One of the many questions I am asked by stagers that have got their businesses up and running is "How do I form a staging team?" As small business owners we are faced with the same challenges as other growing businesses. There is a delicate balance between giving your client's your personal service and attention and knowing when to add new team members so you can service a larger pool of clients. Below are some suggestions on how to add new team members and what types of service to hire:

1. The first step in determining whether or not to hire an assistant or add another stager is to ask yourself if you are ready for help? 

Depending on the type of staging services you offer you may be solely responsible for:

• marketing your business,
• servicing your clients,
• designing and sourcing spaces,
• packing and transporting items, 
• installing properties and destaging properties and
• managing the business tasks such as accounting, billing and financing.

That is a lot of hats to wear! If you are just starting your business you may be able to manage these tasks yourself but as your business grows it becomes harder and harder to maintain a business by yourself.

Ask yourself which areas you enjoy the most? Is is marketing, giving presentations, giving estimates,  and forming relationships with clients and Realtors? Then perhaps you want to focus your energy on the sales aspects of your business.

If you enjoy the design of the spaces, shopping and sourcing items, installing the project or rearranging the client's items then perhaps you want to focus on the design areas more?

Maybe the behind the scenes business aspects are most appealing to you. Do you love finding new business opportunities, financing ways to invest in inventory and creating deals with vendors? You may want to focus on the business building side of your staging empire.

Most stagers enjoy a combination of the above and want to delegate certain aspects of the business.

2. The next step is to determine what type of help you need.

If you want to focus more on sales then perhaps you need to hire another stager to help you with the actual hands on staging of home or sourcing of the items. If you dislike the practical business tasks then perhaps you want to hire someone to help you with billing and invoicing so you can focus your energy more on designing spaces or marketing. If you dislike hanging the artwork and moving and destaging homes then perhaps you need to hire an installation assistant to help you with these tasks.

There are many ways that you can have other stagers assist you with your staging business. You can have stagers that help you with written consultations where they go into the home and give the client a written report on how to prepare their home for sale. You can have stagers that help you to rearrange and accessorize furnished homes during hands on staging projects. You can also have stagers that help you to install vacant stagings. They can help you to select the inventory, instruct the furniture movers where to place the furniture and complete the accessorizing of the space.

Once you determine the type of help you need it is crucial to define the role that this person will play in your team so you can best focus them on what you need most. If you need someone to act as a design assistant but you hire an installer you will become very frustrated if this person cannot give you the opinion you need. Likewise, if you hire someone to help with shopping and sourcing items do not expect this person to move items for you in a furnished home. As small business owners with tight budgets we often fill many roles, but we cannot expect our employees to do the same.  If you need a mover- hire a mover, do not ask your shopper to do it. If you need a designer do not expect your billing clerk to help with it. 

3. Once you have determined the type of help your need,  you also want to decide if this person will be an independent contractor for your firm or become a paid employee of your firm.

• An independent contractor is someone that works independently without your tools, inventory, guidance from you, and has their own business. They can be a service that you hire out to perform a task such as a moving company or a payroll or billing agency. They can also be another stager that you give jobs to and they complete the job under their company name.  An independent contractor will have their own insurance and will be responsible for filing their own taxes.
• A paid employee can be someone that you place on salary, commission or pay hourly. As an employer you will be responsible for their taxes and their insurance such as liability and workmen's compensation.

You will want to check with your accountant about which format works best for your business and what tax liabilities if any you will have once you subcontract or employ this person.

There are many benefits to both employee and independent contractor relationships. With employees you are the boss and you can dictate which tasks are to be done and when they work should be completed. With independent contractors you have no say over when the job is completed and how to design or arrange the space.  As a small business owner you need to decide what relationships works best for you.

4. Once you have entered into a relationship it is important to protect the business that you have established for yourself. 

You have worked hard to build a business and maintaining quality is important. If you have employees that work directly with your clients you want to make sure to follow up with the client personally to determine how the staging appointment or furniture pick up went. I recommend calling and emailing the client or realtor and making sure that their needs were met and there were no unresolved issues. Clients appreciate that you personally make contact with them even if you have an assistant or contractor completing the work.

I also recommend that you speak with your attorney or a legal adviser about protecting your client relationships and proprietary business information. If you are contracting work out to an independent stager you want to define:

• A fee schedule or how you will be paid,
• if you will be paid on repeat jobs from the client you referred,
• if you will be paid a portion of any referral fees for example from rental companies,
• and for how long that relationship will belong to you once the contractor no longer works for you.

You would not want to hire a stager for jobs, have them help you with your clients, and then leave you, form their own business and go after your client relationships that you spent time, money and energy marketing and establishing.

 5. After you have determined the relationship you then need to give your team members guidance on how to best represent you and your business.

I recommend forming a policies and procedures guide for them to refer to. If you are working with independent contractors it can be a simple document that tells them how you want leads managed, how soon they must contact the client, a request for a copy of the invoice, a request for the staging consultation or pictures of the staging work for your review. You should also outline policy for payment.

If you are working with employees you will want to dedicate some time to properly training them. For example:

• If you have hired an installer you will want to take them on a few jobs with you to show them how you like the artwork hung, what type of hardware you use, how you like window treatments hung.
• If you are working with a destager or moving company you will want to oversee them and show them how you like things packed, which packing materials to use, how to pack the van or car and how to return the items to your storage unit.
• If you are working with another stager you will want to show her how you like beds to be made, what types of accents and artwork you favor, how you select rental furniture etc.

Taking the time to properly guide your team members will enable them to best assist you. This process can be done on the job and you may want to establish a separate training fee while you determine whether or not they can properly assist you. Staging is a very personal service and you may find that you do not mesh with some stagers and they can be better use to you in a different role such as marketing, shopping or managing client relationships.

 6. Building a team of stagers has many rewards.

Not only are you able to service more clients, you can service your clients better because you can focus on the areas of your business that you are most passionate about. Working with others also allows you to share ideas and expand creatively- no 2 people would design a room the same way! Deciding to allow others to help you with your small business is a big step- you no longer have absolute control and you also have to account for other's actions. Determining the type of help you need, establishing the type of relationship you want to enter into, defining and protecting that relationship and properly training your team members can help you to transition from a one woman operation to a staging superpower.

To learn more about building a team and other ways to grow your staging business visit my website at hartstaging.com

Don't just stage, stage smarter! ^TM

© 2007 - Hart & Associates - All Rights Reserved

The above is meant to be general business advice and in no way is meant to be legal or tax advice. Contact your attorney or accountant for the laws applicable to your state.