Fabian Geyrhalter:
Welcome to the show. Alisa.

Alisa Sparks :
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It’s so good to have you. Your entrepreneurial journey is the type that I love. You quit your government finance job to go into interior design without any formal training, but you saw a need and then you tested your theory and the market responded. And today this bold move sees at the helm of Linden Creek, which is a home staging and interior design franchise with I guess over 20 locations nationwide. And you have plenty more planned. I know that. Take us on the journey from that first year of jumping into entrepreneurship to build your own brand. Tell us a little bit about when that moment was and how it happened and that big decision of saying, you know what, I’m going to actually do this.

Alisa Sparks :
Well, I will start by saying when I thought about building Lyden Creek on day one, franchising was never part of that plan that happened somewhere along the way. But my background is actually in finance. So I supported the Department of Defense for about a decade managing multimillion dollar aircraft, and I always had this creative itch. And so when I finished my nine to five, the next thing that I always found myself doing was renovating a property or building furniture in my garage or something to sort of fulfill this creative itch. And that was a really fun journey for me. But as I started to do more and more of it, I realized I wanted the opportunity to build my own business. I wanted the opportunity to lean more heavily into this creative space that I loved so much and gravitated towards, but I did not have an interior design degree.
And so I had this belief for so long that even though this is something I loved and was passionate about, I could never possibly be a designer. And I will tell you, hot in sight. Now, there is nothing further from the truth of that. But at the time, I really didn’t think that design was in my future. And I had renovated a property that we had been working on, and the feedback we received on it is the staging is really good, but it wasn’t staging. It was actually just my furniture that I had used in the home. But it was this aha moment for me of, wait a second, maybe I can’t be an interior designer, but I could stage houses. You don’t need a degree for that. And so I thought, let me put a test to this idea and this concept. I’ll keep my full-time job.
I would take PTOs on Fridays and I would go out and get in front of as many potential clients as possible and see who would have interest in this service that I was hoping to provide. I thought maybe if I’m lucky, if I really pull this off in about a year, I’d be able to quit my full-time job and could really transition over to focus on Lending Creek. Unfortunately, for me, it happened a lot faster than that. About four months in, I found myself in a position where I had to put my full-time job. I was hiring my first second set of hands to help out with the business, and we were rapidly growing and evolving, and the staging piece of it was something different in our marketplace that no one else was really doing. There were other stagers out there, but nobody that was really serving the luxury market. And so we found this niche within our market and a lot of success around that. And as we were building and growing Lydon Creek, these conversations, our clients very naturally came to a transition of, Hey, Alisa, you made my house look really beautiful when I sold it, but now I’ve in my new house and I want that house to be beautiful, so can you help me design it?
What was really interesting as we started to gravitate naturally into this interior design world, of all the clients I’ve ever worked with, only one ever asked me if I have my interior design degree. And I remember that question came up and I had this moment of panic of, oh gosh, they’re going to think I’m a fraud. They’re going to figure me out all of these things. And I looked you in the eyes and I said, I don’t have a design degree, but what I do have is this many houses under my belt for builds this many houses of full service designs and I want to serve you in the best way that I know how. And she looked at me and she goes, that sounds good to me. And it was in that moment where I realized that I had a limiting belief for myself.
But the reality is the marketplace didn’t necessarily have that same belief. And as the business grew and as our projects became more complex, I brought on more experienced interior designers that I could really lean on to trust and build and develop and design and teach me even how to be a better version of a designer. And so that was really what started Linden Creek. And within about the first five years of the business, I found myself in a weird sort of situation. I remember reflecting on my week prior and I thought, well, this is great. My team has handled everything this week. They’re running the sales, they’re running the client interactions, they’re designing houses. Nobody knows if I’m on site or if somebody else’s because we all have the same result and same design and product. I thought that was kind of lovely. And then I looked at the week ahead and I stared at my calendar and I remember thinking, this is a little concerning. If I don’t show up next week, nothing’s going to change. I’m not needed for any meetings. Everybody’s handling everything. In reality, I’m probably getting in their way. And it was this moment of panic for me, for most, I suppose it’s probably the dream of like, I did it bliss. This is the

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Best thing ever. You should be so relieved. Yeah, that’s

