Free Webinar for New Stagers

Join me for this free staging training webinar on Wednesday, August 29th entitled, “How to Become a STAGER BOSS – 10 Tips to Staging Business Success”  Hope to see you there!

Getting Organized for Staging

How To Get Organized Before Staging Your Home

I just added an entire section in the HSR Certification training on adding Organization services to your staging business.  We had so much fun doing an advanced webinar on the subject or organizing, I thought I would share the hot tips that I learned.  Jennifer Lake a Kansas City home stager and designer who has years in the organization business before joining HSR generously shared:

• The single best way to market your organization business
• The best way to price for volume business
• The first rooms/spaces you should focus on for the client for maximum transformation
• Key phrases to use while organizing with clients
• How to incorporate organizing into your staging business

When it comes to selling a home, organization is key since it’s the first step to decluttering and starting the packing process.  In fact, many home sellers will have professional organizers come into their homes before the home stager.

Here are My 5 Tips to Getting Organized Before Staging

1.  Have a Plan – Organizing is very “intentional” and purposeful…it doesn’t just  happen on it’s own and in fact, will turn into a huge nightmare if it’s not addressed throughout the home on a yearly basis.  Start with three bins labeled:  1. Keep  2. Goodwill and 3. Craigslist/Consignment.  You will also need two trash bags, one for trash and another for recycling (for magazines, plastic toys, etc…).

2.  Take the Time and Be Honest With Yourself – I always say that successful staging takes a lot of time and energy, and organizing is no different.  Jennifer says that each room/space takes about 4 hours to tackle, so plan ahead and carve out the 4 hours of time to organize each space of your home.  While organizing it’s time to be brutally honest with yourself and ask whether each item is essential.  Particularly when moving, it takes three times longer to unpack and find a home for a non-essential item, so removing unused clutter from your life and home is a gift to yourself.

3.  Label Everything – What’s the point of planning and taking the time to box up those winter sweaters if you don’t label the box and end up forgetting that it’s there?   There is an easy way to create labels, so you always know where everything is and it can be purchased at Amazon:

Epson LabelWorks LW-300 Label Maker (C51CB69010)

4.  Like With Like – The key to successful organizing is putting things that are like one another…together.  Think like a Target store and how they group like items in the same department.  Don’t have your light bulbs across the house from your dimmers and extension chords.  When you’re packing things up, think in terms of rooms and spaces.  A mudroom/laundry room is a great place to put all of your utility items.  Think in terms of “stations” throughout the home.

5.  High Rent vs Low Rent Space – I liked learning about this concept because I teach it in the staging realm in terms of what buyers want to see the most.  In the organizing realm it means that you keep regularly used items in the easiest places to get to them (middle shelves).  Items that are rarely used can go in low rent spaces like the top shelves are very bottom.  If you have too much “stuff” in the low rent space, it may be time to say good bye to it.

The goal of getting organized before staging is to have a home with only essential and beautiful items within it.

It’s important that a home stager knows quite a bit about organizing, so I’m so happy to have this new section within our HSR Certification program and am grateful to the many members who generously share their knowledge daily in Stagers Connect!

XOXO – Happy Staging!

Audra Slinkey

Hope to hear from you!

1-888-563-9271

audra@homestagingresource.com

2014 Home Staging Convention

Five Lessons Learned From the 2014 RESA Convention

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.

Here are some of the 2014 lessons I learned by our incredible line-up of speakers:

Lesson Number One – Your contract is your “paper courage” said Kimberley Seldon on day one, so when a client wants to do it differently…you refer to your contract and make no exceptions.

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.

Me and my good friend Shell Brodnax (the amazing woman who always makes the RESA convention a success)

Lesson Number Two – Steven Aaron spoke eloquently on the need for stagers to “do a better job articulating confidently your value!”  Give real estate agents an easy way to recommend you to their clients.

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.

Me and Kristine Ginsberg the winner of the US Stager of the Year and an HSR Member

Lesson Number Three – Katie Lance (a social media guru) spoke on what’s important in social media for 2014 for stagers and how you can easily connect to clients using some of the new social media technology.

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.

Me and Lori Murphy, Ululani Poepoe and Valerie Monkarsh the new HSR stagers nominated for Rising Star category

Lesson Number Four – Shell Brodnax was one of my favorite speakers and spoke about “Reining in your fears – stop focusing on what could go wrong and focus on what’s right!”

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.

Me and my sister and mother who come and just enjoy the convention with me.

Lesson Number Five – Matthew Finlason spoke on the psychology of staging stating that, “it’s not about pretty rooms but about SELLING homes!”  He also emphasized understanding the “buyer demographic” and creating a lifestyle design plan that fits.

My Training Takeaway – Expand on my six buyer demographic Internet research steps and add a “Buyer Demographic Profile” form to that section.

What Agents Really Want

3 Tips on What Agents Want from Home Stagers and a Staging Story

What a lot of home stagers don’t realize is that agents want different things in different real estate markets.  For instance, in a “buyers market” which was 2007-2011 agents just want the property to sell and not sit on the market like their competitions.  In today’s seller’s market, the savvy agent wants to get the best price (and sell quickly) but price is king.  Why?  Because the smart agent knows that if they can be the “high price” leader in their market, then people will give them their listing (instead of their competition).

