Speaking Up about Home Staging

I'm not sure if you've heard, but I've become addicted to infographics. One of my favorite ones is, 22 ways to create compelling content.  I think this was well done.  As someone who occasionally experiences writers block, I will be sure to keep this around. Reading through the ideas, I'm particular fond of #12-17. So, I've decided to have a little fun with them.

I'm issuing a blog challenge.

Anyone can join in, regardless of industry. Here are the rules:

1. You must write a blog based on the suggestions in #12-17, which is posted above.
2. You must link your blog to this original post on SAR.
3. You must comment on the original post, leaving the link to your blog post.
4. You may write more than one blog, but only one in each of the categories (#12-17)
5. The deadline for submission is midnight (EST) March 17th

My staff will read every blog submitted and award a $100 Amazon gift card to our favorite blog writer.

So, what do you have to write about?  Anything related to your business, or what you do.  Remember, this is content marketing.  Part of the judging will be based on how well you convey that message. You do need to incorporate ideas #12 - #17 (see featured graphic above.)

Want to see the full graphic? Go to copyblogger.com.

One of the biggest complaints about home staging checklists is that they don’t provide professional, custom consultation reports.  Well, that’s exactly the beauty of Market Ready Real Estate‘s program. Other online checklists or room workbooks, show every possible recommendation on the list, even when they don’t apply to your customer.  Sure, you don’t check those items, but they are still on the list.  This gives clients the feeling that perhaps if they just had a copy of the checklist that they wouldn’t need you, the home staging professional. 

Standard home staging checklist

Another common problem with checklists or workbooks has been the number of rooms on the list, or the order they appear.  Every home is different both in flow and size.  The same checklist can not possibly apply to a McMansion as a studio or loft space.  Extra rooms, not enough rooms, or time spent flipping through the lists trying to find the right space for the room you were in, has always been a problem. Because Market Ready was created by one of thetop performing stagers in the industry, to help her busy staging teamprovide consultations that were professional and consistent, this program had to be different.  The program needed to offer solutions for every property, whether it was a $2 million dollar beach house, a 650 square foot condo downtown, or a 3 bedroom family home in the suburbs. 

By allowing the user to select the rooms from a drop down list, then rename them if desired, every report is specific to that exact property.  In a sprawling luxury property there may be a formal living room, family room, media room and bonus room that all fit under the category “living room”.  Selecting the room type, then changing the room name gives you the infinite ability to customize that selection.  Rather than the checklist showing “Master Bedroom”, “Second Bedroom”, or “Additional Bedrooms”, you can now name the rooms, “Sally’s room”, “Nursery”, or “Blue bedroom”. 

personalized checklist

Once the room type is selected, it appears with a list of most common recommendations.  Each of these recommendations, once selected, provide an option for additional notes, turning, “Paint room” to “Paint room with Sherwin Williams Croissant SW 7716″.  At the end of the list, there is also the option for “additional recommendations”, or you can “add item to list”, that will now appear in that room type for each additional consultation, allowing you to add your most common recommendations to your master list. 

Each room allows up to four photos to be uploaded along with short comments.  Adding photos is as easy as browsing for them.  They are automatically resized; one less step for you to add into your busy schedule. 

There are also opportunities in each room, as well as at the beginning and end of the report to write paragraphs with instruction, greetings or summaries.  Once your report is complete, simply save it and email it to your clients directly from the system.  The report is saved in downloadable pdf format, with only the information you selected.   Complete, thorough and comprehensive staging reports now can be as easy as a checklist, but without the downsides.

Whether you’re a “yenta with flair”, a certified interior designer or a seasoned staging professional, consultations are the lifeblood of your business. It’s not just how you get more business, and how you demonstrate your skill to a new realtor, it’s money in your pocket with NO EXPENSES against it. Your only cost is your time. You’re making a big mistake if you don’t have everything in place to knock off 2 or 3 of these each and every week you’re open for business!

Today, I want to share with you my admiration for a stager who has taken the consultation part of her business and kicked it up A LOT!! You’ll be saying “BAM!” every time you hear her name after you read this, too!!! :)

Michelle Molinari of Feature This Dot Dot Dot, started out as a Benjamin Moore paint consultant. To help dithering customers clueless about which beige would work in their space, Michelle taught herself how to work a little piece of software Ben Moore was retailing for $10 (no more, sadly) that would show you what YOUR room would look like in each shade.

Since it is ALWAYS easier to show people rather than tell folks what’s what, Michelle noticed not only how much faster she was able to help people make up their minds, but also that she now had overcome a curious language barrier. Olive green to you means a different olive green to me; we can’t help it; it’s part of where we’ve been in life. (e.g. supermarket olives in a jar vs. the trees in Greece…different hue altogether!)

