We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tera Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tera below.
Tera, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I had spent four years in property management and found myself drawn to the real estate side of things—helping people find homes and navigating the market was something I genuinely enjoyed. But the rental side—fielding angry maintenance calls, posting 3-day notices, and dealing with frustrated parents—just wasn’t where my heart was. I realized I wanted to be part of the process in a more positive, lasting way, and that’s what led me to real estate.
For Fresh, my juice bar, it all started with my hair falling out, my skin breaking out, and nails breaking off. There was a period of time where I was embarrassed and self-conscious to wear my hair down because it was so thin and broken. My self-confidence hit an all-time low, and I was determined to figure it out. I started off with TONS of trial and error. To start I tried no longer coloring my hair, I tried supplements, vitamins, drinking more water, switching my hair and skin products multiple times, and even going to the doctor. When none of this was working it caused me to rethink and take a step back, which is when I noticed my hair health starting to dive even more, so I hit the internet. I dove into researching causes and other things I could try. I came across nutrient deficiencies and dove further into different fruits and vegetables and foods in general and how they affect our body. After an attempt at smoothies, I did notice a change in my hair and skin health, but I was losing too much weight not being hungry and feeling full. This is when I fell in love with juicing, I was still getting my daily nutrients in a yummy juice and yet able to eat a normal meal without feeling bloated and tired. After a few months I noticed my nails growing stronger, my skin clearing, and my hair FINALLY growing back along with my curls coming back to life. Even more so than when I was drinking smoothies. I have never in my lifetime had nails longer than my fingertips due to biting them when I was younger and them always being frail, this is NO longer true! I have better skin today than I did when I was 22. And my hair is no longer an insecurity I struggle with daily. It blows my mind the changes I have seen from drinking my daily juice and getting my body the daily nutrients it needs quickly and easily. Under each juice is a description of the benefits it delivers for your body. In everything I have done and do, I love helping people and knew I wasn’t the only one struggling with this dilemma.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
In everything I do and have done, the thing I love most is helping people and from there it was deciding how I can help people and follow my passions. I’ll be honest it took me years to find my passions. I went to school for marketing and did an internship at NDSU finding this wasn’t where my heart lied, then worked at a daycare center thinking I’d like to do childhood education, all while bartending at bdubs for 6 years. I hit a point where I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and felt a little lost, which led me to walking in the doors of a job placement agency. From there I believe the universe had a plan to align me with my passions, they ended up placing me as a leasing agent/marketing manager. I fell in love with real estate and helping people find their safe space to call home, I spent a few years in the space, but I knew I wanted to go further and build something for myself instead of a company. When I let the company I was working for know I wanted to take my real estate career to the next level and start studying to get my license, they actually fired me and were not happy about it, which I took as another sign from the universe that it was time to make the leap and follow my heart. I was for sure taking a risk of going from a salary job to a fully commission-based job, but being let go, it was time to just take the leap and follow my heart. I studied hard and got my license.
The first couple years I was definitely poor and scraping by, but I was finally doing something I loved, something that filled my cup, so I was determined to make it work. I worked hard. I put in a lot of 80-hour weeks, a lot of late nights. I was determined, I wanted to be the best Realtor for my clients, which naturally turned into me becoming the best version of myself. There were a lot of ups and downs of course, as there usually is when you start something new, I think it’s just all a part of the learning process honestly. It was the first time I got to do things my way and help people in a way that felt right for me, I started to step into my power. I created my own real estate website, I started a blog to help keep my clients informed, turned my love for photography into a free asset for my clients, harnessed my marketing skills, and kept myself open to learning as I grew.
A couple years in I was finally in a good flow and felt aligned with my passion, but with my health struggles and coming to find juicing, something still felt like it was missing, and sharing my juice recipes kept crossing my heart. I had been juicing for myself for a year, and during a slow season of real estate (winter) I decided it was time to take the leap and share my mixes with the community as a side business. It took off instantly and I had orders coming in daily. My heart was overwhelmed with the support, but so was my time. As I got back into the busy season for real estate, I felt myself being stretched too thin and sadly I had to choose between Fresh and real estate, and real estate is where my heart was being pulled the most. I ended having to put Fresh on the back burner for almost 2 years. I knew if I wanted to continue with Fresh, I would have to hire an employee and I wasn’t to that point. After a few years of doing well in real estate, I was again in a good flow, but again Fresh was still on the back of my mind. I had built up enough of a cushion and traction in real estate that I could afford to take on an employee and startup costs, so I decided to message my commercial realtor friend and asked if she could keep her eyes out for a store front. Low and behold the perfect place showed up, and it felt like a now or never type situation. I put a post on indeed for an employee before committing and I had 12 people apply, I was overwhelmed with the interest and ended up finding a perfect fit. Everything was falling into place, and it just felt right.
