Starting a home staging business requires certain qualifications and resources in order to achieve the goal of success. The majority of new staging firms fail, simply due to a lack of preparation and business-sense, even when the actual design skills offered by the owner and staff may be exemplary. Losing an investment in a new business can be financially and emotionally catastrophic for the owner and any investors.
The scope of this article is to guide prospective home staging professionals on the path to viable long-term business success by offering both common sense pointers and industry-specific advice. I hope that this article helps you to prosper in this exciting and fiscally rewarding industry.
Before Starting a Home Staging Business
Before even thinking about going into business for yourself, you must be absolutely sure that you will have the skills needed to carry the company and propel it to success within the competitive staging industry. The way to acquire these skills is to successfully complete a home stager training course and have a decent amount of real-world work experience to put your school-taught theory into practice.
Additionally, working for several years in the staging sector will help develop the crucial network connections which are so vital to success in this business. Without the right skills, connections and experience, you simply might as well quit while you are ahead, since investing in your own business prematurely is often a sure recipe for economic disaster.
Becoming a Professional Home Stager
Ok, so you are trained and experienced. People like your work and request you for staging jobs. You have connections within the industry and in the related real estate field. Now what?
First off, you need to develop a business plan. This is an important step to success in any entrepreneurial field. Hopefully, you have a college background or the practical skills to learn how to write a plan for yourself. If not, then it is advised to hire a business consultant to work on a viable business plan for you. This service is not cheap, but will save you money in the long run, so do not skip this step, no matter what you do.
You will need to figure out exactly what type of services you will offer and the logistics of how you will offer them.
You need to address start-up capital needs, as well as ongoing and recurrent expenses for your new business. Make sure to consider everything, from rent to phone to gas to insurance to salaries, and much more.
You will also need to come up with various criteria that help endear companies to their clients, such as logos, slogans, contracts, warranties, referral incentive programs and other factors.
Successfully Starting a Home Staging Business
The biggest mistakes new stagers make when starting their own businesses are two fold. First, very few actually develop a comprehensive business plan. This is a costly error and is solely responsible for causing more companies to fail than any other single factor. Next, very few new companies have enough money to start and wind up getting into business with already depleted capital reserves, which will not adequately sustain them in the beginning. This causes most new entrepreneurs to fold before the fight even really begins.
As a real estate and home staging consultant, I truly understand exactly what needs to be done to successfully develop any new company or sole-proprietorship. In my time, I have developed and implemented over a dozen successful business plans, in many industries, so I speak from experience.
The goal of a good business plan is to facilitate long-term viability in an industry, regardless of competition or unforeseen circumstances. This is far more complicated than it sounds. Be sure to do your research and do not act prematurely, or your investment will be a waste when your business fails before it even gets a chance to truly shine.
