home staging business: Are Home Stagers Born With Decorating Talent?
- 09/12/11 01:07 PM
I’ve been addicted to decorating since I was a kid. I remember insisting that my room be painted a deep turquoise, and my rattan headboard white, because I could totally picture how one would stand out against the other and compliment the pale creamy-yellow duvet. At the risk of revealing my age, I’ll admit it was the 1960s. Even now I can see that decorating scheme in my mind’s eye, and it still looks cool.
As a teen, I painted murals on my bedroom wall and also the high school cafeteria. In my first marketing coup and “payment” for my creative … (8 comments)
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home staging business: Home Stagers Is Bargain Hunting Putting You Out of Business?
- 07/26/11 05:16 AM
When you're a professional home stager, it's important to try and do the best home staging job for your clients. Unfortuntately, too many home stagers get so caught up in trying to save their clients some money that they are slowly putting themselves out of business without realizing it.
Here's an example to show you what I mean.
I've heard many home stagers discuss on Facebook and elsewhere, how they've gone on Craig's list, run around from store to store, or visited a garage/estate sale multiple times, trying to scoop up the best bargain on home staging accessories for their clients. … (15 comments)
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home staging business: Why Real Estate Agents Discourage Home Stagers
- 06/27/11 07:14 AM
If you’re looking for the best way to talk yourself out of becoming a home stager, immediately get on the phone and call a dozen real estate agents in your market. After a few “No one will ever pay for it around here” or “It will never work in this market” or “There’s no need for staging, if a house is priced right it will sell” responses you’ll be almost embarrassed with yourself for ever thinking up such a silly idea.
If I listened to everyone who told me home staging wouldn’t work in my city 9 years ago, there would … (31 comments)
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home staging business: Home Stager Rejection: It's not always personal
- 04/30/11 08:30 AM
Even though I've been staging homes since 2002 and I'm well known, not everyone who calls me to discuss their staging project actually hires me. This is a reality of the business and one that you can't take personally. I know it is hard not to take this as a personal rejection, especially when the potential home staging client sounds so interested at first.
Here's the scenario. The potential client calls and says they're interested in hiring a home stager. You've felt like they really connected with you on the phone, they sounded excited about your services and then at the … (8 comments)
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home staging business: Would having 4 more hands help?
- 12/15/10 01:39 PM
We live in a culture that celebrates multi-tasking as if it’s really possible to do 3 things at once, and therefore magically squeeze an extra 24 hours into our working day. Many studies have shown that this isn’t possible though.
The human brain can’t simultaneously engage in more than one activity that requires real thinking and processing.
If you’ve ever tried to read an email while talking on the phone, you know that you are either doing one or the other at any given moment. And in all likelihood, the client you were speaking with was very aware that you weren’t … (2 comments)
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home staging business: How do you deal with distracted clients who suck your time and energy?
- 08/30/10 12:30 PM
It has happened to me more times than I can count in the 8 years I’ve been staging homes. I walk into a home and I am greeted by someone with a phone to their ear, smiling and gesturing for me to come in while they finish up the first of many calls they will take during our home staging consultation.
Just as we start to make some headway, we’re interrupted by yet another ringing phone or a barking dog, or a child screaming for a snack or because her big brother pulled her hair.
The Distracted Client, can make … (10 comments)
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home staging business: Home Stagers, do you accept credit cards?
- 11/12/09 02:04 AM
I'm often asked by home staging professionals whether they should just accept checks, cash or take credit cards too. The ability to accept credit card payments is appealing to home stagers, especially since the amounts you’re getting paid are usually quite high (assuming you're not one of those bargain basement stagers who fly in and out of this business within 3 to 6 months).
Setting up a merchant account, however, is very expensive. Not only do you have to pay a large sum to the bank just to apply for and then set up the account, you also have to pay … (12 comments)
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home staging business: Stagers: Working For Free Doesn't Belong on Your Menu of Services
- 03/08/09 12:09 PM
I'm committed to ending this practice of free home staging because it lowers the perceived value of a stager's expertise and does a disservice to all of us.
My students don't stage homes for free "just to get their business started," they get paid for their time and expertise because they are providing a valuable service and should be compensated for it.
I know many new home stagers, afraid that they can't get their first client, will disagree with me. But hear me out for a moment:Picture this ... there's a new restaurant...
The chef's on the sidewalk, saying "come in … (21 comments)
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home staging business: Beating Back Bad Economic News
- 03/03/09 06:02 AM
One trait that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is the ability to look at change with an eye to opportunity, and Americans in general are good at this.
At the end of 2008, an international survey by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research studied the impact of the global financial crisis on 17 different countries.
The study revealed that Americans, despite the overwhelming tide of negative indicators, are among the most positive in the world when asked about their economic prospects, ranking well above Canada even though the Canadian economy is stronger right now.
The most pessimistic nations were … (45 comments)
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home staging business: Desperate Sales Tactics Echo Glengarry Glen Ross
- 02/24/09 05:24 AM
I wrote a blog post recently called The Stench of Desperation which attracted some excellent examples from readers of desperate marketing efforts they've seen that don't really help build business and may in fact make you look so desperate people won't hire you.
For example, Diana Young wrote about an agent who advertised fortune telling and tarot card reading for agents who attended her broker's open house! Wow, and here I thought the important thing about getting brokers into a house was for them to actually look at it and perhaps recommend it to appropriate clients!
Yesterday I actually got a … (5 comments)
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home staging business: Beware of Home Staging Guarantees
- 02/16/09 09:26 AM
Staging Diva Graduate Nicole Hurst of Cole House Design, ignited quite a discussion about stagers providing guarantees of a house sale when they stage a home for a client. Reading the comments, I was shocked to see that some home stagers actually provide this! Great for them if they're comfortable with it and if it's working for their business, but I question the business rationale for this.
