Can you believe all the Home Staging Resource members who attended the 2014 RESA Convention? There were over 60 of us and boy did we have a blast! Every year I speak at the RESA Conference and learn so much that I add to our HSR Certification training. I love that online training provides me a “real time” educational avenue to provide critical information to the hundreds of HSR Members across the world!
Over the next few weeks I’m going to be sharing some of the things I learned at RESA, as well the success stories I got to hear firsthand from this incredible group of women. Make sure to stay tuned by signing up to the right for our blog. I also am spending a ton of time adding what I learned from the RESA Conference to my HSR training area, so everyone can benefit from the takeaways which is the beauty of online training.
My Training Takeaway – I’m going back through our example contracts that we provide in the training using Kimberley’s mantra and making them stronger and more steadfast.
My Training Takeaway – Add to the training “Realtor Partner Plan” and “Realtor Presentations” a page/slide on how the stager makes the agent look awesome.
My Training Takeaway – Completely redoing my social media and networking section to reflect the 2014 trends, add the tips and tricks of connecting with clients and being a “good stalker” which will make it easy for HSR members to make agent partnerships.
My Training Takeaway – Add more information and video in my Week Two Marketing section that helps stagers connect easily with their propects and clients, so the “fear factor” never comes into play. I also am pushing the Staging Mentor program since is an easy way to take the fear away by working at a home and with clients under a Mentors guidance.
My Training Takeaway – Expand on my six buyer demographic Internet research steps and add a “Buyer Demographic Profile” form to that section.
Gregg Churchill, an HSR Certified Stager and Designer in Australia gives his 5 best design and staging tips:
What makes great design is up to your own interpretation, but I do know that when I see great design it hits me right away. We all have different styles and thoughts on our own personal design which is often influenced by all the new TV Star Designers e.g.: Sarah Richardson, Candice Olsen; Martin Lawrence-Bullard; Colin and Justin etc.) and all the inspirational shows they have on our TV screens, brought right into our own homes. I watch and record all the TV shows to learn as much as possible from them all.
In summation I would recommend that what every avenue you decide to pursue in your Home Staging career, always have fun and enjoy every minute of what you are doing. Try and specialize in one category for best results e.g. vacant home staging.
Always have something different to offer your clients study your opposition from time to time and see what they are offering and you may not be or never thought to. Stay abreast, keep up to date and never stop learning. Learn from as many people as you can and you will always be the best in your chosen field. Enjoy!
Gregg Churchill of Mr. Home Staging in Perth, Australia is truly a talent! Recently he as featured in Design Shuffle and I’ve got his gorgeous photos mixed in with his incredible story…
My story is a simple one. I have always had an itch to get into both interior design and decoration, even from a young age and have always been interested in being creative and designing interiors. I am fascinated why and how the inside of a home is planned and how and why we live in that space.
I was a Project Designer for a major international food retail company for 10 years, and as their in store project designer. I firstly learnt how to draw plans the old fashioned way, on a drafting board and then got into CAD to design the inside of supermarkets and in store coffee shops and restaurants which was great fun as there are a lot of the interior design elements and fundamentals that I needed to understand to design and plan a pleasant in store shopping experience. I then ventured onto my own and acquired a retail franchise from the same international retail company and ran my own 1200 square metre supermarket with 55 permanent staff and 25 casuals for the weekends. After 5 years of burning the candle at both ends, working 16 hours a day for 7 days, I decided to sell up and have a change of direction. That is when I stumbled across HSR on the internet.
I did heaps of research on the subject and decided to join up with HSR for a number of reasons. I found the site to be very user friendly and made me feel like I wanted to belong to this company. I found the other companies who offered a similar course, didn’t offer it in a professional way. I found they just were not as professional in there sell to me as a prospective future client. I also liked the name HSR, as it exactly what the name described, a resource for home staging. The staging videos were very warm and friendly as was Audra’s recorded voice.
I would never recommend getting into Home Staging without this HSR qualification as you are entering a world where the general public are very sensitive and guarded when you go into their private domain, we are all sensitive about our homes. You HAVE to have a recognized certified qualification behind you and know what you are recommending to the public, as after they are paying you for this advice and expect good sound design advice. The many forms on offer from HSR are priceless as without them, I would have been lost and to even begin to try and do them yourself would be impossible. They are a short cut to starting your career right away, looking the part and they gave me a lot of confidence right from the very beginning.
Here in Perth Western Australia, our main economic industry is mining and it is booming at the moment, especially with the huge exports to China and the east. The property market has recovered in a big way, interest rates are at their lowest, and properties are selling in weeks instead of months. The WA public were a bit slow in adopting home staging 2 years ago, but this year I have seen a huge demand in business, especially before holidays like Easter where I was turning work away as everybody wanted their homes staged before Easter weekend.
The longest I have had a staged property on the market is 3 weeks and the shortest was 4 days (That property had been standing vacant for 42 days & once staged sold in 4 days) so I advertise that fact. I have, to date, a 100% success sold rate with my staged properties….This year, I was getting a lot of people contacting me, but for interior design, so at the beginning of this year I began an Interior Design Diploma course and am almost completed with it.