2726 Tumwater, Walnut Creek, CA 94598

New listing in desirable neighborhood of Walnut Creek - Northgate.  5 bedroom, 2.5 bath, large living and formal dining room. Family room and breakfast nook look out onto beautiful backyard with in ground pool.  Lovely mature garden with blooming plants all year long.  New capret and paint throughout. French doors in the master look out to a private garden. Professional Staged by Kym Hough's Staged to Sell serving Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville and the entire Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. Visit our website at www.Staged-to-Sell.com.

Amber Arias the Resident Expert Stager of Livermore, CA

This morning Terrylynn Fisher, Diablo Realty and I had the pleasure of getting up bright and early to attend the Livermore Marketing Meeting as the guest of Amber Arias of Vision HomeStaging and Design.  Amber was asked to sit on a panel of experts for the marketing meeting to discuss the benefits of Professional Staging in today's market.

The event is held at the weekly marketing meeting at a restaurant in downtown Livermore. It was a lively group of Realtors and other industry professionals who meet once a week meet to discuss the current market conditions and to tour listings in the area.  There is always an educational segment to the meeting and this week it was on Staging.

Amber was one of three professionals on the panel, but the only one that has the title of Professional Stager.  Amber opened the discussion with a multitude of industry statistics that she learned recently from the Bay Area Expo and from the RESA website that she uses to educate her clients. The room was filled with people taking notes and making comments of her discussion points.

There was also an interior designer who works with home builders who made some very good points on working with a team and making sure that the home is in top presentation form and targeting to a specific market.

Amber did the entire industry proud and was busy talking to numerous Realtors after the meeting adjourned.  It's exciting to see how Amber continues to raise the bar of our industry. She is constantly honing her skills and abilities to meet the market and her client's needs.

Good job AMBER!

Kym Hough, Staged to Sell, Inc. & www.StagersLIST.com

2834 Aptos Way, San Ramon $699,000 - SALE PENDING IN ONE DAY

A beautiful new home is available on Aptos Way in San Ramon, CA.  The finish work is amazing! Viking appilances, hardwood floors, custom cabinetry and unique lighting.  Completely remodeled. Beautifully landscaped front and back. Professionally Staged by Kym Hough's Staged to Sell serving San Ramon, Danville, Walnut Creek and the entire Contra Costa and Alameda County. www.Staged-to-Sell.com & www.StagersLIST.com

Marketing Your Business Daily

StagersLIST.com and Welcome Home Furniture held the 1st Annual Bay Area Stager Expo last week to rave reviews http://activerain.com/blogsview/601333/1-Plus-Stagers-3

I was fortunate enough to be one of three speakers presenting a variety of topics. My topic was Marketing Your Business Daily.  There were three reasons why I selected this topic to speak about:

1. I have been a consumer marketer for the past 25 years for large corporations and small companies and am considered an expert in my field.

2. I wanted to share the reasoning behind creating the tag line "It's All About the Packaging" and coining the phrase "I am still in marketing, Staging is a marketing tool, I am now simply marketing the biggest consumer product there is and instead of a shelf in a store it's on a street in a neighborhood."  I created these marketing phrases to help set myself and company apart 6 years ago and they have worked beautifully for me, so I continue using them.

3. Most stagers who come to me for help with their business do not have a marketing background and don't really know what marketing tools to use to help their specific business.

I started my talk with the classic ways to market i.e. newsletters (Melissa Marro is queen of Newsletter marketing), gratitude marketing (Aloha Staging has one of my favorite gifts with their hula girls leave behinds), and mailings (postcards, magazines, and fliers). When I asked for a show of hands for the staging professionals in the audience that used 2 or more of these marketing tools, out of 100+ professionals barely 20 held up their hands!

I continued on talking about mixing classic marketing with one of the most important marketing tools that has ever come to a marketer's doorstep. The World Wide Web, of course! There are many ways to use this vehicle to help obtain business for a Professional Stager, but I shared three of my favorites:

      - Dynamic company website - Clean, clutter free, fresh and always changing. Dynamic means that new content is added often that will be of interest to clients and support our business model and product.  I asked for a show of hands on how many people keep their websites updated weekly or at least monthly - the turnout wasn't very good and I even went and checked on one local stager's website that had raised her hand to see what changes she had made.  I noted just one change in the past two years! Ugh!

