Staging Sips

After more than a decade in business, one of my favorite things to hear is that our clients think our home staging consultation is fun! I love hearing this because I specifically designed our home staging consultation (we call our home staging consultation a Styling Evaluation) process to create fun and empowerment. And I did this intentionally. When I first started my home staging business, stagi...

Today I'm going Unstaged on the podcast.  Unscripted and riffing on what I see as a pitfall when newer business owners get advice from those of us who have been running our businesses for longer. We simply forget. We forget what it's like to be where you are. And, while well intended, we can give advice that isn't realistic for a newer business owner. Listen in to find out why. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN F...

Tech alert! This week's podcast is a little tech heavy but...learning how to create this process I'm sharing will save you hours of headaches for the resto of your business. This episode is a deep dive into how we have our clients schedule their home staging consultations. On the face of it, it doesn't seem like scheduling a consultation should be that hard. But, my word, it really can be! I thoug...

08Having a lead magnet is an important part of your marketing strategy. One of the unexpected surprises I had, when I was growing my staging business, is that I actually had to be the Chief Marketing Officer even ahead of being the Lead Stager in my business. And as you grow your business, the scale will be tipped for a period of time in the direction of spending way more time marketing than stagi...

Are the systems in your business not working the way you want them to?   Systems in business are the equivalent of habits in life.     If you think of systems in this way, they automatically begin to make more sense.     The beautiful thing is you can tackle creating and maintaining systems the same way you would in creating and maintaining a habit—start with improving the smallest thing, repeat i...

Have you ever heard business advice that just didn't make sense for you? Or tried a "proven" strategy that just never worked for you? Maybe you've been confused by a lack of results doing something that a fellow business owner reaps tons of results from. Well there may be a very clear and tangible reason why and today's guest, Human Design Expert and Certified Life Coach, Stacy Rowan of Custom Bui...

One of the most exciting things is getting new clients. But with new clients come questions and sometimes some sticky situations. For many of us, we can get frustrated and bothered when questions arise about discounts, refunds, appointment requests out of our typical hours, etc. But...if we can reframe our minds to think about these questions as due diligence and not devaluing us and what we do, w...

You can have a thriving staging business regardless of the real estate market. In the book  Good To Great  by Jim Collins he talks about companies going from good to great. There were several factors that helped companies make that transition but one is super relevant to our staging businesses. They were realistic about market forces impacting their business negatively and they made plans to adjus...

In the Results Triad, we learn that your Results are a combination of Knowledge, Beliefs and Actions. Today's episode totally taps into the Knowledge and Action parts of the formula. And you know me, I like teaching you the little (and big) hacks that have helped me grow our staging business in a way that gets me as the CEO out of the way so that my team can manage the business without me. So, in...

Today I'm geeking out about how you can get soooo much more done in your home staging business even if you are still a team of one. It doesn't seem very sexy or interesting when you call it "Systems" but what systems give you back in time, energy and effort is beyond thrilling! They are also the foundation for a professional business. Inside our mentorship program, RethinkYou we dive deep into sys...

One of the most important tools to improve your home staging business is conducting regular Employee Evaluations. In my corporate life, I experienced a ton of evaluations and the most effective were the ones where it was a two way conversation with a manager who had been great at giving me feedback well before the formal evaluation process. AKA nothing was a surprise. By creating an environment wh...

Loving up on my team is one of my absolute favorite things to do as a business owner. They are making my dream a reality and it's so important to me to show my appreciation. It's also one of our corporate core values. Today I'm sharing why loving up on your team is important to your bottom line business results and how you can begin to plan for showing the love. You know I'm all about systems so y...

One of the very best things you can do for your growing staging business is know how to hire effectively. When you do your marketing right, and I know you will, you will need help to serve all of those clients who are coming in through your pipeline. And we want to make sure you have top notch team members.  Because the wrong hire can really drag down moral and make your life as a CEO not so fun....

I have the best team. I absolutely love them. But before I started the hiring process, I had no clue where to even start. And my first move is always to find someone who has done it before so I don't waste my time or feel confused even for a second. I did that. And what I learned not only helped me establish better business practices but hire a team that runs my entire operation to this day. That'...

Using an email list to grow my staging business has been, what I call, auto-magical. Seriously, it's like having a rainbow unicorn on staff. Here is why. Your biggest job as the CEO of your staging business is filling your pipeline with clients who will buy from you. So you must meet people. In our business that typically starts in person. The next step is staying in front of them on a regular bas...

I don't know about you, but I didn't have a clue how much sales and marketing would be involved in starting and growing my real estate staging business. I honestly thought the minute I told a Realtor that I was a Stager, they would feel like their prayers were answered and they would hire me instantly and often! Wow, was I wrong. And I spent a lot of time feeling frustrated, confused by this. I we...

Making money at every phase of your staging business is simple. You make money by focusing on Money Generating Activities. At each phase of business, those MGA's are slightly different. In the growth phase you need to be out meeting all of the humans. Growing your self-concept as a staging business owner. Learning how to talk about what you do. Staying in touch. Developing the mental stamina to ke...

I am an in demand stager. Imagine this was your intentional, practiced thought. Imagine it was your most practiced thought. How would you show up to your business in every way with that thought. What kind of action would you take when that is what you're thinking. Imagine how empowering that thought can be. Feel it. We get to choose the sentences we tell ourselves. Let's choose empowering ones. To...

My Strategy for Booking Home Staging Consultations Before I landed on this strategy to handle all of the incoming sales inquiries into my business, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. I'd answer calls from my car, while I was waiting in car line for the kids, while I was in the grocery store. You name it, I answered my phone every. single. time. All this to say, not optimal, not sust...

We start a business. We bring our skills and we bring our past knowledge. But we also bring our brains. It's easy to learn strategies. It's easy to gain knowledge. It's much, much harder to manage our minds. Learning to be aware of our thoughts will be one of the most valuable things you can learn. Because our minds ultimately control how much of our knowledge and skills get put into action. Our m...

Creating financial results in your home staging business starts with setting the right price for your services. That seems so obvious, doesn't it? But what is the "right" price? How do you figure that out? Figuring it out is actually easy. It takes a little bit of thought, research and math. Getting your mind wrapped around what the math tells you is quite another. That is where most of our work l...

The average homeowner moves every 7 years.   28% of listing agents surveyed by the National Association of Realtors incorporate staging into their listings. And I betcha not all of those listing agents use staging companies. Soooo….. We have to assume most people have never worked with a staging company before. That can open up all kinds of opportunity for them to be nervous, confused and not be r...

This week, I want to introduce you to a concept that will absolutely make your business life so much more enjoyable as you grow. It is going to help you find clients who are a very best fit for your services and will help you identify those clients that won't be a right fit or get the best results from the work that you do. They are called Client Filters. Client Filters are like having a Red Velve...

People ask the darndest things, don't they?  Can you stage tomorrow?  Can you give me a discount because I'll bring you lots of work?  Can I pick the furniture you use? If you're in business long enough, you'll definitely hear at least one of those.   You may also encounter scenarios like, 4 feet of snow in the driveway leading to the house you're supposed to stage, construction teams still workin...

One of the joys of owning a Staging business is that you meet so many humans. And one of the challenges of owning a Staging business is that you meet so many humans! We will be constantly working with people who haven't worked with a stager before so they may have misinformed expectations about staging (I'm looking at you HGTV!) or they may flat out just be demanding or miserable people. They may...