Alisa Sparks :
Exactly right. Now this is where we sit margaritas by the pool, right? But I love working. And so I panicked and I went, I accidentally just worked myself out of a job and that was never the goal. I love what I do and I love building. And so it was this weekend. I remember sitting there just thinking about all of this frantically going, what is my purpose? What do I do now? No one needs me. I love what I do and there’s not a place for this. And as I was sort of being a little dramatic and stressed out about this, I remember getting some messages on Instagram from others in the industry, other home stagers that were asking how we handle pricing objections, other individuals asking maybe how we store mattresses or artwork in the warehouse. And I thought there are a lot of systems that we had built and created within Linden Creek to build and grow our team very quickly.
And I didn’t realize that they were systems until the questions started coming up and I realized I had answers that other people in the industry were looking for. And as I was reflecting on that, a friend of mine said, Hey, if people are looking for these answers, have you thought about franchising? He was part of a franchise system in a totally different business model. And I remember hearing that thinking, that’s nice, but there’s no way that I could franchise a creative industry. You franchise things that have systems, you franchise things that have a playbook, but this is a creative world. How could you ever franchise it? And then as I reflected on that more, I thought, well, wait a second. We have systems. We even have systems in the way we design. I have found I’m not the designer that kind of walks into a space and feels the room and then says, this is where we’re going with it.
I walk into a space and I start doing math equations in my head. So I measure the room and I subtract a certain number and I know that that’s the rug size I need. And if that’s the rug size I’m going to use, I know that I could use floor plan option A, B, C or D, and I pick one. And then from there, I know that I can balance these other elements and mathematical equations and systems that I had really developed and built over these years without even realizing that I had systematized the design side of what we were doing. And so I took my business model to a franchise attorney and I said, listen, I don’t even know if this is possible. We’re in staging an interior design. That’s not something you franchised, but maybe possibly it is. So can you look at my business model?
Can you tell me if this even makes sense? He asked me a series of questions and we spent a good chunk of time together. And at the end of the meeting he goes, you have a business model. You could absolutely franchise. I thought that’s a wild idea. And so as I kept thinking about franchising, one of the things I loved about the concept was twofold. One, I’m giving a playbook to somebody that wants to have the same journey that I had. That was a beautiful one, but they’re not going to make all the costly expensive mistakes that I made in my journey. They just kind of get to jumpstart to where I left off and get all the tips and tricks on what worked. But the other thing I’ve loved about franchising is the idea that there is a community around it. So often in entrepreneurship, it’s a very lonely journey.
You are working really hard behind the scenes. You’re winning, sometimes you’re losing, but all of these things sort of happen on your own and you can’t share them with your clients. You can’t share them with your team and your employees directly. And so it feels like a lonely journey at times. And what I loved about the idea of franchising is I would have this community of other business owners that are in the same industry doing and passionate about the same thing that can collaborate with each other and share those wins and celebrate those wins together and be there for each other when they had challenges. And so I kept thinking maybe franchising could be an option. The attorney said it could, so there must be something to it. Then I went to a franchise consultant and I asked the same question, can I even do this?
Is this something we can franchise? And his answer after several meetings was, yes, you can franchise this as well. And so from that moment, I started building my operations manual, which those that are not familiar with franchising ends up being about a 300 and some page document that goes through every SOP of every aspect of your business from hiring and interviewing to how you actually run the day-to-day in your business. So we developed this whole package, and at the time my director of home staging who is running a lot of our day-to-day, said, Alisa, I’ve always wanted to relocate to Charlotte, but I just loved working at Linden Creek. Do you think that I could be your first franchisee and we could launch this in Charlotte? And I said, yes, absolutely. This is perfect. Because in my brain I thought, if this doesn’t work, we’re going to figure it out.
But in the meantime, I want to hear from her every little thing that feels painful. I want to know where she doesn’t feel supported. I want to understand what’s working and what’s not. I want to make sure she has the training and the tool she needs to be successful and what better way to do it than from somebody that I already trust that can give me really honest feedback. And so she launched into Charlotte, and in that 12 months, we just connected regularly. I learned from things that felt painful for her. We made adjustments and corrections, and at the end of her 12 months, she had three Xed her sales in comparison to what I did in my first year in business. And I kind of looked up from it all and went, this actually worked. We were able to replicate the systems. We were able to get her better results than the experiences that I had. She made so many fewer mistakes than I ever made at the start of my business because I was there to coach her through it. And that’s really what inspired us then to unlock the franchising opportunity and really truly bring it to market.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So amazing. So amazing. Well, first of all, bravo and thank you. What a journey. There’s so much to unpack. I mean, obviously you just put in, I don’t know, almost 10 years, I guess eight years of your journey into 10 minutes. But one thing I’m super curious about on your bio on LinkedIn, you say the following, you say, I founded Linden Creek to bring strategy, structure and elevated design to the home staging and interior design industry. And I love how you lead with strategy and structure. And only later the third point you bring up the more predictable, which is elevated design, which everyone else would start with that, but it just speaks volumes about your approach. And then last night as I was prepping for today’s show, you published a post on LinkedIn that said, and I’m going to read this thing, so don’t be bored.
Everyone else will listen. For a long time I believed speed came from doing more installs, more meetings, more decisions landing on my plate. What I’ve learned is that real speed comes from clarity. When roles are clearly defined and systems are documented, work moves forward without hesitation. Scaling isn’t just about hustle, it’s about removing friction so you and your team can move quickly and with clarity. And I find that so serendipitous since my brand strategy firm’s tagline is clarity for brand transformations. To me, it’s all about, it’s not about design it about, it’s really about creating that strategy, creating that clarity to be able to do what one needs to do. And I’m just curious, and I’m almost certain of the answer, but did your background in managing military aircraft budgets, did that shape a lot of the strategy and process driven groundwork for re-envisioning the industry that you entered?