Molinari stopped describing and started depicting.

Now as a successful Louisiana home stager, Michelle has exchanged her little paint program for the more sophisticated Better Homes and Garden Picture Painter, which can adjust for lighting condition. Before every consultation, Michelle asks each homeowner for current photos of their primary rooms.

“They’re always happy to send them along”, she says, “no-one has ever refused me.”

She reviews what she thinks needs to be done, and creates a possible look. Then as she heads to the consultation itself, she’s loaded for bear!

“This is your house now: this is your house neutralized.”

People GET it immediately! Because they can SEE it. Can you imagine how much simpler it is to get staging gigs this way?

Or wouldn’t most folks be able to do it on their own now? Certainly, and Michelle doesn’t mind if they do. She charges accordingly, and provides massive value – with not just pictures, but detailed lists of the repairs, enhancements and rearrangements she recommends. . . like a kit.

It’s a win-win! Michelle is handsomely paid for her time. The Do-It-Yourself-ers can head happily into the sunset with a well-crafted roadmap, and those who are totally overwhelmed can see exactly what they’re paying for!

Now Michelle’s software of preference Picture Painter is no longer available. Yet the software company has a new version that is available called Home Designer Interiors 2012. You can download a copy for as little as $79.

Would you spend $79 once to make $350 x 3 or 4 or 5, every week you want to work? Yes, you'll have to learn the software, but it's built for ordinary homeowners and you can do this. For an extra grand a week, I'm sure you can do this just beautifully!

Some people call this Virtual Staging, and use these pictures in lieu of staging. For Michelle Molinari, it's Conceptual Staging, illustrating the concept of staging for all the parties involved.

BAM!

In parts 1 and 2 of the series Becoming a Home Stager: Running a Successful Home Staging Business, we started looking at and overcoming the top obstacles that home stagers tend to find in their path to success.

The biggest challenges for new businesses are:

• trying to do everything yourself
• not having a plan
• thinking you are working when really you are just shuffling papers
• creating functioning systems
• not putting in the hours you need to succeed

Part 2 of this series, Team Blueprint, dealt with trying to do everything yourself.  Today, we’ll discuss the second most common problem, not having a plan.  I know we’ve all heard the saying, “You don’t plan to fail, you fail to plan.”  Well, these are the rules to live by in business.  Without a solid business plan, everything is at the whim of the day or the emergency, or even worse – your business is just floating on the breeze, waiting to see where the wind will carry it next.

media by The Higher ED CIO

Perhaps the one quote that illustrates the need for a strong business plan is from the book, What they don’t teach you in Business School. Mark McCormick conducted a study from the 1979 Harvard MBA Program.  In that year, the students were asked,

Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?”

Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing.

The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

I provide this information in all of my home staging classes, because I think having a solid business plan is one of the best things you can do for your business and to me, this information is staggering.  After reading the statistics for this, how can you not decide to make time for something so simple as writing a business plan?

So, what should be in your business plan then? You’ll need to identify

I feel suddenly like I've been living under a rock.  Is it just me, or has this infographics thing hit like lightening? Here I was minding my own business, reading blogs, looking at pretty pictures on pinterest. Then suddenly Brad Andesohn posted this:

Data provided by ActiveRain.com. Join 215,590 Real Estate Agents on the world's largest Real Estate Social Network.

It was as if suddenly my eyes were opened up.... The next thing I knew, infographics were all around me. I even had to set up a new blogging category for them!  All I can say is that infographics rock.  It's all I can do now to get any work done.  It's my latest eye candy.

(click on the images to see larger versions)

In the last week, I've seen a lot of concerns from home staging companies concerned about copyright violations and keeping their work from being pinned on Pinterest.  Two nights ago, after reading and watching several different friends, on several different facebook statuses and participating in a tweetchat with another group of professionals over the law and ethics of Pinterest, I ended up writing a blog on my website titled, Pinterest: Mania, Panic, Mayhem, Copyright Infringement & Marketing God. In it, I discussed the obsessive nature, the concern over the potential modification of images and the legality of pinning images.

I found it interesting when this morning I found in several feeds, and one post on my wall, the new discussion over the fact that Pinterest now has created a code for websites who want to disable the "pin it" pinmarklet button.  Apparently, on the same day that I wrote my blog, and cautioned readers to take a deep breathe, Pinterest was also taking action and releasing a statement of their own.

Now, in the help section on Pinterest, you'll find this:

I still find it interesting that this makes it the responsibility of website owners to block the pin it button and wonder if it will stop the lawsuits in wait from happening.  I know, owning another blogging community full of indy artists, this is a sensitive subject. After all, once the images are pinned, according to terms of service, they are now owned by Pinterest. 

