Unlike many Los Angeles transplants who move to the city seeking stardom, Devin Adante was simply following a paralegal job and Southern California’s warm climate that beckoned to her where she lived on the East Coast. She never intended on coming here to “make it big” and she definitely didn’t have plans to start a business—both just sort of happened.
In pursuit of some extra cash following the expensive cross-country move, she landed on Craigslist’s job postings. Her experience in office management and paralegal work provided her with valuable knowledge of systems, structure, organizing and multitasking. So after discovering numerous ads requesting organizers posted on the popular classifieds website, which was still in its infancy at the time, she decided to leverage her skill set as a gig on the side. She posted her own simple ad, completely unaware of the power it would have and the wheels it was setting into motion.
That was then. Today, Adante is fresh off launching a new brand, The A-List Organizer, and website, which both went live last week. I had a chance to sit down with her and get the story behind her evolution from a Craigslist regular to the successful business woman that she is today.
What made you think to start a business out of simple organizing skills?
I started out helping people organize their homes and offices and I got feedback right away about how much better I was than other organizers they had hired. I had a better understanding of structure, why things worked and why things didn’t. Others could organize physically, but they didn’t understand structure and support or how to make a space better. I did.
I really never had the idea to start a business; it just happened on its own. I’m more of an accidental entrepreneur. After six months, I had built a side business that matched my paralegal salary, so I took a chance. Law firms will always be there, so I thought if I didn’t try it, I’d always have regret.
So after deciding to go full-time with your business, did you continue using Craigslist?
I strictly found clients through Craigslist. It was free to post and a lot of people were on the site. After a year or so, though, I was getting about 80 percent of my clients through word-of-mouth referrals. I also made fliers and put them on community boards at libraries, Whole Foods, yoga studios. I also traded services with some other businesses, including a guy who owned a series of magazines. The key is to work with what you have. That continues to this day, but now I have money to spend on marketing.
Do you remember what your Craigslist ad said?
Yep, I kept it the same every time, short and simple: Need help getting organized? Inside the ad was my contact info, website and the services I provided. I aligned myself with a professional business and took it very seriously that I was someone making a career for herself as opposed to just a college student.
Another important aspect of the ad was how I increased my ad’s ranking in Google. I would enter about 50 lines underneath my text and write a bunch of keywords related to my business that people might search for on Google. If people searched a word, my ad would come up in the top results. Every times someone called, they would say they found me on Craigslist through a Google search. My strategy worked so well that other people started copying me.
My website was simple, too. It was only five to six pages because I didn’t want it to be too overwhelming with too many pages. What was most important was the text within those pages.
At what point did you grow out of Craigslist, so to speak?
In 2007, I really started studying marketing and business. I started sending a [newsletter] in 2008 and social networking in 2009. I was never consistent about sending my [newsletter], though, because I didn’t think I had the resources or time, but that’s going to change. I understand business and marketing even more now; I have a marketing plan and I’m working toward it.
I also started blogging—it’s the single most important thing you can be doing online. It’s the easiest of the free ways to build traffic to your website. There’s the law of averages: If 1,000 people visit your blog, the law says a certain percentage of them will become clients. Blogging also helps build your Google ranking, which is really important.
Tell me about how things have changed since then and how that new understanding led to the launch of your new brand and website last week.
From then till now, I decided to niche my business. I realized that having a specialty was an asset because you become an expert of that field and it builds credibility. My niche became organizing high-end, residential estates.
When I worked with my first A-list client, I was surprised at the level of disorganization in his systems. I realized if he was like this, there certainly had to be other people in his same position. I decided that was the clientele [I wanted to target]. When this happened, it just seemed to fit me and it sort of laid itself out. Ideas were flowing and I had a plethora to choose from. Obviously I didn’t have the budget to pursue them all, so I had to figure out “What can I do with what I have today?”
So what ideas did you put your money toward?
In the past I built and designed my own websites. It’s a brutal process and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. I thought it would save money, but I don’t really think it did with how much time it took and stress it caused. So this time around I decided to hire someone. The design process isn’t the easiest for me, so my designer, Genesis Moss, gave me ideas and then I molded them. She helped me create the elegance that I wanted perceived in my website and marketing materials.
We [at A-List] are just in the beginning stages, but I’ll also be doing some online marketing, too, some paid and some free; lots of public speaking; blogging a few times a week and more. The most important thing is that we have a marketing plan—we just have to follow it. Along the way we’ll figure out things that work better than others. Business is always a work in progress. A business coach once told me “Marketing is a process, not an event.”
Speaking of business coaching, didn’t you design a program that you also launched last week?
In networking with other entrepreneurs, I discovered that many aren’t meeting their goals because they’re not working their plans and they don’t have accountability. So I launched Productivity Partnership [under The A-List Organizer brand] to help owners be the best that they can be. It’s organization for the entrepreneur: organizing their thoughts, ideas and plans of action.
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