Alisa Sparks :
It really did. What’s interesting is because I came from this business and finance side of the world, when I jumped into design, my first response was obviously, yes, we need to design a good product. But then the next season of that was, how do I look at this from a financial perspective? How do we strategize on efficiencies and opportunities? I thought that was normal. I guess because of the background that I came from, I just assumed that that’s how everybody approached their business. And as they became more immersed into the industry, I think one of my biggest takeaways and learnings is the design and staging industry are industries filled with people that are so passionate about what they do. But unfortunately for many business owners in this industry, the focus is only on the creative and it’s not on the business side. And because of that, I’ve watched a lot of business owners really struggle because they don’t know where their financial health is.
They’re not thinking about operational efficiencies, they’re thinking about pattern plays and pattern play is important, but in order for you to keep your doors open as a business, you need to make sure that your business health is just as important as those designs. And so I feel fortunate that I had the background that I did because I think it prepared me to be a more strategic business owner. As I came into this new industry, I was able to learn the industry, but use and lean on that past expertise. And when we look at franchise owners, we really think from that same framework. So we feel like a franchise owner that’s successful in our system is really an individual that is business-minded, that is excited about owning a business that happens to be in the interior design realm. Because the reality is, if you are doing your job right as a business owner, there’s going to come a day sooner rather than later that you won’t be a anymore, that you’re going to have to work yourself out of the day-to-day production and you’re going to need to have a team of designers with you. But we want somebody that’s excited about the business and not just the designs.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So in hindsight, you chose the perfect industry because the creative industry is exactly that, right? It’s a lot of artists that have huge passion and creativity, but no sense of business when they start out. And it’s hard to learn. And you learn that when you go into an industry that most others like you would never enter because they feel like a fraught because they feel like, well, I’m not an interior signup. What do I do in this space? But this is exactly what the space needed. So super cool. And it’s actually interesting because what you do day to day when you think about it is actually branding. I mean, you brand properties to be attractive to a very specific clientele, to a very specific crowd, which changes most probably from region to region and from state to state. So in a way, you are a branding specialist too. I realize that

Alisa Sparks :
Today. I love that you say that because one of the things we always like to say is home staging and interior design are different and we provide both. But when we put on our home staging hat, we are marketers, we’re not decorators. Our job is not to make a home look pretty. Our job is to be your marketing partner to help elevate the property so that it sells faster. And if we’re good at marketing, then we’ve done our job. Right.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Totally. And how much does your staging change based on criteria that you get from either the seller or the realtor or from your own research on a specific neighborhood? Does it change a lot? I know you’re talking about systems, which makes tons of sense as far as how a room is structured and how it can be structured. But does the way that you make a room look change a lot based on all of these criteria?

