Past Chapter Meetings

Lisa King & Tiffany Baxendell Bridge will present an engaging and hands on presentation on the basics of successful networking, including tips and event strategies.

Professionals Linda de Marlor, President of Tax-Masters, Inc. will cover the many missed and hidden deductions allowed for self employed and employed business professionals along with tips on how to put away tax deductible money in an IRS, 401K, or other retirement vehicles. "Deduct, Deduct, Deduct!"

Molly Whalen, the Ringleader of Leadership Outfitters, Inc. will present, this excellent presentation on branding.

Why do folks go to Starbucks, even though there are other coffee choices? What keeps people loyal to one brand over another? In this session we’ll examine what key messages or “brand image” you send, not only from your organization to members and prospective members but within your own business. You will learn how to recognize peoples needs and desires and persuade them that they really need that “tall, non-fat, extra foam latte!”

• Explore the connection of key messages with brand awareness
• Examine what key messages your organization is sending as well as what your business is communicating
• Discover how to persuade potential members and customers to be loyal to your brand

Members and Guests will discuss various topics related to the organizing profession and operating a business.  Topics might include: 'Green' Organizing, Working With Couples, Building Your Business, etc.  To submit a topic for consideration email Julie Nickerson – Julie@simplified-spaces.com

Pete Feinberg, Senior Director of Product Marketing for e-commerce retailer, Inphonic, will be teaching the tools you need to know to learn how to harness the internet to grow your business.  Explore keyword advertising. Discuss integrated marketing approach.

• It’s easy and inexpensive to have a spectacular web presence
• An effective website can you win jobs
• 3 easy ways to actively market your website

Dave Tucker, CEO of KnowItAll® Software

Please note there will be no Ask the Expert in Feb. The chapter business meeting will begin at 6:30 pm with a special forum for everyone at 7:00 pm, followed by our guest speaker.

Beach Management is the art of creating systems to make your company run itself.  How long will your company last without you?  What is your exit strategy?  Do you own the business or does the business own you?  Most of these questions come because you, the owner or senior manager, have all of the answers in your head.  How do you get this information out so others can achieve the same, or better, results?

• Understand the difference between a “system-oriented” business and a “people-oriented” business.
• Stop being the know it all and re-think your information systems.
• Organize your time to spend more of it in the “important/not urgent” category, giving you more control and time of your own.

In 2005, KnowItAll® received The NAPO “Organizers’ Choice Award” for “Best Technology Product” at the 20th Anniversary Conference and Organizing Exposition in San Diego, CA!

As an organization professional, you are an expert at bringing order to the lives of others.  However, when it comes to your own wardrobe, how often do you find yourself standing in your closet and saying, “I have nothing to wear?”  When you help your clients organize their closets, do they struggle with determining what items of clothing to keep and what pieces should be retired? If these scenarios sound familiar, it’s no surprise. Research shows that over 50% of women admit to having wardrobe and personal style challenges on a weekly basis.  Maryann Bastnagle will:

• Define the keys to an organized, workable wardrobe
• Introduce you to “core” pieces and accent items
• Help you and your clients look stylish and professional for any occasion, activity or audience

Jill McCrory, the Ringleader of Leadership Outfitters, Inc. will present a program on public speaking, one of the hottest trends in the industry.

Whether you present to small or large groups; colleagues or clients; this program will help you improve your preparation, delivery, and interaction with participants. In this interactive program, participants explore a variety of presentation techniques; review the basics on effective handouts and audio visuals; and explore the principles of adult learning.

• Discover how learning styles affect the receipt of your message
• Learn basic techniques to improve presentation quality
• Examine how voice and body language affects presentations

• NAPO-WDC Members Only
• 7:00 p.m., $20
• RSVP Required

NAPO-WDC’s members will present their favorite organizing products. This is always our most popular meeting of the year!

