Heart of the Matter History

Donna gives us an overview:

We (Rhonda and Donna) met in 1997 at Living Water Church in New Hamburg.

In November 2003 we started meeting together in a mentoring relationship. With me 10 years older than Rhonda, it seemed like a natural way to extend our friendship as we met and shared what was happening in our lives and encouraged each other.

Soon after starting to meet on a regular basis, we decided to work through the book “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. This book is intended to be a 40 Day Journey towards learning about God’s purpose for our life.

At this point in time I was running a daycare program in my home. We began to talk together about my wish to start another sort of business....although I had no idea what it would be!

Donna Schmidt and Rhonda Erb: Heart of the Matter Professional Organizing A year previous to this, I had been asked to speak at a week-end retreat for a Mothers of Preschoolers group. Their theme was ‘Balance’. As I prepared for this I decided it might be fun to include some organizing and timesaving tips for the moms. It was then that I went to the library, started checking out books, and became fascinated with the idea of finding new ways to make my own home and family run more efficiently. I shared tips with the moms that week-end, but more importantly, in the process of preparing my presentation, I sensed that the time and energy I put into it was not wasted, but rather that all this information would come into play again at some point in the future. A career as a ‘Professional Organizer’ was never in the plan....in fact I didn’t know that such a thing even existed!

Rhonda is an elementary school teacher who at that point in time was home full-time with her children.

Shortly after we started meeting together, we had opportunity to hear a Professional Organizer speak at a group we both belonged to. We were very excited to hear more about the profession. Rhonda in particular was SO excited that she couldn’t sleep the night before and was the first one to arrive at the meeting. This is the same Rhonda who was a ‘natural organizer’.....who, as a little girl, set up files and did her friends ‘tax returns’! After hearing Professional Organizer Dawn Elliott speak at that meeting both of us realized that she was just an ‘ordinary woman’ like us...if she could do this and make a living at it why couldn’t we? Just as God had blessed Dawn with the gift of organization, we realized that day that we too had been blessed with the same gift.

Initially, it started out being my idea to explore this business. Rhonda assured me that she would do anything she could to help me research it and learn more about it. It wasn’t long though before we both realized that Rhonda had way too much ‘heart’ invested for it to be just my business....it had to be our shared business!!

This whole ‘hatching’ process happened over a very short period of time.....keep in mind that we were still working our way through the ‘Purpose Driven Life’. By the time we had finished that book we knew what our purpose in life was.....and our mission statement for our new business became easy to formulate.

Heart of the Matter strives to equip and mentor individuals to get their space in order, so that they have the time and energy to fulfill their purpose in life.

Our tagline followed along at some point thereafter ...

In order..... to live a life of purpose.

Working ‘hands-on’ with a client gives us a great opportunity to teach, encourage and mentor on a more personal level. This truly is the ‘heart’ of our business. We don’t want repeat clients. We don’t want to come in, and in a whirl wind, get everything in order, and leave with clients scratching their heads wondering ..... how did they do that?? We teach and mentor as we go, and strive to come up with solutions that aren’t ‘textbook’ but rather suit the personality style, family situation, and specific challenges of the people we work with.

Rhonda and I started meeting together in January 2004. In April 2004 we officially decided we would start this business together. Heart of the Matter’s first paying client came in June 2004. On July 2, 2004 we registered our business partnership under the name Heart of the Matter, Creative Organizing Solutions.

One of the things we did early in the process of starting this business was get together a wonderful group of four women known as our Prayer Support Team. We want to be faithful as we build Heart of the Matter, and prayer has been foundational!

One of the major answers to prayer that we have experienced has been in the area of our media exposure. We prayed and asked God to help us market this business in ways that cost little or no money. We have since been blessed with amazing opportunities to be featured both locally and nationally on television and radio. We have gotten business from these opportunities, but more importantly we have also gained credibility both in the field of Professional Organizing and also as speakers & workshop facilitators.

Something else we have committed to do is ‘share’ our gifts with those who aren’t able to afford our services. We do this on a regular basis with several hours given here and there, but we also organize ‘Clean Sweep’ events. For a Clean Sweep we get together a team of volunteers (often including a handyman) and go into a home and do an organizing "extreme makeover" at no charge to the client. We pray and ask God to bring to us the situations where He wants to use us to make a difference.