Alisa Sparks :
It absolutely does change, and we love to design every home with the intentionality around that home specifically. And so when our team lands a new project, the first thing we do is before we ever step foot in that house is we pay attention to the neighborhood. So we look and see who’s going for a walk on the streets. Is this a neighborhood that’s full of empty nesters? Is this a neighborhood full of young children who’s living here today? Because that’s going to tell us who’s probably going to be buying the house. And so when we design, we actually design with that person in mind. We think about the young family that’s up and coming, and when we walk into the home, then we think through the functionality and the way that a young family is potentially going to live, we design with colors that are going to be more aesthetically pleasing to them with design styles that are going to be more consistent with what they do. And we even design spaces and rooms that might have a playroom in a corner or something like that to really accommodate who they’re going to be. And so it is sort of fun. We create these design projects every day for our imaginary client that doesn’t really exist, but that we’ve received moving into that home

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Makes tons of sense. And it’s the same thing when we do here in my consultancy, when we do branding projects for new businesses, for startups, it’s the same thing. All they can do is imagine what their future audience will be like, and we got to make sure that we don’t put them too much in the corner in case they need to pivot. But we still need to keep that persona in mind, which is very much like you don’t know. It might be an emptiness to who might walk in one out of 10, but the other nine might have like three kids, right? So that’s right. So we have to keep everyone in mind, but there’s definitely a focus on one of these target audiences. ROI in branding is always a topic. You have data that shows how much more people pay for a staged home versus an empty home. Yet in reality, no one will ever know how much a particular home would’ve sold staged versus unstaged, right? Because it is very specific to one home. But are there two sides to your clients? Are there the ones that are a hundred percent convinced of the power of staging and those that can simply not be even bothered by the data? Or are there middle ground people or how are the people that you approach or that approach you?

Alisa Sparks :
I think you’re exactly right. We really land in two different classes. They are either, Hey, I’ve seen the value and the results of home staging and we can’t ever not stage a property. And they’re insistent upon it. They see the ROI, it is a no-brainer. And then we have others that are in the camp of, I just see it as an expense. And in those scenarios, we do the best we can to talk about return on investment and the impact that it’s going to have, especially with such a short turnaround time, it’s quick money in and quick money back out, but some people can’t get past that initial cost. One of the things that’s been really advantageous for our industry specifically is there’s some new resources that are coming out there for us as stagers that offer things like pay at closing. So now for those that are maybe a little more price conscious or concerned about writing a check in the midst of this transition, as they’re moving, they have the opportunity to take these expenses, push them off to the closing table and be able to still utilize the services and get the ROI.
And that’s been a massive win for us in these conversations because the reality is we just want to help every possible client to get the most out of their home before they sell it.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That’s fantastic. And it’s basically it’s money that you didn’t have, so why would you care giving it later, right? It’s a no-brainer solution. Really, really great to hear that. Let’s talk about something that I just noticed. You started an online retail business, the Linton Creek shop. When and how did that come about? I mean, it makes so much sense, but it’s yet big step to start doing retail in e-commerce. Tell us a little bit about that.