Members can e-mail their favorite product ideas to Holly Tunstall (info@cannoncc.com).  Please include the product name, price, place to purchase, and brief description.

NAPO President Barry Izsak will fill us in on what’s happening at NAPO, give us a Strategic Plan update and answer any questions you might have. With twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur and ten years as a professional organizer, Barry will close by sharing his own secrets that you can follow to achieve your own brand of success as a professional organizer.

Barry Izsak, CPO®, owner of ARRANGING IT ALL in Austin, Texas, has been helping corporate and residential clients get organized since 1996. He is the immediate Past President of NAPO and is author of the best-selling book, Organize Your Garage in No Time and co-author of Exploring Productivity.

Various small business concerns will be discussed such as:  Trademarks, registering your company, bonding, insurance, legal entities and contracts vs. letters of agreement.

All new members who joined the chapter in 2007 are invited.  This is a great opportunity to socialize with other newcomers. In addition, members of our Board of Directors will be on hand for networking and answering everything you always wanted to know about organizing.

How to Save Time, Energy and Stress with Repeatable Processes

Process -- The devil is in the details.  Members will learn how to break down process steps and understand how the dynamics between inputs, processes, and outputs affect time management and results.

Repeatable Procedures -- Members will learn how to build solid, repeatable processes and procedures.

Documentation is the key to building, sustaining, and training on repeatable policies, processes, and procedures.

Members are encouraged to metro as the hotel is located above the metro station.  There are three options for parking: hotel garage, street, public garage.  Parking at the hotel is discounted (with validation at the membership table) for $7 self park and $9 valet.  The conveniently located public garages (marked with a big blue 'P') cost 75 cents per hour for the first 3 hours and 50 cents per hour thereafter (Monday 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m).  Quarters are required.  Garages nearby include: Waverly Garage (At Waverly Street and Montgomery Lane) or the Metropolitan Garage (Woodmont and Edgemore Lane).  There are meters on the street requiring payment until 9 p.m.

Come hear an interactive panel discussion on alternative and additional income resource streams.

Members and guests will discuss various topics related to the organizing profession and operating a business.  Topics might include: 'Green' Organizing, Working With Couples, Building Your Business, etc.  Submit a topic for consideration to Terri Fischer ( )

6:30 pm, $30. Complimentary valet parking. RSVP Required by April 21, 2008 to

NAPO-WDC's members will present their favorite organizing products. This is always our most popular meeting of the year!

Members can email their favorite product ideas to . Please include the product name, price, place to purchase, and brief description.

Do you feel like you are getting the right information before entering your client’s home or office? Have you ever been surprised by the scope of a job once you arrived? Are you missing opportunities because you are too busy organizing to answer your phone? In this session, the Space Matters® team of Mindy Godding (CPO®, CPO-CD®) and Katherine Lawrence (CPO®) will share techniques for building successful client relationships from the first point of contact. You will learn to grow your business through procedures including client self assessments, phone/email consultations, and niche marketing. Strengthen your phone interview techniques and develop your own “Client Intake Form”, customized to your business. Learn to pre-screen prospective clients to determine their needs and begin formulating a strategy before an on-site visit. We will teach you how to delegate the information gathering process to an administrative or organizing assistant to capture leads and eliminate surprises.

What are taxonomies, meta tags, and meta data? More importantly, what do they have to do with professional organizing? If your clients struggle with an unending and overwhelming bombardment of electronic information, your grasp of these tools and concepts will help you organize them. Some people just can't get enough information. But like physical "stuff", digital "stuff" needs to be sorted, purged, classified, labeled, and stored for quick retrieval. If your clients are drowning in electronic documents or have declared their computers a digital disaster area, you can help! This session demonstrates how to use new technology tools to enhance "findability" for your clients (the holy grail of the organized life!) and to manage information and knowledge as useful assets, not buried treasures.

Jocelyn Coverdale, founder of Ballantrae Organizing Solutions and TechSavvy Organizing.com, specializes in productivity training and organizing consulting for busy professionals.

