Y-A-Y. 
Here are a few of our new updates & plan for 2009.
Posts Tagged ‘san francisco’
Staged4more Turns 3!!
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009A New Year Gift For You (Free Download)
Thursday, January 8th, 2009Hello Staged4more community!
Thanks again for your amazing support in the past few years. I know I have been quiet on the blog lately, but with good reasons. Staged4more had received great press opportunities in 2008, such as staging for HGTV and awards (2008 Make Mine A Million competition winner in Micro category and Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur Award). All these are very exciting. What is even more exciting is what I have in store for you in 2009!
*2 real estate marketing books will be published this year
*an eco-friendly real estate product line
*a home accessories product line
*new website (yes, we are growing out of this one!) that will have online shopping capabilities and more free useful content for you
*trainings in areas like green training, color designs, redesigns, etc.
As a token of appreciation for all your wonderful support since I founded Staged4more, here is a 2009-staged4more-real-estate-goals-calendar. You can print on any letter size paper of your choosing. All you need to do once you printed is cut them up and put them in a CD case for your desktop. (see photos below) I have also letterpressed these calendars and gave them out as gifts to clients, vendors and some of our Facebook fans. If you would like a letterpress copy, please email me directly at cindy (at) staged4more (dot) com. We have very few copies left.
Here are some photos:
HAPPY NEW YEAR! enjoy the calendars!
The Angels Singing Moment!
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
This week I totally had an out of body experience. It is one thing to see your company name on letterheads, but it is another to see it goes on the side of a building!
Originally I was quoted by a building signs company to pay $1200 for brand new building signs. Really? $1200? Thanks, no thanks. So I went to Loew’s and matched a bucket of the paint to the building color (It came out close but still slightly off since the sample was fairly dirty from years of dust and rain. But the funny thing is the paint doesn’t look matched with our neighbor on our left side, but matches the neighbor on the right side. So I guess it is sort of close!).
I also ordered stencil from an internet company that specializes in outdoor stencils. So yesterday I had two of our movers painted in the morning, then had them climbed onto the trellis to put the stencil up. I had them folded the stencil in half to determine the center line, eyeballed the middle roughly, then place the stencil onto the wall.
To put the stencil up, peel off the backing so the sticky side of stencil is revealed. You want to make sure you have the letters on correctly, not backward. This is why you sometimes see vehicles with their advertising backward, because they didn’t pay attention when they applied the stencil. Once it’s on, you need to make sure all the air bubbles are out by using something like a ruler or spatula to smooth the stencil out.
Then it is ready for paint! Technically you should dab the paint lightly, because the paint can seep through under the stencial and not have a clean look. We thought we would be okay since we applied the stencil pretty carefully, so we layed out the paint pretty thick.
We left it to dry over night, and the next day I climbed up the trellis myself to peel of the stencil. It came out with little dots around the lettering (paint still seeped through under the stencil) but since the building sign was so far away, most people won’t notice anyway.
It was challenging to climb up, I ended up using 2 ladders (I never was very sporty when I was growing up, let along climbing trees…). It was scary but thrilling.
All and all, I just still can’t believe now there is a building with our company name on it!!! WOOHOO! It was definitely an amazing feeling! It feels like that my small business has gone to the next level!
The second best part was that the whole thing cost $200, instead of $1200!
Did you just hire Mr. Joe the Plumber to Stage Your House?
Monday, October 20th, 2008When mainstream media checked the background of Mr. Joe the Plumber, they found out he didn’t have a plumber’s license to practice.
Joe the Plumber with Obama Courtesy of MSNBC.com
Well, it’s a similar issue in the staging industry: you don’t need a license to practice staging. Additionally, there is no regulation or ethics committee when it comes to business practices for staging. Essentially, anyone and everyone can wake up one day, “bing,” with that lightbulb going off above their heads and say: “Well, I’ve decided! In this recession, home staging sounds like a lucrative career, so I am gonna do it!” Silly as it sounds, it happens more often than we thought.
So as a consumer, what to do when you are hiring a stager? How do you make sure that you are hiring a stager who is responsible, ethical and will stage your home to get you best return on your staging investment?
Here are a few tips:
*Ask probing questions: Instead of just asking “How long have you been in the business?” ask “How many homes have you staged?” Because someone can be “in business” for a long period of time and not actually stage a lot of houses. You want to gauge how many projects the stager has done and what is his/hers past track records.
*Don’t just hire based on pricing: Figure out what you really get for the price tag. When you compare proposals, look at what does the lowest price tag include vs. the highest price tag include. The most expensive doesn’t mean it’s better, and vice versa. Also find out if there are other surcharges.
*ALWAYS, ALWAYS interview more than 1 stager: Hiring a stager is really not a decision to be taken lightly. Because the difference between a good stager vs. a bad stager can be days on market, # of offers, etc. which can have significant consequences of your final sales profit.
Got any other tips? Share them in the comment box below!