In an uncertain world, I understand the desire to obtain a guarantee if you're a client about to part with your hard earned cash. And, I understand the home stager's impulse to want to … (20 comments)
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home staging business: Home Stagers: Is my inventory bigger than yours?
- 02/08/09 06:48 AM
Too many home stagers seem to measure their success by the size of their inventory. That's a bit like a car company measuring their success by the size of their workforce.
Both are an indicator of overhead, but not necessarily an indicator of profits.
Now I'm not trying to wade into the debate about how the auto industry might get out of the mess it is in. The point of my analogy is that if home stagers measure their business success by the size of their furniture rental inventory they may be in deeper financial trouble then they're prepared to admit … (26 comments)
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home staging business: Home Stagers: What's your favorite tool?
- 09/12/08 03:31 AM
Looking at the photo of me that's often used in the press, with the drill and tulips, you'd probably guess those are my favorite tools. Actually they come a close third and fourth. The most important staging tools a home stager has (other than their innate talent) is a measuring tape and paint swatch book.
Don't make the mistake of getting one of those small, light, easy to carry measuring tapes or those fancy new laser ones.
You need a good old fashioned contractors-grade tape measure. It's bulky and usual neon colored (so they can find it in the drywall dust … (12 comments)
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home staging business: Marketing Plans: Does Size Really Matter?
- 08/30/08 12:26 PM
I'm a firm believer in the old adage that "failing to plan is planning to fail," but I'm also not from the school of thought that believes you need a full-blown multi-page marketing plan to succeed, especially if you run your own business.
And I say this as someone with an MBA in Marketing who used to get paid many thousands of dollars to write marketing plans for companies.
I've been an entrepreneur since 1989 and I've always found that the longer the plan I write for myself, the less likely I am to follow it.
Part of why I've chosen … (34 comments)
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home staging business: The wrong pricing strategy can kill your home staging business
- 08/04/08 09:29 AM
The pricing structure you set up for your home staging services (and items you charge for), can either make or break your real estate staging business. It's great to follow your heart and make a business out of your creative talents, but if you’re doing something you love and not making money, it’s not a business – it’s a hobby.
Even if you’re the best home stager in your city, if you charge a flat rate for your services, you could end up broke faster than you think. In fact, you could be setting yourself up to kill a business that … (19 comments)
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home staging business: Staging Diva Debra Gould front page story on This Old House Magazine website
- 07/01/08 05:17 AM
This Old House Magazine's Senior Editor interviewed me for a feature story "House-Selling Secrets of a Home Stager" which will come out in the fall.
But today, they turned it into their front page story for their online magazine. The story includes 22 pages of before and after photos from my various staging projects with explanations of what I did, what staging cost, along with the sales results for the homeowner. Awesome proof that home staging works!
You never know how media interviews will turn out, so I'm very pleased they kept in my key message that home staging is critical … (15 comments)
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home staging business: How many home staging clients will you see in one week?
- 06/23/08 02:55 PM
I used to race around like a mad woman trying to fit 10 homes into a week, always afraid to put a client off who needed me and fearing if I didn't see them right away they'd disappear and find another stager.
Then I realized that if you're good at what you do and in demand, clients will actually wait for you to be available.
This realization allowed me to look at my business in a whole new way and think about what scheduling decisions would serve me too. After all, we're in our own businesses, we should try and set … (14 comments)
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home staging business: Home stagers: are you on the path to burn out and bankruptcy?
- 06/16/08 10:22 AM
When I ask many real estate agents today about the state of the market and its effect on their income, I often get an earful about tiny, intermittent commission checks and complaints of record breaking gas prices cutting into already bleak profits. Things aren’t great for many in the front lines selling real estate right now. However, if you’re a home stager, chances are you are building your real estate staging business with the help of the market’s downward spiral. In a buyer’s real estate market, the people prepared to make offers are pickier than ever. Homeowners are desperate to sell. … (8 comments)
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home staging business: House Hunting Is A Lot Like Speed Dating
- 05/01/08 01:58 AM
House hunting is a lot like "speed dating". You may have heard of this dating craze, whereby singles meet 20 or more potential mates in one evening by having 5 minute dates with each of them. The idea behind the phenomenon is that two people either have chemistry or they don't. Many of us look for a mate with a logical list of our personal criteria. But when the chemistry and emotional connection are right, who remembers logic? We follow our hearts.
If you've ever been house hunting, you can see the similarities. Your agent will take you to six or … (1 comments)
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home staging business: Staging Diva Radio appearance: Why home staging works and why homeowners need home stagers
- 04/17/08 04:46 AM
Morning show host Dale Johnson has tons of questions for me about what home staging is, why it works, and how to find a home stager.
He knows his radio audience wants to know, but he's also confided to me that he's selling his property and has already used some of my tips from stagingdiva.com to enhance the home's curb appeal.
I'll be interviewed by Dale and you can listen to it live (via streaming audio from the station's website) Friday April 18. The show, Lincoln Live airs at 12:30 PM Central.
Checkout the KFOR 1240 AM Radio website, the link for … (0 comments)
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I’ve been addicted to decorating since I was a kid. I remember insisting that my room be painted a deep turquoise, and my rattan headboard white, because I could totally picture how one would stand out against the other and compliment the pale creamy-yellow duvet. At the risk of revealing my age, I’ll admit it was the 1960s. Even now I can see that decorating scheme in my mind’s eye, and it still looks cool.
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