Community Highlights: Meet Marty Stevens-Heebner of AgeWise Alliance and Clear Home Solutions

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marty Stevens-Heebner.

Hi Marty, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’d already run a couple of businesses of my own, including Rebagz, an eco-friendly handbag line that was named California Small Business of the Year in 2009. Whenever I needed business advice, I called my dad. He had a Harvard business degree and no shortage of opinions.

As Dad moved into his late 80s, he became the one who needed help. He was in Buffalo, and I was two thousand miles away in Los Angeles. His body slowly deteriorated, though his mind stayed sharp to the end, sometimes to my chagrin.

I flew back and forth a lot. Between Dad, who made it to 90, and my 88-year-old aunt with dementia, I got a crash course in how confusing and emotional later life can be for the whole family. I also learned how much it helps to have someone in your corner who knows the way, someone a parent will actually listen to. In 2013, I launched Clear Home Solutions to be that for other families.

Here’s what I tell every family: moving stinks at any age. I call it the emotional flu of moving. You feel achy and tired, and nothing feels right. Our job is to be the emotional cough syrup that gets you through it. We help older adults and families downsize, move, clear out estates, and set up homes so people can age in place. And we love listening to people’s stories as we help them sort through their treasures.

I put what I’d learned into a book, How to Move Your Parents (and still be on speaking terms), so yes, I literally wrote the book on it. I also hosted a podcast, How to Move Your Mom (and still be on speaking terms afterward), with in-depth conversations with professionals, older adults and their families about everything later life brings. I was the country’s first Certified Senior Move Manager, and I spent four years as president of the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers, working to make our industry stronger.

This fall, I launched AgeWise Alliance, my second company to come out of those years with Dad. Our culture completely ignores later life, so nobody learns how to handle it. AgeWise Alliance helps families figure out what to do, what to ask, and who to call, so they don’t have to make every decision from a hospital hallway. It’s also home to my new podcast, Designated Adult, for the one person in every family who ends up holding it all together.

I’ve also done humanitarian work in Chiapas, Mexico, after the Zapatista Rebellion, and I’ve traveled to every continent (and yes, that includes Antarctica). Along the way, I saw how other cultures, especially in Mexico, embrace later life far more than we do. They treat it as one of the most important eras in a person’s life, and in the life of the whole family.

That’s how I came to see my time with Dad at the end of his life. It was one of the most important eras in his life, and in mine. Thirteen years later, I’m still doing this work, and I’ve never once wanted to leave it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Let’s start with COVID. My whole business depends on going into older adults’ homes, and suddenly older adults were the people most at risk. We were the first local company in our industry to put COVID safety procedures in place, and we kept helping families who couldn’t wait.

When I launched Clear Home Solutions, nobody knew what a senior move manager does, and most people still don’t. And it’s not just us. Ask most families what a geriatric care manager does, or what a fiduciary is, and you’ll get a blank stare – usually from someone who desperately needs one. That gap gave me the first idea for AgeWise Alliance.

Building AgeWise Alliance has been its own adventure. I’m not a coder or developer. I hired developers and spent tens of thousands of dollars, and I still didn’t have what families needed. While there are certainly downsides to using A.I., it saved this venture. Working with Claude, I rebuilt the entire platform from scratch, and AgeWise Alliance is now out there guiding families through their later life issues.

We’ve been impressed with AgeWise Alliance and Clear Home Solutions, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I built AgeWise Alliance for families who suddenly find themselves in charge of a parent’s care and have no idea where to start.

Picture a 92-year-old woman with five sons, 32 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Everyone loves her. Everyone’s helping. And there are eight boxes of her favorite cereal in the pantry, because each of them thought she needed one. Nobody in that family is doing anything wrong. They just can’t see the whole picture.

That’s what our Family Forum is for. It’s a private online space where your family coordinates care together: one calendar everyone can see, message threads by topic, big decisions broken into next steps with a name next to each one, emergency contacts, and the files nobody can ever find, like the insurance card and the power of attorney. The AgeWise Guide is for the questions that keep you up at 2am. You type what’s happening in your own words, and it helps you figure out your next step and what kind of professional can help. When you’re ready for that help, our Circle of Professionals connects you with vetted experts, and our glossary explains more than 80 kinds of later-life services.

AgeWise Alliance was inspired by more than a decade of work with Clear Home Solutions, my senior move management company. We help older adults and families across Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties with downsizing, moves, estate clear-outs, and setting up homes so people can age safely in place. We were the first nationally accredited company in our industry in the LA area. Year after year, I watched families struggle with the same questions: what to do, what to ask, and who to call. I built AgeWise Alliance to answer them.

What I’m proudest of is what happens to the daughter in the middle of it all. She has a spreadsheet, a stack of Post-it notes, a sibling with plenty of opinions who never calls the doctor, and a voice in her head at 3am saying, “I just don’t want to mess this up.” When her whole family understands the weight she’s carrying, they take on some of that burden and she can sleep again. Families invite us in at one of the hardest moments of their lives and trust us to guide them through it. That’s an honor I don’t ever get used to.

If you’re the one holding it all together for your family, you don’t have to do it alone.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
First, ask for help, sooner than you think you need it. I tell caregivers this all the time, and it’s just as true for business owners. Nobody trains you for what you’re going through, and every situation is different. Asking for help is how you get through it.

That goes double for the people who help you every day. Be really good to your employees. They’re your colleagues. Say please and thank you, and compliment people when they do a great job. In our culture, it’s too easy to stay quiet until something goes wrong. But if you want happy clients who keep coming back, make sure the people working with you feel appreciated and care about their work.

Then there’s the money. Know your financials and stay on top of them. Check them every week, if not more often, so you always understand your margins.

Above all, don’t back away from the truth. Go there. People can tell when you’re dancing around something, and being honest and kind at the same time is the whole job.

What do I wish I’d known? I’d already run a couple of small solo businesses, so I thought I knew what I was in for. But nothing prepares you for always being on call. People tell me, “You’re so lucky to be a business owner. You can make your own hours.” And I say, “Yes, 24/7, I make my own hours.” Being a business owner is all-consuming. It’s also wonderful, and I wouldn’t trade having my own company. Just know that the buck always stops with you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.agewisealliance.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agewisealliance/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agewisealliance
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martystevensheebner/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@clearhomesolutions9876
• Other: https://www.clearhomesolutions.com/