Kristy Edwards with Neatly Balanced

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with neatly balanced Ms. Kristy Edwards. How are you?

Kristy Edwards: I’m great. Thank you for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the show. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I got a ton of questions. I know we are going to get to them all, but I think maybe a great place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners mission, Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, Kristy?

Kristy Edwards: Well, it might sound a bit naive, but we are genuinely trying to change the world. One client and one closet at a time is what we like to say. We do complete in-home organizing with a focus on cleaning out and removing items, anything and everything that is no longer serving our clients, which we then donate to about a dozen different organizations we work with personally that help those less fortunate.

Stone Payton: I love that commitment to community and those who need the help. I got to know the backstory, though. How in the world did you find yourself in this line of work and what compelled you to add this dimension of serving the the larger community?

Kristy Edwards: Well, I think it honestly goes back to childhood. Even as a kid, I never wanted anything out of place. I wanted all of my toys, you know, where they needed to be. My Barbie dolls had to be in there. Barbie doll Dreamhouse like just the whole nine, even as a small kid. And, you know, then I moved. I was born and raised in a small town in North Carolina. I moved to Nashville, Tennessee when I was 22 to be a full time nanny in the music industry where I traveled for almost ten years full time with different musical artists taking care of their kids on the road. And, you know, when you’re confined to a 45 foot tour bus, you don’t really have the option of being a messy individual. Everybody kind of has their space and you have to keep your things in that space. So I was the perfect person for the job since I was already very meticulous with my things. But the idea for the business concept was born from a mission trip that I took my my dad passed away from cancer in 2010 rather unexpectedly and quickly, and the following year his church, my mom and dad’s church did a missions trip to a very, very remote village in Honduras and we’re going to build a chapel for the people who lived there to have a place of worship.

Kristy Edwards: And we found out someone in the congregation had requested that it be named in my dad’s memory. So my mom, sister and I said, we have to go on this trip and, you know, be a part of this. And we spent a week with literal third world, you know, country residents. And they didn’t have anything. I mean, they were eating plantains and black beans and rice, three meals a day, every single day. And they were giving us their portions so that we had food to eat. And what I saw during that week just completely wrecked me and changed me in the best possible way. And I came back home just a completely changed individual and said, you know, something’s got to give. We live in this country where more is more and bigger is better. And, you know, I witnessed these people who had nothing, who just didn’t stop smiling. I never heard an argument. I never heard, you know, a negative word or phrase. It just everybody was very happy there. And I thought, there’s something to this.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like it has to be incredibly rewarding work.

Kristy Edwards: It is. Yeah. 1,000%. Yes.

Speaker4: All right.

Stone Payton: So say more about the work. Let’s play this out a little bit and, you know, maybe share a use case or a scenario of acquiring a new client and then helping them down this path of getting more organized. And then the other piece of it where you found a way to to serve folks, what would that look like, for example? Well, I think I told you before we came on air, you know, my folks are moving up from Pensacola, Florida, here to Woodstock, Georgia. And, you know, I could I could see at some point in a process like that somebody like you being involved. Right.

Kristy Edwards: For sure. We do offer a moving services where we will go in. First of all, we travel nationwide. So we currently have clients in five states and we do travel nationwide. So that is something we offer where we will go into, you know, home a so to speak, before the client moves out. And we will help package and pack up every single thing they want to move with them. And we will sort of organize as we pack and figure out, okay, what needs to be moved, what can be gotten rid of? And we’ll do all of that before the move and then mark the boxes in terms of where they need to go in the new house. And then we’ll also be at the new house and help unpack and set up, you know, for a successful living in an organized fashion future. Hopefully. So we do offer that, yes. But anytime a client finds us and reaches out, we do a free consultation where we go and talk to them and figure out, you know, in a dream world, what what areas of their home would they like to have organized. And then, yes, I have a team. We go in, we organize, you know, any and every area. And then, you know, we sort of make a big mess first and then say, okay, here’s everything from this closet or here’s everything from the pantry or the kids playroom or whatever, and we’ll kind of go through, what are you using? What are you not using? What can we get rid of? What do we need to keep? And then we do put it back in an organized way and we have little tips and tricks that we do to sort of implement that to help them be able to maintain the organized lifestyle once we leave.

