only gonna be so scalable. And I really wanted a business that where you can make money when you sleep.

Yeah. And like you, like to your point, it's just like any other agency business.

Mm-hmm.

Like for me, I have a social media podcast agency and I love that side of the business, but I purposely am like, I'm having 20 clients max, white glove, 2 pods for social, like 2 pods for production. And I don't wanna keep growing the agency. Mm-hmm. Because you just have to keep hiring and hiring. It's like very people intensive.

Yep.

So this gave you a way to scale your IP and all the knowledge that you accumulated without having to have all the extra people, right?

Yeah. And I think the other thing that happened in year 3, which is why I started the podcast and started pivoting away already at year 3 was that in-home professional organization is really expensive.

Mm-hmm.

It is. And it doesn't last. Like no matter who does it, even if I do it, like it doesn't last. Like if you didn't do the organizing and you didn't learn the skill, I have to keep coming back, which is great if you're rich and it's great for me, but it's not great for you if you move away or I'm not available. And I started realizing that my clients that were really saying, I only have this much per month, but they had me come back month after month after month. Were learning the skill of organizing. I was teaching them how to organize. And I was like, okay, if I can figure out how to teach this virtually, how would you do that? So the podcast was not video, still isn't video today, because I want you in your kitchen thinking about what you're organizing when I'm talking, not looking at my kitchen going, I wish I had those counters, I wish I had those dishes, I wish I, wish I, you know, you're just kind of listening and I'm teaching you.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna ask you about the podcast and why it works so well. Mm-hmm. Because that's like a big marketing channel for you. But first, let's talk about your business overall. Mm-hmm. So what was your peak? Like how much money were you making on the service business per month?

Yeah, before we flipped and totally got rid of it, we made $400,000. And I remember we went from like a year.

A year.

Yeah. We went from like $140,000 to $400,000. And I went to my accountant, and this is important. I went to my accountant and I said, we're gonna make more money next year. And we were just an LLC, so all that money like flows through your tax return. And I knew I was getting ready to buy products.

Yeah.

So I was going to need to have some retained earnings. She's like, that'll be fine. So I went out and I found a tax lawyer and changed my whole tax structure, which is a good thing. Okay. Because $400,000 going through our personal taxes plus my husband's salary, we would've had to give like 50% of that to the government. I wouldn't have been able to utilize it inside of the business to actually grow to the next level.

That, that's what happened to me for at least 2 years of my business where everything was full through my LLC and I lost so much money. It's actually one of the reasons why I moved to Austin and we changed some of our business structures. So talk about the business structure change. What did you do exactly?

Yeah, so I used a company out in Nevada and I met with a tax lawyer. I said, here's what I'm doing, here's what I'm growing. I'm gonna do this for a long time. And he actually set up a C corp, which is not normal. Like normally you'll take your LLC and you'll tax it as an S corp, but he actually made a C corp because I was gonna have employees, I was gonna have physical product, and I need to retain earnings in order to order inventory.

Mm-hmm.

But he had me keep the LLC and he said eventually tax it as an S corp. And he had me keep the original company and all the intellectual property in the S corp and create the C corp for the new company that was going to have the website, the W-2 employees, 'cause I didn't have W-2 employees before then, and the inventory and the loans and the liability.

Got it. What is the benefit of that? Like, does it help you sell? Like, what does it do?

So the benefit is a C corp is its own entity. Like when you have an S corp, it's still you, it's still your personal tax return. You'll get a K-1 and all the money still flows through your Social Security number, even if you have an EIN number, and you basically zero out the company every year and you take all the distributions or whatever you do with it.

Okay.

In a C-corp, currently it's taxed at 21% flat. So let's say you have $100,000 in profit, you pay $21,000 in taxes, and now you can use that remaining, um, $79,000 to buy inventory or whatever. That $79,000 can just sit there in a bank account. Mm-hmm. And you can have that rainy day fund. I haven't figured out how you do that in an S corp because it's your money. You've already paid taxes on it. So if you use S corp money that you've already paid taxes on, you're actually making a loan back to the business. And I can't keep track of all that.

But I do want to ask you about what you learned. Even though you sunsetted the service part of your business, it really gave you like hands-on knowledge of like different customer types, different problems, how you solve them. So sometimes even though your start of your business isn't where you end up. It's very important for your journey and, and the knowledge that you gain from the hands-on experience.

100%. I mean, hands-on experience beats everything. And having done it for 6 years, like, I remember stories about what works and what doesn't work and having to wrestle through some of those things are really important. Um, also you make a lot of money really fast in a service business that really can help you get started. 'Cause I didn't have any money to start my company. Yeah. I just went from zero to—

And you don't even need investment. Investment. Like you go there. It's the same way when I started my social media services, like I was writing the posts, you know, like it's you is, is the investment.

Yeah. And the longer you're in business, I'll be in business 15 years by January. Um, you are gonna grow and evolve as a person. Your understanding of the problem you solve is gonna grow and evolve and you should be sunsetting like really big parts of your company every once in a while as you keep growing, pivoting, and changing.

Yeah. Makes sense. Okay. Take us back to the kinds of people that you saw when you were organizing. Like, what are the different, like, profiles that you saw?

Yeah, so when I started organizing, the first package I had was the Mommy Makeover package because I was a mommy.

Mm-hmm.

And so the Mommy Makeover package was 4 areas.

New boobs, new ass.

I wasn't, I didn't know about that then. So it was your laundry room, your closet, your, um, kitchen, and then wherever your home office was. And I would organize those 4 spaces and that's where you spent 80% of your time. And that would really make a marked change for women. But then as I kept going, I started organizing, uh, women and men who have been divorced.

Mm-hmm.

And so now they're in a house on their own. In Cincinnati, we have a couple of Fortune 50 companies. And so you'll come into Cincinnati for a period of time from the coasts.

Yeah.

And housing is so cheap in Cincinnati compared to like the coast. And also we don't have a good rental market at all. So they'll come in and they'll just buy a house and then they'd need to set up the house. So these were, you know, corporate women who are coming into Cincinnati with or without their families, and they would just have you set it up because having a professional organizer wasn't a big deal. And then there were a lot of women who were in their later years, you know, '60s, '70s, who maybe had lost a spouse. I did a lot of those, or they were just ready for their next act and they were like, I'm getting all new carpeting and I'm redoing all this stuff and I'm getting remarried or like that.

