Mastering Buying Inventory and Leveraging Your Expenses in Your Home Staging Business with Home Stager Jess Harrington

About Today’s Episode with Jess Harrington

In this episode of The Home Staging Show, Jess takes us on her journey of transitioning from working for auction houses and Wayfair to becoming a successful home staging business owner in the Boston area. Jess candidly shares her progress and challenges in running and building her staging business and highlights how having a warehouse space has improved her staging business and profitability.

Moreover, Jess offers valuable insights on buying inventory and creating a curated look for her staged homes. She emphasizes the importance of budgeting and tracking expenses and explains how fine-tuning her financial reports and processes has enabled her to make strategic financial and inventory purchase decisions for her staging business.

Throughout the episode, Jess also shared her experiences attending last year’s Home Staging Business Mastery Retreat. The retreat gave her the clarity needed to grow and scale her staging business. She shared how the ideas and insights gained at the retreat helped her to enhance and elevate her staging business, which she implemented upon her return.

 

Stageflow is the StagerCon 2022 Sponsor. Data Insights for Residential Staging

This Episode is Brought to You by Stageflow, Our 2022 StagerCon Sponsor

Data Insights for Residential Staging

As an experienced home staging business under the name of Lemon and Lime Interiors, we know that data is an essential marketing tool for every staging business.

Founder and mathematician, Elaine Penhaul developed the app following her passion for data and her need to provide evidence of return on investment for clients. Elaine is confident that Stageflow provides a straightforward and simple way for every home stager to use their own data to win more business.

find out more about stageflow here

This Week on The Home Staging Show Podcast

 

 

  • [00:01:56] If you want longevity in your staging business, work on your business, not in your business

  • [00:03:27] You come first before your business

  • [00:06:58] Jess shares her background and how she started JessFinessed, her home staging business

  • [00:10:41] The key turning point that prompted Jess to build her business

  • [00:12:42] How her days at Wayfair helped her sharpen her focus in building her staging business

  • [00:13:02] How to create a staging business that is scalable and profitable

  • [00:14:12] Why creating systems, SOPs, and streamlining your business operations now can have a tremendous positive impact on your staging business

  • [00:15:10] How the Retreat last year changed Jess’s business

  • [00:18:50] How Jess is leveraging her warehouse space to create an additional revenue stream

  • [00:20:31] Why Jess ditched storage units and went for the warehouse

  • [00:21:17] Jess on building her HQ and creating a network through her warehouse and real estate connections

  • [00:24:28] Jess discusses her vision for her staging business and what having a space to work on her own means to her

  • [00:26:02] A hybrid business model in the staging industry

  • [00:26:27] The advantages of having a commercial warehouse that can receive furniture orders and consolidate for their own design work

  • [00:28:14] How wholesale works in the furniture industry

  • [00:28:44] Jess’s trick with buying and negotiating wholesale pricing ✨

  • [00:31:09] Approaching furniture reps and building relationships

  • [00:32:13] How Jess stretches her dollar the furthest when buying staging inventory

  • [00:33:31] How Jess approaches budgeting for her staging business, specifically on inventory purchases

  • [00:37:25] How Jess drives purchasing costs down at the market when she buys inventory

  • [00:38:12] How Jess approaches buying staging inventory and what pieces to invest on

  • [00:38:28] How Jess creates a curated look for her staged homes

  • [00:39:42] Jess discussed how her mood board kept her installation team on track, and stay on the brand of JessFinessed at every staging

  • [00:40:33] How Jess works with her stagers

  • [00:41:13] How Jess sources inventory on Facebook Marketplace

  • [00:42:31] Creating a non-cookie-cutter staging that reflects the buyers’ lifestyle while still being aesthetically pleasing

  • [00:43:15] We also talked about other stagers we admire and how they pull their work together in a curated, lifestyle way

  • [00:45:56] How Jess refined her eye and gained confidence in her staging work over the years

  • [00:49:07] Jess shares how her family supports her and her staging business

  • [00:49:40] How Jess benefits from offloading logistics and admin to her sister, who now runs her operations.

