Erin Verissimo has an eye for organization, decluttering interior design and knowing how to package and merchandise a home. Erin is an expert on merging the essential roles of organization and staging when it comes to preparing homes for listing or for lifestyle improvement. As lead organizer and stager, she has effectively decluttered, styled and merchandised homes, delivering dramatic results for clients. She specializes in helping homeowners and home sellers tackle the burden of decluttering which is often the biggest roadblock that must be addressed before any other improvements can be made. Erin founded the hybrid company LIVE WELL Home Organizing & Staging. The crazy part, organizing is Erin’s side-hustle. Erin is also the Operations Manager for New Economy a Pawtucket Rhode Island startup with the mission to “To unleash the full potential of the entrepreneur.” New Economy provides bookkeeping, accounting and tax planning services to small entrepreneurial businesses. So from organizing your stuff to launching that totally new and cool app, Erin’s got some tips and advice to organize your world and get inspire your inner entrepreneur!
If you could impart one piece of advice onto a young entrepreneur, what would it be?
There are always a million things you could be doing at any given time to grow your business however you’ll get nowhere quick if you don’t train yourself to focus. I say train because it is just that–a constant effort to put your energies into what you had chosen to prioritize. I like the quote from “The One Thing” by Gary Keller. “What is the one thing you could do to make everything else easier or irrelevant.” Start there.
Tell us about a mentor who has been influential to you as a leader.
I’d say this is Jeff Allain, founder, and CEO of New Economy. He’s been mentoring me daily as I train to take on more and more of the day to day operations. He’s a rare find as a CEO being both highly knowledgeable yet humble and eager to learn and grow. This sets the tone for the whole team culture. More than that, he’s introduced me to EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) which we’re using as the framework for running the business. His investment in forward-thinking has had a tremendous effect on how I view leadership. We also have an EOS implementation coach, Debra Thompson of TAB Boston. She’s been essential is helping Jeff and I navigate the waters as we develop our visionary/integrator relationship and develop a leadership framework that will help take us to the next level of growth.
What are three simple organizational tips that you think will change peoples lives
1 Something in, something out. Don’t just add–upgrade and replace–otherwise all of your nice, new things will still look like clutter.
2. Make it impossible to fail. Make your new organizational systems so easy to use that you won’t be tempted to revert to old habits on a bad day. If the kids play with their toys in the living room, get a storage ottoman for a convenient cleanup solution. If everything has to make it back upstairs every night, it probably won’t happen.
3. 99.9% of the time–organization is not the issue. It’s volume. However much we don’t want to admit it, we all just have too much stuff. All tips and tricks to organize will be short-lived if we don’t learn to live leaner. If you can master the art of simplifying, you’ll never need to organize again.
Why does clutter have a negative impact on selling your home and getting the most value?
Sellers want to envision themselves living in a space and personal belongings and clutter will only remind them that this space belongs to someone else. Also, the more things you have in your home, the more of a distraction there is from the home itself. You want the sellers to notice the beautiful mantel, not an assortment of knick-knacks and collections. An open and clear home sends the message that a home has plenty of storage and is easy to maintain. If the closets are overflowing, they’ll assume that they’re not spacious enough and that’s how it will be when they live there as well. Also, many buyers will not have the foresight we assume they will. Just like they won’t necessarily envision that a fresh coat of paint can make a room look brand new, they won’t envision that the rooms would be more spacious once all your stuff is out. They see your clutter and that is the lasting impression they’ll have on the home.