Alisa Sparks :
Yeah, it was a big step. So in the journey of deciding to franchise Linden Creek when we opened our first location, and she was giving me her feedback in that first 12 months, one of the things she said is, Alisa, right now it’s just me. I don’t have a team. And she goes, my design skills are not as strong as some of the designers that you have located in Raleigh. She goes, how do I get their brains into the houses and the projects that I’m doing? And what we have found over the years, both with interior design and home staging is the biggest challenge in training somebody and building up their skillset isn’t around space planning and picking furniture. It’s actually around styling. So it’s around accessory pieces, the vases, the bowls, the sprigs that you’re going to be placing on a coffee table. It’s understanding the size and the scale and proportions that you’re creating and designing in a space.
And so as we kind of thought on this pain point for her, I brought up the question of what if we created pre completed styling sets for you so you would be able to have designs that came out of our designer’s brain of this is the vase and this is the bowl and this is the coffee table book and here’s how you set it up and you just go ahead and order them and you put them in place and it’s done. And now you never actually had to hire the designer with all of this crazy experience and this skillset. And so as we dabbled with the idea, we tested and tried a few philosophies, and what we found is it worked. What we found is it actually allowed her to be significantly more efficient and allowed my own team to be significantly more efficient because now we had tried and true product selections that we could just plug and play that were working every time, and it was also saving us space in our warehouse.
It was allowing our inventory to be utilized in a more efficient way. And so the next question from that came, okay, great, we found this great solution for designing, but how do we get that to this franchise owner and how do we get it to other franchise owners in the future? And that was what really birthed the Linden Creek shop. We said, we need to offer this as an e-commerce solution. And so the intent behind it was let’s provide this as a service to our franchisees. But what was very interesting about it is I don’t know of other consumers out there that sell accessory sets. There aren’t many people that package a vase bowl and a coffee table together and just say, buy the whole thing, and you don’t have to deal with the guesswork, and you’ve got a designer’s experience behind the scenes to create and craft that. And so we’re able to offer something that’s very unique to the marketplace that from a logistics and operations standpoint is not a practical business model if you were going to just start this from scratch because of all that goes into it. But for us, it serves our franchisees first and happens to be this opportunity that we can offer to the general public that is a way for them to get designers without needing to hire a designer for their home.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So cool. So you build it for internal purposes, and since you already basically had to build an e-commerce site, you opened it up to the public.

Alisa Sparks :
Exactly. Right.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So great. Yeah. And why wouldn’t you? And that idea that yes, you can open up a catalog and there’s an entire set and then you can read what’s underneath, but just purchasing an entire set, you still have to put it together and then you have to think about where it fits, right? And you already do that for people. That’s amazing. Do you see a lot of your sales, and I don’t know when you launched it, but do you see a lot of sales from people who saw a staged home and then they liked what they saw and they’re like, who did this? I want my room to look like this even when I move in.

Alisa Sparks :
We do, and what’s really interesting is home staging is a service that we provide. However, we also have found that home staging is this really unique marketing tool for us. So a couple of things tend to happen when we stage a property. It’s not uncommon for us to get a phone call from the buyer that says, Hey, I love this furniture, or I love the living room setup. Can I buy it from you and can we just keep it in the house because my furniture that’s coming into the home isn’t going to fit in there anyways. It’s already there and in place. And so oftentimes we’ll sell our products and our furnishings right there in the home or the conversation transcends to, I love what you did in the home. Maybe I’d love to have some of the living room furniture, but my daughter’s bedroom upstairs and the guest bedroom could really use something special.
Can we hire you and use you to provide interior design services? And so what’s really fun and unique is we get the opportunity to work in the same property, in the same home with multiple clients oftentimes throughout the course of the life of the project and see it from its inception of this is a home that’s going to go on the market until the new homeowners are actually in and settled into their space. And it’s a lot of fun to get to be on both sides of that and get to see the full transition of the property.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Super neat. That’s super neat. Okay, cool. Let’s talk franchise for a minute here. I’m about to kick off a large project with a leading retail franchise. So for me, the topic is totally top of mind franchising. As you and I already chatted in our pre-chat, franchising has always been something that I loved based on the complexities that it brings with setting that crystal clear brand standards and the guide, and you talked about the 300 plus page guide, yet you have to give your franchisees freedom of ownership. There needs to be that entrepreneurial part too. How does your strategy and how do your systems walk that super fine line of, on the one hand, empowerment versus micromanagement, which of course you need do as a franchise to survive. How do you do that? How do you walk that line?