Yeah.

So I just, And then I organized kids too, and I would never let the parents in the room when I organized the kids. That was so fun. So all the different ages, different generations, there was a lot of variety.

How about your ADHD clients? They're probably the best. You make the most money on them because they'll never learn. That's like my, I have a housekeeper and she's probably like, thank God Hala doesn't fold her laundry because keeps me getting some work.

So the ADHD is really, really interesting. Uh, when I was a teacher before I had children, I was an intervention specialist. And so often I would get the kids who were having trouble learning whatever it was in the classroom, and I would come up with all these crazy ways to teach 'em whatever they needed to learn. And eventually they usually were diagnosed with ADHD. Then my kids ended up being diagnosed with ADHD and went to a special school in Cincinnati called Springer School and Center.

Mm-hmm.

And I learned even more about ADHD and executive function. Then I had an employee say, you know what, Lisa, it'd be really funny if we found out that you had ADHD and that the Sunday basket you created was the solution for ADHD. I said, ha ha ha, Monique, that'd be really funny. Well, I then went and got tested and I was like, oh, turns out apparently I do have ADHD. So now I went back to school, I just got my PhD, and my goal with my PhD is to test the Sunday basket and the executive function and see if it does what I think it does as a school teacher, how I created it. I created it as an intervention for household managers to be able to organize all the invisible work that we do, just like I would do as an intervention for anyone else who had executive function issues in school. Hmm. And if we find support for that, it will be the first non-medical intervention for ADHD that'll be scientifically shown.

What would be the intervention? Like, what would you do?

The Sunday basket.

Oh, the school supply.

The school supply. You know, we run our households with no school supplies, with no office supplies, with no operating system. We are 68% of US GDP and we have no operating systems.

Yeah.

Every single person has to create 'em from scratch.

So you want household managers, which are usually women, to be, to feel like they're the CEO of their, of their household.

Yeah. The more I've grown Organized 365 and the bigger it's gotten as a company, I've had to grow myself as my understanding of You know, initially it was just, I needed to replace my teaching salary and then I needed to manage people. And now I need to think about the fact that I own a company that someday will be sold as a CEO and that the, the company has value and all those things that I've learned by doing EOS and all these other things that I've done. And I turn around and I look at my household and I go, oh my gosh, every single person is running a household. Somebody's running every single household responsible for 68% of US GDP. You are born and you die in a household. Like it is, it is the economic entity. We don't do planning days. We don't have operational structures. We don't have school supplies. Like every single person is cobbling together whatever they're doing at home from printables off Pinterest and podcasts they're listening to and whatever the girlfriend's doing or what they remember their mom doing or like, yeah, how are we doing it? I can't believe we're doing it at all actually.

Yeah. That's so interesting.

We haven't put any of those business principles in the household.

So the Sunday Basket was your first product.

Mm-hmm.

What year did you decide to do it? What made you think like, this is gonna actually work? And it seems like, so basically what it is, I, I looked it up, it's like a bin.

Mm-hmm.

With like lots of folders.

It's a project management box. It's a weekly planning system.

As somebody who has ADHD, like I love that. I love like physical.

Yes.

Like, colors, like anything that will like make it like somewhat fun to do the thing that I'm like despising to do.

Yeah, I totally trick you. That's my whole goal.

So what is the Sunday Basket? And, and talk to us about the evolution of you selling it, how it started, like how much money were you making it? How much like did you invest to, to create it? How did you talk to somebody in China and get it made? Like, like what was the story?

Okay, so the reason I think you like it And I think ADHD people like it is because it is physical.

Yeah.

Because so much of what we do is cognitive and executive function is cognitive. So if you can externalize it, which is my thesis, then you can see it, manipulate it outside of your head and you could get more done. So the Sunday Basket, I actually created it in 2002 when my kids were 2 years old and 6 months old and personally used it. And I taught it to people in direct sales because I couldn't get my consultants in direct sales to be profitable. 'cause they were always sidetracked by everything they had to do in their household. So I was like, well, I'll fix the household thing so that you can actually be profitable.

Yeah.

So then when I started the company, uh, when I was 40, I blogged and podcast about the Sunday Basket and I created like an ebook right away and I sold it for like $7. And then people kept coming around to it was the Sunday Basket that worked. So I was manufacturing the Sunday Basket. Actually, my first manufacturer was in Dallas, Texas.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. So we made it here in Texas first and then they said that my, Expectations were too high, which I've heard before. And we do manufacture it in China now because it's a sewn basket and a lot of people will put like up to 20, £25 worth of paper in it.

Wow.

So it needs to hold that. So yeah, we decided to manufacture it. So I manufactured it here in Texas and I could order small amounts 'cause I was using a product they already had and I was just making a derivative work off of it. And then when I started manufacturing in China, I actually patented it and started creating it there.

Oh, so nobody can, I was gonna say you must have a lot of copycats?

No, I don't have any. And I actually have my trademarks in England or the UK and also Australia already.

So this basket is pretty expensive, like on your website it's $250, on Amazon it's like $180.

It's two different versions. Yep.

Yeah.

One I think comes with like accountability and they both have the box and the colored folders that you see, the workbook, the course, and the accountability. The one that's $250 also has some extra office supplies. TerraPads and things that you'll see me use in videos. If you don't wanna like have to go back to the store and get things, like just get it all at once. But the $179 one will get you started. It has all the courses, all the accountability. And so I think it's so funny. I'm gonna actually push back.

Yeah, sure.

That you think it's expensive for $179 for a one-time purchase that has lifetime access to coworking. And we've been running the coworking for 8 years.

Well, I didn't know that the $180 has, I think to me the basket feels expensive, but the whole offering is not cuz it's lifetime access.

Yes. And I upgrade it all the time. Um, I upgrade the course and all of that, but I, I only push back because this is my biggest marketing hurdle is we households are responsible for 68% of US GDP.

When you say that, what do you mean?

I mean that of the amount of money that is moves in the United States, 68% comes from households spending.

