Today we’d like to introduce you to Tammera Hollerich.
Tammera, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
It all started one day when I got fired from Dairy Queen when I was 16, I realized that I was never going to quite cut it as an employee and I better figure out what I was going to be when I grew up and still make money. So, after a failed marriage and a couple of meaningless dead-end jobs it was time to grow up. I ended up in the Insurance industry as an agent and believe me when I say “No one picks insurance….it picks you!”
That is exactly what happened to me but, I really found a way to help people. It is a complex and complicated industry and I was really good explaining it and relating to people. However, I am not a mediocre kind of girl and it insurance had become easy for me & I got bored. Let me be the first to tell you Insurance wasn’t much FUN and I needed fun so balloons looked like fun and I went for it…. as a hobby in 2003 but when the hobby started costing me money my entrepreneurial brain kicked in and I started treating like a business and I started getting paid like it was a business, imagine that! As you can see the groundwork for a parent company was being laid even at that point. Then, in 2006 one of my insurance clients, a large employer was having some claims issues and needed some help managing the financial risk associated with prescriptions. I knew that most of the issues the employees were having were directly related to the lack of knowledge on food, SOOOO….. The brain kicked in again and I saw way to help in a way that was much bigger than myself. Nutrition and fitness have always been a real passion and giving back to the community was just a way to fill my heart and change the world. After helping the clients’ employees lose 438 lbs. of fat in 12 week with just 18 employees participating, the word starting spreading and before I knew it the FWISD was calling asking if I could help their employees. I began writing a full nutrition curriculum that would be easy and scientifically backed, and that pretty much put Healthy Lifestyle Secrets on the map. Now Mirus3, the parent company that today includes three successful enterprises: Affairs Afloat Balloons, Healthy Lifestyle Secrets, and Insurance Benefits Team. I am extremely proud to say that Mirus is Latin for “extraordinary” which we embrace with our whole heart and the 3 represents the number of subsidiaries.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No business has a smooth road, and if they tell you they do, they are lying. Every day is a challenge, if not a hard business decision that has to be made, revenue that needs to be generated, employees calling in sick or just the devil swimming in your sea, there is ALWAYS a challenge in your day. But what keeps me grounded is the saying that hangs above my desk…. ‘If it doesn’t challenge you it doesn’t change you!” See, I have learned that I thrive in a challenging environment and that change is a GREAT thing as it is always improving who you are and those around you if you use your influence to grow them as well.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
“We do everything extraordinary,” the Mirus3 philosophy. “If we can’t do it with excellence, we learn how to make necessary improvements. That applies to our products and services, the way we make customers feel loved, and the efficient use of time and resources.
“We want all our customers to feel they get the trademark extraordinary service we’re known for,” “We want them to know they’re important to us. If they have questions about insurance or health and wellness, we don’t just answer them – we teach them, giving them the why behind the how. If they order balloons, we create the biggest WOW possible.”
The first of the Mirus3 companies, Insurance Benefits Team – branded “Education Is Your Solution” – provides health and life insurance as well as consulting to individuals and businesses. With all the recent changes to health insurance, education is invaluable, I try to explain the complex sometimes very political industry so that the conversation is a positive one not the negative one that most often surrounds the word insurance. “Happiness Rocks”, and that is our tag line.
Healthy Lifestyle Secrets started as a value-added service to the IBT Consulting company, and is an on-site corporate wellness and weight-management program, providing personalized nutritional plans for maximum health. The company offers community-based classes all over the DFW Metroplex and Waco and now Austin. It is what you should have learned when you were 13 and you didn’t!
As a way to market the insurance company, I created Affairs Afloat Balloons in 2003 but, the more arrangements I delivered, the more people requested them. By 2009, I had to move the business out of the insurance office to a larger building. Today, the balloon company has four full-time and two part-time employees and keeps four delivery vans on the road. Affairs Afloat Balloons is a partner with the Fort Worth Convention and Visitor’s Bureau for event decorations and a founding member of Balloon Planet, the FTD of the balloon industry. That means the company literally delivers balloons worldwide.
I am most proud of the fact that this year not one but two of the entities, Healthy Lifestyle Secrets & Affairs Afloat Balloons were nominated for Tarrant Area Small Business of the year and both of them have landed as two of the three finalist!
After that the fact that all three of the companies are start-up companies I never had to take out a business loan. It was sometimes difficult but not having that debt over my head is sure nice now.
What were you like growing up?
I was a real handful, just ask my mom! No never really had a place in my life. I had no fear and pretty much spoke my mind, and as I might add sometimes that got me into some hot water. Like the time I got fired from Dairy Queen. I was the first born of a family of four siblings so I was pretty much bossy, it works better today than it did back then. I am blessed to say that my parents are still married to each other and provided as best a stable home as you could while moving all the time because my dad was in the Air Force for 26 year. My mom was a teacher and always involved in our lives and I truly think that this is a big part of my success. I always knew I was loved and wanted no matter what our address was. I was able to spend time in a variety of cultures and was exposed to a very diverse group of people, always a good way to help make you well rounded and grounded. I was busy with school, sports and competitive swimming was my love, I did all the girlie things like dance class and gymnastics but to be honest I wasn’t that good! I really liked the water.
Pricing:
- Healthy Lifestyle Secrets Core class is 7 weeks, includes a personalized nutritional profile based on YOUR BMR not a gov’t suggested nutritional intake. Cost $375.00
- Affairs Afloat Balloons is customized to the event. We can do anything from $10-$10,000
Contact Info:
- Address: 8900 White Settlement Rd, Fort Worth TX 76108 & 4230 LBJ Freeway, Dallas TX 75244
- Website: www.Mirus3.com
- Phone: 817-367-7764
- Email: Tammera@Mirus3.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/mirus3/
- Twitter: Tammera00
- Other: www.aaballoon.com, www.healthylifestylesecrets.com, www.consultibt.com
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