Update: Reset Your Nest and Sikora Solutions are no longer in an acquisition partnership. In order to better serve other professional organizers, we decided to maintain our organizing businesses while teaming together to create Reset Solutions Consulting. We hope the information in this blog post can still be helpful for those looking to learn about other organizers' journeys.
Running an organizing business is so rewarding but it's also a lot of hard work. If you're looking to level up your organizing business, you may want to do what Stephanie from Sikora Solutions did and consider an acquisition partnership (acqui-partnership) with Reset Your Nest. What does it look like for Sikora Solutions to be part of Reset Your Nest? What's an acqui-partnership? Listen to Jen Martin and Stephanie Sikora answer all of your questions about what this acquisition-partnership looks like or read more below!
Organizing Business
Stephanie Sikora brings Reset Your Nest's professional home organizing services to the Denver, Colorado area and she is also our VP of Growth and Processes. I am really excited to talk with Stephanie about what the last 5 months have been like for her. We would like to open the doors on what we've learned, what we're really excited about, and generally talk about all the exciting things happening here at Reset Your Nest.
I would love to hear from your perspective, Stephanie, because you're the one who's gone through a huge career shift but you're still so involved with the incredible company that you built. You are continuing your vision of Sikora Solutions and now also adding to a collective vision with Reset Your Nest.
Stephanie Sikora
The short of it: things are going great. And being completely honest, this was never the plan, I started my business and had it for 6 years. But then after talking with Jen Martin and Tori Horton (CEO) I realized that this could be a different trajectory and level of growth that I never could have anticipated. I decided to move forward with it and I'm glad I did because I've learned so much and my team is doing great. I'm happy to be able to contribute on a larger platform and it's so fun now, Jen! We get to do so much work together and, as many people running their own businesses probably know, it can be really lonely. Being able to work with others side by side in and of itself has been great.
"I realized that this could be a different trajectory and level of growth that I never could have anticipated."
Jen Martin
It's been good for me too! I just went out to lunch with a friend, she's a CEO of an amazing e-commerce business and she was telling me how she thought the organizing industry seems so cool because no one is super competitive with each other. And it is! We have an incredible community! What's interesting about our organizing industry is that we're all very supportive and we want the spirit of friendship and connection. And I don't think as an industry that we're collaborating enough yet to really improve our businesses. That's been one of the most rewarding parts is not just having a friend who knows what it's like to run an organizing business but we're collaborating to make our businesses better. It's changed from a supportive and friendly connection to knowing that we're in this together and committed together.
"The truth is, when you first asked about a partnership, I didn't want to at first."
Stephanie
I agree that we have an amazing community of organizers. The truth is, when you first asked about a partnership, I didn't want to at first. I had built a company all on my own but the more I looked into what that kind of future growth a partnership would bring for my business and what we could do collectively, it made a lot of sense. But I had to get over that mindset of "I built this," "this is my baby," "I worked so hard for this." I never even thought of being acquired, or an acqui-partnership.
It's an acquisition but it truly has become a partnership. How does it feel? It feels great! I have a seat at the table and my team is still functioning and delivering amazing work here in Denver. But I did have to look at what it would mean financially for the business and that's really what helped me see that an acqui-partnership with Reset Your Nest was worth considering.
Jen
I love that you talked about the acqui-partnership and that it is a mindset shift. Both of our companies were successful independently and together we've now increased our collective value by coming together. Because of that success with Stephanie, we know that acqui-partnerships are what we would like to do moving forward. We would like to continue to increase the collective value of more than just our two organizing companies. Pool our resources, get more support especially with access to the tools that we pay for that take away from our profit on the back end so that hopefully all of us can make more money.
In this organizing industry, so many of us are doing such a good job and yet we're all running as these independent silos from one another and we're all loosing money by spending money on the same things. If we all came together to spend collectively on those same few backend things then there would be more opportunity for growth. This new idea of an acqui-partnership has changed our vision at Reset Your Nest to become a family of brands because our goal has been: how we can have the biggest impact on the most number of women? I'm so happy to be working with you because it led us to land here and it feels like the right path. I would love to know why you feel like we are doing this, now that we're a "we" at Reset Your Nest. And what is in it for anyone else who might want to eventually partner with us?
Stephanie
We've had several people reach out who are curious about what we're doing. I'm happy to be the guinea pig and I'm glad it worked out. I had a conversation with my business advisor specifically about the benefits of pooling our resources and it has saved us $40,000 because we don't both have to pay for backend administrative support services. And that's the vision, too, as more and more of us come into it we're all only paying for attorney, accountant, CRM, and it's eating away at less of your profits.
I believed in the proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." I am really excited about what this can look like if we do it right with the right people I think it's going to help shift the industry. Because you and I shared a lot of the same pain points. We were burnt out trying to make it work or turn to outsource everything which then takes away from our profits, it was really hard to find that sweet spot between the two extremes.
Jen
For so long I thought that growth equals a bigger team. A bigger team means more organizing and more jobs going out. But that still meant that I was running everything so my mindset shift has been expanding more than just the teams running underneath me. Not only does that help to manage more teams but it's mental support, too. I'm healthier and happier than I've been in years and I attribute that to finding more work-life balance because of the mental support.
"I'm healthier and happier than I've been in years and I attribute that to finding more work-life balance because of the mental support."
Stephanie
And to your point, there is so much that the acqui-partnership does besides being a community: taking care of finances, administrative burdens, HR, legal, insurance, payroll, etc. Being able to take those things off my plate and no longer being responsible for them means I can breathe more, which is really nice. Those are the same things that I hear from so many other organizers who wanted to organize, they didn't want to worry about contracts or insurance. But if you're running your own business, you have to wear all those hats on our own because those things have to happen. In an acqui-partnership, we can take that administrative burden off so you can focus on the pieces that you really enjoy.
"In an acqui-partnership, we can take that administrative burden off so you can focus on the pieces that you really enjoy."
Jen
How can this potentially impact anyone who's interested? Because of Stephanie, this is now the direction that Reset Your Nest is heading. We've been talking with a lot of organizers already but if we've sparked your interest, we would love to talk with you too! Please reach out! We know what our pain points were as solopreneur professional home organizers. It's been great to talk with more organizers to see that we're all working really hard and we all have pain points and whether we decide to join together or not it's great to connect with organizers who are even thinking that a collective mindset or collective approach is something that they're interested in.
Stephanie
I'm always happy to have those conversations with people about what this acqui-partnership looks like. It's not for everyone, it's for those with that collective mindset who are looking for a partnership after having built a successful business and want to find that next step for growth. Don't hesitate to ask! We're figuring this out as we go and we keep finding ways that this can work. We're happy to be sharing this opportunity with others!
Jen
If you have an organizing business and are interested in what working with Reset Your Nest can look like for you, reach out to info@resetyournest.com! We'd love to chat.
Jen is the founder of Reset Your Nest, a Professional Home Organizing Business in Utah (servicing Salt Lake City, Park City, Ogden, Alpine, Highland, Mapleton, and St. George). She loves creating order and systems out of chaos and is known for bringing a beautiful aesthetic as well as easy to maintain function to any space. She shares her tips and tricks on Instagram @reset_your_nest.
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