I talk to potential home staging students nearly every day. I stay up to date on google alerts for 'home staging training' and occassionally I'll be directed (typically by the potential students) to another training companies website. The subject of "how much money can I REALISTICALLY make in the home staging industry" routinely comes up.
While I've been fortunate (and had a really good work ethic & savvy marketing skills) and have been very busy practically since day one of my staging career, I feel too often that inflated claims by many staging training companies are giving instructors and staging training companies a bad rap. I routinely see blogs by one training company that tells students that they should be earning 6 figures profit within months and they won't need to spend any money for marketing, insurance or inventory. Just last night I saw on the main training page of another company telling students how simple it is to earn $3000 profit working less than 40 hours a week.
Let me be frank here. I do pretty well. My company has earned more than 6 figures a year since its first year. We now have 6 stagers and 2 staff members. I earn a reasonably good income, doing exactly what I love. All that said, I have never worked less than 40 hours a week in this business - ok that's not exactly true - I've taken vacation and the last couple of weeks I've been sick and not been working full work weeks, but averaging it all out I'm still well over 40 hours a week.
Every business has expenses. Frequently the more you make, the more expenses you have - it's porportional. Some expenses may go down, but others will go up significantly. It is why we teach in our classes how to understand profitability, how to set your prices and the types of activity that you can do to increase your income without necessarily increasing your hours or workload. Certainly you can earn $3000 a week, and you can earn 6 figures profit a year. I just feel that using these figures as a beginning pay rate feels unrealistic for most stagers - sort of like the infomercials we see on TV where we see "results may vary" at the bottom.
I would love to hear from other stagers. Do the claims of earning $3000/week PROFIT or 6 figures with no marketing budget, insurance or inventory (of any kind) sound realistic to you?
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Author Bio: Melissa Marro, Home Staging Industry leader, Realtor, and entrepreneur offers a unique perspective on New Home Construction, Resale Residential Real Estate, and Home Staging
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For more information on buying or selling in the Fleming Island, Orange Park, or Jacksonville, area, visit StageListSellNEFL.com or call Melissa Marro (marro.melissa at gmail.com), Keller Williams First Coast Realty, for more information (904-466-2093).
