When you build a business with the mindset to solve problems for customers and franchisees, you’re headed down the right path. We sit down with Alisa Sparks, Founder & CEO of Linden Creek to learn about her journey to transform a startup, solo business to a scalable, service-driven brand.
Transcript:
Jeff: Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing. We’re here to talk about marketing, and we’re also here to celebrate entrepreneurs by diving into their story. We learn a little more about what makes them tick. Today, we’re staging our home for a sale, or we’re considering a franchise opportunity in home staging. Either way, we’re excited to talk about Alisa Sparks today. She’s the founder and CEO of Linden Creek. Linden Creek is here for your interior design needs and home staging. The growth story is a good one. So if you’re ready, let’s bring on Lisa Sparks into the conversation.
Jeff: Hey, welcome back to the show. I am here with Alisa Sparks. She’s the founder and CEO of Linden Creek. Alisa, welcome to the program.
Alisa: Thanks so much for having me, Jeff. I’m excited to be here.
Jeff: Yeah, well, first, let’s give everybody a level set and tell everybody about what Linden Creek is. What is a Linden Creek? What’s going on here? What do you do? Tell everybody so that we’re all on the same page.
Alisa: Absolutely. So Linden Creek is a franchise that specializes in home staging and interior design. So started, you know, that cliche entrepreneurial story started out of my garage, built it into something beautiful. And now we’re really growing and expanding nationally. And in order to support those efforts have built out an e-commerce storefront so you can get access to our furniture, art and decor at any time. As well as a tech software platform to kind of help our franchisees be successful in their day to day.
Jeff: There’s so many things going on there. And if I could, let’s get to the backstory, because we do like to hear about the entrepreneurial journey. And this interview shouldn’t be any different because you mentioned that you started out of your garage. Before that, you were doing some cool stuff. You were doing like multi-million dollar military budgets and managing that. And then you made a pivot. Tell us about that evolution.
Alisa: My background is finance. I love numbers. I can geek out for hours in Excel. That really is my happy place. Before starting Glendon Creek, I spent nearly a decade managing multi-million dollar budgets for the Navy and the Marine Corps. I loved that experience. Clearly, the logical decision was then to jump into interior design. Obviously, there’s a clear path, A to B. Very, very clear path. No, the reality was I loved being creative. I loved creating beautiful spaces.
And so in my evenings and weekends, when I was managing budgets, I was renovating houses. I was building furniture. I would do anything I could to sort of fulfill that creative itch behind the scenes. And then one day hit this moment of realizing maybe I wanted to build something of my own. I was terrified to make the jump. And so I figured, let me keep my really safe full-time job. I use my PTO on Fridays and go knock doors, hire a nanny for Friday, use my PTO, and get in front of as many real estate agents and builders as I could to really provide proof of concept. Can this work? Is there a market out here for staging services? And I thought maybe if I’m lucky in like 12 months, I could quit my full-time job. And unbeknownst to me, in about four months, we were growing so quickly that I had to quit, was hiring my first team member, and we were off to the races.
Jeff: Man, outstanding. And so it started from garage, and then you get, like, how quickly was it when you got the point where you’re like scale this thing, I need to expand?
Alisa: So what’s really interesting is about a year into the business, I found myself as a single mom of two little girls that were four and five at the time. And so my focus was always just I need to be in the carpool lane to pick them up from carpool at 2.30 every day. And I thought at the time, like, this is a real disadvantage to building a growing business is having to be in carpool at 2.30. But what it forced me to do was actually to hire somebody to take my 2.30 to 5 p.m. client interactions on the regular.
So every time I started to get busy and I would worry that it would interfere with that time, I’d hire somebody, I’d train them, I’d teach them how to do it. Because of that, I scaled very quickly, not on purpose, really out of survival. And I found myself about five years into the business, looking back and realizing that I had done such a good job of hiring and training that I had actually accidentally worked myself out of a job, which was never the goal. But my team had it. They were running the day to day. My clients were happy. My team was happy and no one needed me.