       - Virtual Consignment Shop - I love this marketing tool. I have my very own virtual consignment shop on www.StagersLIST.com. The cute button is on the front of my home page of my website and my click through rate has been amazing. I also use it in my listing presentations with clients to round out my full service offerings. It gives me yet another place on the web to attract clients.

     - Blogging, of course! Active Rain is always mentioned in my presentations as an important tool in my marketing efforts. I have gained many many listings from this vehicle and I love it and its FREE! What could be better?  I now have an outside blog too that is hooked up with my website which gives me even more exposure.

The key is that you must market your business daily. It doesn't have to be expensive. There are many tools out there that are offered at just pennies a day or FREE. It takes a little time and effort and you are up and running and increasing your business in no time. If you don't know how to begin, find someone that does and get going.

I always say, if You are NOT Marketing Your Business Daily, You SOON will be Out of Business!

Kym Hough

www.Staged-to-Sell.com & StagersLIST.com

Being Sensitive to Teenagers and their Rooms

A teenager's room with lots of personality and clutter...not a perfect scenario for market.  How do you keep the essences of the room, but prepare it for market? Hire a Professional Stager, of course!

Before Staged to Sell

After Staged to Sell

Still full of personality, but open, airy and light for selling!

Professionally Staged homes by Kym Hough's Staged to Sell serving the East Bay of Northern California. Check out our virtual consigment shop at www.StagersLIST.com

100 Plus Stagers - 3 Speakers - 18 Vendors - SUCCESS, SUCCESS, SUCCESS

StagersLIST.com and Welcome Home Furniture Rental created the first annual Bay Area Stager Expo held this past Thursday in Dublin, California at Welcome Home's warehouse.  From all accounts it was a huge success and we are thankful for all of the A/R members that came from far and wide to participate, learn and have some fun! We had Professional Stagers from all designations including CSP, ASP, IRIS, Naked Stagers and more come together to learn about moving their businesses forward.

Christine Rae, CSP President was the key note speaker who travelled from Canada to speak about trends in the design and staging world. Christine is also the author of the book that Linda Barnett worked as technical editor on Home Staging for Dummies.

I presented a talk on Marketing Your business Daily and Terrylynn Fisher, Diablo Realtor, spoke about Realtors need today from their Staging Professional.

Professionals that help make up our full service staging teams had booths and discussed their benefits and service throughout the day. Some of those professionals included Brian Rogan, CCC Carpets - who gave a fabulous harmonica performance as a bonus

 Got Junk? and PODS - both brought in huge displays that made quite an impression. RESA had a booth staffed by Shell Brodnax who also gave a talk on the benefits of RESA membership the only true trade association for our industry. We had over 18 vendors and sponsor attend our event and we could not have done it without them!

Donna Lynch & Amy Box Welcome Home Furniture              Shell Brodnax, RESA

Christine Rae, Certified Staging Professional & Amber Arias, Vision HomeStaging & Design

The same speakers travelled to the EXPO Daily in Sacramento on Friday to do it all over again. Lori Kim Polk, Artful Journey Designs and Staging organized the event with Welcome Home Furniture of Sacramento.  The entire group was very impressed with the EXPO Daily facilities. Beautiful and perfect for the full service stager who needs to have a full list of service professionals at their figure tips.

Valesca Bogard, Welcome Home Furniture, Sacramento

A/R's very own Michelle Minch, Moving Mountanis Design and Staging flew up from Los Angeles to attend the Sacramento Expo and we had the opportunity to have dinner and make plans for a Los Angeles Expo in the near future!

Ronelle Schroeder-Hill ~Oomph! Home Staging & Redesign, Michelle and Joe Kaspari of Essential Staging, and Lisa Bozaich, Act I & Act II, Dramatic Staging traveled to BOTH EXPO DAYS! Oh my the power of Active Rain!

Sometimes when we are done and look back at the befores EVEN WE ARE AMAZED!