Because like the rest is government and military industries and yep, cleaning supplies. Is that what you mean?

Yep. The government, military, and us. That is what is our economy. That's why we get stimulus. That's why we reduce our— like if the household stops spending, the world shuts down. So got it. The household is— we move the world.

Yeah.

And yet $179 is too much to externalize the invisible load of the head of household and all the projects that usually she does, the bill pay, the menu planning, the mail, this kid's school stuff, all of that. It's a one-time purchase. So I only say that because I truly would like to know the, you know what the alternative is? Paying nothing and just using your brain and forgetting things and just running around like, yeah, living like a hot mess. Yeah.

Like so many people are.

Yeah. And so we started a study right as COVID started and I'm going to get it started again soon. But we have anecdotally found that the Sunday Basket saves you 5 hours per week every week. We just passed 15 million hours saved just with the baskets that have been purchased, and most people DIY it.

Okay, let's talk about like why the Sunday Basket works. Why is it so important to take what is in your head and externalize it? And like, what are the different categories in the basket that make it easy?

Okay, so I'm gonna play a trick on you.

Okay.

You ready? Okay. I am just coming home from work.

Okay.

I'm pulling in the driveway. I've gotta change the laundry, grab something for dinner, and put my Pilates clothes on. So I grab the mail as I'm walking in the house, cuz I mean, I'm walking by it anyway. I start flipping through, I'm like, uh, I should really recycle what I need to recycle. You don't wanna bring that into the house, right? That's a productivity hack. Mm-hmm. So I get in the kitchen, I've recycled what I need to recycle. I put the mail down, I grab what I need to eat, I go change for Pilates, I get in the car. What did I forget to do?

Something about dinner?

No, I grabbed my dinner. Everyone I've done this with can't remember. It was change the laundry.

Mm.

Now I'm on my way to Pilates and I have forgotten to change my laundry. This is why you need a Sunday basket. We have a to-do list. We know what we're doing. We have a plan for our day and all of the other things like the text message that comes in, the phone call, the getting the mail, the kids ask you a request, the dog is barking, needs to go out. All of these things derail us from what we're already doing. And you can only remember so many things in your working memory, usually about 3. So when you picked up the mail, you dropped the laundry, and the laundry was the thing you actually needed to do today. The mail can wait till Sunday.

Yeah.

So the mail all just goes in the Sunday basket. Then people think, well, the Sunday basket is only a mail thing.

I would never open up the Sunday basket. I'd be like, I'll see you next week.

That's like the easiest example. That's the easiest example. Once you start using the Sunday basket, you realize, oh my gosh, there's so many things I'm trying to hold onto in my head. Like, so for example, I get this sourdough bread delivered, but I don't, I need to change the delivery date 'cause I don't need more sourdough bread. Or I get water delivered to the house and I'm out of water, so I need to speed up when I'm going to get that water. Like we're trying to remember all of these things. So I just write all these notes to myself, throw it in the Sunday basket. And just like you plan in business every week, you should plan at home every week.

Yeah.

So every week the things that everybody does is whatever's important, the phone calls you have to make, the bills you need to pay, the ordering the groceries, getting ready for your errands for the week. Um, anything that's done that needs to go into a binder will go in a separate section. And then whatever the other projects are, are going to be you dependent. And there are 4 categories. Anything related to your house, so like maintenance or getting money for the person that's gonna clean it, all of that. Anything related to the people, including pets that live with you and what are they gonna need for the week. Anything financial related. And then the one that I always craved for and didn't really start until this year is anything related to you. What do you wanna do? And we're so busy always checking things off the list, we don't actually get around to anything we wanna do at home.

I have such bad ADHD. I'm gonna just share this with my listeners that I didn't check my mail for like 4 months and I had a $40,000 check in the mail that got like expired because I waited. Yeah. Over 180 days and I got another $40,000 check. Thank God that got resent to me. But that's how, like, what if you can't even check your mail?

Well, a lot of people are overwhelmed. ADHD, not ADHD, almost everyone, especially every woman today is overwhelmed. So the Sunday Basket usually takes about 6 weeks to set it up. And then the beginning, all you're doing is going, oh my gosh, I can't believe I missed this. Oh my gosh, how can I be this disorganized? I can't believe that, you know, everybody has that same story. But after about 6 weeks you go, okay, I'm kind of on top of the fires. My dumpster fire is smaller now.

Yeah.

It fits in a Sunday basket and I'm just gonna pull out and tackle whatever I can each week. And then you start to realize, you know what, this to-do list is never gonna go away.

Yeah.

So I need a better perpetual to-do list where I could pull things out as I could do them instead of just trying to make a really big list and check it all off.

What was the, any like hurdles or challenges in relation to actually making the basket?

We don't have enough time. So, um, when we were making the basket here in Texas, it was actually a paper over cardboard box that was glued together. And they do actually manufacture in China. They just bring it in here. Well, China's really bad with glue. So then like the third version, like we were like, this would be cute. We're gonna do like a lattice pattern. Well, whatever we did on that pattern made the glue not stick. So then all the boxes were like coming apart.

Oh my God.

The colored slash pockets that come in it, the first 4 orders were all wrong. And the first order was like, 100% defective, like 100% defective. It was so much money. So I just went live on Facebook and I was like, okay, so good news, the slash pockets are here. Bad news, they're all defective. And I'd already collected money. I said, so here's what we're going to do. You're going to get 2 for the price of 1. I'm shipping them all out anyway, and we're just going to go with it. And my audience has always been so supportive. They were like, yay, we got double the slash pockets, but all defective. Like the holes weren't punched right, the whatever, whatever. They like just took it and they went with it. But the funny thing about if you do do physical organizing, the, or physical products, the first thing that I did was one set, the rainbow set of Slash Pockets, and I had those shipped to my house because I mean, I worked from home.

Yeah.

So the truck came and there were a lot of boxes, which filled my garage. And the other order was coming, which was 4 times the size, and I had not When you think about doubling a business, well, if you're doubling an online business, whatever, get more customer service people. If you're doubling a physical products business, I was like, I need a place right away. You need to warehouse. So we got a 250-square-foot place. 2 months later we were in 400 square feet. 6 months later we were in 1,500 square feet. I was like, wow, this doubling thing really takes up a lot of space.