And so it was that moment of what do I do with my free time now? I love working. I love building. I love growing. I love investing in people. And so as I was really sitting and reflecting and sort of having this like midlife crisis of like, oh, shoot, I accidentally don’t have anything to do, I was getting messages from other interior designers, messages from other home stagers asking me questions about how do we handle price objections? How do we store hundreds of mattresses or art pieces in a warehouse in a way that they stay clean and they don’t get damaged? And I realized we had really found processes and systems to each of these things.
And so then it became this conversation of how do I take the playbooks, if you will, that we’ve created internally and share them with other people so that they can create this career that I was able to enjoy and love. And that’s really what brought on the idea of franchising.
Jeff: Man, that says a lot about the hiring and training process. I love that story of growth and how you’re able to build this business around everything else that’s important to you. So making life easier for people in that franchise world, right? What else can you tell me about those pieces? Because you mentioned technology and areas that are not, if I may, spreadsheet related.
Alisa: That’s exactly right. Well, I think one of the things that helped me at Landon Creek when I first started it was the fact that everything I looked at, I looked at with a spreadsheet. So yes, there’s this creative element, but the math side of my brain created systems around design.
So when we started to franchise, the big question is, can you even franchise a creative space? The concept around franchising is this beautiful plug and play system. So how do you take a creative world and build frameworks around it? But we found we were really already doing that. When you’d walk into a room, you measure the size of your rug. If it’s a nine by 12, there are three different floor plans you can use. And then you just pick the coffee table and the sofas. All of them are versatile and neutral. They play together and you can’t really screw it up.
As we started scaling, we realized there were some unique challenges, one of them being styling accessories—pillows, vases, coffee table pieces. That’s probably the hardest part of interior design is understanding scale and size. So we said we have to find a solution. And that’s what birthed the Linden Creek shop. We now offer completed sets. So rather than a franchisee needing to figure out how a vase plays with a bowl and the beads, they buy the entire coffee table set, put it on, and it’s done. It’s plug and play.
A lot of what we’ve created is to simplify and streamline the creative processes, take the guesswork out, and allow our franchisees to be more efficient with their time and focus on being business owners more than being designers.
Jeff: That takes the guesswork out. That’s outstanding. Tell me about the growth here, though, because you posted recently on LinkedIn about realizing you’re not building the business you imagined—you’re building the business you’re now equipped to lead. Could we talk about that?
Alisa: Yeah, you are absolutely right. If you had asked me when I started Lending Creek eight years ago what my goal was, I would have told you home staging and interior design. Maybe even Airbnbs. We learned Airbnbs are a no-go. At least not for our world consistently.
But there’s something important about recognizing a need and building your business around solving problems rather than “I have this cool idea.” When I had that moment of panic—worked myself out of a job—it wasn’t “I have a great idea.” It was hearing problems from our community saying, “We can’t figure this out.” So we solved it and built our technology company. It wasn’t “cool tech platform idea.” It was seeing how many dollars it cost in labor and time because we were missing efficiencies. So let’s solve that problem.
As a business owner, you think, “This is who we are and what it’s going to be.” We’re taught 10-year goals. That’s good. But there is an evolution, and our world is ever changing. The way AI plays into things today is vastly different than 10 years ago. There’s no way to know the true need for your customer until you’re living in it. One of the best blessings was feeling the pain—because if I’m feeling it, someone else is too—then my job is to solve it. That’s what allows you to evolve and truly serve your customer the right way.
Jeff: Serve your customer the right way. If you start with “here’s a problem people have and I’m going to solve it,” you can’t ask for more. Tell me what’s next for Linden Creek. Where do you go from here?
Alisa: Today Linden Creek has 20 locations across the East Coast. We span as far west as Texas right now. Our goal is to bring Linden Creek across the country. We really only play nicely in luxury markets—top tier communities—so there are only so many markets that make sense. We’ll always be a boutique franchise, a close-knit community. The next few years are about continuing to build and grow that community and helping each franchise owner develop their locations as we become a national brand.
Jeff: Outstanding. Where was the original garage?