I love this story told by Lori Murphy who was recently awarded a 2013 Best of Houzz award and nominated for the RESA Rising Star of the Year even though she essentially just completed her HSR training and started her business last year!  At the end of the story, I give my three tips on what agents want right now…

Hi Audra,

He continued to tell me how he wants someone who will give the seller the “bad news” so that he doesn’t have to, because he wants to keep his relationship with the seller.

The stagers they’ve been using seemed to just want the seller to like them.  He said, “I need someone who will explain to sellers “why” and help them understand it is important in preparing the house to sell.  I’d rather postpone putting it on the market by 4 weeks, if when it is listed it’s ready . . . every thing’s done.”

As I sat there listening to him, (he went on for an hour . . . I’ll try not to), I realized something.

At first I shook my head agreeing with him and thinking to myself, “well, of course, that’s what we do” . . . and then it hit me . . . I was trained that way.  But it became suddenly clear that because not every stager in Columbus, Ohio received their certification from the Home Staging Resource . . . . well, let’s just say the advantage I have became crystal clear.

Eventually it did make a little sense, and then a little more, and then came the first staging job . . . .and then it really came together!  lol

Audra, I’m so glad I made the choice to sign up with HSR!  And YOU . . . over the last year and a half, I have never felt that I was in this alone.

Thanks Lori for the story and photos.  Here are three tips for what I think real estate agents want and need right now:

1. Agents want to be listened to and understood – This may seem obvious but too many times the stager is trying to fit the agents needs into their business model rather than coordinating their pricing/services around what the agent needs.
2. Agents need “staging honesty” for them and their clients, so that the house will get “top dollar” – I see a lot of stagers do a “half staging” job  which looks worse than vacant sometimes because the scale is completely wrong.  As stagers, we need to be clear and honest about what the home needs to get the best price.  The agent does not want to be the “low priced” agent, so we need to be ruthless with the seller on what kind of return they can see in a seller’s market if they stage it well.
3. Agents need tools and resources that look great in order to resell our services to their clients – This is where so many home stagers go unnecessarily wrong!  Agents need beautiful looking sales materials to convince their clients that staging is the right thing to do.

Image is everything and that is why I just added a a 6-video and two-hour series about “Blinging Your Brand” in our HSR Member’s area because we have to make agents look good for their clients!

Cheers to all the talented home stager’s out there!  Any more tips you would like to add to this post?

XOXO – Happy Staging!

Audra Slinkey

Hope to hear from you!

1-888-563-9271

audra@homestagingresource.com

Canadian Home Stager’s Interesting Advice

Whenever anyone enrolls for our staging and redesign course, I interview them to find out “where” they are coming from, “why” they are doing this and “what” is their ultimate goal.  I get a kick out of all the varied backgrounds people have before they “reinvent” themselves into the home staging and design world which in fact is probably where they should have always been!

After someone has taken our course about nine months in, I interview them again and share their insights with others so that we can all benefit.  Chelsea Waldner of Aspen Interior Designs had some interesting things to say, so I thought I’d share…

1.  What was your background before starting a home staging business and how did it serve you well in this new endeavor?

I am involved in construction and real-estate through my husbands company and my in-laws.  I was also a certified interior decorator before becoming a certified staging professional.  For me, this staging course was more useful and more comprehensive than the interior decorating course I took a few years prior.  It has given me the credibility that I needed to enter the staging industry as a professional while adding (very valuably) to the decorating background I already had.

2.  How long did it take you to go through the training/business set-up?  How long before you had your first consultation/appointment?

I went through the training in about 3 months and I had my first staging job within weeks.  That house sold in 6 days!  It had been on the market for 60 days already, unstaged.  Then I was hired to do a partial stage in just the kitchen and bathrooms and wow!  it made all the difference.  The house was on the market for another 2 days when it got a full list offer and it was officially sold 4 days later.

3.  Any words of wisdom for those just entering into the field?

Don’t be afraid to buy good condition, used furniture.  You will save a lot of money and build a bigger inventory in a shorter time than buying all new things.  Also, purchase as many neutral pieces as you can to increase your flexibility in staging a wide variety of home styles.

Accent with uniqueness and build your foundation on neutrality.

4.  What (if anything) would you have done differently looking back?

I would never have paid the money for the interior decorating course I took had I known the vast amount of knowledge I would gain through the HSR course.  In my opinion, the HSR course is more complex, more in-depth and covers more, useful, applicable design information than interior decorating courses alone.  This course teaches you about the psychology of design and that is very, very useful knowledge to have.

Are you glad you decided to go into the home staging field?  Why or why not?

I’m glad I took the course.  Staging is hard work.  For me, I find that moving a whole house in and out in the short amount of time it is on the market after it is staged is a real pain in the butt.  However, it does say something about the effectiveness of staging as a tool for real estate sales.  The longest any one of my stages has been on the market is 6 weeks.  That’s a lot of moving furniture!

Thanks Chelsea for sharing!

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