Yeah. So you have to charge a lot for it and include the other services. So at what point did you always have the other services involved with it? Mm-hmm. Yep. And the, Okay, so that was a start into courses and programs.

Yeah. So because I was a teacher, I really love physical products and apparently ADHD, so I really like physical products. And what I know to be true in organizing is that you learn organization best in analog. Digitization is increasing productivity and individual of the person, but analog is universal. Everybody can sort paper, but when you go to digital, it's like, well, what kind of phone do you have? What kind of Cloud service do you have? Like, it's all very different, but paper is paper is paper.

Yeah.

So I love taking it to that basic level. And I like office supplies. Like, when my mom would take me to Office Max as a kid, I didn't wanna go to the mall. I wanted to go to the office supply store. So I like office supplies. And office supplies over time have really gone downhill. They weren't as bad when I started making 'em, but now, like, they're bad if you look.

Like, they're, they have nothing basic. Yeah.

They're basic. And since COVID like half of the binder manufacturers have gone out of business.

Because for a while, like nobody was using planners or binders. I literally just bought a new weekly planner and it's like super colorful and I use it every day and I love it. And I'm like, I can't believe I wasn't writing anything down anymore. And I feel so much more productive now that I'm actually writing things down. It's, it's pretty crazy how much more productive you can get just by writing things down.

Well, I think when we first went digital, we were more productive digital because we had so many analog systems.

Yeah.

And we're like, we're putting it all into one thing. We're putting it all into a Google Calendar or all into a Word document or whatever. But now, I mean, there are so many digital things that I use. I can't remember where anything is. Yeah. So now paper seems more simple. Like everything kind of goes around.

So crazy. Okay, let's talk about your audience and your marketing channels. Yeah. So you've got a great podcast, 25 million downloads. Uh, I'm gonna try to have you in my network and get you some sponsorship money maybe one day. Ooh. Ooh. You've accumulated this audience and what you do is You're so visual. Yeah. So like I would assume that you would wanna show everything and be visual, but you've had really great success just talking to people.

Mm-hmm.

Why is that?

Well, one, I don't want the complexity of digital, like to have to have your hair done and then are you gonna wear the same outfit?

Yeah.

Like, and what's the background gonna be?

It's a pain in the ass.

Yeah. And once you get your house organized, what am I gonna do? Make a mess to then show you how to make it clean. And then whenever you're thinking about visual, for me, okay, I'm, was a stay-at-home mom. Now I'm in a multi-generational family. My grandkids live with me. Like, I share all those in that information, but 60% of my audience is not married with kids under the age of 18. And once I found that out, I was like, whoa. And now that I— yeah, now that I have my PhD, I know that it is, um, 81% of Americans are not married with children under the age of 18. It's only 17.9%. So I wanna help any person of any age, anywhere in the world, in any size dwelling get organized. And so I don't have a mommy makeover package anymore. I'm really getting down to what are the basics of what we need to get organized. We have housework, we have organizational work, we have invisible work that goes in the Sunday basket, which is administrative. We have information work, and then we have the work of self-actualization at a home. That is my theoretical orientation that I'm gonna be doing research on.

Okay.

Everything else, like if you have kids, if you're a caregiver, if you're settling an estate, if you're planning for the holidays, some people do all of those things, but not everybody does all of those things. So what are the universal things we need to organize as humans that are lacking? And then what are the things that are extra that you can add on for your family?

So you feel like because you're just a voice, you can speak to everyone?

Yes. And I talk much more theoretical. And big picture and teaching you how to think about things, teaching you how to think about your time, how to think about productivity, how to reorganize your house for the phase of life that you're in versus how the house was designed to be used.

Let's stick on that for a moment because I feel like people are curious about like, how can I get better organized? How can I better manage my household? What are like the top 3 things you could recommend for somebody to do right now or today or this week to get better organized? What are 3 things they can do?

Okay. Number 1, stop doing your housework hidden. So like step on a stage and do your housework. If you live with people, they should be watching you vacuum, fold laundry, do dishes. Like don't do it when they all go off to work and soccer or wherever they go and you're like, oh, finally the house is quiet. I'm gonna do the dishes. Don't do that. I know it's great.

So don't make it invisible. You call it invisible.

Don't make it invisible.

Labor.

Yeah, if everybody else is having fun, you have fun too. Like, and when everybody else is here, do the housework with them. They can help or not, but at least they'll see that it's getting done. So that's number one.

Why though? Because then it makes it more appreciative or—

Well, it makes it not invisible because when you do it when everybody else is not in the house and then everybody else is in the house and they're doing leisure and you don't feel like you have time to do leisure cuz you need to do other things. Then you are frustrated with them and they don't understand what the big deal is.

Got it. Yeah. Okay.

So that'd be number 1. Number 2, organize your spaces first. Organize your closet, your bedroom, your backpack, your laundry room, like whatever impacts you, organize that first. Because number 1, it will stay organized a lot longer than any of the family spaces. And number 2, you will start living an organized life. And so you will feel better.

Mm-hmm.

Because we default to everybody else around us and organizing all of them, and then they don't appreciate it and it gets unorganized. And then again, We get frustrated.

Yeah.

And they're like, why are you mad?

Okay.

Okay. So that'd be the second one. And the third one is, what is the one thing that has just been bothering you? And you're like, if I just had time to work on this thing, like use paper plates and order takeout in and then work on that thing. So like for me right now, it's my nutrition, my wellness. So I'm really trying to dial in, like now I'm hungry and I wanna eat, but now I know all the food is bad, so I don't have any of the good foods. And then I just don't even know what to eat. So I really need to take some time to figure out what to eat cuz I, I could be hungry.

Yeah. So we talked about this word invisible labor and I noticed that you create a lot of like terms in your marketing, things that I've never heard of before and you coin them. And I'm curious how that impacts your, uh, stickiness to your audience, the way that they resonate with you. Like why do you come up with all these terms? Okay. And, and give us some examples.