Kristy Edwards: And then, yeah, anything that they want to get rid of, we take we bring, you know, back to my house, we sort it and separate it and then we actually contact the organizations so that we’re not just dumping things, you know, at their doorstep that they don’t need or can’t use. So we’ll contact the organizations and say, hey, we have, you know, baby clothes, we have diapers or we have men’s shoes and socks or whatever, you know, what do you need? And then based on what they need, we take them those items and then we provide tax deductible donation receipts to our clients so they can, number one, see where their things go. But also it’s a tax write off. So it’s kind of a win win for everybody.

Stone Payton: Well, it sure sounds like it. Now, you mentioned when people find us, I wanted to ask you about the whole sales and marketing aspect of a business like yours. Do you find that you do need to have some sort of marketing process where you’re getting the word out about what you’re doing? Or are people just really at the point now where they’re finding you because of the impact you’ve already made? How does that part of it work for you?

Kristy Edwards: Well, it’s funny. I actually we we we’ve advertised for the first time ever about 5 or 6 months ago. We’ve never advertised until then. It’s all been word of mouth. And we have consistently stayed booked 4 to 6 weeks out. Um, we honestly, when I started this business, it was March of 2020. So obviously, you know, no idea that a short two weeks or, you know, after I launched the whole world was going to pretty much end, so to speak. And I sort of thought, well, that was a great idea. That’s never going to get off the ground. And instead what I witnessed was because everyone, you know, was home more. They were cleaning out their attics and their garages and their bedrooms and toy rooms. And I just went on a couple Facebook groups I was a member of and said, Hey, I’m doing this business. I’ll come and help if you want. You know, all I ask is that you post on social media and tag me. And I did that. And yeah, within probably three weeks we were we already had a waiting list. So it’s been consistent. And at this point, now that I have a team and I have people, you know, that are helping me, we’re not having to book so far out because there’s more of us to spread around. So I waited until I sort of had my sea legs, so to speak. And then we started advertising this year, and it has consistently just grown leaps and bounds. So we’re really incredibly grateful and humbled that people choose us because there are a lot of us out there who are organizing in one way, shape or form. So the fact that people consistently choose neatly balanced, it’s it’s very rewarding and humbling.

Stone Payton: Well, congratulations on the momentum. I think it’s fantastic. Say more about the transition from the the road life that you had to now run. You’re your own business in this in this arena. What was it like to to make that leap? I suspect you probably had some very positive surprises, but maybe a few things that might have caught you off guard and you may have had to learn some new lessons, huh?

Kristy Edwards: Yeah, I tell people it was very interesting. When I was a nanny in the music industry, everybody thought, you know, it was basically like the night of the Grammys. Every single day, people were like, Oh, it must be so fantastic and so glitz and glamor. And I was like, No, it’s a lot of showering in arena bathrooms and locker rooms and, you know, the same catering food over and over. And that’s kind of how I likened neatly balance in the early days. I was like, It’s a lot of sleepless nights and it’s a lot of 15 and 16 hour work days and it’s a lot of not seeing my husband or my family or my dog. And, you know, it was it was definitely challenging. And yeah, it had a lot of challenging moments. But again, there were also very rewarding moments. And, you know, there is something to be said when especially in those first several months and a couple of years, it was just me. I had no help. And so, you know, every little bit of momentum we gained or, you know, high profile client we got or whatever, it was very exciting and just, oh my gosh, like they like us, you know? And so it’s yeah, it’s definitely not. You know, there have been moments where there were bumps in the road, but it’s been it’s just I knew it was my calling. And I think when you are where you’re supposed to be, there is just a peace that comes with that. That’s very hard to explain. So I definitely know that I am where I’m supposed to be.

Stone Payton: Well, it sure sounds like it to me. So when you started wearing the the truly entrepreneurial hat, did you did you have the benefit of one or more mentors to help you think through that journey? And or the organizing a way to also serve the community in the way that you described anybody? Were you able to lean on anybody for a little guidance in that regard?

