Kasia Wojciechowska

What does your company do?

MK Method ™ is an in-home & corporate professional organising company based in Gauteng, Port Elizabeth, Mpumalanga, Durban, the North West, Northern Cape, East London & Cape Town. 3 years ago this time when we entered, we only had our Gauteng branch. We can organise, declutter, and restructure your home, garage, office or corporate workspace. We consult in transforming a work environment and assist companies in becoming more productive & efficient. We now have an online store where we sell various types of customized vinyl labels, a vast range of storage solutions & we have launched our very own tried & tested product line. Our products are now even sold in stores. MK Method ™ is now trademarked. We have also become a registered franchise (since March 2021, a year to date after we first launched our business). We have expanded our geographical location as far as New Zealand as of April 2023. We have started up a Professional Organisers Association of Africa (POAA). This will be an accredited association where like-minded individuals will go through training to become certified in this field. This Association will be a place of enhancing business connections as well as create public awareness. We are planning to have this off the ground in the next few months.

What is your biggest success?

This has been our biggest success of them all: Mark called me up around a year ago and mentioned that him and his wife Caroline were going through a tough divorce, and needed to urgently sell the house they were living in. The challenge – they were struggling to sell the house in the state that it was in -it was cluttered, chaotic and didn’t feel like anyone’s dream home. Sadly, neither of them was willing, or had the time to attend to it and make it a buyer's dream. We provided a quotation to try and get this sorted as quickly for them. Our quote came to approximately R220,000 for fixing up and organising their 4-bedroom home. Our bespoke MK method of organising was quickly put in place - each area of the house was addressed with beautiful systems, inserts and functional storage, so that even if they moved, it would work in any other space (except for the custom drawer inserts). After a thorough clear out and clean up, it was ready to be put on the market! Finding a new love in the home Caroline called me around 6 weeks later, stating that the original evaluation of their home when they wanted to sell was at R3.8 million, and they got an offer at R4.5million, R700,000 more than the original amount after investing with us! I couldn’t believe the power that MK systems organisation could bring to the new value of their home. But there was more to the story, Caroline had actually called to say that since having organised their space, her and Mark had found an inspired new love for their home, and each other. Through clearing all the clutter, the emotional and physical mess that harboured underneath was suddenly cleared and made space for new conversations, fresh energy and a deep appreciation for each other that was missing for years. By the grace of God (and our simplified organisation) their relationship was restored, much like their new home. The beauty of this story: Through a fresh reconciliation, they decided to start over, this time with a mindset of a beautiful new home to care for, a fresh start to their life, and a beautiful new reason to fight for their home. Our MK Difference: We truly do way more than just simply organising, we restore peace, recreate magic where there is chaos, and bring families and homes back together. Business Success: My biggest accomplishment has been to yet again start another business from scratch, a week before lockdown happened! And 4 years later, we are still going strong. Before MK Method™, I owned a successful franchise for 8 years. It gave me the experience and knowledge to start fresh again and actually follow my passion. Within a period of just over 4 years, we have managed to grow over 117,000 followers between our 2 social media platforms (92,000 on Instagram and 25,000 on Facebook). And have helped 100's of people to get their lives clutter free, more at peace and watch how they thrive in the spaces we have transformed for them. Our other super proud achievements, is that everything we set out and mentioned to accomplish last year this time when applying for this competition, we have executed all our goals and so much more. It includes the following: 1. We launched a website that we built ourselves during lockdown. 2. We launched our online store soon after (featuring over 100 different products) and even created our very own proudly SA product line, using local small businesses. 3. We have expanded our geographical locations to main cities such as PE, Cape Town, and Durban, Mpumalanga, Namibia and New Zealand. 4. We have trademarked and franchised. 5. We have a full team running our online store as well as a junior organiser assisting us with all our current projects. 6. We have collaborated with reputable companies such as Westpack, Store & More, The Refillery and being featured as an organizational insert on a TV Show called Nes Op Sy Bes, which aired on KykNet end of July 2021. 7. As mentioned, we have also started up a Professional Organisers Association of Africa (POAA) 8. We design our own custom cupboard designs and have our own carpenter that executes these projects for us. These include custom drawer inserts.

What has been your biggest hurdle?

My biggest hurdle has been seeing Megan my business partner of 3 years move to New Zealand in April 2023, and buying her out and trying to run the business on my own for over a year without her. But God has been so good, I was faithful in believing that He has a bigger plan in all this. And He did. I have managed to successfully move on and grow even more so since. prior to that, the hurdle has been the Corona Virus. Trying to make the most of this situation by finding new ways of inspiring and helping our clients/followers get organised without us physically being on site to do so. We have also found that supplier stock shortages has impacted us to a point, and hence we chose to launch our own products and designs to ease the waiting period of stock delay due to importing setbacks.