Okay, great. So invisible labor is definitely an academic term. It's not my own. So I just wanna be clear with that one. Um, but I think it's just the teacher, like how do you through a podcast help someone who's in their own home think about their home differently so that they can make decisions and make change? So I have to like explain and give examples of other households that might be similar to yours and then give you a, a business analogy or a different analogy and then apply it to the home. So one would be Swiss cheese organizing. So Swiss cheese organizing actually came from when my kids were at this learning disability school and they talked about how an ADHD brain has Swiss cheese learning because of the executive function deficits. Like one day the student will know their colors and the next day they won't. Hmm. And that's, you know, Swiss cheese learning was coined by, um, one of the teachers there. So I took that and I applied it to organizing and I was like, okay, well, women, We are like, I'm gonna take my house back and I organize the kitchen and the toy room and the family room and I do it all weekend long.

And then I get to Monday, I'm like, house looks great. And then the next Friday it's a mess again.

Mm-hmm.

Because you're organizing spaces that aren't gonna stay organized. But if you organize your bathroom, your bedroom, your closet, those spaces will stay organized. And now you can get your whole house organized in a year. You have an order of operations problem, not an effort problem. So I'm pulling that in from being a math teacher, like, You remember order of operations?

Yeah.

Like the pandas thing?

Yeah.

So I'm applying that. And then I did a whole series on that where I was like, you must subtract, which is declutter, and then you must add, and then you must, you know, organization multiplies your time. And I did all these little analogies around math. Another one is golden windows. So we talk, I talk about when there are these unique periods of time where everybody wants to get organized. September, January.

Yep.

When you turn a milestone birthday, like 40.

Spring cleaning.

Have a baby, all that stuff. So some are universal, like everybody wants to get organized in September, and some are unique to you. You're getting married and you're turning 40 and you're having a baby or whatever it is. And you can stack these golden windows and then you have a lot of energy and this is when you should really go deep on getting organized.

Why is it that sometimes like I'm in the mood to clean and I like, I'll notice that there's stuff everywhere and then other times like I don't even notice. That it's messy, like, as an ADHD brain?

I don't know, but I could guess.

Okay.

So I'll just say for myself, sometimes it's like, okay, it's messy, but I really don't have the energy, or I'm really excited about something I'm doing in business, so I'm like, whatever.

Yeah.

And then other times maybe it'll be like, I'm stuck on something at work, or I'll be like, I really need to figure this out, but I can't figure it out. And then I'll come home and I'll be like, this place is a mess, and I'll put all my energy into organizing the house. And as I do that, I get the breakthrough for the business. So I find that a lot of times when we do some of that kinesthetic work, at least for myself personally, I'll make breakthroughs in other areas.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

How are people finding you mostly? Like, how are you getting your sales? Where are the different channels? We talked about your podcast. Mm-hmm. Like if you could break down like where you get a majority of your sales or different channels.

I don't know.

You don't know?

I don't know.

Oh my gosh. She just like, I just make $2 million. I don't know.

I don't know. So, um, I'm on Instagram. I pulled everybody onto my own app, so we're not on Facebook. I mean, I have accounts on Facebook, but I haven't been on Facebook in like 6 years because people like to organize in private. Yeah. And people don't want like Facebook having all their information. So I have my own app. I have a custom coded website. Like I'm not on Shopify. I'm not, I am in Amazon just for one product. So yeah, I'm not in a lot of the places all the other people are. So that's kind of a problem. I do have the podcast and people do refer the podcast. I have books. People will find me when I'm on other podcasts like yours, or I do a summit or things like that. Okay. But, um, no, I've never been even able to like dial it in. This is how you like turn the spigot. Really?

What about SEO from your website? It's so like word heavy. I'm assuming you get a lot of traffic from there. You don't know.

People will say they find me somehow. They end up on the podcast and that's where they—

When you wanna grow, like, do you care about growing?

Yes.

Yes, I do. So when you wanna grow, benefit me. What do you, what do you do?

So, um, yeah, that's a great question. The only time I ever ran ads was we were running ads in February of 2020 and we ran 'em until May of 2020. I do think they kind of worked, but just like you said, I mean, you've looked at everything in the company and you're like, the Sunday basket's too expensive. Well, an ad, I mean, you see what I'm saying on Facebook? That's not, people aren't gonna buy $179 basket.

No, you need to build the, the podcast works for you. Yeah. Because you're building trust. Yes. You're getting people to like, Listen to your voice. Mm-hmm. Feel connected with you. Yeah. Listen to you every day until finally they're like, yes, at least has given me so much advice. I'm gonna buy her $250 basket.

Yep.

And get this started. Yeah. And at least I get something physical in the process. Probably easier to make the, the course sale in 2026 with a physical product, to be honest. Cuz courses are kind of going a little downhill. But you are, talk to us about your model of your course because it's actually, you are involved. It's, it's more of a, is it like live? Kind of like group coaching?

Yeah, so I didn't finish that earlier. There's always 3 components to anything that we sell. There's a physical product.

Okay.

There's an online course, like an on-demand course, and then there's some kind of a coworking. So in the Sunday Basket, you get the Sunday Basket, you get the online course, and then about 40 out of 52 Sundays from 5 to 6:30 Eastern, there's one of 2 people that'll lead a Sunday Basket Club. Um, the Productive Home Solution, we don't have a physical product anymore, but that's our whole system to organize your entire house. And then Tanya on Thursday will lead you in, like, what does that look like in her house with twins that are 12, whereas I am, you know, an empty nester now.

Okay.

And then my live components are when I do planning days. So now I'm taking you up to that level 5 CEO thinking, leader of the house.

So this is like the VIP premium package. So how much is somebody spending on that?

So the planning day right now is $250 per session.

Okay.

And it's a live event, so we just charge. And once you're in that, you can get the subscription, which drops it a little bit.

And many people can join that?

Many people can join that. We have 1,000 people in it.

You have 1,000 people in it and they, they join every— 1,000 people join the call?

1,000 people are in the subscription plan and they have been for like 5 years.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, we have very, very little churn.

And then they show up on Sundays and do it with you?

So this is the planning day. It's kind of like quarterly planning in business. It's kind of modeled after the EOS model. So it's a 2-day event, a Thursday and a Friday. Thursday we prep and we get ready and we pull all of our resources, clean out our Sunday basket and get all our binders ready. And then I do a 4-hour live and there's a 6-week replay where we go through like thinking through our time and thinking through our housework and our goals and objectives and plan out our house, all the things we wanna do in our house for the next 120 days. So we do this 3 times a year.

