Many people think they don’t need staging. They don’t see the point. Their houses are beautiful just the way they are.

While I’m sure their houses ARE beautiful, they are also likely decorated to reflect the lives and interests of the people living there. And that’s as it should be.

We love our homes, and we decorate them carefully, selecting important accents over the course of our lifetimes. Our homes say so much about us! Sometimes we even feel like we know people better after visiting them in their homes.

If we can agree that homes are very personal and reflect our own interests, then we know that they are not going to appeal to everyone. For instance, I have pets and books everywhere. They make me happy. Some people don’t find much use for one or the other, or even both, as strange as that sounds to me! I know that my house is not going to feel like home to everyone. And nothing creeps me out faster than a doll collection. Many people collect dolls, but I can’t feel at home in a house with lots of tiny plastic people.

See how easy it is for personal preferences to keep us from seeing the real house?

A good stager can come into your home and “mute” your personality enough so that potential buyers aren’t learning about your interests when they view your house. Instead they are able to focus on what they like about your house.

We want potential buyers to be able to visualize themselves living in your home. When a house already carries the strong imprint of an owner’s taste, it’s harder for that buyer to feel it could be their home. The house already feels “taken”.

A staged house is neutral enough to appeal to a wide variety of people. It’s almost anti-decorating. And IT WORKS.

Staging is like a wonderful gift you give someone before they move.

Moving is such a hectic, stress filled time. Everything about it is filled with emotion — the excitement of thinking about the new home, the pressures to get the home prepared to go to market, the paperwork, inspections, appointments and more!! Home sellers can be a very stressed out group of people.

Time to call a Stager!!

A Stager goes into a home and makes sense of it all. Clutter is banished. Rooms are streamlined. Peace is restored.

Aaaaah!! That’s better!

Now that it’s staged, not only will the house likely sell for more money in less time (which also means less stress), but in the meanwhile the family gets to live in more restful, relaxing surroundings.

What a wonderful thing to do for people going through a big change in their lives!

Help them take these memories with them to their next home. Take lots of pictures of their home freshly staged and looking it’s best and make a personal Home Staging Show just for them! This will help them remember their house looking it’s best AND will be advertising for you that they will likely keep and show others!

OK, maybe we don’t have to stage it to the studs, but we do certainly need to stage THE WHOLE HOUSE.

I know that often clients will have a hard time accepting the idea of staging, at least in some parts of the country where the concept is just beginning to take off. Many times, clients will ask you to “just stage the important parts.”

Well, which parts are important?

THE WHOLE HOUSE IS IMPORTANT. Stage it ALL.

Home buyers are a picky lot. They have a variety of houses to choose from in nearly any price range, and they do want the best home their money will buy. Small imperfections or maintenance left undone can leave a buyer imagining many more unseen problems.

Buyers DO peek in cabinets, pantries, refrigerators, closets and attics. If they are serious about a house, they want to see what it might be like to live there. Is there adequate storage? Will they have room for their things?

The best way to answer those questions is to see if your client had room for their own things. If they have crowded, messy cabinets and closets, it looks like the house is seriously hurting for storage space, even if it has storage in abundance.

Look at the Before picture of my own pantry. Even though it’s a nice sized pantry, anyone looking at it in that condition would assume that since there wasn’t enough room for my family, there wouldn’t be enough for their family either.

Most of us live casually in our homes. We don’t keep them looking like a showroom at all times. But when selling a house, you need to make every bit of space look clean, uncluttered and streamlined. Staging my pantry makes it look like I have room to spare.

You never know what a potential buyer is going to be looking at or consider important. It’s best to cover all eventualities and give real estate agents and buyers that visit the house an experience to remember. If you’re a Stager, you want the best possible outcome for your sellers. If you’re the seller, you want you home at the top of any buyer’s list.

Stage it all, Show it off and wait for those offers to come pouring in!

Henry Road is named after the road that designer Paula Small grew up on in South Africa.

Featured in numerous design magazines recently, You can see the organic influences of South Africa in all of Paula Small’s designs at Henry Road, from tablecloths to pillows, sachets and bulk fabric.

Henry Road’s colorful retro global style is a tribute to sixties and seventies bold design with African and Asian influences.

Henry Road is now headquartered in Los Angeles and according to their website, the designs are made in the USA. I like that. And I love the bold designs and the vivid colors.

Take a trip to Henry Road. You’ll love the view.

If you’ve just entered the staging profession, how do you show people what you can do? Everyone will want to see examples of your work, and you have to have something to show them. If you haven’t started yet, or have barely started, what can you do?

Simple. Stage your own place.

All of us live somewhere. And since the way you live in a house is NOT the way you want the house to look when you’re trying to sell it, there’s usually at least a little need for a good staging.

As an example, I’m using pictures of my own house. The top photos was our guest bedroom Before. We had a teenage exchange student and let her choose the paint color and bright colors. (Forgive me for the rope lights.) After she left, I felt a need to reclaim the space.