  • [00:51:26] In the previous podcast episode, Steph discusses the different leadership style

  • [00:52:07] Jess mentioned Jaime’s podcast episode on hiring and shares her challenges in finding the right people for her staging business

  • [00:53:54] Is there an ideal percentage that stagers should be making on their staging inventory?

  • [00:56:13] Working with professional movers

  • [00:58:27] Jess’s number one (and two!) tip for home stagers when it comes to buying inventory for their staging businesses

  • [00:59:36] What Elaine operates her staging business has taught us during last year’s retreat

About Jess Harrington

Jess Harrington of JessFinessed is a Boston-based designer, stager, and collector of furniture, art, and decor.

Her approach to leading a listing presentation project is detail-oriented and collaborative. And she is flexible, passionate, and fun to work with! Jess hails from South Carolina where she was born and raised. She holds BA degrees in Art History & Historic Preservation from the College of Charleston, and a certificate in Real Estate Staging through the New York Institute of Art & Design. She has worked professionally over the past 10 years in both the antique & fine art auction space and in a leadership role at a major e-commerce furniture vendor.

As such she has honed a keen sense of quality and value when selecting furnishings, art, and textiles, both old and new, for your home or listing. Jess’ personal taste is eclectic and draws from both classic designs with a mixture of modern and on-trend elements. Jess loves to balance natural with daring, old with new, and create sophisticated spaces by incorporating a variety of color, materials, and decor. In addition to her love for design & for her business, Jess is a wife & mom of two who loves antiquing, flower arranging, lego building, and napping.

Connect With Jess

Links & Resources Mentioned On Today’s Show

Some Helpful Action Ideas for You in This Episode

  • Apply to be a speaker at StagerCon if you have had success with additional revenue streams in your home staging business.

  • Submit your home staging projects to the International Home Staging Awards.

  • Consider attending our Home Staging Business Retreat to learn how to work on your business, not just in it.

  • Work on building your business to the point where it doesn’t need you to function every single day.

  • Read the book E-Myth by Michael Gerber to learn about the importance of working on your business, not in it.

  • Attend the three-part finance workshop series this June to learn about cash flow management, budgeting, and tax planning for your staging business.

  • Understand your profit margin for each staging project to guide how much you should be spending on each individual piece.

  • Fine-tune your business foundation and seek clarity on profit month over month.

  • Develop a strong handle on your finances to run a better, more enjoyable, and smoother business.

  • Understand logistics and supply chain to better curate furniture for your staging projects.

  • Focus on developing your business to the point where it can function without you 24/7.

  • Consider developing additional revenue streams for your home staging business.

  • Treat your home staging business like a corporate business, setting strict sales goals and developing a sales and operational team.

Transcript from Today’s Podcast

Please note that the transcript is auto-generated by AI. Please excuse any typos.
(Feel free to let us know so we can correct any typos!)

 

 

[00:00:03] Welcome to the Home Staging Show Podcast. The show where we dive deep into the world of home staging and how to build a viable home staging business. I’m your host Cindy Lin and in each episode we explore the latest trends, strategies, and art of building a vibrant and thriving home staging business. This is episode 1 73. 

[00:00:24] Before we start the show today, here is a message from our sponsor.

[00:00:29] Elaine: We all need powerful statistics to convince potential clients of the benefits of home Staging. Stageflow takes away the pain of having to filter spreadsheets or doing calculations. You enter what you know about every sale of the homes that you’ve staged, and lets stage flow. Do the rest. Easy.

[00:00:49] Real-time statistics for the home staging market.

[00:00:53] Cindy: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the home staging show. Just a quick reminder that if you want to apply to be one of the speakers this year as StagerCon, please send in your application. That deadline is the 21st of this month. So pretty much next week. The theme this year, it’s going to be multiple strings of income for home stagers. So if you have had success with additional revenue streams with your home staging business, I would love to hear from you! 

[00:01:22] The early bird submission for the International Home Staging Awards is also now open. This is a great time for you to save on entries if you’re planning to submit to multiple categories or sending in multiple projects for the same category. Just go to stagingawards.com and you can enter your home staging projects. 

[00:01:39] Also, we still have spots left for our Italian retreats this September. There are two locations for you to choose from this year, either Florence or Tuscany. And I know from the conversation that I’ve had with some of you, you might feel concerned about leaving your business for a week, you just can’t take a job basically for that entire week. 