Sure, you can go through their copyright infringement procedure to have an image removed, but will it remove ALL IMAGES taken from your website?  Given the fact that without this code, even images that are "right click protected" can be pinned, I imagine that there will still be some problems that Pinterest will face.  

Earlier today I watched this fascinating video on The Social Media Revolution.  In my mind I kept hearing all of the excuses that we have, as busy professionals, not to work our social circles or media streams.

I also was engaged in a blog conversation with Jeff Turner about Pinterest and the Importance of Quality Conversations.  He stated that for him, Pinterest was not an effective social media source as it did not help make conversation and deep social interaction.

Personally, I don't use Pinterest for deep social interaction, more because things look pretty and at heart I'm a visual person.  It's probably one of the reasons I got into home staging.  (I also happen to own a crafty social network, so I am very inspired by the arts, crafts and DIY sections of Pinterest).

Still between the blog conversation with Jeff and his followers, and this new video, it really has made me think today about our social connections.  Add to this the fact that Google and Bing have now changed their SEO filtering to include what your friends like and recommend and the entire way we look at the web may be changing.

Search Engine Watch discusses the Future of SEO and provides this handy little chart to the right.

What I think is really important about it is that all the discussion we've had over the past few years about writing SEO into our blogs, maxing out meta tags and keywords all may become mute with the new social media dynamics.  

Thinking about the way social media affects our home staging business or our Real Estate websites it's clear that we may have to make some changes.  It's not going to be enough now to own "Charleston Home Staging", now you'll need your collegues and clients to "like" your fan pages, reblog or share your latest posts, or at least +1 you into their friend circles.  

Every person, including the one sitting on the couch next to you in your own living room, may find a different answer in their search engines, all because of who they know and what they share.

In our new series, Conversations with Market Leaders, SAR interviews interesting celebs and prominant business people to find out how they achieved success and how that might help us do the same.  This week marked our first interview.  Best Selling Author and TV host Mark Montano agreed to take time out of his busy schedule, while is writing and preparing for book #12, The Big Ass Book of Bling.  

I wanted to share some fun snippets of conversation.  Click on the title to listen to the recording.

Big Ass Book author & TV host, Mark Montano, talks about going from fashion to home decor.  

After working in the fashion industry Under Bill Blass, being the youngest member to be induced into the Council of Fashion & Design , being a writer and editor of Cosmo Girl for more than 10 years, Mark finds the DIY decor industry beconing him.  How did Mark make the leap?

Getting work done on a deadline. Tips from best selling author Mark Montano.

While Mark prepares for his 12th book, The Big Ass Book of Bling, he provides tips on working on a deadline and getting monumental tasks broken down and accomplished.

Host of TLC’s While You Were Out discusses interviewing and the universe.

A funny look at Mark's interview process for the hit TLC's TV show 'While You Were Out', how the universe lines up and how TV is not always as glamorous as it appears to be.  

Copies of this interview in full are available to members of Conversations with Market Leaders and thanks to sponsor, Market Ready Real Estate's online home staging consultation program, it is also available to all annual and monthly account holders of their popular staging checklist program.

Recently Mark was hired by Mattel to provide Barbie's Dream House Makeover for their 2011 Project Angel Food Auction.  Here is one of the charming rooms in Barbie's new home, complete with her own miniature copy of The Big Ass Book of Crafts - one of Mark's top selling DIY books.

Please also look for Mark's new show on PBS, Let's Make It due to premier in the very near future!

Have you seen the listing videos by ROCKSTAR HOMES featuring lifestyle selling techniques?  I think it's the first time that I've ever truely enjoyed watching listing videos.    

If you haven't seen their videos, showcasing the way homes are actually lived in and untilized, then you'll want to check them out.  I know for me, I found it fascinating the way that I was looking at all the features and benefits of the property.  It's as if the property itself had life, but because it utilized actors and a lifestyle scene, it didn't have that feeling of someone else living there.  

In their newest video, they actually don't even show the home itself until nearly two minutes into it. 

I'm curious, as real estate professionals, what do you think about this type of real estate marketing?

Recently, at home sick, I decided to watch the new ABC show, The Revolution. For the most part, I like the cast.  The show has some redeeming qualities, though I rarely have time to actually watch it.

Still... last week, sitting in bed watching the show, Ty Pennington left me near speachless... no, that's not right.  He left me practically yelling at the television.  You would not think a simple conversation on how to show off your child's artwork would be so emotional, but it was....

Watch the video on what do to with kid's artwork and see if you agree with me!    

I really wish that more thought was given as to what happens when the child grows up, or when you sell your home.