Kristy Edwards: Well, as I mentioned, my dad passed away in 2020, so he wasn’t physically, tangibly here. But definitely he has had a profound impact in my life. And he actually, um, he started his own business as well. So I am the child of an entrepreneur, so it definitely is in my blood. And then when he passed away, my mom continued running the business that he started, you know. So it’s been he started the business 24 years ago. So I definitely have watched both of my parents sort of wade in the waters of entrepreneurial ism. So, you know, again, it it definitely had its challenging moments. But yes, I leaned on my mom a lot. Um, and as far as other entrepreneurs, yeah, there’s a lady here in Nashville who started her own business as well that I sort of met online and then became friends with in real life. And she still to this day is someone I text almost weekly and I’m like, What would you do about this? How do you feel about this? How should I handle this? And she’s been great. So yeah, I’ve definitely kind of found a seat at a table with other women leaders and entrepreneurs. And it’s been it’s been fantastic and I’m very thankful for that.

Stone Payton: Well, I’ll tell you, that kind of relationship, that that kind of resource I have found to be so valuable as recently as this morning, I actually have a standing call with a Business RadioX studio partner in another community, a couple of counties over. Actually, it’s one county over and we’ve both been doing this this work for a long time. But for us to just talk it through, we really do sort of sharpen each other’s saw, you know, just kind of chatting through stuff. I think that’s that’s really important. It really can mean a lot. And sometimes John will see things that I don’t see, and sometimes I’m able to help him. And it sounds like you’ve had the same kind of experience. Yes.

Kristy Edwards: Oh, for sure. And I’ve even had a couple, you know, people who are trying to start their own business reach out to me. And I’ve been able to be a mentor to a couple of people. And that is just incredibly humbling. I’m like, Wait, you want to talk to me? I don’t know what I’m doing.

Speaker4: I’m just taking.

Kristy Edwards: It day by day. Don’t. So yeah, it’s, it’s it’s very sweet when people, you know, and I’m sure my friend feels the same way. It’s very sweet when people look at us and think of the word success when they look at us, because I think we would probably look at ourselves and say, Oh, I feel like I failed yesterday so well.

Stone Payton: And it brings up another important point too. And I’ve seen it happen over and over again, and I still catch myself occasionally being a little bit reluctant to ask for help or input from local business people who are clearly very successful. And every single time and I’m batting a thousand with, if you will, open up, be a little bit vulnerable. And ask for a little help. Ask for some input. I mean, so far anyway, I’m 100% of the people here in this community. They want they want to help you. They will try to help you any way they can.

Kristy Edwards: For sure. And that’s something I did in the early days of starting my business. You know, I even even my publicity team will sort of chuckle and be like, you’re not shy. Like you have no problem reaching out. And that is definitely a strength of mine. I was reaching out to people that probably had no business reaching out to that had millions of Instagram followers and were, you know, wives of country singers or country music artists themselves or massively influential influencers, you know. And I just was like, Hey, I have this business. I’ll come and do one space for free if you’ll post about me and tag my business. And same as you just said, literally almost all of them said, I love this idea. This is so needed in this community. Yeah, I’d love to post about you. And you know, even all these years later, now that I charge them, they’re still like, I don’t care. I’ll pay you and I’ll still post about you because I love what you’re doing. And so, you know, yeah, it goes a long way and I’m super appreciative for all the help I’ve gotten for sure.

Stone Payton: And even this is a personal growth experience for me. But even if you’re hurting a little bit, you know, historically I’ve been a little bit more invested in image and posturing and branding. And, you know, I want I just want everybody to think that we’re just knocking the top out of it every day. Right? And yeah, so for me personally, I’ve learned to be a little bit more vulnerable with, you know, a certain circle of folks and say, look, you know, I’m really hurting over here. I can’t get this piece figured out. And that’s that’s been a hard lesson for me. But it’s been valuable to, you know, when you need the help, ask for it. You know.

Speaker4: I agree.

Kristy Edwards: And that’s something that I’ve been very intentional about on social media because, personally speaking, I have said numerous times, if I did not have a business, I would not have a social media presence. I find it to be, you know, it just I don’t feel uplifted most of the time when I get on any of the social media platforms. And it was something that was incredibly important to me. When I started my business, I said, Look, I’m not going to go on here and have the filtered touched up Photoshopped pictures where I just look like I’m riding this cloud and everything is perfect. And, you know, there are sure, there are pictures of trips that my husband and I take or pictures of me with people who might be famous that I legitimately know in real life. And I’m like, Yeah, we had lunch today or whatever. I definitely post about those things, but I’m also very intentional in my stories where I’m like, Look, I almost always never have makeup on and I’m like, Look, this is what happened today and this is how I failed. Or, Hey, I’m really struggling today. Could I ask for those of you who believe in prayer to say a prayer for me? And I post about that stuff regularly and I get a lot of feedback from people who say, Thank you for being real. Thank you for not always being, you know, photo ready, so to speak, in your stories. And thank you for coming on here and sharing about your struggles, because it is a place where so many people market themselves as having it all together. And I’m like, Listen, none of us have it all together every day at all.