Alisa Sparks :
Yeah, I think the biggest thing for us is as we thought about brand consistency as we thought about what our service offering was going to be as the requirements so that there’s a consistent experience, whether you work with a Linden Creek here in Raleigh, North Carolina, or you work with one in Princeton, New Jersey. As we really thought about those things, the biggest elements around brand for us came from the products that we are using. And so what we found is if we could solve the branding and the visual side of this by offering our franchisees cost-effective solutions that we’re going to actually allow them to save money that they would naturally want to gravitate towards because it’s a win for them to use it, then in a lot of ways we actually solve the challenges around the dos and don’ts that oftentimes other brands maybe need to fight and handle and deal with.
And so we created a set catalog of products that can be utilized that our franchisees get access to in their furnishings. And we work really, really hard with those vendors to negotiate strong discounts because of the relationships we have with them. And so when you come on as a franchisee, you have access to really competitive pricing on products that are really great quality and that gets them excited about it. It allows them to want to use it, and it allows all of us as a brand to be consistent in what we’re offering and visually how we look and how we feel. Now with that being said, which sofa you choose to use with which chairs, with which coffee table and how that plays out is going to be different in every single project. And so if we’re all sort of working with the same tools, the same hammer, the same screwdriver, but we can all build something different with those same tools and have consistency across the brand, but all the creative liberty in the world to be able to design that space the way that our franchise owners feel, the space needs to be said, and likewise, their designers on their team are able to really decide how a space should look and feel to accommodate that empty nester or to accommodate to that young family that’s going to be moving in.
But the simplicity of us all having the same tools to work with or the same furnishings to work with is what allows us to have that consistency across the brand.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And that’s how there’s a lot of creative freedom still, but yet you would walk into a Linden Creek staged property and you would still feel that regardless if someone is going way off on one side, they would still feel like Linden Creek. And I think that’s what it’s all about, right, which is great.

Alisa Sparks :
Yes.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Well, let’s look back, I mean, look, you started when 2017, is that right?

Alisa Sparks :
That’s right, yes.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So let’s not look too far back because that’s not too far, but let’s look back at the first two years or so. When did you have that feeling? And usually there’s always a moment. Very often there’s a lot of micro moments, but when was that moment where you felt like, you know what, this can actually turn into a brand what we are doing here. Maybe for you it was when you thought about the franchising, right? Because that’s when something turns into a brand. But I’m always interested if you recall that moment where you felt like what I have here is actually pretty magical.

Alisa Sparks :
That’s a great question. I think there were different seasons of moments of recognizing the magic that happened throughout the course of the journey. There was a moment, two, three, maybe even four years into starting Linden Creek where I had no vision of it becoming a franchise, but I saw what it was doing in our region, in our geographic area. I saw the traction that it was getting, and it really came more so from the reception we received from the community. It was the fact that suddenly others would know about our brand or our name before I ever had the chance to introduce them that we were being spoken of in high regards. Fortunately throughout the community as a preferred vendor and somebody that you want to trust and work with, and those were the moments for me where I thought, we really have built something here that has built a reputation that’s grown in a beautiful way.
And that was wildly exciting. And then there was that moment where we started to franchise and realized I had systems around this, so this was so much more than just our location in Raleigh, but now this is something that could actually be a brand. And early on, even as I started thinking about franchising, I think my goals were a little bit smaller. It was if we could hit this level or that level, wouldn’t that be amazing? And now as we’ve scaled and grown and are seeing proof of concept, I think the reality for us is this is something that could be so much bigger. We really want to grow and become a national brand, not just a franchise that happens to have a few locations. We really are looking to scale at a larger level, impact the country in a really beautiful way. And that’s something that excites me, and I hope that that’s something that never goes away. I hope in three years from now, if you were to ask me that question again, I’d say that there’s this next level of who I think we are capable of being and what we really are. But I think those aha moments are points in your journey over the course of your entire entrepreneurial story that really allow you to see this new level of your brand and who you can become.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. I love everything about that because that’s usually how it is. You set your own goals usually way too low, and you usually stent in your own way all the time as an entrepreneur because of that.

Alisa Sparks :
Yes.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So I think that idea that you have to push and you say like, look, yeah, I mean 50 locations would be great, and then you’re like a hundred locations would be great. And then it can always keep going, and you have a big why behind it. I mean, you empower others to become entrepreneurs and to build their own business. And so it’s a really beautiful, beautiful journey. Well, on the flip side of the beautiful journey, entrepreneurship is hard. It’s really, really hard. And you already talked about it’s lonely, but it’s also hard. So the two combined, it takes a lot. Was there anything that happened in your journey? I call them like brand feels, but anything where you felt like something was going horribly wrong and you want to bring it up just as kind of like an anecdote and for people to maybe learn something out of it. But not everything is rosy, right? There’s always a lot of stuff that’s going haywire.