Got it. Okay. I feel like we need this like more broken down. I don't get what you do yet. So what is the— maybe this is my problem. Uh, welcome to How We Profit therapy. I'm just kidding.

Yes, thank you.

Uh, product ladder. Tell us your product ladder. Like what is the lowest entry point to work with you to the highest?

Sunday Basket, $179.

Okay.

The Productive Home Solution is $1,250. That's organizing your house.

Does somebody go and organize your house?

No, you have to organize your own house.

That's fun.

I teach you how. I know. It's a 52-week never-ending program.

I'm too rich for that.

Yeah, exactly. Um, and there is a good point to that. So this is not designed for people who are too rich for that. Like that's what In-Home Professional Organizers for. Yeah. This is for the people who are like, I don't have $75 an hour to pay a professional organizer.

Yeah.

But I will learn the skill. And also just getting back to like, we're running an enterprise, like we are running the household engine. And this is the, like, if you were an entrepreneur and I said, okay, it's gonna be like $3,000 for you to get all the operation systems you need, you'd be like, where can I sign up? But when we're talking about a household, we're like, $750 to do all the information management. That's so much money. Aren't those just binders? No, they're like the lifeblood, like they're the operating system, the KPIs, the processes that you would have in business for your household. They will help you if somebody has to step in as power of attorney, power of healthcare, settle your estate. Like these are real things that are going to happen in all households.

Yeah. And help save you time and efficiency so that you can make more money, do whatever you need to do. Okay, so we're on the second stage.

Yeah. So it's Sunday Basket, organizing the house, the Productive Home Solution, the Paper Solution is $750, and then you go to planning days.

So we have a monthly and a quarterly planning, and you pay $250 a week.

$250 per planning session. There are only 3 a year, so $750 a year.

Got it. $750 a year. And it's a planning session with you involved.

Yes.

It's really cool. You're helping people. Yeah. And you're making money doing it. Mm-hmm. And so you've got a pretty small team, right? You've got 9 people you mentioned.

Yep.

Mm-hmm. What are all the different roles that you have right now?

So we have full-time graphic designer, a full-time finance, one that's part-time finance and warehouse. Um, I have a chief of staff, I have an executive assistant, I have somebody else who works in the warehouse, customer service. There's me.

There's me. It sounds like you need a, a marketing person maybe. Yes. Yes.

We had a marketing person.

No, we probably do.

I don't even need a marketing, marketing is me right now.

And something that I heard you say earlier in the conversation is that you've never been viral. Yeah. And you're like, I did this all. You have like a $2 million business. You've never been viral. You've got a great podcast though, which is really great long-form content. You built a, a great blog. What are your thoughts around the fact that you've never gone viral, but you still have a successful business?

Yeah, I'm not really sure. When I started the PhD, we're a $2.5 million company and we maintained that for 4 years before we sunset our work product. And now we're at $2 million. And it's really the customers, once they really buy into doing the products, like they, once you have the Sunday basket, then you wanna make all the other things and then you just run your own office away. Got it.

It's really great LTV.

Oh yeah.

It's, it's incredible. So your, so your customers are, are really going up the product ladder.

Yeah. And they're just buying more office supplies.

Interesting.

And they're using this system in other ways.

Awesome. And do, do you think this is, there's a lot of word of mouth happening?

No. You know why? People don't wanna tell people when they're doing organizing and/or if you tell other people when you're doing organizing, people are like, yeah, uh, have her come to my house. She doesn't come to her house. Nevermind. That sounds like work. So what I realize is a lot of people don't wanna do the work of getting organized.

Hmm.

But the people who do are usually leaders in their other roles. And so they see the value of getting this organized. Because it will give them time so they can have more time for their, what they're uniquely gifted and created to do.

Mm-hmm.

Which may be volunteering, it may be growing a business, it may be leading in corporate America or whatever, but they know that they've been organized and successful over here, so they need to be organized and successful over here.

And I don't think you have a lot of competition. I can't imagine that there's a ton of courses available for organization. Am I right?

Most of the courses that are out there aren't as complete and they focus on one niche, which is mostly married women with children.

Mm.

So they're not looking at a woman that is not married. Or you go into the productivity space or time management space and they could teach you a time management or a journal or some systems, but they don't have the home organization piece.

Okay. So, so you have like a more holistic approach.

Yeah.

To manage the entire household.

Yeah.

So you were also selling work systems and organization. Why'd you decide to sunset that part of your business?

Oh, especially if it was making, I guess, how much a million dollars a year?

It was making a million dollars a year.

It was making a million dollars a year. So I was doing these home planning days 3 times a year, trimester, and I was doing quarterly planning days with people in work.

Okay.

So that was a recurring product. And then the Sunday Basket, same exact product, we called it a Friday Work Box. And that is the box I originally created back when I was doing direct sales and how I had my whole team profitable. 'Cause I taught them that pink leads to purple leads to blue leads to green. So marketing pink leads to purple products and customers leads to team members to support those leads to revenue.

Okay.

And so once you learned that in direct sales, you made money. But if you didn't learn that, like you only focused on one color and you never had a well-rounded business enough to make money.

Okay.

So I moved that into Organize 365, but the problem was I had 8 of these boxes. Boxes, all things I had done: entrepreneur, direct sales, teacher, corporate, like everything I've done. So I was teaching it that way. Then I made it just one box, but I'm an entrepreneur. So when you are an entrepreneur, pink leads to purple leads to blue leads to green. When you are an employee, green leads to blue leads to purple leads to pink, because the entrepreneur is the one that comes up with the ideas and the marketing and the new.

Okay.

And as an employee, you have administrative tasks that you work with a team on to create the product that that fulfills the CEO's vision.

Okay.

And to truly make that line what it needed to be, I needed to create two products, one entrepreneurial and one employee. And I could have done it, but what I found was I was spending so much time figuring that out that I was not iterating on the home.

And that's your stack.

