December 1 and most of are looking towards the end of the year, aren't we?
Bloggers seem, already, to be looking ahead to next year and have starting to talk about business plans.
Not me. I'm reluctant to look terribly far ahead:
#1 I don't like doing business plans - I stick to them with the same success as a diet or an exercise plan!
#2 - New Jersey's real estate market is predicted to be a blood bath in the first quarter of 09, with the bottom coming in 2nd and not much recovery until 010. This from a prognosticator so well respected his prophesies become self-fulfilling. (i.e. If the realty community all think that's what will happen, then it will.)
Yet, one post in the Biz Plan vein struck a chord this morning. From Kris Berg of San Diego, writing for Inman News - Making real estate 'guacamole'. Kris writes that in order to have a strong building (a business plan) one needs a solid foundation (a mission statement). And it is in her discussion of Missions, that I find something we should all consider as we look for revenue streams next year. (Anyone who wants a really good overview of Staging Revenue Streams should start wtih Kym Hough's EXPO presentation, which is available for a small, extremely worth-it fee: click here)
Mission.
What is your mission as a stager? (What is your mission statement?)
- to sell the home (how then do you define success?)
- to get the house ready for sale (same, how d'you know it's ready - dont' you know it's sell-able only when it's sold?)
- to help the homeowner optimize the opportunity of selling their house (what do words like optimize really mean anyways?)
- to delight the homeowner with great service and quantifiable results (Which results - # of showings)
- to partner with realtors and homeowners in the sucessful marketing of a home (defining success how....again)
- Lots of others....
See how tricky this is?
Kris explains as follows:-
<<Wal-Mart could have said that their mission is to sell a lot of stuff, but their mission statement reads, "To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people."
Most of us are familiar with Walt Disney's mission statement, "To make people happy," but it just as easily could have read, "To sell a whole bunch of tickets to our theme parks and to cross-market our brand like nobody's business through movie ticket and retail sales plus a bunch of other stuff to be named later, in order to capitalize on the tendency for parents to give their children anything they want -- 'anything they want' being the entire Disney video library, 48,000 plush toys bearing the likenesses of princesses or rodents, and coordinated fitted sheets."
At Microsoft, "Our mission and values are to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential." Sure it is. What Microsoft doesn't say is that their objective is for me to purchase a new computer plus upgrade to a new operating system and the latest Office release every time my hard drive crashes (Tuesdays). The point is: You can't inspire the workers to make a great product or offer a superior service by seeing only the raw materials.>>
One of her concluding paragraphs is about her own mission as a broker-owner-realtor:-
"Our mission should be to ultimately delight our customers and see them realize their greatest success in the real estate transaction. This can't be just the agents' mission. It needs to be the industry's mission, because the industry's message sets the tone for the entire organization"
So, my friends, how should this be for us? We're only involved in one section of the transaction... so to have "the sale" as our goal is not something we have any control over...and even if we had access to price, there are other variables that can only be the purvue (perview) of the realtor or we might as well BE realtors.
How do we define our mission so that we have a success story to tell in our own marketing?
The best staging I did this year was in early September. The home has yet to be seen by any buyer. The staging was greatly admired at the Brokers' Open House, but the house has not been shown once. Not once. Why? It's priced too high, and in this market, overpriced homes aren't even shown, let alone bid on. It's also out of step with current high-end tastes by a only a year but they've missed the shift and at that end of the price band that matters. So, how do I report that story as a success? In my opinion, I can't. instead I talk about the homes that sell opening weekend, in 21 days, in shorter time frames because my mission is still defined as preparing a home for sale. When it's sold is its logical successful outcome.
I have been slowly changing my mission to one of marketing... hence my emphasis on social media, social networking, web 2.0 techniques which I now teach (in 3 bands - to realtors, stagers and homeowners)...yet like all marketers... yours/my success is defined by impact on the bottom line, no? Which brings me back to the home being sold.
What does your mission statement say? Does it allow you to define success so that you have a compelling story to tell in your own marketing efforts?
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