Startup Savvy: Young Entrepreneur TJ Pajimola Of Affordable Home Staging Shares Their Secrets For Rapid Growth and Success
An Interview With Eden Gold
Consistency comes after the first two. Daily action leads to results. Whether that is posting on social media, reaching out to potential customers, or performing your core offering. Doing something every day is the only surefire way to know you’re progressing towards your goal.
The entrepreneurial landscape is more vibrant and challenging than ever, with young entrepreneurs at the forefront, driving innovation and redefining the boundaries of success in the business world. These dynamic individuals are not only creating new products and services but also building sustainable business models that thrive in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven environment. Their journeys are filled with lessons of resilience, strategic innovation, and the relentless pursuit of growth. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing TJ Pajimola, Affordable Home Staging.
Tj Pajimola, based in Spokane, WA, US, is currently a Owner at Affordable Home Staging, bringing experience from previous roles at FirstHire, SpaceX and Aston Carter. Tj Pajimola holds a 2012–2016 Bachelor of Business Administration — BBA in Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies @ Washington State University. With a robust skill set that includes Leadership, Public Speaking, Sales, Social Media, Microsoft Office and more, Tj Pajimola contributes valuable insights to the industry. Tj Pajimola has 5 emails and 1 mobile phone number on RocketReach.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about cultural sensitivity, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I never thought I’d get into home staging, but it was the perfect storm. I sold my home in Lynwood, WA and staging was a big piece of us receiving an offer in less than a week for way over asking. I moved to Spokane, WA to be closer to family as my wife was expecting our second kid. I had to leave my role as a Technical Recruiter at SpaceX since they did not allow my position to work remotely, and I was looking for what to do next. My plan since studying Entrepreneurship at Washington State University’s Carson College of Business was to work for successful organizations and learn everything I could about managing and operating a successful business, then to do it on my own. After trying some different business ideas out, I came across a profitable home staging company for sale for the price of its assets, and I remembered from a previous conversation with my sister-in-law, Courtney, that it would be her dream job to do home staging. It only took us 3 months to close on the business and we were up and running. Since then, I’ve come to love what we do and actually got certified as a staging design professional myself from Staging Studio in San Antonio, TX.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
I’ll preface this with home staging is a lot of fun, but there have been some unexpected things happen that will make you laugh. I’ve had someone follow me around the home as I staged, petting their parakeet. Our truck has sunk into the gravel in someone’s driveway so deep that we had to get towed out. And one time I was moving furniture through the lobby of a retirement home when, seemingly out of nowhere, an aerobics class broke out all around me. None of those top a story I heard from the previous owner of someone breaking into a home, moving all the furniture to the basement, barricading themselves and turning it into their own living space. I’m thankful that I don’t have more interesting stories to share than that so far in my staging career.
You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I would say forward thinking, drive and resilience have been most instrumental to my success. I’ve always been someone who likes to look ahead and imagine what the future will be like to figure out what steps I need to take to achieve the results I want. When it came to purchasing affordable home staging I thought about where I could take it in 3–5 years and what challenges we would likely face, then I planned for how we would approach those problems before they happened. For example, I thought about a unique problem we would have in the winter when demand for staging slows, and we would have to store more of our furniture with limited space in the warehouse. To combat this, I created a buy one get one month of staging free promotion, increasing sales, and making customers happy, but also allowing me to essentially store some of my furniture in those houses for a little longer than usual, freeing up some space in our warehouse until we were busy again.
I am also a driven individual. This shows up in how I’m always taking action towards accomplishing our business goals. I don’t like sitting around waiting for things to happen so I’m constantly doing something to move our business forward whether it is making sales calls, creating efficiencies in our warehouse, or working on creating business relationships with wholesale vendors.
Lastly, I would say I’m resilient because I don’t give up on myself even if things aren’t going my way. A mentor of mine told me that I don’t need to beat my competition, I just need to outlast them and that’s been my philosophy when it comes to building a successful business. There was a point where one of our largest clients started using one of our competitors and I just remained consistent with outreach and building a relationship with them and now they work with us exclusively.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview about young entrepreneurs secrets to rapid growth and success. To start, how would you define success?
I define success as accomplishing anything you’ve set out to do or reaching a predetermined outcome.
I’ve always had the ability to read people and situations and that kind of discernment has served me well in my career as a recruiter, account manager and now business owner. Something as a first-time business owner that I didn’t expect was how many people would reach out offering to “help” my business generate leads, redesign my website, improve my SEO, provide me with capital or a line of credit. I strongly believe if you want to go far in business, you have to trust some people, but trusting the wrong person can cost you thousands. I think having good judgement has been a big key to my success.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly contributed to your startup’s growth, and why do you think it was so effective?