Alisa: Raleigh, North Carolina. My UPS drivers knew me by name. I was always in the garage assembling furniture. Lots of questions were asked. But I don’t take those humble beginnings for granted at all.
Jeff: If it’s okay with you, I’ll take you into the lightning round. Are you ready for that?
Alisa: Sure.
Jeff: There are no rules in the lightning round. I’m going to start out with one about scent marketing. Scent marketing is one of those big growth areas. In your world, the old saying is it should smell like freshly baked cookies if you want to sell your home. Can you talk about how scent plays into your world?
Alisa: Absolutely. Scent is wildly popular and powerful. In the staging world specifically, we’re taught to never have a scent. Because if you have a scent—say a vanilla candle—10 different people will have 10 different experiences with it. We don’t all smell the same scent the same way. In order to avoid somebody feeling repulsed when they walk into a home, they say avoid all scents. That’s the most versatile approach for selling homes. Now, if you live in your home fully embraced, whatever smell is your favorite, your kids will appreciate it for the long haul. But if you’re going to stage your home and try to sell it, no scents at all.
Jeff: That is great advice. I’m hoping to get at what makes you tick personally. How do you celebrate a big win?
Alisa: Very candidly, I’m horrible at this. One of my team members told me yesterday, “Alisa, we accomplished so much in 2025. Have you stopped to think about it?” And I realized it hadn’t crossed my mind. I see everything we need to do in 2026. This is not one of my strengths, but I recognize the importance for my team, so we intentionally carve out opportunities to share wins so everybody else hears it and sees it. Entrepreneurs forget to stop and celebrate—they’re busy tackling the next challenge. So very candidly, this is not one of my strengths.
Jeff: You strike a balance between being driven but recognizing celebration matters for the team. Let’s imagine you’re watching TV. Is there a movie you always stop on?
Alisa: Less movies. I’m a total nerd at heart. Give me a documentary or a crime scene murder, I’m a sucker for one of those. If somebody is getting murdered and I have to solve it over the two-hour movie, I’m hooked.
Jeff: We talk about success and failure. Do you have a favorite client success story?
Alisa: My favorite client success story was the very first interior design project I completed. Behind the scenes, design projects are a lot of work—sourcing, tracking packages, damaged goods, timelines sliding. There’s real sweat equity before the HGTV moment. My first HGTV moment was for a sweet mom of two twin boys and a husband. She walked in, saw the finished product, and she started to cry—happy tears. She said, “You don’t understand the impact this has on my life. We feel like we’re living in chaos, and for the first time ever, I feel peace.”
That moment completely changed my reason why. We went from “I love decorating and designing” to “I love impacting lives.” When you realize the impact you have on others, it’s a different kind of fuel.
Jeff: That’s a pull quote. We’ve talked success—what about failure? A lesson learned?
Alisa: So many. Biggest lessons learned are around hiring. Finding the right team takes time and patience. You can use all the strategies you want, but finding somebody with the drive, work ethic, and culture fit—and the skills to bring your company to the next level—is not easy. It’s like dating apps—you don’t find your perfect person on the first yes.
So we take an approach of the first 90 days being a trial period. Do you like us? Do we like you? Is it the right fit? Proactively giving that grace period so 90 days in you can deepen roots and do something incredible together.
Jeff: There’s only so much you learn in interviews. That’s a great lesson. I’m going to take you out of the lightning round. You crushed it. Tell people where they can find you.
Alisa: You can find me on LinkedIn at Alisa Sparks. I’m on there on the regular. Start a conversation with me. Would love to connect. Otherwise, everything we’re doing at Linden Creek is at linden-creek.com.
Jeff: Alisa Sparks, founder and CEO of Linden Creek. Thanks for being with us.
Alisa: So much for having me, Jeff.
Jeff: And that is our show. Thanks so much to our friend, Alisa Sparks, for joining us today. And thank you for listening to the Small Business Miracles podcast. Remember to subscribe and leave us a five-star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at E-A-G-A-D-V.com if you have any thoughts. Until then, we’ll be out here helping an entrepreneur with another small business miracle.