This week Janine and Shannon sit down with Geralin Thomas of Metropolitan Organizing in Cary, N.C., a rock star in the organizing world. She’s not only famous for many appearances on the Hoarders tv show, she’s known for her generosity in sharing her business acumen with other organizers (including Janine).
Geralin is a business coach for entrepreneurs, particularly professional organizers, and in this episode we talk with Geralin about the challenges people face when starting a business. And, yes, perfectionism can be one of those challenges!
Be prepared for a lot of laughter.
Discussion topics include:
- How perfectionism can show up when starting a business
- The perfectionism/procrastination relationship
- Geralin’s emphasis in branding and marketing with her coaching clients
- How what you say, how you say it and your processes are all part of your branding
- How people can get perfectionistic about branding
- Geralin’s advice on how to pay attention to details without getting mired in them (hint: Know thyself)
- Having a specific—and consistent—point of view in your branding
- The importance of being authentic in branding and marketing
- Advice for starting points at the very beginning of a business
- Some thoughts on choosing a business name
- The things we’ve regretted in our businesses
- The prospects of drinking alcohol while recording (or listening to) the podcast
- Geralin’s favorite Getting to Good Enough moment
Links:
- Geralin’s website, Metropolitan Organizing
- Geralin’s first book, From Hoarding to Hope: Understanding People Who Hoard and How to Help Them
- Geralin’s second book, Decluttering Your Home: Tips, Techniques and Trade Secrets
- GTGE Episode 12, Procrastination
- GTGE Episode 49, Getting Started
- Website of Nora Brown, who designed Janine’s website and created her brand identity: Nora Brown Design
Lucky me!
Thank you both for inviting me to be a guest on the GTGE podcast. I enjoyed every single minute.
Casually chatting about business start-up challenges as they relate to branding, marketing, prioritizing, procrastination, and, her kissing cousin, perfectionism is my idea of heaven!
I do hope listeners will answer the questions we asked
— What are you doing/consuming while listening to this podcast?
— What are you most/least proud of?
Finally, if there are questions about anything related to our discussion, I’d be delighted to respond.
Geralin, we so appreciate your taking the time to talk with us. It was so much fun! You provided some great insights. We’d love to hear listeners’ responses to those questions–thank you for repeating them in writing here!
I imbibe the occasional Bailey’s Irish Cream if I’m listening at night. I more often listen before work in the morning, so just something wife caffeine at that time.
I appreciated this topic as I am thinking of starting a home-based business once I finish some long-term projects. I will make a note of the episode number so I can refer back to it in the future. One thing I would really like to see on this Web site is a clickable table-of-contents page with episode numbers and titles. It is a hassle to have to guess what page a particular episode is on.
I think this was the episode where Shannon said something about getting song lyrics wrong, and she had a special word for it. On my drive home tonight, the Go-Gos were playing”Our Lips Are Sealed,” and I burst out laughing. For literally *decades* I sang, “Honest, Lucille!”
“Honest, Lucille!” Hilarious.
Christy, we hope you find the episode helpful when you start your business!
Thanks for your suggestion of an index page for the website. We agree! That’s something that’s in the works. Until then, you can always use the search function at the bottom of the page to search for a topic we’ve covered.
We just finished the index page you requested! It had been on our task list for awhile but your comment nudged us. Thank you! Now you can click on Episodes in the menu bar to see a chronological list of episodes with links to each.