Real estate staging and styling are complementary business services which work great together. I know a few truly excellent home stylists and a great number of home stagers, but I am amazed how few of these aesthetic décor professionals offer both services. To me, it seems like common sense to court the 2 distinct types of clients who pay good money to retain the services of a home stylist and a home stager. Why just settle for one income stream, when your business can benefit from 2 or more?
This tutorial will extol the virtues of offering both staging and styling services to prospective customers in an effort to maximize business income and client retention.
What is Real Estate Staging and Styling?
Real estate staging, also more commonly called home staging, is the art and science of enhancing the look, feel and flow of a property, inside and out, in order to enhance its appeal during the sales process. Home staging is a cheap way of bringing out the best attributes in a property, while simultaneously minimizing the potential negative characteristics of a residence, in order to increase sales price and decrease sales time. Staging is essentially a form of marketing used during the rental or sales process.
Real estate styling, more typically known as home styling, is a very similar service, since it also optimizes the interior, and possibly the exterior of the home, using simple and inexpensive methods. However, styling is performed when the client is keeping the home and not selling it. Essentially, styling is a form of decorating, done for pure enjoyment.
Therefore, the only crucial difference between staging and styling is that staging seeks to please prospective buyers, while styling seeks to satisfy the present owner. Marketing versus decorating, if you will.
Real Estate Enhancement Business
Since the skills used to style and stage are virtually identical, there is no reason why professionals working in either arena can not offer both services. After all, the designer will be qualified to do both with a bit of extra effort and can more than double their present client base, as well as expand the influence of their marketing efforts.
Remember, staging is only useful to people who are selling their homes. Styling is only useful to those keeping their homes, but those who are not interested in costly renovation or remodeling.
Offering both services will allow an aesthetic design professional to market to home sellers, homeowners and even renters, since styling is so affordable and can be a moveable investment in many cases, should the tenant decide to relocate elsewhere in the future. Styling can also be used to court business clients, party planners and other types of customers who need specialty decorating services.
Real Estate Staging and Styling Offerings
I hope this article has sparked the imaginations of a few of you out there who are struggling to get new staging companies off the ground, or maybe those who are already successful, but are looking to attain the next level. You have the talent and training already, so why not put them to their best use? Expand your service offerings and conquer your competition.
Remember, the staging industry is growing exponentially and soon, there will be more and more of you out there competing for the same clients. Put yourself and your company on another level and get ahead of those with limited vision. If you need any help with implementing this idea in your own business, feel free to contact me at any time.
