wilted flower showing free can be fab but maybe not worth it

I’ve written before about free resources and how to use them in your business. I even offer quite a few to you, my dear professional organizers/blog readers. Sometimes free can be fab but, if it hurts your brand, it’s no bargain.

Right now, however, I want to talk about the hazards of using free stuff.

Specifically, let’s talk about how free stuff can cost a lot if they harm your brand. I observed a lively discussion recently among organizers looking for a free template for a “letter of agreement” and it brought up several issues that all new organizers should think about.

A “letter of agreement” (LOA) is the term used for a document that spells out how an organizer and client will work together. The LOA may also be called a “client agreement,” or a similar term. It usually addresses topics like these:

  • Fees, including how much the client will pay and in what increments (by the hour, the day, the quarter-hour, the project, or some other measure)
  • How and when payment will be made, for example, what credit cards does the organizer accept
  • Cancellation policy, or how much notice must a client give to avoid incurring charges for a missed appointment
  • Travel policy, including how far or how long the organizer will travel without charging extra in terms of time or mileage
  • Confidentiality, which addresses under what conditions, if any, the client’s information will be shared with another party

There can be many other points addressed in an LOA. Each one will be specific to how the organizing business operates. And that gives a hint about the trouble with taking a free template off the web to use in your business.

Imagine this…

Ms. New is an organizer who, hoping to be cost-conscious in her business, finds an LOA template online and decides to use it in her business. Ms. New’s website is written in a more formal, third-person style. The images on her site are all black-and-white shots with artsy angles and moody lighting.

Her headshot is a three-quarter frame in which she wears a crisp, white shirt, and navy blazer. She aims to serve businesses and residential clients who place a higher value on professionalism than on a cozy, personal relationship.

But the LOA she finds is written in a casual, folksy tone using the first-person “I” throughout. It does not address travel except by driving distances, while Ms. New works in a large city, takes public transit, and sometimes flies out-of-state to work with her clients. The LOA addresses credit cards but says nothing about processing payments and other payment-related issues that Ms. New needs to address with her clients.

When presented with this LOA, the prospective client becomes confused.

There is a glaring lack of connection between how Ms. New is represented by her website and how she is presented by her LOA. This problem is not limited to LOAs, of course. If Ms. New chose a newsletter template with pastel colors and a perky handwriting font in contrast to her black-and-white website, or if her social media posts were populated by sayings that reflect on the life of young mothers at home, the effect would be the same: a message that confuses her prospective client.

We cannot be all things to all people, so we want to create a consistent branding message.

Ms. New intends to communicate to clients that she is detail-oriented, no-nonsense, and skilled at simplifying complicated situations. This is the point of her website and headshot choices. But by helping herself to many free resources from the web, Ms. New has created a mixed message.

To use a food analogy, it is as though she wanted to make an appealing salsa of tomatoes and peppers, but she has tossed in some free chocolate chips and wasabi, besides. Ms. New has thrown a bunch of ingredients into the blender and come up with an unappealing mess.

If you do choose to use free resources, make sure you customize them.

As the award-winning cookbook tells us, you have to adjust the “salt, fat, acid, and heat” to create an appealing dish; Ms. New has to adjust and rework all resources to get the balance that will speak clearly to her prospective client.

Make sure your forms and documents consistently project your company mission, values, and culture as well as your brand.

I’ve been asked many times to sell my LOA as a stand-alone product. However, it’s intentionally part of an 80+ page kit called The New Organizers’ Essentials that includes checklists and essential forms to help organizers, like you, project confidence in the legal, business, and client-relationship aspects of their businesses.

And because I believe part of the business start-up process means creating and branding our processes, forms, and documents as soon as possible after we decide to start a business, I’ve declined to separate out the LOA.

Yes, free can be fab. But if it comes at the cost of your brand, it’s no bargain.

Read more articles related to budget and finance for your professional organizing business.


Read more about: Administrative tasks associated with being a professional organizer. Becoming a professional organizer + owning an organizing business. Financial, legal, and insurance matters related to professional organizers. Marketing + branding for professional organizers. Growing + specializing in the organizing industry. Purchase 1+1 career coaching call or essential business forms.