Speaker4: And that’s.

Stone Payton: A truth.

Speaker4: All right.

Stone Payton: I’m going to switch gears on you a little bit before we wrap. I don’t know when and where you might find the time, but what hobbies, passions, interests, if any, do you have? They’re outside the scope of the work that we’ve been talking about. A lot of my listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Anything like that for you?

Kristy Edwards: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’m not lying and it’s not a facade when I say I do genuinely love to give back. So I personally go and volunteer at a lot of the organizations that we donate to because it’s important for me to kind of put my mark of approval on the places we work with. I want people to know I’m really putting my money where my mouth is. So I do do a lot of volunteer work and, you know, stuff on the weekends where we’ll volunteer at different events around the town. But yeah, we love to travel. You know, we don’t have kids, we just have a dog. And so that’s always been something. Even when my husband and I met early on in our dating years, we were both like, We want to travel the world. We want to go to every continent and see as many countries as we can. So we try to do at least one international trip every year. And then a lot of just sort of local domestic trips. So we do travel a lot and we have six nieces and nephews on my husband’s side. My sister has one child on on my side. And so we have a lot of family time and we hang out with friends a lot. We’re involved in our church. So, I mean, nothing that’s, you know, super exciting or, you know, glamorous. But yeah, we stay really busy.

Stone Payton: It sure sounds like reader.

Kristy Edwards: I will say that I love to read. I post every month on my Instagram stories. I try to read a book a week and I post the books I read every month and kind of give like a brief review of what I thought about them. So that’s that’s a hobby.

Stone Payton: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Let’s leave our listeners with a few pro tips around organizing. And I don’t know if it’s the right word or not, but like maybe a little bit more toward the minimalist end of the continuum, kind of paring down type of thing. And look, gang, the number one pro tip is if you want to go down this path, reach out to Christy and have a conversation with her or somebody on her team. But yeah, let’s leave them with a couple of things they can be thinking about doing, stop doing and to your point, maybe even reading about.

Kristy Edwards: Yeah, well, I always tell everybody we work with literally every budget. We have clients come in who are like, I don’t think I can afford you. I can probably only afford to do one space. We have other clients who live in, you know, 10,000 square foot homes who have no budget at all, who are like, just do everything all at once. So we definitely can curate an experience based on what our clients need. And sort of along the line of your question, but I did want to share one quick story before we finish Back On this mission trip I took to Honduras the very last day. We were there before we left to come home, we went to the market to sort of buy souvenirs or whatever, you know, to bring back to family members. And I went into a bakery because I was hungry. And at that moment, all that mattered to me was getting something to eat. And I went into this bakery and this woman was in there by herself holding a baby, making bread and, you know, being a full time nanny at the time. I immediately went up and started playing peekaboo with the baby. And through the translator, I said, Would you ask her if I can hold her baby? I love kids. So he did. And she immediately starts crying. She hands me her baby and then she turns and walks out of the bakery. And I was very confused, looked at the translator, and I’m like, Is she mad at me? What did I do? I’m so sorry. I just I like kids, you know, Why is she crying? And the translator said, well, she realizes you’re an American and that you can probably give her baby a better life. So she wanted to give you her baby.

Speaker4: Oh, my gosh.

