A home staging consultation can be one of the most lucrative parts of a home staging business. For customers it is also usually one of the best and most affordable services offered by professional stagers. When you are deciding on a training or certification course, it is important that they cover this topic at length and with detail, not only on what you need to look for, but how you will present this to the customer.
What goes into a home staging consultation?
Our home staging certification program teaches three different home staging consultation types. The first is the Walk & Talk. With this type of consultation, the home stager will deliver all of the information to the home owner at the time of the walk through. The written consultation requires the stager to walk through the home, then deliver a written report to the agent and seller usually within 24-48 hours. The final is a combination of consultation and hands-on staging service.
Walk and Talk Consultations
If you only want to offer a Walk and Talk, then you will need to know what to look for in the home and how to discuss this the right way with both the agent and the homeowner. Tact and diplomacy are needed. You’ll probably also need to understand the “why” well enough to explain and gain motivation to help the seller move forward with the recommendations.
Written Home Staging Consultations
If you decide that you want to provide a written report (which is my personal choice for all consultations) then you’ll need to know how to write a comprehensive report with enough detailed information that your customer can do the recommended work. Our course teaches this by having you actually do a mock consultation as our first test. (There are only two tests, this one and a final overall open book, multiple choice exam.) Using the Market Ready Real Estate online program, we show you how simple it is to create detailed, personalized reports in a very short period of time. Market Ready’s reporting system allows you to add photos to each room and select recommendations through a drop down and check box system.
Providing an editable checklist, the program also helps remind new home stagers what they should be looking for, helping to ease their mind and create a consistent overall look.
Combination staging and hands-on
Our final choice of home staging approaches is one that combines suggestions to the seller with a quick one hour hands-on stage. By showing what can be done with some small adjustments, the information conveyed in the consultation often has more impact. This also allows the stager to maximize each appointment.
Home Staging Consultations are great business
Developing a relationship with Realtors allows for more business for home stagers. Home staging consultations are the entry way to that relationship. Since consults are relatively low price points for both agents and sellers, when you can provide comprehensive information and a way to help them stand out from their competition, Realtors will do more to recommend you.
Keeping your prices competitive, but high enough that they are profitable is a balancing act. Our home staging certification course provides multiple ways to calculate the right price for your services and helps you understand the variables so you can control and adjust as your expenses or the market shifts.
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