We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tara Bremer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Tara, thanks for joining us today. Can you share a story that illustrates an important or relevant lesson you learned in school
I built a business off of excess possessions. I’ve been helping women organize their homes and teach them how to keep it that way for over ten years. But my education is completely unrelated — or so I thought. My major in college was psychology and my masters is in Pastoral Counseling and when I was in school, I never dreamed that I’d do anything besides become a therapist and a professor of psychology. I wanted to help people, and I wanted to teach. I started providing therapy in a group practice for a few years, then I had my first child and retired forever from that world. I stayed at home raising kids for years, while blogging and occasionally helping friends get organized at home. I started House Peace because I saw a need — a need for a kind and safe person to guide women to regain order at home. I saw that so many of them were ashamed, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed. I saw that they needed some TLC in a very similar way to my former counseling clients and I knew I could help them. I became a student of the enneagram and other personality typing systems and used my background to help get to the heart of the clutter. What happened to create these huge messes? Compulsive spending? Overly generous grandparents? High powered executives with zero time to maintain order? A diagnosis that requires all attention on medical care? Why the shame? Why can’t they maintain? How can I take the stigma out of disorganization and reframe it as simply a problem to be solved.
Tara, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I started House Peace in 2013 and now have contract workers in 6 cities (Birmingham, Mobile, Pensacola, Nashville, Atlanta, and NYC). My organizers are all women who have experience working in caring fields such as education and nursing, and they do incredible work with their clients. When we plan jobs, we talk to clients about their personalities, family situation, and work demands so that when we get on the job site, we can get to work decluttering and organizing. Usually our clients work side by side with us, which is ideal for creating systems that work for them specifically. We want them to have “chaos resilience” so that even when messes come, they are easy to recover from.
We also provide packing and unpacking services, and occasionally help hoarders as well. I have hosted a few online classes such as Closet Peace, iPhone Peace, and Curating Kids’ Keepsakes. I also provide online “get unstuck” coaching to help clients process what’s going on at home so they can DIY their own organization. I have a side project where I am pitching an unscripted TV show that I call House Therapy, where viewers are invited to enter into a client’s backstory and how I can help them think and behave in new ways in their homes, creating order from chaos.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I started a dedicated IG page for House Peace in 2015 or so. I shared it everywhere I could (FB and literally texted friends to follow me). I have friends with a successful podcast (The Popcast with Knox and Jamie) and they became instant advocates for me. I often collaborated with various Popcast staffers and we created content that connected with their followers, as well as mine. When I saw the power of working with local influencers, I started seeking out content creators and business owners with followings bigger than mine and made content that was shareable and helpful. My IG following grew and is now at 20.8k, all genuine followers and most of them are local to our main markets. My two most successful collaborations procured 3k and 5k followers, all from the influencer’s stories about the job.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Depending on the season, I have 10-15 contract workers (1099s), spread across our 6 cites (and in other states for VA work). It is super hard to maintain a sense of connectedness with everyone due to the intermittent nature of contract work and being so spread out across the US. But I always throw two annual staff parties — a new year party to celebrate what we did the previous year, as well as an anniversary party every August. I recently started sending birthday gifts to each 1099 and that has been lovely for me to give, and the girls seem to love it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://housepeace.net
- Instagram: @house.peace @tarabbremer
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089896836985
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarabbremer/
Image Credits
Erin Nolen Laura Beth Davidson Lindsey Culver Tara Bremer