Why look outside the NAPO-WDC Chapter when there is so much expertise within? Our November meeting will feature our popular Roundtable Discussions. Here’s your opportunity to learn more about a variety of topics, including:

• Being or hiring a contractor versus an employee
• Managing client expectations in the era of “Clean Sweep”
• Preparing for the CPO exam
• Green organizing
• First steps in starting your business
• Wildcard table

Share some of your experiences and learn from your NAPO peers. Roundtable discussions will be led by Chapter volunteers, but we encourage everyone to jump in! We all bring different strengths to the table (literally), so join us for a lively evening that promises to give us all new tips and strategies to use in our businesses.

In the suburban setting of Granada Hills, California we see a 61 year old woman pushing a grocery cart to her front door. We watch her climb through a window covered in ivy and cob webs into her house, stepping on top of stacks of newspapers, piles of debris, rotting material, clothing, and toys; a living mass of waste that has literally pushed her out of the house and into her garden. My Mother’s Garden is the story of Eugenia Lester whose hoarding disorder has entered a dangerous, life threatening stage. Directed by her daughter Cynthia, it documents how one family comes together to cope with their mother’s disorder and rebuild a lost sense of family.

My Mother’s Garden was an official selection of the 2006 New York IFP Market and was a finalist for the IFP Socially Conscious Documentary Award. The film has also received support from the 2007 New York State Council For the Arts and the 2007 Pacific Pioneer Fund.

Director Cynthia Lester writes: My personal journey through this documentary was necessary to heal the wounds of abandonment, isolation, and dependency that are often present when raised by a parent with a persistent mental illness. Though my brothers and I are now adults, we all feel a deep need for a stabilizing center for our family, a permanent place to call home. This longing for stability has caused disorder in our lives, both socially and emotionally. Through this documentary, I am applying my experience in social work, art therapy,and filmmaking to my own family. I hope that the film can be therapeutic as well as a creative work of art that will help bring awareness to the issue of mental illness and also reach others who are sympathetic to this subject matter.

Do you know the costs of doing business as a professional organizer? Are you charging enough to make a living? How do you figure out what to charge? Are you tracking your income and expenses so you can tell if you're making a profit?

In this session, you'll learn the financial facts of life of being self-employed — the expenses to anticipate, when and how to make estimated tax payments, and some ways (high tech & low tech) to track income and expenses.

Though this session is all about money, there'll be a brief discussion of all the other things a professional organizer does that are not billable, but take time during the work week.

Using a worksheet developed by Susan Kousek (and used in NAPO's Professional Organizing 101 class), you'll learn how to calculate an hourly rate (for a sole proprietor/Schedule C taxpayer) based on your desired annual salary, taking into account business expenses, health and other insurance, retirement, the employer share of Social Security/Medicare, the number of weeks you want to work, and the number of billable hours you think you'll have per week.

Susan Kousek, CPO®, is the owner of Balanced Spaces® in Reston, Virginia.

Self-employed since 1985 (doing bookkeeping, payroll, computer training, and technical writing), Susan makes a living as a professional organizer; though she admits it took her a while to charge enough to cover her expenses and put money aside for retirement. In addition to hands-on organizing, she offers workshops and presentations. Her clients include solopreneurs, small businesses, corporations, associations and government agencies, as well as retirees and moms-at-home. She is a Golden Circle member of NAPO and a member of NSGCD and the National Speakers Association.

Greening your business isn’t just about doing something that’s good for the environment, it’s about sustaining your financial future. The green industry is expanding daily, with increasing numbers of products, services, and resources that are changing or replacing many of our common practices to make us more efficient, more profitable, less wasteful, and living healthier at home and at work.

