We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nora Crosthwaite a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nora, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I’m not artistic or creative, but I really love finding problems to solve. Ultimately, that is why I started Stagerie, a nationwide staging company for owner-occupied homes for sale.

I am a real estate agent in Iowa. When I list homes for sale, especially if the seller is still living in the home and it is furnished, at some point the seller will ask me, “What should I do to prepare my home for sale?” Because I am not artistic, I struggled with this question; I don’t know how to stage homes! But, I’ve seen that proper home staging can add 1-5% or more in value to a seller’s sale price on their home. Even on a $250,000 home, that can add anywhere from $2,500 to $12,500 in value. That’s real money! Homeowners’ biggest assets are their homes, and I want to see them get the most possible when they sell.

Knowing the importance of staging, I experimented with the different home staging solutions that were available (a basic to do list of tips, having in person staging consultations, guessing). Finally, I decided I really wanted a service where I, the real estate agent, could upload photos of my clients’ homes and have an actual stager give me a to do list telling us what to pack, move, touch up, and add to make a house pop, both online and in person. This service literally did not exist. After a year of looking, I decided to build it; that’s how Stagerie was born.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a software developer at heart. Creating software, however, is soulless unless it helps people. After decades in the software industry, I decided I wanted to help people more. Through a personal real estate transaction, I found that amazing real estate agents get to help their clients get from point A to point B. In fact, the best real estate agents are worth their weight in gold, because they take all the stress and weight off their clients’ backs. That’s how I first got into real estate.

After several years of being in real estate, I narrowed my focus to an issue that I couldn’t solve in my own business: how to help people prepare their homes for sale when they are still living in them, using their furniture and décor. Essentially, I founded Stagerie to solve my own issues with home staging, and decided to build it into a full-fledged company.

Stagerie’s brand is a little fun, a little snarky, but ultimately, very supportive. We use stagers all over the country, and promote our stagers and our real estate clients. Our goal is to be a supporting actor behind the scenes of a home sale, enabling our real estate agents and sellers to get the most out of their homes, for a small investment, using what is already in the home. We want to be the service that people go back to again and again.

And, our dream goal? To get rid of poorly staged homes on Zillow!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My first major career pivot happened in 2015, when I left the stability of a corporate software development job and became a full-time real estate agent. I had been feeling unsatisfied managing software projects for some time, and was very tired of traveling 3 weeks every month (especially since I was missing out on my daughter’s childhood).

As I was finishing a project for a client, my manager said to me, “I guess it’s time for me to find you your next project.” And out of the blue, I said, “Don’t bother, I think I’m done.”

I spent the rest of the summer trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and finally decided on real estate. I thought it would be easy — just tell my friends I got my real estate license, and they’d line up to use my services! At the time, I didn’t realize how many real estate agents there were in Des Moines, Iowa, and how much I didn’t know!

The next three years really encompassed my pivot. I had to find what worked for me to attract new clients (cold calling is NOT my thing), learn how to add value to my clients and friends in every interaction, and put together a well-oiled machine to run my business (bookkeeping, social media, paperwork, taxes, email newsletters, doing the actual work, etc). During this time, I made a lot of mistakes, of course. But I also learned that even when I do everything right, I *still* may not get the business from a friend. And that’s OK.

Ultimately, surviving the first four years as a real estate agent transformed me. I’ve been able to figure out where my business priorities are, and how to live my truth every day as a business owner. Contributing to local nonprofits has always been important, so now I get to make regular donations from my business and volunteer my time personally. In real estate, I’ve focused on working with clients that I love, no matter how much or how little they have to spend on housing. Finally, I was able to start a real estate team, and help each of my agents meet their goals, professionally and otherwise.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Though I had managed people before in a corporate setting, as a business owner, I quickly found that without the guardrails of a corporate HR structure, I had to start from scratch.

My top tips:
* Hire people for their character above anything else. You can’t train business values.
* Hire people who are good at the things that you don’t bring to the table. You need complementary skills and contributions to have a well-rounded business.
* Trust your people to make good decisions. This trust will be built over time.

And finally, as a leader, remember that with every interaction, how your team members walk away feeling is more important than how you walk away feeling. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have tough conversations. But, focus on what you want the end goal to be for that team member, and drive towards it in the way that will help that specific person reach that end goal.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stagerie.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/stagerie_com (Stagerie) and instagram.com/norainprogress (personal)
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Stagerie/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-crosthwaite-350860/ (personal) and https://www.linkedin.com/company/stagerie/ (Stagerie)