It's been a great year riding the curve!

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It’s been well over a year now since I’ve posted, and it’s been a busy year at that. All my energy has gone to building the business, and serving my clients. The lessons I’ve learned in this new frontier of Home Staging have been many.  Everything from the best granola bars to survive on, to cleaning products that are new, but not improved, to the best deals in furniture in town!  The best experience for me has been working with the most wonderful clients!  No nightmare stories to share!

Here are some worthwhile tips I would like to share with my fellow stagers!  Hopefully, there will be something for everyone to gain from my learning curve!

Negotiate “Parade of Homes” deals with local furniture stores.  That way, the furniture you chose with always complement the home.  As most stagers in the area have found, furniture rentals in Western Michigan is really limited!

Negotiate special pricing with trades people in the area.  Repeat business for painters, handymen, window washing, and home cleaners benefit everyone!  Your clients get the work they need done quickly and affordably.  And you can rest assured of the quality or the work from who ever you send to the home to do the work.  And lastly, quality workers love to keep their calendars full!  They are happy to extend a break in price to stay busy!

For Labor & Delivery, hire your own muscle!  My biggest time saver for vacant homes!  It would take so much out of me and my co-stagers to load and unload the truck, there wasn’t much energy left for the best part…staging!  Hiring my own crew has allowed me to get this piece done quickly, efficiently, affordably, and my energy intact!  Check with local colleges or job boards.

Lastly, leave a customer satisfaction form with a self addressed envelope to give your client the last word on the home staging experience for them.  This allows you to continue to tweak your business as needed, and it’s been a pleasant surprise for me that not only do my clients take the time to fill them out and return them, more often than not, I receive a letter of recommendation with it, that I may not have received had I not left the form behind.  This has been very rewarding for me.

I love helping people to market their home, and being a part of making their dreams come true!  It has been a most rewarding experience, and I’m looking forward to helping more clients make their move!  With all my negotiations in place, it’s a smooth ride!