Cashing in on Home Staging Business Growth

Product and services go through a life cycle, from introduction to growth, then to maturity and decline. Decorating homes to sell fast and for top dollar— also called Home Staging, House Staging, House Fluffing and Real Estate Staging— is certainly past the introductory phase and is growing strong.

This creates tremendous opportunities for anyone considering getting into the Home Staging business. It's a growing industry which is why it's getting so much attention from the media. It's also new enough that not everyone has heard of it and most people are still interested in learning more about how and why Home Staging works.

In June I had a whole page in Reader's Digest (Canada) opening the RD Living section, but I've also been written up in major newspapers and appeared on four television networks (HGTV, LIFE Network, CBC and Toronto1).


Here's why you want to go into a business that's in the growth phase:

• The growth stage is when a growing number of people become interested in using a new product or service. In other words, a growing number of people will be interested in what you have to offer and they'll remember you because what you do is different.

When I go to a networking event, I'm generally the only Home Stager or House Fluffer in a room filled with coaches, accountants, financial planners, real estate agents, multi level marketers, etc. Who do you think people want to learn more about? And guess what, all of them are homeowners or know people that are! And, even better, if it's around the spring or fall a good percentage of them will be selling their homes in the near future!

BUSINESS BUILDING TIP: Get yourself out to networking events and talk about your Home Staging business!! You can learn more about this and other low cost business building tips in Decorate to Sell: Cashing in on the latest Real Estate Craze.

• You have a better chance of becoming one of the local Home Staging experts if fewer people are already established in your area (imagine trying to open your own little coffee shop on a street that already has a Starbucks at both ends of it).

• Most of your potential clients haven't used a Home Stager before, so they have no loyalties to someone else. This makes it easier for you to get established (compare this with being a new real estate agent and most of the people you meet have already used someone else they are happy with; tough to break in and convince them to switch, right?).

• Accepted pricing standards have yet to be established so you can blaze your own trail (I talk a lot about how to establish your pricing in a course called The Business of Home Staging/House Fluffing: What you Need to Start and How to Grow.

• In the growth stage, there are fewer competitors. Once a product or service reaches maturity, there are many competitors and many of them compete on price. Eventually there are too many competitors and the weaker ones are pushed out of the market.
  

If you get in now and establish yourself, it will be harder for others to catch up and you won't have to play the same pricing game when you have a strong track record of success. I have a growing number of competitors. Some charge half what I do. But, when one of my clients decides to sell their next house, who are they going to call? If I've already helped them make a $50,000 profit on my Home Staging services, why would they risk trying someone else just to save a few hundred dollars? Since they've already hired me before, they know that if a new person didn't do as good a job staging their home, they could lose thousands when they sell their property.

You can learn more about how to position yourself as a home staging expert in The Staging Diva's Sales and Marketing Secrets to Boosting your Home Staging Business.