[00:01:56] But the thing is, if you want longevity in your staging business, you will need to work on building your business to the point where it doesn’t need you to function every single day. So that if you want to take a vacation or if you have to step away because a family member is very sick, you have an emergency, you can. Your business is not going to collapse when you’re away from it. 

[00:02:18] Even if you have assistants in place right now, can they actually take over your business while you need to be away from it? 

[00:02:24] Let’s say you have an emergency you have to go take care of. You have to go out of town to go visit a family member. And all of a sudden you’ve got a big staging coming up next week. What’s going to happen with that? So you need to make sure that your business is not going to collapse when you’re walking away from it. 

[00:02:41] If you haven’t read the book, E-Myth by Michael Gerber. I highly recommend it. I’ll link it in our show notes as well. It’s a very quick read. English is actually not my first language and I was able to read it pretty quickly. 

[00:02:53] The book talks about the importance of working on your business, not in your business. As a service-based business, we’re really tied into our business. Right? Most staging business owners are also operators. So that means we are staging. In addition to running the business, being our own sales person. 

[00:03:10] But also doing admin work like billing or scheduling or things like that. Your business growth is going to be limited because is hinging upon you being in the business 24/7. 

[00:03:21] I know is difficult to extract yourself from it because it is your baby. You built it. 

[00:03:27] But at the end of the day, you have to come first before your business. A lot of business owners, myself included have burnt out, because we are overworked and we’re overwhelmed. We feel like we cannot take a break and eventually that is going to break you. And that’s what Elaine and I really focus on during the retreat, because we want you to work truly like a CEO, a Chief Executive Officer for your staging business. Instead of being the Chief Everything Officer. Because it’s simply not sustainable and you can’t even take a day off if you want to. 

[00:04:01] We also have a three-part finance workshop series coming up this June, we are going to go over cashflow management, budgeting and tax planning for your staging business. These are very key, important concept to really understand your profit margin. 

[00:04:15] And to really how to maximize the profit of each of your staging project. This is really for those of you who have been working for awhile. If you’re completely new to the business, this workshop series might be a little bit more difficult because you’re not going to have any numbers to play with in the workshops. 

[00:04:32] And if you’re coming on the retreat this year, this is included in your registration because I want us to really hit the ground running once we get to the retreat and really dive in deep with your staging business. 

[00:04:43] All right. So onto today’s episode, I’m really thrilled to have Jess of JessFinessed coming on the show. She’s an amazing business woman. She’s incredibly, sharp has a really great sense of style, but also very strong in terms of finances. Which we’re going to talk about on the show today. She’s also really great at buying inventory. I love her staging because a lot of it looks very curated. It’s very lifestyle. I think really works for today’s home buyers. And she’s very acutely in tune with that. And it really does show through her staging business. 

[00:05:14] Jess is a Boston-based designer, stager and collector of furniture, art and decor. Her approaching leading a listing presentation project is detail oriented, collaborative, and she’s flexible, passionate, and fun to work with! 

[00:05:27] Jess hails from South Carolina, where she was born and raised. She holds a BA degree in art history and historic preservation from the college of Charleston. 

[00:05:36] And she also have a certificate in real estate staging through the New York Institute of Art and Design. She has worked professionally over the past 10 years in both the antique and fine art auction space and in a leadership role at a major e-commerce furniture vendor. 

[00:05:50] And as such, she has honed a keen sense of quality and value when selecting furnishing, art, textiles, both old and new for your home and listing. 

[00:06:00] Jess’s personal taste is eclectic and draws from both classic design, with a mixture of modern and on-trend elements. 

[00:06:07] Jess loves to balance natural with daring, old with new and create sophisticated spaces by incorporating a variety of color ,materials and decor. In addition to her love for design and for her business, Jess is a wife and mom of two, who loves antiquing, flower arranging, Lego building and napping. 

[00:06:26] And Jess is also going to be one of our speakers at StagerCon this year, she is going to share her knowledge on how she’s leveraged her warehouse into additional stream of income for her, which we also talk about in the show today. 

[00:06:37] But she’s going to deep dive in further during her StagerCon session. All right, let’s start the show. 