It is becoming clear to us that we are ‘on the edge’ of something big. God has great plans for Heart of the Matter.

As God has expanded the vision for Heart of the Matter, we have also expanded our Prayer Support Team from four members to seven . We have also worked with business planners - Lois Raats of Ready2Grow Associates and Brenton Schmidt of Soul Song Marketing.

We have been praying for our ‘own’ material. God has been faithful in answering, and led Rhonda to various scripture passages that revealed the ‘Re’ teaching, and in a brainstorming session with Brenton our 'HEART’ Principal of organizing was refined.

The year 2007 brought with it tremendous growth for the business. We were excited to expand our staff by hiring 3 part-time employees (Roxanne, Sharon & Sheryl)

For Heart of the Matter the year 2008 started off with its own set of business challenges. We took ‘Heart’ from these words by Joel Osteen in his book Become a Better You. ‘We are called overcomers. That means we are going to have obstacles to overcome. You can’t have victories without having difficult battles. You’ll never have a great testimony without going through a few tests. The enemy always fights the hardest when he knows God has something great in store for you’.

By the end of 2008 we had experienced huge change. On November 1st Heart of the Matter released its first Power Tool - an instructional DVD entitled Power Over Paper, produced and directed by Nate Schmidt. The DVD launch was celebrated with a Gala Release Party on Saturday, November 1st (be sure to check out the photos) The Hotfile™ was also a new addition to the product line-up in 2008.

The turning point for us came on March 26, 2009

We were going to an open house at The Shopping Channel in Toronto that day. We had two new products that we were going to pitch to them and we believed that it was God’s plan for us. We felt confident.....everything was prepared.... BUT to make a long story short, we were shot down. The buyer we met with said that we are moving to a paperless society and people don’t have paper issues to the degree that they need "help" with them. We knew different, but she wasn’t interested in listening to our experiences of working with disorganized people. We came out of there and to look back on it we say that was the day that we "hit the wall". We shared a soul searching conversation all the way back to Kitchener. We didn’t see it coming.

We both admitted to each other that day that we were exhausted and as the conversation progressed we realized that we needed to lay down Heart of the Matter completely and see what God raised up again.....we didn’t have the strength or the energy to do it ourselves anymore.....which is probably right where God wanted us :)

We met together the next morning and decided that we would spend the following week tying up loose ends and honouring the bookings we had, but then after that we would take a sabbatical.

Over the summer of 2009, Rhonda and I came to realize that we each had work to do on our own "foundations" before we were ready for the next level of growth in ministry & business that God wanted to give to Heart of the Matter.

In the fall of 2009, we sensed God saying "back to basics". That is what we contentedly did....working, meeting the needs of clients that contacted us. No extras. No striving. Just allowing God to lead us and guide us. How refreshing.....and not stressful or exhausting at all!

In January 2010, Rhonda and I started a 12 week course at our church called "Hearing God's Voice". It has been life changing for us.....both personally and for Heart of the Matter. As we learned to truly allow God to be our CEO the growth and opportunities that have come our way have been amazing!

Back when we "hit the wall" in April of 2009 we laid off our employees as we had no work for them. By April 2010 we were back up to two employees (Roxanne and Christine) and had them trained to work as an independent team. That allowed Rhonda and I to stick together, which is our first choice, and it allowed the new team to build a great working relationship on their own as they served clients in all areas of our organizing services.

We sense that we are on the edge of something "big" for Heart of the Matter, and can hardly wait to see how it unfolds.

Update March 2011

In May of 2010 we were approached by the owner of Senior’s Move and were asked if we were interested in purchasing this established business. After prayer and consideration we sensed that this was a good and positive direction in which to move. Effective September 1, 2010 we hired 4 more employees and as a team took on the challenge of finding our way in this new business. We soon discovered that there were many similarities between our two companies. We have aligned ourselves with a newly established moving company called Moving by Design. The owner, Ryan Scott, has similar values to ours and together we are a great team.

The women who are part of our team (Roxanne, Christine, Deanna, Lori & Judy) are amazing. They have caught the vision of Heart of the Matter and that God has truly given us a “mission that matters”. As we go about our daily work we are humbled by the lives that we are able to touch. Every client is a treasure and we truly enjoy our work days!

Our History