How to Tell if Home Staging Will Work in Your Small Town – Part 2
Debra Gould
September 01, 2009
In part one of this article series, I shared three questions you should ask yourself to help determine whether or not your small town can support your home staging business. In it, I mentioned deciding how far you´re willing to travel for home staging projects and learning how many homes are listed and sold in your area.
Here are three more questions to ask to help determine if your small town can support your home staging business:
How many home stagers are in your town? Do some research and find out if there are other home stagers already working in your town. If there are, how hard did you have to look to find them? If there are other stagers, don´t let this discourage you. If you pick up the phone and call them, pretending to be a home owner looking for their services, you will probably discover you don´t have much to worry about. Not all home stagers hold up the same standards of professionalism and not all home stagers know how to market themselves.
How many real estate agents serve your town? Find out how many real estate agents are actively working in your area. There are probably a lot more agents than stagers in your town, and if you can align yourself with one or two of them, they could help you bring in some business until you educate the local home owners about the benefits of home stagers.
How much do I need to earn from home staging? The beauty of home staging is that you´ll be paid very well for your time, if you´ve learned how to price your services correctly which is a topic covered in Course 2 of The Staging Diva® Training Program. So while you may have fewer homes to stage then if you lived in a big city, your cost of living is less and you´re living in a place where wages as an employee are normally lower. Since what you can earn as a stager from even a 3 hour home staging consultation is often more than you´d earn in a full week in most local jobs, running your staging business can be a part-time business that earns you a full-time income!
One of the great things about home staging is that it´s such a low-cost business to be in. You don´t have to invest in inventory or find a storefront like many other businesses deal with. You operate your business from your home office and you can do it as a sideline business while you enjoy the steady income of a "j.o.b".
Keep in mind that home staging does not have to be all-or-nothing. If you dream of being a home stager but are doubtful that your small town will give you enough projects to sustain you full-time, you can still set up your business and take whatever projects you can get, doing them around your regular job´s work hours.
Home staging can help you supplement your income, or it can be a way to earn a very nice living just on its own. Part of this will be determined by how far you´re willing to travel for projects, how many projects you really need to support yourself, and how much time and energy you are willing to invest in educating your market in your local community as well as neighboring cities and towns.
For more great information and advice about starting a home staging business, check out Debra Gould´s blog, the Home Staging Business Report.
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