San Francisco Bay Area Home Staging Firm Owner Wins Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur Award
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
Sam’s Club® Champions Women Entrepreneurs to Celebrate Sam’s Club 25th Anniversary
Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur Awards Announced in North Carolina. Click here to meet the entrepreneurs.
The Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur Award winners were selected based on their business profiles, their commitment to community and their personal development. Awardees will receive one-year of paid professional business coaching, free access to Count Me In’s educational resources and seminars (valued at over $7,000.00), and a Sam’s Club Business Membership, made through a separate donation from Sam’s Club. The winners will also benefit from inclusion in the Count Me In organization’s community of like-minded women entrepreneurs who inspire and mentor each other.
“Count Me In is making a difference for women business owners and the communities where they live and work,†said Sharon Orlopp, senior vice president, People Division at Sam’s Club. “We applaud the CMI mission and believe this investment will further their efforts to support the economic independence, professional development and the success of women.â€
From accountants to organic food distributors, handcrafters to bodywork therapists, skincare product producers to civil engineering consultants, the Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneurs represent a broad array of industries and professions across the country. San Francisco Bay Area, California-based Cindy Lin own and operate Staged4more Home Staging and Redesigns, a company that specializes in creating spaces that sell. Cindy Lin is not only a burgeoning business owner; she is also a leader in her community. She not only participates in her local community to help other small business owners through her organization effort of BizTechDay, a technology bootcamp that helps 500+ San Francisco bay area small business owners to turbo charge their businesses, she also actively participates in local woman business entrepreneurs community by taking leadership roles in organizations like pow.wow women’s network and SF Small Biz Women. Additionally, raising awareness of home staging industry is part of her company’s mission. In 2009, Lin plans to launch a real estate initiative that aims at reducing waste during real estate resale process. “It was amazing to win this award. It feels validating that I am doing something right.†said Lin.
About Sam’s Club®
Sam’s Club is a division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (NYSE:WMT). The first Sam’s Club opened its doors in Midwest City, Okla., in 1983. Today, Sam’s Club serves more than 47 million U.S. Members with locations nationwide and in Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Sam’s Club offers exceptional values on merchandise and services for business owners and consumers. Online merchandise and Club information is available at samsclub.com.
About the Wal-Mart Foundation
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and the Wal-Mart Foundation are proud to support the charitable causes that are important to customers and associates in their own neighborhoods. Through its philanthropic programs and partnerships, the Wal-Mart Foundation supports initiatives focused on enhancing opportunities in education, job skills training, sustainability and health. In 2007, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and the Wal-Mart Foundation gave $296 million to communities across the United States. To learn more, visit www.walmartfoundation.org.
About Count Me In
Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence is the leading national not-for-profit provider of resources, business education and community support for women entrepreneurs seeking to grow micro businesses to million dollar enterprises. Count Me In launched the Make Mine a Million $ Business to inspire one million women entrepreneurs scale their businesses to a million dollars in revenue by 2010 by providing tools, skills and the support of a nation-wide community of peers.
Don’t Be Fooled by the 2 big D words in Home Staging
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008I read this script today that teaches realtors how to teach their clients “on staging home to sell:”
“I’m going to give you the two biggest money-making words there are when it comes to showing your home: depersonalize and declutter. It’ll make you house look bigger and is the best thing you can do.”
Hmm, really?
De-personalize and de-clutter, although 2 important aspects in home staging, does NOT substitute home staging.
I have heard agents telling their clients all the time, and I even have sellers say to me all the time, “Oh, I know I need to de-personalize and de-clutter. I learn that from HGTV.“ or “All I need is to de-peronsalize and de-clutter, I don’t need anything else.” And that’s ALL they do.
And you know what happens when you just de-personalize and de-clutter? You are just showing an empty space and a shell of a home. BUT PEOPLE WANT TO BUY MORE THAN JUST 4 WALLS AND A ROOF.
We often forget what it felt like when we were buyers when we sell our homes. We forgot that we (more…)
Diary of a Stager
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009Although I have moved Staged4more into its current location (3,600 square feet commercial building: see blog Angel Singing Moment!) for awhile now (umm like 6 months?), the warehouse still looks like a hot mess. (‘Tis the woe of a solo-preneur!)
Even though a lot of racks are up, I am still in the process of building more shelves to accommodate weird-shaping inventories like florals, tabletop accessories, etc. It feels like we are under construction every day! (And we actually are… Right now we are adding faucets in the front part of warehouse for a mini kitchen!) The kitchen cabinets you see are actually old kitchen cabinets (more…)
Tags: eco-friendly, eco-friendly product, forklift, green, green building science, green real estate training, home stager, home staging, kitchen cabinet, kitchen remodel, live green live smart, Real Estate, real estate training, san francisco, san mateo, staged4more, sustainable building advisor
Posted in A Day in the Life of a Home Stager, A Stager's Commentary | No Comments »