Researching your options is crucial
I have seen many blogs on this topic and thought to add my experienced advice to the mix.
Before you begin your research ask yourself:
What do I need to learn from a staging program?
List your strengths, your weaknesses, and what you feel would make you more confident to go into the business world as a stager. Do you want to own your own staging company? Do you want to work for another staging company? Where do you see yourself 2 years from now. Be sure to address if any of the following are important to you.
1. A designation - in the staging industry this is used to brand a specific organization, it says you are a committed to self education and believe in being the best you can be. Some argue this is not valuable as the staging industry is not regulated. You need to decide if this is something that is important to you. Could it be important to the clients that will hire you?
Questions to ask: Do you earn a designation upon completion? Is it earned or just passed out for participation? If earned, how? Is there testing? How is the designation branded? What advertising does your organization do to make the designation recognized? What message does your designation say to the public?
2. Who is the trainer? - What is their background? What would make them a good teacher? Have they had their own staging business? Do they have training experience? Were they trained by another home staging trainer? You can research most trainers backgrounds on the staging programs websites.
Questions to ask: Can I speak directly to the trainer? What is there background prior to training your program? Have they ever owned their own staging business?
3. General Staging Process - There are different staging models for different training companies. If you need help in this area, be sure to add this to your list of what is important to you. Even if you think you know all about staging, or you have an existing staging background, you will be pleasantly surprised with some staging programs, how much more you will learn.
Questions to ask: What we will learn in your staging curriculum? How much time is spent on the staging process? After class, if I have questions do you have a support system in place?
4. Marketing Strategies - Are you confident in marketing yourself and your new business? If not, marketing is a necessary step to running a successful staging company. How much marketing do you need to learn from your staging training program?
Questions to ask: How much time is spent on learning marketing? What is addressed in your marketing curriculum? How does your organization help their graduates with marketing after the program?
5. Hands-on learning or online learning? - How do you learn best? From a book? From doing? From listening? This is one of the most important questions you will need to ask yourself before beginning your research. For Example: If you learn best by hands-on, do not take an online program just because it is cheaper, you will find you will not finish, or it will take you a long time to finish and the investment was more costly then you thought, as it will cost you time you could have been out staging already! Choose a staging program that teaches the way you learn best!
6. Industry tools and resources - Do you like to create your own tools, or do you like the wheel to be invented before you get there? Some staging programs will have the tools you need already developed. You only need to customize them to your company image.
Questions to ask: What industry tools do you have to provide us? What do we get Free with the training? Do you have a suggested list of industry tools we will need to get started? Are their other tools, and opportunities available to us that are exclusive to being a graduate of your program?
7. Staging Organization Membership - Many staging programs offer a yearly membership after the initial class program. You need to decide if this is important to you. As member of an organization there are opportunities and feature benefits to being part of a larger group.
Questions to ask: Do you have a membership to belong to? What do you receive as a member? What is the yearly rate?
8. Bulk Advertising Opportunities - Is receiving discounts for advertising opportunities important to you? Stretching your marketing dollars can make the difference when first starting your business.
Questions to ask: Do you have any bulk advertising opportunities?
9. How much are you willing to invest in your education You need to weigh what you will learn by how much you need to invest. Be careful not to sacrifice valuable learning by cheaper programs. Do they have continuing programs? Some programs allow you to revisit their program as a refresher anytime at no charge to you...is this something you would want?
Questions to ask: How much is your program? Do you offer refresher programs as the industry changes, to keep graduates informed? Can you send me an information package?
10. ASK GRADUATES OF THE PROGRAM! Do not take it from those paid to sell the programs. Ask those who have graduated from the program. Most staging programs have a directory of stagers online at your disposal. Call them up. Here is a tip. Call people you can tell have utilized the programs features. For example: filled out their directory pages, have photographs and before and afters. They will be the most educated because they have worked the program.
Questions to ask: Did the course meet your expectations? What is it you like best about the program? When did you take the program? Do they offer support after the class? Did you take any other staging programs? Do you recommend the program to someone wanting to get started in the staging industry.
As many of you know, I am the Director of Marketing and National Accounts for Certified Staging Professionals. So please, take the above advise and begin your research at www.stagingtraining.com.
For a Free Staging Training Information Package in USA click here
For a Free Staging Training Information Package in Canada click here
ENJOY!!! :)
Angela
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Hi Angela!
I did your Suggestion #10, when I was deciding on which program was right for me. I contacted 8 stagers via email from different areas of the U.S. (those Canadian phone calls add up, so I restrained myself form calling the Canadians!).
Do you know that every one of them asked me to call them? I was wondering, why didn't they want to email me? I thought, a-HA! They don't want to put their bitter feelings in writing, in case I was a CSP spy! The "other" school's grads didn't respond to me at all, so I assumed they were busy as bees and couldn't be bothered with me and my nosy questions.
So, I called the CSP's, as requested. Some were very busy, so I had to play phone tag a bit. But after a couple of days, I knew exactly why they didn't want to email me....
They had too many things to say in favor of their training, and their trainers (all different) to type in an email. They gushed on and on, and my phone bill reflects it!
I knew I found the right training program, because I already knew the ins and outs of staging prinicples, and had staged properties before, upon request. After those CSP graduates reiterated to me over and over how wonderful the marketing- aspects had been covered, and how their businesses were flourishing from the specific advice they recieved and subsequently followed, it was exactly what I wanted and needed.
It was the program for me and my sister, Sue Eldrege. Talent is spectacular and necessary to have, but if ya don't have talent in marketing, your gonna have it rough, and this job requires a real marketing-commitment. Realtors and sellers in not-so-major cities are just beginning to get whiffs of staging here and there. I needed to hold their attention and know what words would have impact and what was the WRONG things I needed to avoid saying.
One can be blessed with an amazing eye at birth. One can have loads of clients with testimonials about one's immaculate taste and ability to create solutions and recitfy design flaws. But without a lick of knowledge about exactly how the Real Estate Industry operates, one is dead in the water!
I could have spent a year or two so learning at my own pace, reading and culling from the experience of other stagers and the blogs of Realtors, but I didn't have time to lose. I wanted to segue our Interior Design business into a major player in our area in the realm of Staging, and I wanted it BAD.
So, here we are 3 months after class, and I am in awe of my own training. Sometimes, I convince myself I am a GENIUS!
Today, Sunday May 25th, I did one of the tips Christine Rae suggested in-class to do to impress Realtors at an Open House.
I now have an appointment to speak to 50 (YES FIFTY!) Realtors this Wednesday as part of their weekly 2 hour sales meeting! And I didn't ask for it, the Realtor asked me! Thank God I am not afraid of public speaking...
I am so glad I called those CSP grads! And I am a GENIUS, because I was smart enough to decide to become a CSP.
~Michelle Molinari