And there are thousands of people who do this. And I'm the only person that does the home at the level that I do it. And so I burned the boats just like I got rid of the in-home organizing when it was making almost half a million dollars to start something that was making nothing. I did it again and now I'm like, okay, I see we need monthly CEO sessions. I see we need a planner. I'm coming out with a planner next month. I see we need a state course. So I'm like, I see now the pieces that are already missing in what I'm creating because we still have so much work at home that is not operationalized.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. So even though it was making money, it was profitable. Was it profitable?

Yeah.

Okay. You still shut it down because you felt like it was slowing you down with your core competency. Yeah. And eventually, like, you wanna make $5 million, $10 million, more millions on your organization.

Yes.

Business. That's interesting.

It is interesting. Well, you can only do so much. Like you as the individual CEO, visionary creator can only do so much.

Yeah. You gotta focus. That's the name of the game. So it's like if you're losing focus, trying to develop something that you aren't even necessarily like the top expert in the world on. That's probably also what you're feeling. You're like, I know how to organize. I had that business. Now you're getting your PhD to like learn more about that. Yeah. How do you think your PhD is actually gonna help you in your business?

Yeah, my husband asks that question often. That's why we're coming out with this Productive Home CEO theoretical framework. It's a podcast series now. It'll be a book next year, and then that will be the theory that I ground all my research in. So to have research theory, you have to have a book. So I'm gonna create the book and then I'm gonna go and run a, a lot of studies. So I'm gonna self-fund my studies and get them published in academia and elsewhere.

And that will be like IP that you can sell with your business, right?

So once you publish it in academia, they own it. Kind of like if you traditionally publish a book. Yeah. But yes, it is IP and this is taking household management to a level that's, that's never been studied before. The last time psychologists studied household management in this way was all the way back in the '30s and '40s when Lillian Gilbreth did efficiency studies. She was the Cheaper by the Dozen lady. Okay. She was a psychologist. And so she studied household efficiency and then academia moved into economics and that's where we were in the '60s and '70s. And that's when consumer packaged goods were like, yeah, let's target that. Uh, homemaker. Yeah. And they created the homemaker out of scratch. Like it was a marketing gimmick, the stay-at-home mom, which I bought into hook, line, and sinker and loved it. And then we've moved into the feminist, um, you know, women are doing more labor, invisible labor, the burnout and the mental load of women, which is real and definitely needs to be studied in academia. We've been studying that since the mid-'80s.

Okay.

My thing is, okay, yeah, that's true, but I, I can't get my husband to do something different. I can't get my kids to do something different. I can only impact me. And so me as the head of my household, how can I support myself other than just downloading Pinterest printables and things like that? Like, I need an operating system. I need a way to operationalize what I'm doing. I need a way that I have a system that I can put in place in our parents' homes, that I could put in place in my kids' homes, that I could put in place in my sister's home if I need to step in and be her power of attorney or her power of healthcare, as opposed to running all their households on the, all their systems. So that's really what I'm gonna focus on.

Yeah. So let's talk about margins, profitability. So right now, uh, you're not doing the home services anymore. You really got your products that you just went over. Uh, what is your margin on all this? Like how much profit, how much are you spending? What is your biggest cost centers and, and doing all these different courses?

An interesting thing about my company that I realized is because I am the manufacturer, and I'm the distributor in one company, we actually don't do markup between manufacturer to distributor to end user.

Okay.

But I could, like, if we were to end up like in Target or something, we would have the manufacturing, we would package that, and then there'd be a, you know, cost for that product. We just go straight from manufacturing to end use. So it looks like there's a lot more margin than there is. And because a lot of it is online, You know, I already made the course, so what's— there is no hard cost in that anymore.

I continue to update it, but there isn't a hard cost other than like you and the other people that have to show up on the Sunday planning days and stuff. Yeah.

So when you look at the P&L, like the actual physical products is low, like 10 to 15%. Shipping is like 7%. So you're like, oh my gosh, you have like 80% margins. No, you don't. Cuz we have warehouse fees, we have warehouse employees, we have customer service. So then you take it down to like, okay, we can lump all that into operating expense and that's probably like 40%. So we're still 60% profitable.

Nice.

But if I'm the face of the brand and I'm creating everything, I'm not in that. I'm over in G&A, research is down in G&A. Um, you know, all the other team members are down in G&A. So how they do it on a P&L, like what's considered profit and not profit. Um, we were profitable the last 2 years enough that we could do profit sharing, which I really loved doing for my team. Oh, cool. It was great. This year we weren't as profitable.

So because you're, you're developing.

Yeah.

Because you dropped that product line.

We're still profitable, but not.

Oh, that's amazing that you did profit sharing with your employees. Can you share a little bit about that? Like how you actually did it?

Yeah. So again, back to that C corp and S corp. So the S corp can have retained earnings at the end of the year, whatever the profit is. Like in an S corp, it would just flow through to the business owner or they could distribute it if they want to, but if they don't, it'll just flow through to them. When you're in a C corp, you have to make a decision like, I pull a W-2 salary, I also get royalties, and then at the end of the year, what is the profit? So I think each year we had like $200,000 in profit. So then when you have that $200,000 in profit, you could pay your 21% tax, $42,000, and then just keep the rest of the $160,000 in the company and just add it so that you can use it to buy things.

Okay.

Or you can distribute it to yourself. Like as a business owner, you could just do that, or you could do what's called profit sharing. So when you do profit sharing, that's gonna be means tested, which means that we have a 401, we do a company match of 4%, so we already check the box of one of the means testing. And then they look at the entire employees, everyone that qualifies, and they do all these actuarial things, and they come back and they say, okay, if you distribute $100,000, this is how it would break out. If you distribute $150,000, this is how it would all break out. And I remember when my husband got 2 profit sharing distributions, probably 20 years ago, there, the company he was with was bought and it was about to be sold. And so the business owners wanted to take money out of the company and it was advantageous to them to do it as a profit sharing. So he got like, I, it was a lot of money, like $20,000 or something like that in 1 year in profit sharing, which all goes into your 401. And I, he talks about that all the time and how meaningful it was.

So I was like, I wanna do that with my employees one day. So that we did that 2 years in a row. And sometimes people won't see that as a real benefit because they're like, well, but that's in my 401. I can't spend it today, especially if they're younger, even though it'll grow so much bigger.

