I met with a lovely lady for the coffee the other day. I’ll just call her Carol. She is a local woman who is going into the home staging business. Carol was so excited and enthusiastic about this new endeavor. I walked away for this meeting with a heavy heart and mixed feelings. She is taking a correspondence course in home staging.
(I personally think hand- on learning is a much better option but sometimes people need to flex around a schedule and I understand that).
But this particular correspondence class does not have a great reputation. Just goggle their name and you get tons of people saying “run the other way”, “this was a scam”, “save your money”. Did Carol do her research? Did she investigate other options? Did she research the owners of the company? (who have never even been home stagers) Did Carol ask how many stagers they have truly hired from this area?
Carol asked me tons of questions about how I price my services (it is right on my website) and how much profit I make (none of your business). Carol’s training course is teaching her NOTHING about how to run a business. No marketing tips, no business plans, no information about insurance, contracts, accounting. NOTHING! When I ask Carol about the lack of the business part of the training, her answer? “I don’t need that”
I didn’t want to burst her bubble – she was so excited about going into home staging. She says that this company will give her employment after she passes their test and she will get additional jobs on her own. Trying to be kind, I just to her “I really have my doubts on this specific home staging training program. You do need to know the business side of home staging to be successful. Please keep me posted on how it goes for you”
Here is my opinion…
Home staging means helping people with the largest financial asset they will ever own. You can’t give people bad staging advice or stage it poorly and have it sit on the market longer than necessary. You just can’t dabble in home staging or treat it like a hobby. Home staging is not a get rich quick business. If the TV ad for training and “guaranteed work” sounds too good to be true – it probably is! It is so important for want-to-be home stagers to do research. You need money to make money. You need time for your business to get off the ground. You need a plan. Most importantly, you can not do this job because you think it is fun or a way to make a quick buck.
Carol may enjoy home staging but if she didn’t even research the training company, will she research the housing area, the demographics of people buying houses, the styles that most encourage buying at that price point. If she doesn’t know how to price her services, will she go out of business? If she doesn’t treat the home staging as a professional business, will she give all home stagers in this area a bad name? I have a heavy heart because I think Carol could have made a better choice in a home staging training program and quite possibly is being ripped off. I have mixed feelings – I know she will not be in business very long. I want other
great professional stagers in my area - the more we can show home staging is a valuable service, the more business for all of us. I doubt this will be Carol.