[00:06:49] Hi Jess, welcome to the show. Before we get started today, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your home staging business? 

[00:06:58] Jess: Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Cindy. My name is Jess Harrington. My business is JessFinessed Home Staging, and I’m based outta Boston. I started my business January of 2020.

[00:07:12] So this is now my fourth year in business. And I just feel like I blinked and now I have so much furniture and here I am. If I’m really introducing my business, then I’ll tell you I got into home staging because I am one of those people who loves to just scroll through Zillow and Redfin, and I’m always looking at the market in the homes, and I just felt like there was an opportunity in the Boston market to do staging a little bit differently, a little more curated style, not necessarily luxury, but in a way that reflects my taste.

[00:07:50] And so JessFinessed was born. 

[00:07:53] Cindy: I love that. I think it’s important to look at the market and then see what’s missing a bit, and then how you can fill that spot. That’s very smart and strategic as well. 

[00:08:02] And I know you have a very extensive background coming into staging cuz you already worked in the furniture space for a long time.

[00:08:09] Can you tell us a little bit about how did you get started and then also what was that journey like for you before you got to JessFinessed? 

[00:08:17] Jess: Yes. So I am a South Carolina native, born and raised. And I studied historic preservation in art history as in undergrad. College of Charleston is the only undergraduate program in historic preservation.

[00:08:34] And I went on house tours all day. I mean, it was just amazing and I wasn’t sure at the time where that would take me in terms of a career path, but I absolutely loved just, you know, being in these spectacular homes. 

[00:08:48] When I graduated, the job market was not great anywhere. And so I came to Boston. I booked a one way flight and found a job waiting tables, and I was just gonna stay for the summer and start to kind of figure out my place in the world.

[00:09:05] I actually was waitressing at a restaurant in the seaport area of Boston and met a woman at the bar who was the mid-century art and furniture expert at a regional auction house. We had a gin and tonic and we’re talking and, I got my foot in the door for an internship at Skinner Auction House.

[00:09:26] And that was amazing experience because I got to just see and touch and feel so many different quality pieces of furniture and art, different eras, different style. You just really don’t get that kind of experience anywhere else. 

[00:09:43] So I was there for maybe a year and a half. I actually ran the front desk there, which was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had.

[00:09:51] And then I left to join a website that services the auction industry. So Cindy, if you find a work, it’s Picasso, it’s in New York, but you’re in San Francisco and you wanna bid on it, then you could bid remotely. So I would go to these different auction houses with my laptop and I would bid for people in the room.

[00:10:09] And then that kind of journey led me to Wayfair, where I led a sales team that serviced designers and architects and stagers. So I spent several years there and really learned a lot about supply chain, logistics, how furniture is curated to fit a market, how it is made, how it gets from point A to point C, D, you know. And I got to talk to a lot of different designers and folks in the industry.

[00:10:41] So that’s my background. I think then I was kind of at a point where I had a baby and I knew I always wanted to work for myself and to build something of my own. So I just wasn’t sure what it was. I took a little time off and I knew very quickly I didn’t wanna be a stay-at-home mom.

[00:10:57] I had the itch to work and to create and to build something. So then I just jumped right in to staging and kind of picked it up along the way. I think there was so much I didn’t know when I just decided I wanted to do this, but your podcast has been just an invaluable resource.

[00:11:14] And I feel like anytime I’ve gotten stuck, you’ve connected me with someone that, that, you know through this platform that’s helped me kind of figure it out. Now the size of my business, I am doing around 15 homes a month. I think I have 18 homes staged in Boston right now. So I’m not the biggest stager.

[00:11:34] I’m not the smallest, but I’m definitely in demand. And people are happy with our work, which feels great and we’re driving really good results. 

[00:11:42] Cindy: I love that. That’s amazing. You have such an interesting background. And actually, so for those of you guys don’t know, Jess actually was one of our participants last year in Sicily.

[00:11:52] She was one of our very first international retreat participants. And I think one of the things I’ve noticed with you during the retreat is that you have a very strong handle on your finance. You definitely think in terms of numbers and percentage. And I think that is a really great trait for stager because even though all five of you have six figure businesses, you know, last year I think we had people range between 150 to 700 in terms of annual revenue, which is amazing.