Something I did that may be a little more unconventional that contributed to my growth is seller finance a business with very little money upfront as opposed to starting the business from scratch. I believe this one thing that could help many new entrepreneurs be successful is build off of what someone else has already started. The first few years in a business can be a struggle with a majority of businesses failing in the first 5 years and there are many established successful businesses for sale that may be open to creative financing options. In my case, I’ve been able to pay down the seller note on the business 100% from the cash flow of the business and we were able to rise to the top of our market much faster than starting from scratch.
Can you share a critical pivot point in your startup’s journey and how you navigated the decision-making process?
Our largest pivot has actually been in and out of offering occupied staging. I wanted to say yes to everyone and by offering occupied staging, I could do that but I quickly realized that it’s much more work and it’s harder on our inventory to offer that service so ultimately we were better off not offering the service and sticking to our main thing which is vacant home staging. I didn’t want to say no to working with occupied staging completely so now we solely do home staging consultations for occupied homes as opposed to actually doing the home staging and bringing in items for those homes. The lesson is, it’s ok to try some things out and it’s also ok to change your offering to better fit your business.
How do you balance the need for rapid growth with maintaining a sustainable and healthy company culture?
I think it’s really important to focus on growth and build that into company culture but more intentionally I like to make an investment, improvement or change with growth in mind and then keep things the same for a period of time before making another so I can analyze the results and how my team and market have responded to it so I can course correct and make better, smarter decisions in the future.
In what ways has your personal definition of success evolved since the inception of your startup?
My definition of success has not changed since starting this business but the longer I’ve owned and operated the business the clearer the direction I want to take the business is. I think not getting stuck on an arbitrary goal and being open to changing direction is important, so you don’t end up chasing the wrong thing.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Things You Need to Succeed as a Young Person in Business?”
1 . First, you have to invest in yourself. Books, trainings, mentors, education, certifications. Become dangerously knowledgeable about something. For me, I earned my degree in Entrepreneurship, then spent 6 years working in the corporate world to learn how to operate a successful company so I would be capable of doing it on my own. Once I started my own business, I continued investing in myself by earning a certification in my field and building a network of like-minded people to learn from.
2 . Next you have to bet on yourself. You have to believe that you’re going to accomplish whatever it is you’re setting out to do and put your time, energy, effort and possibly your own money into it. You don’t need a ton of cash to get started, but potential investors will want to see that you’re invested before they will. I had to sacrifice the security of a corporate job, my own cash, and a lot of time & effort to build what I have.
3 . Consistency comes after the first two. Daily action leads to results. Whether that is posting on social media, reaching out to potential customers, or performing your core offering. Doing something every day is the only surefire way to know you’re progressing towards your goal.
4 . Then, be patient. The results don’t always come right away. In December of this past year, we didn’t have very many stages, but I stayed consistent with outreach and improving our processes and the next month, little changed. The month after that, little changed. The month after that we saw four times the results from the prior year and since then we’ve been at max capacity.
5 . Lastly, I would say very few businesses are successful all on their own. Find good partners, employees, and mentors. I am lucky to operate my business with my brother and sister-in-law, and we all have different strengths and weaknesses that balance each other out. On top of that we’ve hired people who can spend time on components of the business that we don’t have as much time to focus on.
What is one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur that you wish someone had given you at the start of your journey?
Being a young entrepreneur, you want things to go perfectly, but they surely won’t. You’ll make mistakes, things will happen that are out of your control, but you have to give yourself grace and keep moving forward towards your goal.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think the best thing we can do for humanity is spread positivity. There are so many great causes out there, people who are doing good and people that want to do good. A movement that brought light to the local/national/international efforts that are taking place would be great to hopefully inspire people to get involved and make a difference themselves.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Follow me on Instagram @affordablehomestagingspokane or find us at affordablehomestaginspokane.com.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Eden Gold, is a youth speaker, keynote speaker, founder of the online program Life After High School, and host of the Real Life Adulting Podcast. Being America’s rising force for positive change, Eden is a catalyst for change in shaping the future of education. With a lifelong mission of impacting the lives of 1 billion young adults, Eden serves as a practical guide, aiding young adults in honing their self-confidence, challenging societal conventions, and crafting a strategic roadmap towards the fulfilling lives they envision.
Do you need a dynamic speaker, or want to learn more about Eden’s programs? Click here: https://bit.ly/EdenGold.
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