Most likely you have been asked the following question by more than one of your clients be they Realtors or Home Sellers- Does Staging Really work and how  can I be sure that it will be worth the investment?

Sometimes when dealing with clients concerns and skepticism,  my real job is something more like a cheerleader/acrobat/tight rope walker than a stager.

Like a cheerleader I gleefully shout the statistics of homes I have staged that sold quickly and for over asking. Like an acrobat I dart through their homes and give them pantomimes of the vignettes I will create with a chair over here and an ottoman with a casual throw over there. Like a skilled balance artist I discuss "investing" money and getting a return without actually promising that staging will sell their home- there a 4 factors to consider when selling (price, location, the market and condition/appearance)

And for the finale I get my pom poms out and I SHOW them the proof.  I urge my clients to visit my website to see before and afters and to read my client testimonials. I present them with beautiful listing packets with photographs of homes I have staged and articles I have written and I sometimes physically take them to homes that are on the market.

After meeting with skeptics, sometimes I am just plain exhausted and want to scream- "Fine, do not bother doing this. It is your equity that you are throwing away. You stand to make thousands more for your home/commission and I am only going to get a thousand dollars or so for my time. I will move on now and stop worrying about selling your most valuable investment." But I can not do this or can I???

Well last week I said the above in probably the most tactful way I could imagine. I met with a client twice, in person, on two different weekends, for FREE,  to ease her concerns. I drove to her new home to see her taste to make sure that what I put in her now vacant other home would not be offensive to her- even though I explained that what I was putting in the home was not about her taste but about the mass market of buyers' taste. I drove to her office to give her my listing packet to make sure that she read the articles that I wrote so she would trust me as an expert. All in all I spent 6 hours with the woman!

WHY? I did this to make her feel comfortable with me, to trust me, to allow me, a total stranger to help her sell her most valuable investment. Sometimes to get the job you have to do a lot of hand holding. And sometimes you have to tell the client the truth.

After our second meeting, our sixth phone call,  and the umpteenth email ,I wrote her back to tell her that I did not think I could help her. I had done everything in my power to show her how staging works, to answer her questions, and to show her the quality of service that I could provide. I felt like an Olympic Gymnast I had done so much twisting and turning. I told her that I was concerned that no matter what I did to her home that she would not be pleased. Since I was not designing for her taste, I could not redo the project if she did not like it for personal reasons without charging her an additional fee for my time.

Guess what happened? She hired me. She sent me the contract and the deposit and the night of the staging wrote me an email telling me that she was thrilled and convinced that it had made a difference and had already recommended me to her friends and called the Realtor that referred me to thank her.

Well now I will keep my fingers crossed that it sells. I learned an important lesson with that client. Sometimes with skeptical clients you have to an acrobat,  you have to be a balance artist and jump through hoops to convince them and get the job. Sometimes however it is better to walk away because it is their loss. At least I did not have to wear a leotard and a tutu to do it!