[00:12:19] But one of the thing I’ve noticed is that everyone still needs a lot of finance fine tuning or actually understanding, but you actually came in from, because the corporate background, you really understand and think about your profit margin every step of the way.

[00:12:34] So I think that really contributes to your success as well. And obviously, as a stager, you really need to know logistics, which you do very well, obviously. 

[00:12:42] Jess: Mm-hmm. Yeah, thank you. I, I mean I am learning more every day, but I did come from a background, you know, I had a very high sales quota and I had a big team that I had to manage and so we were always looking at what are the key drivers that we need to be focusing on in order to get to that bottom line.

[00:13:02] I think everyone has a different goal with their business. I am motivated to make money doing something I love, but the making money piece is really important to me. I had a good sense of, what I was doing well and what I needed to improve upon when I went to the retreat in Palermo. But when I left the retreat in Palermo, I was like, oh my gosh, okay, I gotta course correct here right away. My mar
gins are actually doing pretty good here. That’s great. And then like a laundry list of things to talk to my bookkeeper and my CPA about. Even just the adjustments that I’ve made to QuickBooks, getting an overall snapshot, some reporting that I’ve generated has just given me such an edge. Like into this year in terms of forecasting. I have a great eye. I know what I like to buy. But if you don’t know your profit, then you don’t have a guide to tell you how much you should be spending on each individual piece.

[00:13:59] Like that’s really what it comes down to. If you want to do this and do it in a way that’s scalable and profitable. 

[00:14:06] Cindy: That is correct. I mean, that’s one of the focus that me and Elaine had discussed. Probably ad nauseum. 

[00:14:12] Jess: Yeah. 

[00:14:12] Cindy: In the background. Because we really want to help stagers to figure out a way to grow their businesses that to the point, maybe they don’t wanna sell right now, but if they want to sell later on, they already are building assets.

[00:14:24] They’re building system, SOPs. They understand their profit margin. So that makes a very attractive business when they’re ready to sell. 

[00:14:32] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:32] Cindy: So it gives them more options as well. And in the meanwhile, while you’re creating those systems and SOPs and understanding your margin, you’re running a better business.

[00:14:41] It’s more enjoyable to run. It’s smoother. You’re gonna get higher quality of clients as well. And that’s what we really want with the retreat to really drive those points home. 

[00:14:50] Jess: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

[00:14:51] Cindy: And one of the things I recognize is that all of you actually, even though all of you’re very successful, you still need a little bit financial help.

[00:14:59] And this is why for this year’s retreat, as a bonus, you guys also get financial workshops this June, so that you can do a bit prep work. Then we can dive in a bit deeper once we get to retreat in September. 

[00:15:10] Jess: Yeah, that sounds great. I’m really looking forward to that. I feel like I’m coming a long way, but, some of the things that Elaine had brought up, and these weren’t even like things that were, any of us thought to even ask.

[00:15:21] It was like stuff that came up while we were all sitting, having lunch together. Like, oh, do you just add handyman labor to your invoice or do you 1099, or, you know, what are the implications? And just, I think being around other stagers, hearing how they do it and then how someone, you know, with like the business acumen of Elaine, who, kind of, I feel like built her business, like from day one.

[00:15:45] The way that where I am striving to be, it’s almost like she’s omniscient. Like she knew all of this and then started it perfectly from the get-go. And so that is something that I feel like just hearing how she’s doing things is so helpful. Cuz I’m someone that, like when I was billing well into the six figures, I went back and took your 5-Figure Floor Plan course because I wanted to strengthen the foundation and fine tune some things.

[00:16:09] Because I’m a choose and move type of person, so I’m like, there’s business out there, let me just capture it and like puts on the gas, swipe my credit card, buy a bunch of stuff and I’ll figure the rest out later. And like, you know, that works up to a certain point. But then when I really wanted to scale and have my own warehouse and it’s like, okay, what do I need to do in order to keep growing but have clarity on profit month over month.

[00:16:34] Cindy: Yeah, and Elaine actually also comes from a corporate background. She actually used to do leadership coaching for corporate clients. That was one of her background as well. And also she coaches very high level athletes in sailing, actually. Elaine’s a 

[00:16:47] Jess: Sailing, she’s a mathematician too, and 

[00:16:49] Cindy: She’s also a mathematician.