Yeah.

So I also try to do bonuses as well, cuz it's like money now, money later.

Yeah. Really great. Where do you think you're the strongest in your business?

I think the fact that I am research-backed, going to do my own research, that I understand the entire lifespan of the adult cycle, that I have a complete, from decluttering to organizing to increasing productivity and beyond scope, like the depth of my research is and my knowledge is really strong.

I also think one of your strengths is just your journey.

Mm-hmm.

Like the fact that you're a teacher, so you're really good at teaching. You can come up with words and analogies. Yeah. And then you did the, like, physical organizing for people. Mm-hmm. So I feel it's also your journey, which I think is the, the case for a lot of entrepreneurs. Like, your, your journey is also your strength. All right. Next is weaknesses. What do you think your biggest weaknesses are?

I think, uh, one of my biggest weaknesses is I don't know how people find me and I don't know how to have more people find me.

You definitely need to think about how are you going to create marketing channels, especially with a 60% margin. It's like, how are you just going to get more customers in the door? And I think honestly, like, as a marketer myself, yeah, I think it means you've got to like actually lean into social media. And get on camera.

Yeah.

Or you don't even need to necessarily get on camera. It could be writing on social media. Like, I don't know, but I, I just feel like you need to embrace the fact that everyone's on Instagram and TikTok.

Oh, I'm on Instagram every day.

You're on Instagram every day.

Yeah. But I'm not doing a good job of it, obviously.

And it's like, you need to be like DMing people. Yeah. Yeah. And bringing them into your world and having webinars and Yeah. It's really cool that you've got this podcast and I think that's working, but if you wanna like 2x, 3x, 5x the business, I think it's really about getting out there.

Yep. Agreed.

Yeah.

That's why I'm in Austin.

Yeah. I mean, she's getting out here right now. All right. Opportunities. Where do you think your biggest opportunities lie?

I think that there are a lot of opportunities and I try, even though I like to go after every shiny penny, Um, I'm trying to be very strategic with what I say yes to and what channels we go to next. Um, we could do brand partnerships, you know, I could start speaking on stages. I already have 6 books, but I plan on continuing to publish about a book a year. So we have a lot of opportunities. I think research is probably the biggest one though, when we could start having some academic support for these products specifically in the home, like you do for any other thing that's in a business. You know, those all have academic testing behind them. I want to do the study, find support, replicate my own study, and then offer my products to independent researchers to be able to see if they can also replicate the study to see if there's support for these.

I think like an ADHD line, products, courses just for them, like, I think that could work really, really well. And there's a lot of entrepreneurs with a lot of money who have ADHD. Okay, threats. What's your biggest threats?

My company will have to be sold. Like it's not gonna go to my kids. So, but I wanna work till I'm 80. Martha Stewart was 80 when I made that goal. I think she's 83 now. Dan Sullivan is 82 or whatever. I'm like, okay, well if they can make it to 80, I can make it to 80. So that's 26 more years. Like I have quite a few years of working.

But if you're the face of the company, how's that gonna work?

We're creating an AI right now. I'm doing that Delphi AI and I'm creating two of 'em. One for our home, our home-based products and one for the CEO line. And so you're gonna be able to voice chat with that 24/7.

Okay.

So that's one way.

Yeah.

Um, who knows what are gonna be opportunities.

Maybe like Dave Ramsey approach, like get other like faces in there. Tried it. Yeah, you did?

I did. Yeah, I tried.

How's that? Didn't go well.

I mean, your intellectual property is your intellectual property. Everybody's gonna put their spin on things. And when you create something that's truly unique, like I've created, people want you, like, Is there a second Oprah? I'm not saying I'm Oprah. I'm just saying, you know, is there a second Brené Brown? Is there a second Mel Robbins? No. I mean, people want that person.

Yeah.

Who's created that, you know, community or that feeling or that intellectual property. I don't think it's something that you could just like democratize.

Yeah. So when you go to sell your company, it will be like the, all the courses and the materials and the, and the content essentially.

Yeah, so Franklin Covey is now a public company.

Okay.

But back in the day, you know, it was the Covey books and the Covey planner, but now it's, and it's like multiple hundreds of million dollar company and it's no longer associated with the person.

Got it.

I've been really good at making sure that I have patents and trademarks and copyrights and all of that kind of thing. So I think as far as that goes, that's not a threat. Um, my biggest threat is people just don't wanna do work at home. They just don't wanna do it.

People wanna pay for it, but if you can't pay for it, you gotta work.

Well, they don't even wanna pay for it. They just want it to like magically go away or not be a thing.

Or AI robots.

Yeah.

Hopefully don't work.

But anyway.

Yeah. Well, this has been such an awesome conversation. I feel like we learned so much about your business. Uh, my last question to you is, if you wanted to double the size of your business, mm-hmm, what steps would you take today?

So doubling the size of the business, uh, I just did a reader survey, you know, finding out what my audience wanted and then I reverse engineered how can we give 'em what they want.

Because you find the value in existing clients, you know that.

Yeah. Yeah.

And how do you reach these existing clients? Do you have like an email list that you target or how do you talk to them?

I do have an email list. We have a private app, so every course has its own, um, thing inside of the app.

Okay.

And then you can also get in the app for free. I'm on Instagram. I do podcast episodes, so they hear me there. But our email list is really engaged. Got it. So I got a lot of responses from the reader survey.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on How We Profit. Where can everybody learn about you and everything that you do?

Thank you so much for having me. The website is Organize365.com. I'm Organize365 on Instagram, and the podcast is Organize365.

Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on How We Profit.

Thank you.

And that, YAP fam, is how Lisa and Organize 365 profits. What stood out to me today is that Lisa is not just selling organization. She's naming a problem millions of people feel: the invisible work, the paper piles, the mental load, and the overwhelm of running a home. And when a founder can name the problem better than anyone else, create a system around it, and build trust through the years, with teaching and podcasting, that becomes a real moat. Thanks for listening to How We Profit Wednesdays, the Young and Profiting series where real entrepreneurs share real numbers, real margins, and the real story of how their businesses actually work. I'm Hala Taha, and I'll see you next time.