OK, the truth is I missed her and seeing “her room” bothered me!

Here’s the same room after Staging. That’s better!

Next, I went around the house and took more Before photos and then staged the whole thing! I gave myself a nice little portfolio of my Staging. And what a lift to have clutter-free, clean, serene rooms. Aaaah!

And then I put it all back. ) Yes, my husband thought I was insane, but like I already said, the way we live in a house is different from the way we sell it. I can only take so much perfection.

As a Stager, pictures of your work are the most important marketing tool in your arsenal.
You don’t just want pictures, you want PICTURES. Lots of them. And then a few more pictures, just for good measure.

Potential clients want to see what you’ve done with other people’s homes, so Before and After Shows will be vital. But they’re also just going to want to see a lot of pretty homes. Don’t make them say, “Eh, there’s nothing to see here,” and click to the next website. Draw them in with your photography, and keep them there with your list of Shows.

One way to make an easy library of your work is to use your inventory list. Joelle Green of Joelle & Company Designs was nice enough to let us use her inventory list as an example. (Thanks, Joelle! I LOVE your work!!)

This list can be added as a link from your website. Don’t worry, it won’t lead people away from your brand — it’s all about you and not about buying RealEstateShows.com or anything like that. That’s one of the many reasons I love this company. It’s all about you and want you can do for your clients.

Make Shows of everything you do.

Make sure to check the “Viewable In ‘Other Shows’” box from your Manage page for the Shows you want to appear in this list. The more the better, show ‘em you’re in demand!

To find this link, you can look under the “Show Links” section of any show, or when viewing a show just look to the bottom right for the “Other Shows” button. This will give you the address you want to use in your link. This is an easy way to show potential clients a wide variety of your work all in one easy location.

Are you new and don’t have much to show people yet?
Don’t panic, we’ll talk about that tomorrow. )

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes real estate agents get stage fright.

It’s true! Do you get nervous thinking of giving a presentation to a potential client? Or even (Eeek!) an entire brokerage?

Well, as a real estate agent, I can tell you that a lot of the time, we feel the same way. We also worry about the image we present. We want our potential clients to know we’re professional, knowledgeable and caring. One of the ways we can best get that point across is to take you, the Stager, along on a presentation.

An agent that brings a Stager on a presentation is sending the message of full service real estate. It gives you a chance to showcase your own expertise alongside the functional aspects of the agent’s work. Both work together to serve the client’s most pressing need — selling their home for the most money in the least amount of time. Making a joint presentation creates a powerful team ready to work for the client.

Another way to use this team approach would be to do Open Houses for your clients together. If you got the listing with an agent and worked together to get it ready for the market, why not?

Create a Real Estate Show of the house and make up a stack of CDs. (RealEstateShows.com will do this part for you if you like.) Make a pretty cover for the CD with information on the house and your services. You’ll have something interesting to hand out to the potential buyers, and you’ll be right there to hear all the compliments about how wonderful the house looks!

Hosting Open Houses together is also a good idea for safety reasons. Your agent friend will really appreciate having you along, trust me!

A partnership like this can be a real asset to both Stager and agent. It creates a bond of trust and sets both up for referrals of future business. While we agents work closely with many other professionals throughout the course of the transaction, I think the relationship with a stager could be one of the most important for future business. I also think that works both ways.

If you haven’t yet reached out to your local agents, now is the time!

When starting off in any business, one of the first things you need to do is get your name out there. You have to let people know what you do, how you do it and why they should choose you instead of the next person.

Make yourself stand out from the crowd.

How do you do that? As a Stager, one of the main markets you want to tap into would be resales through real estate agents. You’re going to want to let your local agents know you are a professional, and that you’re ready for business.

One of the easiest and best ways to do that is to use RealEstateShows.com. Make up a Show of Before and After pictures to really illustrate what you can do. You can order CDs through RealEstateShows.com or download and burn them on your own computer. Make up a cover featuring one of your prettiest rooms and all your contact information.

These CDs have live links to your website (if you have one) and all your other public Shows. Don’t forget that you can add as many extra pictures as you like to your Shows, and there’s video as well! Take advantage of all these extras, one small CD can really showcase your business.

Then contact the Brokers in your area, and ask if you can put your CDs in the mailboxes of their agents. I doubt that anyone will turn you down. We agents are used to getting loads of colorful flyers each week, but a well presented CD would really stand out. It takes extra effort and would get noticed.

While you’re there to hand out your RealEstateShows.com CDs, see if the broker has just a minute to talk. Ask him or her if it might be OK to speak at a sales meeting sometime. I doubt you’d be turned down for this either!

Don’t be discouraged if it takes some time to see results from this marketing. It may be a while before the agents have a client who is open to staging, or until they have a listing that really cries out for a good staging!

After passing out your CDs, check in with the agents by phone a week or so later. Ask how they liked the show and if they have any questions. See if they have any clients who might like to hear about your services. The point of this call is not to pump them for business, it’s just to get a relationship started.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about ways to partner with local agents for a stronger business for all!