Kristy Edwards: And I was absolutely wrecked. I started sobbing and I turned around. I walked out of the bakery and I carried this probably 9 or 10 month old baby around that market for a solid hour. And I never once ran into the mother. She never came back, never was looking for her baby, was never like, oh, I changed my mind, give her back. And when it was time for us to go get on the school bus to go back to the airport, I’m still holding this baby. And I had to turn around and walk back to the bakery where I found the mother just kneading bread as though it was a random Monday and I had to give the baby back and through like tear stained eyes, you know, I tried to convey to her, I was like, I’ve prayed over your baby. I’ve prayed for you. I’ve hugged her as much as I could. I’m taking a part of you guys with me. And that was something that definitely has stuck with me all these years later. The baby’s name was Abigail, and I think about her literally every single day of my life. And so to go back and answer your question in a very long winded way, I always say, start with the kids in your house. Um, you know, I was I was a I was a full time nanny for years. I still say kids do what they see and what they are taught and they are taught a lot more about what they are seeing than necessarily what you are saying. So I’m like, if you want to live a more minimalistic lifestyle, start teaching your kids.

Kristy Edwards: And that can be something as simple as if you have a four year old say, Hey, let’s pick out four books and four toys and let’s give those to other four year olds that don’t have any books or toys. And that’s a great way to get them started. If you have an eight year old, have them pick eight things, but do it according to their ages. Then even in your own home, it can be something as simple as, you know. You’re assuming you’re giving your kids a bath before bed every night. Let them wear the same pajamas more than one night. Like if your kids are not wetting the bed or getting sick or anything. Assuming your kid is clean, then the pajamas are clean, you know? So I’m like, even just making small changes like that, it reduces your carbon footprint, you’re washing less laundry. You’re also giving yourself less work that you have to do by not having as much laundry to do. So it’s simple things like that. And even for adults, you know, a lot of times, how often do we come home and just throw on like a pair of sweatpants to wear around the house until bedtime. Then you take those sweatpants off and you wash them. And I’m like, Did they really get dirty when you’re wearing them for an hour? Just take them off and fold them. Put them at the foot of the bed, Wear them again tonight for an hour before you go to bed. You know, just small changes like that can really go a long way.

Kristy Edwards: But then in terms of, you know, what we suggest to our clients, the very first thing I do in someone’s clothing closet is I go in and I turn all the hangers around backwards. So the way that you normally put a hanger is where the end of the hanger is. Facing the wall. And I say, turn all the hangers around backwards and then as you wear something, hang it up correctly. And at the end of every year, all of the hangers that are still hanging backwards, you know, you’ve not worn those items of clothing. So that’s a really easy way to edit your closet, clean out things you’re not wearing. Um, and you know, you can do that in the husband and the wife and the kids closets you can do in all the closets. And it’s an easy way to sort of edit everybody’s clothes. Um, of course we like to encourage not to keep a whole bunch of junk that’s piled in storage bins or up in your attic or your basement. But if you need to, I always suggest getting clear bins and then take a dry erase marker and write on the bin what’s inside because it’s an easy way. Instead of having to pull down 77 bins to get to the one you need, you can look at them and see what’s written on the outside and you’re like, Oh yeah, that’s Halloween decor. Oh yeah, that’s the baby clothes. Oh yeah, that’s Christmas ornaments or whatever. It’s just an easy way to be able to see what you have.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked and I love the idea with the kids of it’s not we’re taking all this stuff away. Let’s identify some things that other people who are less fortunate could really use. I love that man. I am so glad that I asked. All right. Let’s leave our listeners with a with a great way to and an easy way to connect with you. Tap into your work, whatever you feel like is appropriate, you know, email, LinkedIn, but I just want to make sure that they can connect with you and follow your work.

Kristy Edwards: Sure. Yeah. We have a LinkedIn page, a TikTok page, Instagram and Facebook, and it’s just at neatly balanced on all of those. We also have a website and it’s neatly balanced. I get a lot of DMS on Instagram with people saying, I can’t find your website. And I said, Did you remember the dash? There’s a dash between the two words. So it’s neatly dash balanced and my email address is on the email and several or I’m sorry, on the website in several places. So you can easily find my email address to reach out directly. I do respond to every single message and I get I’m definitely the most active on Instagram, but we do have all of those social media handles well.

Stone Payton: Christy, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show. Thanks for sharing your insight and your perspective. You’re doing important work on on so many fronts. Keep up the good work. Don’t be a stranger. And thank you for investing the time and energy to visit with us this morning.

Speaker4: Well, thank.

Kristy Edwards: You. It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk with you.

Stone Payton: Well, the pleasure is all mine. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today with neatly balanced Ms.. Kristi Edwards and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.