[00:16:50] And so it’s insane. So that’s why I was like, Elaine, you need to come on my retreat. Can you come and teach please ? And it’s just like, yeah, of course. 

[00:16:57] Jess: She’s going to be there this year too. 

[00:16:59] Cindy: Yeah, so that’s why I wanted Elaine. And also it’s different perspective in terms of running a staging business. I think when I started my staging business, it was fairly cookie cutter in terms of the way staging was taught.

[00:17:10] That you either are a vacant stager or you’re occupied stager, or you do consultation, and now is really hybrid. You know, we’re seeing people who have staging side of business and design side and maybe short-term rental as well, that not only they’re doing design, they’re also doing project management or even managing their clients for them.

[00:17:28] So there’s gonna be more hybrid businesses as we move forward, I think in the industry, which is a great thing. 

[00:17:34] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:35] Cindy: And that’s why I think it would be great on the retreat where you get two business owners with different points of view, uh, different ways of doing business as well. And Elaine, I think really functions on really high level.

[00:17:45] And I think that’s also kind of like how you were at Wayfair, right? There’s Wayfair already, there’s a budget department. There’s a finance department. They set a very strict sales goal for you every single quarter that you have to hit as someone who’s running a sales team.

[00:17:59] And Elaine treats her staging business that way. 

[00:18:02] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:02] Cindy: Elaine definitely runs that. She has a sales team, she has the operational team that does the moving and the staging too. Elaine really focuses on developing the business.

[00:18:12] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:18:12] Cindy: She’s gotten partnership with national brokerage in the UK that she’s able to partner with. That’s the thing, we want you as business owners to really move forward on the high level things in your business. You shouldn’t be doing the day-to-day, like packing out the bookshelf or making Canva graphics or sending out invoices and things like that.

[00:18:33] You should be focusing on the high level things like you talk about. Mm-hmm. Fine-tuning your QuickBooks, really looking at the profit and loss. Those are the things we want you to focus on as you grow your stag
ing business. And I think for you too, it is very exciting cuz I do follow you on Instagram even before the retreat.

[00:18:50] I think you’re doing great and amazing in your business, and I think one exciting thing is seeing you able to leverage your overhead by becoming a landlord. Yeah. So do you wanna talk a little bit about that? I know that’s something new that happened after the retreat, and I know it probably took you a lot of work to pull together, but I’m really curious how you’re able to leverage your overhead.

[00:19:11] Jess: Well, okay, so let me just tell you, it kind of happened before the retreat. I was so nervous about stepping away because everything was so busy, and going on the retreat, but I’m so glad I did. When I flew back from Sicily, I think I landed on a Saturday, and then Sunday I had a warehouse sale at my current warehouse.

[00:19:32] And then Monday I moved warehouses. I got it all done. It all happened. My family relocated. We moved closer to the North Shore Boston, and so part of the move was so that myself and then my business partner Annie. She’s someone that I developed to take on all of the interior design leads.

[00:19:50] I personally love staging and I do not want to do design and I want staging to be my lane. So she lives North Shore as well. So this is way closer to both of us geographically. And then, honestly, I was running outta space and my landlord at my previous warehouse was my moving partner, which was so great in a lot of ways.

[00:20:13] And I feel like it was an amazing incubator for my business. Like we brought in some other stagers, we collaborated, we kind of like co-op together. But as my business grew, I wanted a space of my own. If you were listening to this and if you were operating out of public storage lockers, that’s how I started too.

[00:20:31] And then I grew to four storage lockers and I’m like, I can’t do this another day. It was really, really challenging to keep track of my inventory. I was buying things that I had in storage. They were just buried in the back and I couldn’t get to them. So I think one of the big things about having your own space is you can apply almost like lean manufacturing principles.

[00:20:55] So like a warehouse where if you start to really understand your business, then it’s labor, it’s moving labor that’s very time intensive. And so I’m able to set my space up here to where sofas and some of the bigger pieces are closest to the elevator. I’m starting to put some pallet racking in, which is like, I never thought I’d be so excited about pallet racking.