A lovely client who is going on to marry the man of her dreams and meshing their two families which are full of teenagers. They needed to sell and move in together. They are getting married this weekend and are looking forward to moving on. We hope we helped them do just that! PS the coke machine in the boys room really works. We filled it with classic coke and plugged it in and told the Realtor to give it to brokers during her tour if she likes. Since this is close to my house I will go back and fill it up for her a couple of times. She loved that! The machine was purchased off of www.StagersLIST.com for $20.00! It's so cool.

                   BEFORE STAGED TO SELL                SAME ROOM AFTER STAGED TO SELL

Kym Hough's Staged to Sell serving Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. We have a 4,000 square foot warehouse to ensure we have just the right furnishings for your property. For more information visit us at www.staged-to-sell.com.  Visit our virtual consigment store at www.StagersLIST.com.

531 Mission Place, Danville

Lovely single family home, 3 bedrooms/2 bath. Wood floors throughout. New kitchen and windows.  Large back yard. Bright and sunny home in desirable Danville, California. Priced to sell. Great first home. Professionally staged by Kym Hough's Staged to Sell serving Danville, San Ramon, Walnut Creek and the entire Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. For more information visit us at www.staged-to-sell.com

The results of our blog on Trial and Error - a very happy ending

I was pleased to give updates on my blog Trail and Error.

If you haven't been following the saga the following links are in order

 http://activerain.com/blogsview/559860/Trial-and-Error-UpDATED 

http://www.activerain.com/blogsview/569534/Fabulous-Follow-up-on

about the homeowner's who ended up firing the hobby stager due to lack of quality inventory, length of time it was taking to stage, and a few other unprofessional techniques. The Realtor called us in a bit of a panic when the homeowners decided to hire Staged to Sell instead. She was worried we would not be able to fit the project in at the late date. But, of course, we did.

They hired Staged to Sell for our reputation, professionalism and quality.

We'll fast forward one and a half weeks.

I received a call today from the Realtor.

FIVE OFFERS

ONE IN ESCROW

ONE AS A BACK UP OFFER

AND BOTH OFFERS ARE STRONG!

Don't gamble with your equity hire the right Professional Staging Company. You get what you pay for.

What type of customers are you looking for?

Whenever I ask a stager that question I get the funniest look...

"What do you mean what kind of customer?... A paying one of course!"

We'll that goes without saying. We all want customers who;

1. Don't argue about the price

2. Pay the deposit on time and have the remainder waiting for us on staging day

3. Their check or credit card goes through on the first try and if they have to extend their contract they pay before the date its due.

But that is not what I am talking about.  What kind of customer are you looking for...If you don't look for a certain kind of customer you are bound to be spending time and money on the wrong ones.

But how do you get those customers you want and make sure you don't waste time on ones that you don't?

I used a technique that worked well for me during my single years when I was deciding on a mate. I made a list of what the perfect guy for me was...intelligent, creative, funny, sexy, handsome and interesting. My husband Graham fit the list so well I figured this method might work for me in other ways. So I use the same method with my client criteria; I make a list.

What kind of Realtor customer do I want? Honest, professional, reliable, loyal, timely, respectful, a good partner, credible, ethical and FUN! That's my ideal Realtor client.

What kind of Homeowner customer do I want? Honest, sincere, reliable, true to their word, communicative, respectful, appreciative and FUN! That's my ideal homeowner client.

Are you attracting a different kind of customer? Maybe you have different criteria. Whatever is the case, make sure you have a list and search out the kind of customers you really want. Don't waste your time on the ones that don't fit your list.  They usually soak up all your time and cost you money.  We all like to associate people that have the same standards and ethics as we do. It should be no different with our clients. Target Market - but make sure you know what target you are looking for.

At www.Staged-to-Sell.com we are so fortunate to have incredible Realtor and Homeowner clients and I appreciate every single one of them!

Attract those great clients. Write down what you are looking for and go get them! 

Kym Hough's Staged to Sell serves Contra Costa and Alameda Counties in Northern California.  Kym is also co-owner of  www.StagersLIST.com where she has her own Virtual Consigment Shop.