Liz Jenkins | A Fresh Space
Owner of A Fresh Space
Liz Jenkins is the owner of A Fresh Space, a professional organizing and moving concierge company. Discover how her passion for organizing transformed into a thriving business that supports clients through major life transitions. Liz offers valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the true value of your service.
When Clutter Meets Life’s Big Changes
Liz Jenkins started A Fresh Space because many of her clients were overwhelmed by clutter or going through major life transitions—like moving, merging households, or adding family members—and didn’t have the time, energy, or know-how to organize their homes effectively. She also wrestled with perfectionism and the constant urge to improve her business, questioning whether changes were always necessary.
Crafting Solutions with Heart and Expertise
In response, Liz built Afresh Space into a comprehensive service with professional organizing, move concierge, installation, and personalized support. Her confidence grew as clients and peers recognized the value she provided, reinforcing her purpose. Along the way, she embraced the business side of entrepreneurship and learned to stand firm in valuing her work.
Building a Legacy of Order and Authenticity
Now, A Fresh Space supports busy clients through change with grace and efficiency. Liz’s journey has shaped her identity and strengthened her passion, inspiring others to trust their vision, do their research, and own the worth of their gifts.
“ People don’t recognize the value in what they are bringing to the table and what they can do for somebody”
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So, my name is Liz Jenkins. I own a company called A Fresh Space, and we've been in business since 2005. Our company focuses on high-level professional organizing, move concierge, and unpacking. We also have a full installation team, so our guys do things like closet installs. They help with our moves, they hang art, and basically support our organizing team.
Our move concierge team helps clients get edited, moved, unpacked, and we manage that whole process for them. We work with a lot of different kinds of clients. Most of the time, it tends to be clients that are in transition or have had life changes. That's a lot of it. Sometimes, it's people who have moved, maybe they've gotten married and are combining households, they've had kids, and now all of the stuff is taking over.
But from a regular organizing standpoint, our clients are people who are either drowning in clutter or they've gotten to a certain point and they don't know how to get it to that next level, and they really want it to just work. They want it to function, they want it to look great. And so we can manage any of that and work with anybody pretty much in most areas.
Most of our clients are smart, capable, busy people who just don't have the time, the energy, or in many cases, the know-how to take a project in a home from start to finish. A lot of it really does come down to time. So, we're looking for people who don't have a lot of time, don't know what they're supposed to do, and just want somebody to help get them there.
When did I feel that I made it? I would have to say that never. But yes, I did, and I know that probably doesn't make sense, but I am never one to just be like, “Okay, I'm done. I've made it. We're good.” Because I'm always looking for how I can make it better — sometimes to the detriment of what we're doing, because I'm like, “Does this really need to be fixed?”
Do we really need to change it? Am I just changing it for change's sake? So, I have to balance that part out. But I do think it hit me a couple of years ago when I went to a conference, and the number of people who came up to me — right after COVID — who told me how much information I had given them or communicated to somebody, or shared, or a conversation that we had had that I didn't even think anything of.
It was a game changer for them and how they thought about their business. Or the number of people that came up to me and were just in awe of what I'd created. And I don't see it because I'm in it. Having people outside of the company share how they viewed the company — I don't want to say that at one point I was like, “Oh yes, we've made it.”
We're amazing. It's more of these little affirmations that kind of bring this feeling of, “Oh yeah, I am doing a good job. I have created something amazing.” So, being an entrepreneur has changed me a lot as a person, primarily because it's given me a very clear focus of who I am, and it has allowed me to be me.
I think when you are doing the work that you're doing in your regular life — and when I say work, I just mean living your life — I think sometimes it's hard to really quantify who you are and really express that because there are so many outside forces. You've got social media, you've got peer pressure, you have all these outside things.
Being an entrepreneur has really given me this outlet, this focus for who I really am, and just the fact that I fell into a business that is exactly who I am. Something that I wish I had known when I first started out as an entrepreneur is a lot of things, but I don't know that I would've appreciated them because so many things you have to learn as you go along.
But I think the one thing that I saw in myself and see in a lot of other people is when you first start, all you can think about is the work that you're doing. What I wish I had known was how many businessy things I needed to know, and that's what I didn't know. I didn't know anything about the taxes, the legal structures, and all of that.
I wish that I had set a lot of that up sooner than I did. So, that was the part I really wish I had known: how much of that was involved. Although if I had known that, it probably would've scared me off. So, advice for somebody who's looking to become an entrepreneur: don't listen to other people telling you what you can make a career out of.
When I first started, if I had listened to other people saying, “What? Who even needs that?” I would've never done what I do. And now I have this wonderful company that supports all these people. But if I had listened to others downplaying it or saying, “That's ridiculous,” I would've never known that I can do what I'm doing now.
You can make a business out of anything. People want all kinds of things, even if they don't know they want it. And if you can say, “Oh, I can do this thing for you,” how amazing is that? The other thing I would say is do not undervalue the service that you are providing to somebody. I see this a lot in newer entrepreneurs who have something they are really gifted at and then
they almost give it away, and people don't know how much things should cost. So if you tell me it's X dollars, sure I'll pay that X dollars. It's probably worth way more than that and the benefit somebody's getting, but people don't recognize the value in what they are bringing to the table and what they can do for somebody.
Why We Share These Stories
We believe that celebrating Tennessee’s entrepreneurs will inspire the next generation of bold thinkers, risk-takers, and community builders. Entrepreneurs don’t forget where they come from—and they carry the power to transform not just their businesses, but entire neighborhoods, towns, and local economies. See more entrepreneur stories from the Patton Foundation.