Alisa Sparks :
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And ask any entrepreneur, they could probably tell you 150 stories along their journey. It’s not all roses. And there are absolutely nights that you are up late at night because you can’t sleep because of the restlessness of feeling like you’re not where you want to be or that you have a problem you need to solve. I know for me, it’s interesting when a business grows, you think that is a win and that is success. But early on in my journey, we saw a lot of very natural organic growth, and that was a blessing, and I feel very grateful for that. But that was also something that became very, very challenging for me early on as a business owner. Because in our business, if your home staging is growing, it means you need furniture to supply the clients that want your services.
And that furniture eventually pays for itself and is eventually a really great asset in your business. But the first day you buy it, it’s not paid for. And so there’s this really cash intensive part of the business that happens when home staging grows. And I remember in those early years when we were kind of hitting this exponential growth that was really beautiful and clients were talking about us and everybody wanted us in their homes, and I only had so much furniture in my home. And it was that season of creativity, of excitement and knowing that you wanted to grow as fast as the market was asking for you, but also that there weren’t unlimited amounts of resources to be able to do so. And trying to find that balance of when you could say yes to a client, you knew projects and inventory was coming back versus when you couldn’t say yes because there was just no way to make it happen.
I mean, candidly, we had seasons. I had seasons early on in that business where we were so tight on inventory and things were moving so quickly that I would steal my own sofa out of my house. I stole my dining table and dining chairs. I remember there was about a six month stint where my parents would come, they were retired, and so they’d come and visit me about every six weeks from out of state, and every time they’d come, there’d be a new piece of furniture in my house that was missing. And so God bless them for being gracious, but we would eat outside on the deck and if it was raining, we all ate on the floor that day and it just was what it was. And they were very patient. And then finally one day they came and my house for once was fully furnished again. And my mother looked and she said, oh, business must finally be going. Well, you actually have furniture.
But that was the truth of the growth is sometimes growth is a really good thing, but growth has its unique challenges. You have to build a team rapidly enough to support the needs and the demands that are there. You need the capital to inject into the growth that happens. And so yes, business is hard. The winning is hard. The losing is hard. But I think the moment it stops getting hard is the moment you should worry because you should always feel challenged. You should always be thinking about how you can take your business to the next level, how you can grow it, how you can outperform your competition, how you can better serve your clients. And all answering all of those questions is hard. And so if you’re not doing that, you’re probably stagnant. And that’s a really dangerous position to be in.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And hence we will never catch you pool site with a margarita in your hands because that’s when you feel complete and utter stress and you’re like, oh my God.

Alisa Sparks :
That’s correct. That’s correct. My poor husband jokes often. He’s like, Alisa is her worst version of herself when she sits still and doesn’t have a problem to be working on. And I said, that is unfortunately correct,

Fabian Geyrhalter:
But you know what? It’s so important and you’re so blessed that you have that because there are plenty of people who just sit still and it’s not very satisfying. So rather that way than the other way. And you know what you brought up? It’s so interesting. I told you that I’m running this startup called Toop, and we, I’m suddenly in the product space and we are creating the chain of assembly in the warehouse, and it’s a totally different world from a consultant that I usually am, and we’re about to bring out our second product, which is kind of like a big deal because the first one was good, and now what is that second thing going to be? And I’m always halfway choking. I’m like, look, and I talk to my partner, I’m, look, there are two ways, and both of them are really horrible.
Either it doesn’t sell at all and we are screwed, or it sells more than we can handle and we are screwed. And that’s kind of entrepreneurship. It’s like, what are you looking forward to? It’s like, well, it’s got to be that perfect middle ground of sales. It is never going to happen, right? Whatever happens, it’s never going to happen. You’re right. That’s entrepreneurship in a nutshell. Moving over to the brand talk as we are slowly winding down here, what does the word branding mean to you? I mean, obviously you are very much in the space of branding yourself, even though it’s called staging, but we already discussed that it’s very similar. It’s marketing and branding. You create very, very big books on brand standards because you need to. What does that often misunderstood word of branding mean to you?