When taking Fresh to the next level, my goal was to help others also going through the struggle or trying to elevate their self-care. I dove even further into research creating juice mixtures and bundles that could help with different phases of life; from girls on their periods, anyone who felt a sickness coming on, cleansing their gut and liver, to hydrating the body and everything in-between. I’m still even constantly working on making new mixtures to add to the menu as I learn my customers struggles and stories.
There were again many long hour days getting Fresh ready to re-launch; from putting together furniture, cleaning and organizing the shop, hiring a contractor to do the bigger store remodel, taking new photos for marketing, giving my website a refresh, and more, but all so worth it. On my drive home from the grand-opening I remember I just started bawling happy tears, it was an overwhelming feeling like all my hard work had finally come to fruition.
Today, getting to follow both of my passions and spend my days filled with everything I love is a feeling I hope everyone gets to experience. Theres’s afternoons I’ll be working on real estate in my shop, and it just feels surreal.
Getting to where I am took a lot of hard work, a lot of long days, and a lot of rollercoaster days. I get the question “how do you have time for it all” often, and my true answer is I honestly have no idea haha. But, I feel like when you find your passions and truly love the things you’re doing, they don’t feel like work, and you will go hard to make them bloom.
Though both real estate and Fresh are very different businesses, the main pillar of them both is helping people. I just love getting the opportunity to be a part of people’s lives and helping them invest in themselves.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In my first year of real estate, I had an investor client who was looking to buy up a row of twin homes I’d shown him. It would have been a $36,000 commission check, which would have been life changing for a money poor girl taking a leap into a full commission job. Getting to the time where it was time to sign the documents, it turned out that unfortunately, he was using me and wasn’t looking to buy the twin-homes, he just wanted to hang out with me. I was devastated and felt used; it weighed on me hard emotionally.
It was then that I came up with a rule for myself called “The 24 Hour Rule”. As someone who previously struggled with anxiety and depression, I’ve learned in life that we can either let things like this put us into a black hole and fester on them OR we can give ourselves a time-frame to be sad and process but then it’s time to move on. Because life is always going to throw you curveballs, but in the end you have to get back up, learn from them and hop back on the horse called life.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I feel like there’s been a few different times I’ve had to pivot in business and in life. I’m the type of person, when I start to feel unaligned in my career, life, relationships, etc. It weighs hard on me. I’ve shared some of my pivots already switching from property management to becoming a full-time realtor and pivoting from running Fresh out of my home to leaping into hiring a full-time employee and committing to a store front. Those are my biggest pivots for sure, but there were definitely smaller pivots within over the years as well.
Within my real estate career, over the years, I ended up switching and transferring my license to a different brokerage a few times. Mostly because it got to a point where I didn’t feel aligned with the morals or people I was surrounded by anymore. They say the people that you surround yourself with the most start to make up who you present yourself as. It’s scary to leave a place and start new, but I think it’s scarier to stay somewhere you don’t feel aligned with as your true self.
For Fresh I had actually pivoted a few times as well. In the beginning I started by running Fresh out of my home as a business under Cottage Laws, and then thought I was going to buy a food cart and team up with businesses for events. I had actually even looked at a food cart for sale thinking hard about buying it and going down that pack. As time went on, and the more I reflected, I realized the food cart was not the route I wanted to take, and I really wanted to go the store front route creating a space for the community to come together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://freshjuicefm.com
- Instagram: teralorrai
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tera.walker.7
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teralorrai
- Other: Linktree (links to all my businesses): https://linktr.ee/terawalker
Real Estate Website: https://teralorraire.wixsite.com/realestate
Fresh Insta: freshjuicefm
Real Estate Insta: teralorrai_realtor
