The Staging Industry

I know, I write mean emails. But if you are not serious about making a career change into something you are not familiar with and you are easily intimidated, think again.

(photo by oberazzi)

—–Original Message—–
From: Aspiring Stager
To:cindy@staged4more.com
Subject: Re: Business of Staging homes

Thank you Cindy for your prompt response. Basically I want to know how
to go about getting into the home staging business. Do you need a
background in interior design or can it be something you pick up by being
in the industry. I have a background in Advertising and art, so I was
wondering if that could benefit me in any way or I need more.

If you have any suggestions and/or advice, I would greatly appreciate
it.

Aspiring Stager

————————————————————————-

First of all staging is very different from interior design. If you
can’t see the differences between the 2, you will be in trouble when you
get in the business. I would recommend to do some research and see if
this is something that you want to do.

I would recommend you to figure out first: continue

Congratulations! You’ve grown your staging business to the point where your inventory, when it’s not in use (hopefully not often!), is filling every nook and cranny of your home. It’s time to rent a storage space. Whether you’re based in a city or a rural area, choices abound for spaces to rent to keep your inventory. Some options to consider are other people’s unused garages, sheds, extra rooms, public storage units, and warehouses. With my own staging business, I rented a small self-storage unit at a storage complex a couple blocks from my home. Location, size, and cost were the key considerations for me at first, but I quickly learned that there were other important factors I hadn’t thought of at the beginning.

First of all, signing a contract to rent a storage unit is not something to take lightly. It’s an extra overhead expense that you probably haven’t had to incur until this point. You’ve got to be sure that you can cover this expense, or that your business is growing at a healthy enough rate to cover it. You’re signing a contract which is a legally-enforceable commitment – take it seriously! In my opinion, it’s best to find a storage space which you can rent on a month-to-month basis, with a time period in which to give notice of leaving it that is as short as possible.

As for the size of the unit, you probably won’t need as much space as you think. If business is good, hopefully the unit will be empty much of the time! But, as we’ve all experienced, there are ups and downs in this business, and you should anticipate that much of your inventory may be back in your possession at some point – especially around the holidays.

You should feel comfortable in the space you’re renting. Get to know the manager by sight. Security is key: Who else has units near yours? During what hours can you access your unit? What type of security is there? When is a manager on duty? Is there adequate lighting in your unit? At one point I had some transients essentially living in the unit across the hall from mine – I always felt a little uncomfortable opening my unit when they were around to reveal all the beautiful new furniture I had!

Make sure that you will have access to the units in the early mornings and evenings. I would always be loading my truck at the crack of dawn, and often returning at dusk. Believe me, it sucks after a long day to realize you can’t unload the truck as you’d planned! Also note how you will load and unload – are you near a loading dock or parking area? Climate, water and pest control are other things to inquire about before renting – how awful it would be to have termites destroy your inventory!

Be sure to notify your insurer of this exciting development in your business. If a fire destroyed your unit, it would be devastating to lose everything only to find that your insurance didn’t cover items kept off the premises of your home or business address. Many storage rental contracts state explicitly that their insurance will not cover loss of your stored items. Finally, as always, read the fine print in the rental contract before you sign. Remember that you most likely have a lot of options in this area, and you have the ability to negotiate terms you may not like. Happy storing!

It’s only been 7 days since my Certified Staging Professionals (CSP) training, and frankly my brain still hurts from so much information. All and all it was an excellent training and continue education. Christine Rae, the creator of CSP staging training really packed in a lot of materials and I literally felt like I went on a Jedi Training in a galaxy far far away (Walnut Creek can do that to ya).

I also got my tests in the mail last Friday. That’s right, I had a midterm and a final and overall I scored a B. (Gosh darn it I really wanted an A!) But she wrote “very good :)” on the test so I feel slightly better

What I love about the training is that there were a lot of information on both design & business sides of the staging business and all the classmates are in the business at least 2 years, so we can fast forward all that newbie stuff and learned from each other’s experiences and dealing more advanced issues in our businesses. It was a really solid continue education.

I was the youngest of the bunch (in actual age and business age).

(photo by grebo guru)
Before the training I was feeling a bit frustrated with my business. I felt that it had plateaued. It was great to be in the presence of other more experienced stagers to know that it is perfectly normal to feel so and that breakthrough is possible.

The course challenged my old way of thinking & approaching staging process and the way I go about doing business. I also love the CSP structure where you can advanced into different levels of specializations through continue education and additional designations within CSP. The additional designations are structured like Realtor’s CRS designation where not only you have to complete the classroom work, you also have to provide additional field work to gain the designation. (So I can eventually get to yoda level.)
Overall it was a great 3-day with intense conversations about staging and how we can make our businesses better. It was also great getting to know Terrylynn Fisher & Kym Hough whom I have been admiring since I was a baby ASP stager and later only known through blogging on Active Rain.

I throughly enjoyed the company of people. It’s always great to be in the presence of people who love what you do and understand your frustrations. I still feel that my business is at a plateau but I feel I am more prepared to face the challenges ahead.

Christine Rae said something that was very poignant, which is that most people get into the real estate business when the time is good, and get out when it gets bad. People are not ready nor equipped to deal with down times, and that’s very true in my case.

