{"id":111,"date":"2020-07-29T18:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/?p=111"},"modified":"2020-07-29T18:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T18:15:00","slug":"the-staging-consultant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"The Staging Consultant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I never understood why other agents wanted to have a massive \u201cinventory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They would beam with pride as they showed me their giant whiteboards full of listings, and I\u2019d think to myself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u201cWhat a nightmare.\u201d<\/strong>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019d have to resist blurting out, \u201cWow! That\u2019s quite a list of failures!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even when I was selling over a hundred properties a year (as an individual agent), I very rarely had more than 5-6 listings at a time. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I did the work up-front to ensure every listing sold quickly, for the highest possible price, with the least amount of hassle.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes, I took advantage of the Flurry of Activity by pricing my listings correctly, as discussed last week in <a href=\"https:\/\/agentskills.com\/the-perception-of-value\/\">The Perception of Value<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that\u2019s not the ONLY thing I did. Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most important service I offered to every listing client was a complimentary home staging consultation with my Super-Star Staging Consultant &#8211; Angela.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019re NOT talking about complete home staging. That\u2019s different. A staging consultation is about utilizing the clients\u2019 existing furniture and artwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But here\u2019s the real \u201csecret\u201d of having a skilled home staging consultant on your team: About 5% of the work is rearranging furniture and artwork, and 95% is about cleaning, tidying, and decluttering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Angela was a star at tactfully getting sellers to view their home through the eyes of potential buyers.&nbsp; She would typically spend about an hour with them, walking through the house, and giving them a list of tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sellers would dutifully take notes  , and then they\u2019d do ALL the work after she left. Sometimes this would take several days, but by the time they were done, their homes were completely transformed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps you think that you can do this consultation work yourself to save a few bucks?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, I could have done that, too. But I didn\u2019t because I recognized two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The added value of having specialist experts on my team, and;<\/li><li>The value of MY time.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you always try to do everything yourself, you\u2019ll never be as successful as you <em>could <\/em>be. You hire professionals for other tasks, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is it an added expense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No. I prefer the word \u201cinvestment\u201d to \u201cexpense.\u201d I\u2019d rather invest a tiny bit more and sell twice as much as the guy with the giant whiteboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Your Consultant needs to be a talented staging professional, but more importantly, they need to be extremely tactful about how they instruct people to tidy and declutter. A true professional can do this without offending anyone, and quite honestly, it shouldn\u2019t be you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I suggest you start the interview process as soon as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I never understood why other agents wanted to have a massive \u201cinventory.\u201d They would beam with pride as they showed me their giant whiteboards full of listings, and I\u2019d think to myself: \u201cWhat a nightmare.\u201d I\u2019d have to resist blurting out, \u201cWow! That\u2019s quite a list of failures!\u201d Even when I was selling over a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-12-marketing-the-listing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agentskills2.dvsrvr.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}