Adrienne Spahr, owner and CEO of Green Living Consulting, a DC-based company that helps businesses and households adopt eco-practices, will present on:

• The growing Green Movement and why you should be a part of it
• the Green Spectrum and how to determine where your company falls compared to where you want to be
• What to consider in incorporating green products or services
• How marketing your green services can boost your business.

According to Jonathan Swift, “Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” Successful businesses (and lives) take strategy and long-term focus. Business Coach Margarita Rozenfeld will help you create your big picture vision along with a five year action plan for success. Through a series of visioning and planning exercises, you'll reconnect with your passions, clarify your priorities and values, visualize your legacy and develop a strategy to help you arrive at where you want to be.

Margarita Rozenfeld is the CEO of Incite International, an award-winning firm specializing in executive coaching, training and facilitation services. Corporate, non-profit and government clients include NASA, the Foreign Service Institute, Oracle, Wells Fargo, and TeraTech Inc. Margarita is also the Founder of YES!Circle, a leading networking, advisory and educational organization for visionaries in the D.C. region.

Join us to learn from estate expert and NAPO-WDC chapter member, Norman Zalfa of Organize Your Estate, Inc. He will review the important skills needed to “Help Clients Organize Their Estate Documents.”

The presentation will include tips on getting started, what to include in the inventory of property, paper retention guidelines, and how to add estate planning to your roster of services.

NAPO-WDC members, the Board of Directors, and Corporate Partners will get together for an exciting evening of networking and appreciation of our many outstanding members! This year we’ll be dining at Wildfire Restaurant, a new steak and chop house. Some of Wildfire’s signature dishes will be served family style for this event.

Join us to celebrate and congratulate our award winners:

• Professional Organizer of the Year
• Volunteer of the Year
• President’s Key Leader Award
• Corporate Partner of the Year

In addition, this is the evening when one lucky member will win a free NAPO-WDC Membership for the 2009-2010 chapter year!

Open to NAPO-WDC Members and Corporate Partners only. No spouses or guests please. RSVP and prepayment is needed to attend this event.

Be sure to attend the final chapter meeting before the summer break! The June meeting will showcase the newest organizing products on the market today.

Learn innovative ideas that can help you build your business and help your clients achieve optimum organization. Take this opportunity to meet the new chapter board members and see the latest from companies featured at the recent NAPO conference.

Many of the products highlighted during the meeting will be given away to lucky chapter members as door prizes. Come ready to win!

Come early to attend the Corporate Partner Expo. It will be held from 6:15 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Check out their summer promotions and learn about current referral programs. Get to know our Corporate Partners!

To celebrate the 15th Anniversary of NAPO-WDC, a panel of some of the first members of the chapter will discuss how it began and how their organizing businesses has changed over the years. The panel includes Golden Circle members: Terry Watson, CPO-CD, PTAC, ACT, ADDCAT from TimeWise, Sue Marie Bowling from Prescription for Order, Ellen Epstein, GC from Concierge America, Inc., and Susan Kousek , GC, CPO^® from Balanced Spaces, LLC.

Bring your NAPO membership cards to the meeting to have it laminated for free.

Chapter members will lead workshops on technology topics that can enhance your business such as: Staying connected to chapter updates with the Yahoo Group (sign up at the meeting), using Facebook and Twitter for social networking, Blogging to market your services, utilizing Task Management on your computer and e-mail marketing.

NAPO’s Code of Ethics is a set of principles to provide guidelines in our professional conduct with our clients, colleagues, and the community. Come participate in an entertaining group activity that will explore how each individual interprets what is ethical and what is not.

A photographer will be available (by appointment only) during the meeting for headshots of members. Look for more information in the chapter newsletter.

It’s all about getting the attention of your prospects and customers. To break through the incredible barrage of media messages that come at us every day -- you have to Make Your Message Matter™.

Lisa Martin, President & CEO of LeapFrog Solutions, Inc., a strategic marketing communications firm located in Fairfax, VA will speak on how to create a successful marketing plan for both online and offline communications.