Heartbreak to Hope: A Success Story You Won't Forget
Life has a way of throwing unexpected challenges our way, often pushing us to the brink and forcing us to reinvent ourselves (remember Covid?). Today, I want to share an inspiring story of resilience, transformation, and triumph. After a successful corporate career and years dedicated to raising her family, one woman faced a series of life-altering events that left her at a crossroads. Navigating the upheaval of becoming a single mother and the devastating loss of her daughter, she found the strength to carve out a new path.
Whitney Heemeyer, a stager from Still House Style out of McKinney, TX shares her words and photos that I know will inspire you as they did me!
After a long corporate career in media sales, I had a family and became a stay-at-home mom. Well life went in another direction in my marriage and after 7 years of being at home, I needed to go back to work and support myself as a single mom.
I took a low paying hourly job as an operations consultant/assistant to a successful luxury real estate group.
I thought that I could possibly become a real estate agent - well that changed quickly after seeing the other side of it! I learned the ins and outs of the business and quickly learned that our go-to stager was making great money (I processed her invoices) and she was always booked.
Her one-day consultations paid more money than I earned in 5 days working hourly!
When she wasn't available, I stepped in as our "in-house" stager. I LOVED meeting sellers, helping them understand the listing process (I designed and wrote our teams listing presentation) and putting them at ease that making a quick transformation in their home was doable and I was there to help them. After some time, I decided that THIS is what I wanted to do!
I searched and found various certification programs but after reading all the wonderful reviews about HSR I took the leap of faith and signed up!
I was excited and nervous all at the same time. I had already been in seller's homes, been through an occupied staging process of my own on the fly but didn't have the foundation I needed to really dial in and fine tune my brand, services, and pricing structure.
Audra's course is EXCELLENT, and the marketing strategies are so relevant.
I thought I knew a lot about networking and prospecting but Audra dives so deep into relationship building beyond what you could ever learn on your own. I really connected with so many of the building blocks of her business model.
There are so many questions I had about how to price my services, my time, the inventory I was building up and I was so scared about doing a vacant staging and I've done FOUR now!
There is so much support from Audra and the Stagers Connect community on FB and it's all about getting out there and just doing it...
There is no perfect time to start, just start now and know that in 6 month or a year from now you will be so much better and amazed at what you've accomplished!
On a personal note to Audra - I had sent her an email letting her know our daughter had suddenly passed away and the grief just took all the wind out of me for a good 8 months... I cannot tell you how much I appreciate her response and allowing me to have an extension on this course so I could finally finish it up.
I have a whole new outlook on life and a humbled heart. I know that this choice for me as a career is going to help me still be there for my youngest daughter, have the flexibility to be present at all the fun life activities as she grows, continue to help people and make a difference in their lives and give me the financial support I need so that I don't have to worry day to day "what am I going to do..".
Thank you again, your training has been a huge milestone for me in a time in life when I didn't know who I was anymore and now I'm a self-employed business owner!!
I never get tired of sharing the inspiring emails and stories that come my way about people who had the courage to pursue their passion and change their life! This story was particularly poignant for me and humbled me greatly. Thanks so much Whitney for your vulnerability and strength in sharing!