Alisa Sparks :
Yeah, that’s a great question. Branding, I think often people just say, oh, that’s marketing, or That’s your logo, or that’s whatever color waves you’re going to use. But branding is so much more than that. Branding to me is the ability for us to speak the same language and be under the same umbrella, but it is storytelling and it’s communicating your vision and your values, whether it’s to your customers, whether it is to your team members, whatever it may be. But branding is that opportunity to really paint your vision as the founder or the CEO of your organization and say, this is who we are. And the aesthetics around whether it is just you, your logo or a marketing piece, or the products that you’re delivering or the words you choose to use when you’re communicating in an email or in marketing copy. All of those things play into defining who you are as a brand.
And when you tell that story that allows you to attract the right customers, that allows you to attract the right employees and that allows you to make sure that you are speaking to your ideal avatar. And so I think whipping together something quick and simple and calling it branding and then moving it aside and moving on to the next thing is a disservice. I think branding is a practice that has to be done over and over again because that storytelling and that communication to your ideal avatar is the thing that’s going to allow you to be successful for years and years to come. And that conversation will continue to evolve as your business and your brand builds as well.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
So very, very well said. I’m not surprised, but that’s it in a nutshell. And if we take this entire journey you just talked about and we infuse it into your company and you think about, okay, if you take all of this through a funnel, right, the values and the storytelling and the avatars and all of that, and you would have to come up with one word that describes all of that. Liquid death is mischief. It’s not water. Everlane is transparency. It’s not what is Linton Creek in one word?

Alisa Sparks :
In one word, I would say Linden Creek is thoughtful. We are thoughtful about the way we design, whether it’s for marketing purposes and staging or it’s for functionality in your own home, but thoughtful is how I would like to describe it.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. I love that you already gave so much brand advice, but is there any brand advice for founders or for marketers is a takeaway that you might have not mentioned yet that you would like to mention?

Alisa Sparks :
One thing that I would say is when it comes to branding, make sure that this is a continual topic for your radar and for your review. There were seasons and years within Lyden Creek where we kind of thought, we checked the box, we built everything we needed to as a framework, and we said, this is us. Let’s roll now for the next several years. But we’ve really evolved over the last eight years as a brand, as I’m sure we’ll continue to do in the years to come and really redefining who we are, reevaluating what our target audience is looking for, has allowed us to grow as the business has grown, as our customer base has grown over those years. And so make sure that a review and audit, a thoughtfulness around your branding is a continual part of your conversations and your growth.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It’s so important that you say that, and I’m so glad that we all hear that from you in the field because I just see branding become so much more organic these days than it used to. I mean, back in the Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola worlds, yes, just hit people over the head with that. You’ve got a huge budget. It’s like, these are your colors, these are your fonts, you’re done, you’re good, right? Go. But today, with social media and with everyone just having a couple of seconds in every decision that they make all day long, that doesn’t fly anymore. It’s like the design world looks very different from one month to another month. What people need, right to feel satisfied, changes on a quarter. So all of these things, the brands that stand still thinking about their colors and thinking about the tone of voice and thinking about the campaigns once that we’re not going to see next year. I think that’s just how it is. So I’m super, super glad to hear that, that from you. So what’s next for the Linden Creek brand? I know Growth keeps going. What are you excited about in the first six months of this year?

Alisa Sparks :
Yeah, this year we are wildly excited about a lot of initiatives that we’ve sort of been working on behind the scenes and having them come to fruition. We released a couple weeks ago our first art line, so we were able to create an exclusive line of artwork with a local artist here based out of Raleigh, North Carolina that we’ve had the opportunity to work with for years. And so she has licensed some custom prints for us to be able to utilize across the country in homes. And so that line was released this year. We also are going to be releasing a pillow collection in probably about 30 days is what we’re looking at. So wildly excited about that as well. And then just continued growth within the brand. It’s been a beautiful journey. I could not be happier with the franchisees that we have and the teams that we’re building behind the scenes. And so we’re excited to make a big impact in this country as we continue to grow and build our presence.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
How can people follow you either personally or get to know the Linden Creek universe as it is now?

Alisa Sparks :
Yes. Well, you certainly check us out on Instagram @LindenCreek_. If you want to see some of our work and what we’re up to behind the scenes, it’s a great place to go. I’m also very active on LinkedIn and always love connection. So DM me, send me a message. We’d love to hear from you. And that is AlisaSparkslc_.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Fantastic. Alisa, thank you so much for taking almost an hour out of your day today to chat with me about your story and about bringing brand clarity to people. We really, really appreciate it.

Alisa Sparks :
Thank you so much for the conversation. I’ve really enjoyed this today,