Understanding your Houston Home Staging Estimate...

Kathy:  Many thanks for your comments!

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I've heard it three times in the last month:  "I couldn't tell what the other stagers were going to charge.   You're the only company that had their prices posted."

I've never had a client who wanted 'the most beautiful staging in the world'.   Our clients want great staging, but they're extremely price sensitive.  Putting our pricing out there for the world to see, has been extremely advantageous.   I learned this lesson many years ago in Paris.   Paris shops put their prices in the window.  Even the luxury boutiques do this.  I brought this technique back to Philadelphia, and just by doing this, I increased traffic and sales.

I'm sure we've all had the experience at Target, WalMart, or TJMaxx, where the price tag has fallen off of the item that we want to purchase.   It's horrible when you've waited in line at the cash register, and a 'price check' needs to be done.   In that situation, I'll generally just tell them to forget it, it's not a big deal, and I generally don't have the time (or patience) to wait.    So, is it such a stretch to imagine that the staging industry hurts itself by not publishing their prices?   Everything needs a price tag!  Goods or services all have a price, and potential staging clients don't want to hear 'price check' while standing in line for our service.

• I truly do believe that most consumers do want our services.
• I believe that there is an untapped resource of consumers who can afford our services.
• I believe that these consumers don't even want to begin the staging process for fear that our unpublished prices mean that the service is unaffordable.

The foundation of Houston Home Staging has been our ability to provide attractive staging packages at an affordable price.   I'm sure that this 'published price' policy will prove to be controversial, but I think the time has come......

Happy staging y'all!

Hi Claudia:  Your 'couture' staging lingers on my mind, and I may need to return to my high fashion (or high falutin') roots.

Hi Kathy:  There's actually great resistance to the notion of published pricing.  Some feel that it gives the competition an advantage.  For me, it presents a challenge to do the best job, at the best price, and let the competition chase me!

Hi Sally:  I decided to write a long winded response (big surprise), and just as I was finishing it, I thought I'd click on something else.........thereby losing the long winded response (and the crowd is silently thankful).

Anyway,  you may expect a call from Carol Barrington regarding this issue.

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Anna: The only exact item that Cort and I share is the Barcelona chair.  But, even then, I offer the matching ottoman, and I don't think that they do.   The Polka Dot chair (in the video) is several years old (and from Cort Clearance), and although still being rented it's tough to compare my inventory to theirs.

Cort doesn't really offer staging services, and their greenery is really low-end.  I rarely utilize Cort, and only this year, have I had a client who needed what they offered.  (It was a lived-in staging that was essentially vacant.  The clients needed everything (including bedding)  and......they had animals.   So, I didn't want to install my stuff.....

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Wanda:    Thanks for taking the time to look at the website!

I generally go the cheapest Thrift Store in town and buy a rack of clothes.   Generally, I like all white.  The black dresses were supposed to get scarves to bring out some color, and to minimize the funereal ambiance......but, like, most good plans, that hasn't quite happened yet!

Hi Cathy Lee:  There have been several comments that consultants and seminars suggest to never post pricing. Posted pricing is not a 'down-scale' technique.  Here's just a quick list of people that I have fought on this very issue (the list is real, as were the disagreements):

1. Pierre Berge:  Co-Founder Yves Saint Laurent
2. Didier Grumbach: (currently) President Federation de la Couture
3. Georges Wichner:  VP at Paris Collections U.S., (Subsequently) CEO Valentino, President Roger Vivier, President Thierry Mugler 

In the high-fashion business, these very successful companies didn't understand or agree that letting the customers see the prices was effective.   In our market (Philadelphia), consumers mentally over-priced our merchandise and eliminated us as a possible source for their fashion choices.  By putting our prices in the window (there was no internet way back then) we increased traffic throughout the boutique, increased sales, reduced our markdown percentage, and turned the first profit that the boutique had ever seen.  Of course, the crash of 1987 killed that business (sigh).

Similarly, professional home stagers have created an intimidating aura.   Titles such as Diva, and the HGTV, TLC staging presentations give the mistaken impression that we're haughty, and expensive.   Well, maybe we are.   But expensive is in the eye of the beholder (and we're actually a pretty nice group of people - not haughty at all).   $2000 is a lot of money for Houstonians to invest in staging.   $2000 was cheap in the Pacific Northwest.

Another benefit to posted pricing is that it reduces the number of phone calls from new stagers who disguise themselves as potential customers.  It also increases the conversion rate of contact-to-contract.   I had been running a 4:1 ratio of customer contacts turning into actual staging contracts.  (Four individual conversations would turn into one contract).   Now, it's down to 3:1    Actually, this month one contact has resulted in five stagings from one developer!   The primary reason(s) I was contacted by this client: 

1. posted pricing
2. good staging

Tessa:   Many, many thanks for providing a valid point!  In some markets, staging has taken hold.  In Texas,  Dallas and Austin Stagers have had a completely different experience from Stagers in the Houston market.  If I were competing against Jason Maxwell in Dallas (which I kind of have), I'd compete with great staging and great price.   In Houston,  Autumn Dunne has lead the way, and her incredible stagings (they really are spectacular) used to arrive with an incredible price.  The probability of Houston Home Staging capturing any part of the miniscule market that Houston Stager's enjoyed was indeed slight.  The small success that we currently enjoy is directly related to our posted pricing policy.

However <G>........... if there is a lot of confusion about what staging is and how much it costs,  why not address the issue directly and tell the market what the cost is, show them (with photographs) what (professional) staging is, and educate the consumers about the value.   Which (I now notice) is exactly what you're writing about in your last paragraph. 

Education about staging should be about value.  Instead, we're (respectfully) still debating on the role of Realtors in the staging process.  After countless hours of staging demonstrations on HGTV and TLC, consumers are still hesitant to utlize staging professional staging services? We're still educating about staging???   If we're still doing this, and Staging companies are still struggling to get off the ground, then maybe something has been missed.  The missing element has been educating consumers about reasonable and customary charges and prices for staging services.

I'm not suggesting that we lead off with or as the "99 Cent Staging Company".    In selling anything, customers don't buy a price, they buy value.   But, at all levels of the spectrum, value can't be determined until the price is known.

Consumers of staging services are indeed looking for fashionable and attractive stagings.  Posted pricing isn't the 'lead' story.

While I'd agree that education is a valuable tool, I can tell you that I have talked myself blue in the face at Realtor seminars, and Home & Garden Shows.  I've done BNI, belonged to RESA and IAHSP.  I'm featured in the Houston Chronicle, and Absolutely Katy magazine.  I've done four episodes of Property Ladder, and appeared on Fox News (local).   I did a clip for a little talk show here in Houston, and been interviewed on the radio. I've handed out coffee cups, baseball caps, pens, and expensive portfolios.   I've done things for free,  I've discounted my prices on particular projects just to 'educate'. 

Did all of that education work?  Welllllllll, if you drop a pebble in a pond where will that ripple end?  However,  my clients are generally investors with multiple properties that need to be staged.  So, we've acknowledged their need, and posted our pricing, and the result has been clients who now trust us, and whose budgets have increased because we've provided a value adding service.

On a lighter note:  I need to visit the Dentist (really I do)<G>   But, I've delayed that service because I don't know what the pricing is (and, also, I'm fearful of dentistry).  However, I'm thinkin' that price negotiation is probably best done prior to being strapped into a chair, with some crazed dental hygienist who's  got a needle full of (whatever) in one hand, and a mask filled with laughing gas in the other  (I guess I was influeced by Steve Martin's protrayal of a sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors).   

Again, many, many thanks for your observations!

Many thanks Tesssa!  Well said!