“Beggars Can’t Be Choosers”…you’ve probably heard the saying many times and may have even said it yourself. I often hear this from new home stagers who are breaking into the business or even from stagers who have been in the business for awhile, but are struggling to consistently book home staging projects.
Let’s think about this phrase for a minute. The words alone are completely disempowering.
Beg-gar: An impoverished person; a pauper.
Can’t or Can-not: have no alternative
Choose: to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference; to prefer or decide (to do something)
When you utter this 4 word phrase, you are essentially telling yourself and your clients that you are a person deprived of strength, vitality and creativeness who does not have the ability to decide to do something or select from possibilities by preference.
I don’t know about you, but I like choices. I want choices and I believe in choices, especially when it comes to my business and the people I choose to work with or projects I choose to work on. I know all of us have had the pleasure (and I do say that facetiously) of working with non-ideal clients. You probably knew it when you took on the project, but against your better judgment, your bank account balance convinced you to take the job. You justify your decision by telling yourself that “you could use the money”, but what happens? You end up being miserable and ultimately, it totally wasn’t worth it. You feel like kicking yourself for not listening to your gut.
Here’s the thing. You DO have choices. You CAN choose who you WANT to work with even if you are just starting out and there are specific things that you can do to ensure that you’re not selling yourself short and setting yourself up for regrets.
1) Be clear about who your ideal client is. If you’re not clear, how can your clients self-select and vice versa? I got very clear early on that my ideal client was an established listing Agent who was serious about their business and understood the value of staging their properties to sell. They lived and breathed real estate, consistently listed multiple homes annually, and was not afraid to bring me in as their partner during the home selling process. Many of my clients even introduced me to the sellers during their listing presentation (before they even had a signed agreement!). Once you have this profile identified, don’t be shy about letting people know on your website, in person, even in print. Those who don’t fit that profile will automatically self-select out which will save you the hassle in the long run!
2) Set policies and boundaries and stick to them. If you create the rules but don’t follow the rules, you might as well forget it. It’s a lost cause. Your clients will know it and they will take advantage of it. Not all, but many do because they know you’re not firm about what you say. For instance, one of my policies is that every single one of my staging clients must first go through a staging consultation with me before I will stage their property. No ifs, ands, or buts. I made exceptions in the beginning of my career and it always turned out disastrous. Learn from your mistakes…don’t repeat them!
3) Pre-qualify the prospects in advance. Have a systematic way of collecting information from a prospect the minute they call so that you can assess whether or not they are someone that is a fit for you and your business and this includes finding out if they have a realistic budget. Refer to my previous article: Effective Home Staging Business Tip: Have them at “Hello”
4) Offer clearly defined service packages. By having Staging packages outlined, it let’s your prospects know what to expect. It also gets them in the “shopping” mode because they are being given choices which is very powerful. It now turns your conversation from would you like to hire me “yes or no” to “if you were to go with one of these packages, which one would you be leaning towards?” See the difference. It completely takes you out of the role of being a pursuer to that of a consultant.
5) Have a website that pre-sells for you. Unfortunately, most of the websites that I see in our industry are ineffective for doing business today – meaning in 2010. They’re either beautiful brochure websites that do nothing to generate business long term or cheapy do-it-yourself sites that look unprofessional and have nothing but generic information on there. Your website is where the majority of your prospects are going to find you or do research on you, so it’s worth investing time and resources to create the best first impression possible (that’s what we’re in the business of right?) It’s high time everyone got away from regurgitating the same boring message about what home staging is, blah, blah, blah. That is so 2003! Personalize the message, take your prospects through the transformation that you provide them through your services, give them tons of high quality before/after pictures (that’s really what they want to see!) and give them proof through testimonials and success stories about how effective your services are. Give them that and they’ll pre-sell themselves!
Your Successful Staging Biz Assignment: Evaluate the 5 points above and if you see gaps in your own business, work on filling them as soon as possible. Remember, you have to first take yourself seriously before you can expect your prospective clients to. Set aside some time to “make it happen”. Trust me, you and your bank account will thank you later.
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