We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cori Grenier. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cori below.
Cori , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
For many, success means reaching a goal, accomplishing a task, or otherwise achieving what one sets out to do. Success is when the outcome you dreamt about and worked so hard for becomes a reality. I often think success comes after many failed attempts. For me, success takes time, hard work, some failures along the way, determination, and perseverance. Our modern world of TV and Social Media often gives a false narrative to our true perspective on reality and the definition of success. It can become easy to look at a person’s achievements, but not realize all the hard work and time it took to get to that level of success.
With being a business owner and focusing on real estate either in Home Staging, Interior Design, or assisting a client with buying or selling a home, success can mean many different things. With Home Staging, success is in selling a story to potential buyers. Having a buyer walk into a property and imagine themselves living there. Staged homes should always tell a story of what life could be like living in a particular home. Being successful in the Home Staging business means having the home go quickly under contract with multiple offers. Most importantly, homeowners are pleased with our process and the outcome. For our Interior Design projects, success is giving the homeowner a feeling of peace and a sense of pride living in the home they have created for themselves and their family. Their home is their story and should reflect who they are by creating spaces that tell their story. In Real Estate, success means having a first-time home buyer find the perfect home for them to start their journey in. I cherish what I do, and my success is often based on the end result of my work.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Design and being creative has always been a passion of mine, I just hadn’t realized it until later in life. I’ve always had interests in the Arts and enjoyed being creative. Thinking about a space and all of its possibilities has always appealed to me. I often envision the feeling a space can offer, the interior paint colors, furnishings, textiles, or artwork. I look at a space and think of all its elements and the story I want the space to tell. Interior Design and Home Staging tells a story, shares a feeling, and cultivates a sense of belonging.
Once I was married and I had a home of my own, that’s when I knew it was time to follow this passion. I created a story by using design for my own family. A place that we loved and felt safe in, our home told our story. It was then, I knew I wanted to follow this passion and assist other families as well as Real Estate Agents by helping share a home’s story. A home not only needs to look great, but it needs to function and feel great as well. My goal is always to highlight the home’s beauty and repair its flaws, so it functions and feels great for the family who will enjoy it.
Four years ago, I launched House on Hope Design on hopes and dreams. I truly was nervous, and I thought of every what-if possible. What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough? What if no one likes my work? Well, all those What If’s, quickly disappeared with each photo I posted of my design and staging work. Referrals came in, positive reviews on social media took over, and four years later, I am happy I never listened to all those What if’s.
House on Hope Design specializes in Interior Design and Home Staging. Our goal is formed by a love of your home’s history, character, and style. We love keeping as many of the bones of a structure as we can. Marrying in your personality is what brings a home together. With our approach, communication is key. We’re here for whatever you need. We’ll help you solidify your vision and keep in constant contact until your dream becomes a reality. House on Hope Design is all about creating spaces for better living. In our Staging, we work with a collective group of agents and provide them and their clients with a detailed plan, incorporating decor and furniture to get their home sold with multiple offers above the asking price. We’ve got every step of the process covered! Our design work is organic, textured, and provides warmth to any home. We are honored that our design work has been featured on several retailer websites, blogs, and online magazines.
With my knowledge in Home Staging and Interior Design, I decided that I wanted to push and challenge myself once more. It was time for me to step outside of my comfort zone and grow! This past February, I signed up to obtain my Real Estate License. It was a challenge trying to juggle family life, a business, and a demanding schedule in Real Estate school. In May of this year, I successfully obtained my Broker’s License in the state of North Carolina. It’s another level of success where I proved to myself that I can do anything I put my mind to. As individuals, we are strong, capable, and should never let fear or self-doubt get in our way of being successful. Being a strong female and a positive influence for my three daughters is my biggest motivation in life. I want them to know you are always capable of doing something amazing in this world. Make your heart happy first, be kind and humble to others, and create your story for the world to see.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
House on Hope Design was just getting started when the Pandemic entered our lives. I was gearing up to meet with clients, take on new and exciting projects, and stage homes that were in the process of hitting the market. I was feeling prepared and ready to make this business a success, then the world shut down. Things quickly changed and we had to relearn our way of living and what the new meaning of normalcy was. I now needed to pivot, switch our process of doing business, as manufacturing plants were shut down, supply and demand took on a new direction, timelines became undetermined, and having people socially distance became a challenge in the real estate world.
With the pandemic set in, every challenge of now operating my small business came to mind. However, with everyone being home, work and school took on a whole new meaning, and my design business was busier than ever. More clients asked for assistance with designing, renovating, and creating functional spaces in their homes. Home office spaces, virtual learning, homeschooling areas were needed, and transforming unused family areas into more functional spaces were highly called for during this unprecedented time.
With any business, there are always struggles, challenges, and concerns. With our home staging services, pricing our market and inventory quickly became a concern as the home staging aspect of House on Hope Design continued to grow, and the real estate market in North Carolina was in high demand. As I took on assisting more Real Estate Agents and staging more homes, the lack of storage and inventory weighed on me and the business. I decided to start small, with no additional cost to my business and utilized my home garage as a storage unit.
I quickly learned that was not a solution, and the inventory was outgrowing my garage space. In less than one year after investing in our first unit, I now have several units with inventory to continue to expand the home staging side of House on Hope Design. Our staging services offer furnishings, artwork, lighting, textiles, decor, and more to help sellers and agents sell a home.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
The best source of new clients for House on Hope Design has truly been word of mouth and social media. My goal in any job that I take on, is making sure my clients are pleased with the end result. I want them to feel good about our process and time together. My goal is to always go above and beyond for them, loyalty and open communication is key in building any type of relationship and growing a business. Referrals and positive reviews are two very important parts of owning a successful business.
For many, social media can have both positive and negative impacts. For business owners, social media plays a large role in getting your business seen. Posting before and after project updates as well as staging projects provides my followers with a portfolio of my work. I truly appreciate their support, referrals, and feedback. I have met many Real Estate Brokers as well as clients using multiple social media platforms. Posting my work allows me to grow my business, and it affords me the opportunity to meet other successful business owners within our community.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/houseonhopedesign/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/houseonhopedesign