Well ladies and gentlemen, it is official! I have been defrocked, my staging letters have been stripped from me! I am now staging without credentials- I am staging in the nude!
I have kept quiet too long about my opinion on the state of the staging industry today and feel now is the day to vent a little on Active Rain.
First I have to say that I appreciate all the love and support I have been given from fellow ASPs, Stagedhomes.com employees, and other home staging and real estate professionals during the past few months. As many of you know, I left my training position for Barb Schwarz at Stagedhomes.com in May and have pursued other opportunities in the real estate staging industry- namely building what is now the largest team of property marketers and stagers on the East Coast. Staged homes has recently revoked my ASP designation saying that I am violating their code of ethics because I am taking referral fees for jobs I give other stagers. That may be their opinion, but for those of you that know better, I am working passionately at building the staging industry on the East Coast to be as successful as it has been on the West Coast and will continue to do so with or without their approval.
Many of you have called or sent me emails asking me what happened? Well here is the story. When I left Staged Homes I felt that my passion in life was not teaching people a three day seminar, but actually helping creative entreprenuers to build successful businesses. While I was a trainer, time and time again, I met many talented staging professionals that simply did not want to do the marketing and sales aspect that running a successfull staging business entailed. I would spend hours consulting with these past students on ways to build their businesses and strategizing on how to get more exposure for the industry in their local areas. I receieved countless emails from Realtors and Consumers looking for stagers in their local area that had actual staging businesses and were not people that took a class and ended up on a website- they wanted people with real experience and professional backgrounds. I took a look around at this fledgling industry and realized that with my markerting and business experience that I could help other stagers to find work in their local area by doing the marketing and networking for them. I would essentially form the relationships with local realtors and builders and then give the jobs to the local stagers that I had trained or met through my many speaking engagements.
The designation that these staging professionals held did not matter to me- I only was concerned about the creativity, business sense and standard of quality that these stagers possessed. As you all know, there is no one designation in the staging industry, and there is no official independent organization that deems the qualifications of what makes a stager a good stager, or what policies and procedures a staging company must follow. I had to go with my gut instinct and choose the people that I knew personally and knew had the passion that I have inside of me for helping home sellers and Realtors. So our team was born.
We have since grown to 13 states and have clients nationally and internationally. I feel what I am doing is not unethical- I enable people that love to stage houses to stage houses and not have to focus on the details of running a business. How the members of our team choose to get work and who they choose to associate with should not be a concern to Staged Homes. Our company is setting the example of how a staging business should be run and I will continue to do this for the good of all.
I wonder at times what the future will bring to this industry when you have the very company that deemed me a stager, revoking my designation because of my success. Now that I am naked, I have dedicated myself to working with other staging professionals (regardless of their designations or lack of designations) to build a more positive industry. Working together we will create the future of this industry, working against each other, we will be its downfall.
In the words of my dear friend Craig Schiller, stage it forward!
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