I am caught a little bit off guard with the slower times, but that’s part of the business cycle and learning Even though the business has slowed down a little, but staged4more is still doing well and I still am very busy with things to do to grow the business. We just finished projects with HGTV, our last few staged listings had sold overasking or at full asking less than 25 days, and we came in from very strong #s in 2007 (2/3 of our staged and sold listings sold overasking with addition 3.34% increase in asking price). Staged4more is also set to expand into a much bigger warehouse (3,600 square feet!!) in early June, as well as expanding business lifelines (keep your eyes peeled for those!). I am also in the process of systematically restructuring the organization as well as hiring more support and team members so we can service clients in a short time notice. Lately I have been turning old clients away because I keep getting booked. I do feel bad about that So there are still lots to do!

My 3 BIG goals for rest of 2008 is:

1. Establish a warehouse system that is equipped with an *efficient* inventory system. Since we are transitioning into a professional warehouse space, we are going to have professional racking and we will need to start barcoding (or something) everything to increase efficiency, as well as figuring out what’s the most efficient ways to transport and store all of our hard and soft inventories.
2. 3 Additional lifelines/services of the business: It’s very exciting. I have been soft launching the virtual tour that we are now offering with every job and it’s working out very well so far. You can see examples of 88 King SF here. I am planning to implement that permanently once I find a permanent virtual tour guy for my San Mateo area staging jobs. I am also in the process of launching 2 more companies that are real estate related. So keep your eyes peeled for that!
3. Set up a Operations Manual to ensure consistency in both inside and outside operations.

Keep you posted!

(All the photos in this post are taken by me in China in 2004. You can see rest of my travel photos here on flickr.)

I have been getting these questions/see these comments a lot:

“Can you do this in an Asian style?”

“Can you stage this so it will appeal to Asian people?”

“How about Feng Shui? Do you do that too?”

Well, I am clearly Asian, and now I am an Asian American after being “naturalized” (I never know what “naturalized” mean, was I unnatural and awkward? I still am.). I was born and raised in Taiwan, came here in my teenage years (awkward age already, not to mention my fresh-out-of-boat look didn’t help my social status) and been here every since. I am in my late 20s, you can do the math

Working in real estate industry in California is interesting, because we are all trying to be politically correct and not to segregate according to people’s skin colors. But that’s not true. There are so much playing into the buying behaviors of certain ethnic groups, and I have noticed that lately Asian has become the new Latinos. All I hear is that “Can you stage this property in an Asian style so it will appeal to Asian populations?”

First of all, just what the heck is “Asian style?” Living in Asia and an Asian household for all my life, I can tell you that most Asian people (in both Asia and here) don’t live the stereotypical style of “Asian” as we have seen in furnishing catalogs. We continue

photo: DoBeRaGi
From: Ms. D

Subject: Advice for budding stager

Hi Cindy,

My name is [Ms. D] and I am what you would call a budding stager who has a flair for design and is passionate about interior design.
I’ve been reading your blogs and have been inspired by your beliefs and accomplishments. I wonder if you can share some of your wisdom with this newbie. Which home staging course would you recommend? There are so many! Did the course have practical training? Would you recommend specific videos or book?
I am not interested in pursuing a home staging business right now. Instead I would like to work with a group of home stagers and learn by experience. I really believe you learn by doing.
Thank you in advance for your time and help! I sincerely appreciate your advice.Sincerely,
[Ms. D]*** *** ***

Hi Ms. D

I would recommend a nationally recognized staging course, because the bigger the company is, the more liability and responsibility they must have to answer to their students and consumers. I am about to take CSP as continue education this weekend, and so far I have heard wonderful things about it.

I also think it’s all depending on what you want your niche to be and how strong you are in terms of business skills. A lot of staging courses really focus more on the business side, which ASP was when I took it in early 2006. I think they have since added more design elements into their course, but frankly you learn best from working in the fields. I personally took continue

(image per Wall Street Journal)

My good friend Craig came across this scathing Wall Street Journal editorial on staging titled “The Allure of the Fruit Bowl; Home Staging ‘Twiddles’ With a Buyer’s Mind.” This is my first and only reaction, and exact comment on the WSJ site:

“Okay, isn’t this just another rewrite of the report that National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents wrote?

I already wrote my rebuttal last August. You can read it here: “Apparently, A Good Stager Is the Buyers’ Biggest Enemy And We May Cost You $5645″ http://staged4more.com/blog/2007/08/16/apparently-a-good-stager-is-the-buyers-biggest-enemy-and-we-may-cost-you-5645/

Thanks again for the backhanded compliment.

Cheers, Cindy”

Old news, try some new arguments next time.

*Yawn*

I went to a great presentation put on the Benjamin Moore showroom couple weeks ago for author and cancer survivor Jennie Nash’s latest book “the last beach Bungalow.” She used many vivid and brilliant colors for her presentation. She also reflected upon how her personal experiences of living with and surviving cancer had played into constructing this story of a cancer survivor who became obsessed with winning the right to buy the last bungalow.

What really struck me is the inspiration of her book. She told a story that she was trying to buy this home but lost in the bidding war. Many days later she found out that the home was purchased by the real estate agent who bid against his own clients. Needless to say, he lost his license. One morning when she was chaperoning her child’s field trip, she realized the agent was the other parent chaperoning. She walked up to him and said: “You continue