[00:21:17] And then when I found this space, we came and looked at it immediately. It has gorgeous inlaid parquetry floors. A really high end hardwood flooring company that was in here before. And they moved out. They’re just next door now. And the landlord here, he is a real estate agent and so I just staged a home for him actually.

[00:21:37] And so that’s, you know, that’s very gratuitous. But I was really strategic in negotiating with the landlord or having him help me along to where I had language in my agreement that I could subtenant part of my space to offset my overhead. I’ve gotten a lot of support here and they’ve helped me put together tenant at will leases so that it’s pretty clear cut if someone doesn’t pay their rent or if my space grows, then we both have an out if my space isn’t great for them. They also could give notice and then leave. And so it keeps things really flexible. 

[00:22:12] So right now I have a wonderful tenant. She refinishes and reupholster furniture. And so she’s in a workshop area, and she has her own office here. And it’s great because sometimes I have pieces that come back and there’s a big shoe print on the chair. Someone stood on it to change a battery in one of the fire detectors.

[00:22:31] And so she’ll change out the seat cover. We’re all like working with each other a little bit, which is great. And then I have Annie who runs Interior Design Studio Finessed. It’s our partner business. So I’m a limited partner in her business. We actually broke it off.

[00:22:47] I sold that entity to her at the first of the year. And another business, Beacon of Style Furniture. She has gorgeous content on Instagram. She basically curates furniture for events. So it’s very styled and curated and she has a great eye. 

[00:23:06] So it’s really nice because here we all are in furniture focused businesses where we require moving labor. We require some handyman labor. We all require a loading dock, and so we’re able to help each other out in that way. And then there’s another stager who’s pretty big in Boston.

[00:23:26] She is amazing. She’s a great businesswoman. I just pick her brain. She’s running outta space and I’m holding on to some sofas for her, so she’s also a tenant. So it all, you know, I never marketed the space. This was all through my network, through agents I’ve worked with that knew someone.

[00:23:43] So I’ve gotten a lot of support. I call it HQ, headquarters. It’s definitely like the 1.0 version now. And so I’m looking forward to like the 2.0 version. But as it stands right now, I have more than doubled the space that I had before. And my rent is less. So like I can be happier about that.

[00:24:02] Cindy: I love that. I think that’s so exciting and I think it works out perfectly because all of you can help each other also with your businesses. That is really, really clever. And I know you’re gonna be speaking on StagerCon further about this this year. So I’m really excited about that too because I think we always see warehouse rent as dead weight, it’s just a flat expense.

[00:24:21] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:24:22] Cindy: But the thing is you can actually make it work for you and I think you’re the perfect example of how to make that work for you. 

[00:24:28] Jess: Yeah. And for me too, it’s like everyone wants different things out of their business. And we talked about this at the retreat too, where I kind of want it all in my business.

[00:24:36] I want the unicorn business that’s doing things so clever and differently, but I also want like the lifestyle business too. So I wanted to have a beautiful space where I could come. Not work from home where my husband and my kids are and really get dialed in. So that was really important to me.

[00:24:52] I, I wanted that very badly for myself. And you know, it’s like, sometimes I thought about it as dead weight too when I moved into my last place. And we really worked hard in the last place to like maximize every single square inch so that we could put as much stuff in there. But then it’s great for storage. But the design part of me, like I want surface space to pull out accents and to practice styling and to make some vignettes and to look at things.

[00:25:20] And when you have that workspace, the quality of my work has improved because I have a little room to work in here. So that’s that. I wasn’t thinking about that when I moved in, but it’s a really good side effect. 

[00:25:34] Cindy: Yeah, it’s like a little workshop space for you to test idea. I think that’s important too, as creative people. Like we have to have room to work. 

[00:25:43] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:43] Cindy: If we don’t, it stresses us out in a way. Hopefully. Yeah. No, I’m really excited cause I also see something, a potential of a showroom for you eventually just, you know, obviously you worked in product before. It’s, I think, a very natural for you eventually to do that again.

[00:26:02] Jess: Yeah. You know, you talked about this earlier when we were kicking off. There are a lot of hybrid businesses and I think my business is super dynamic already with having design and staging, both kind of in tandem. Annie who runs design, her clients. I mean the edge that she has that she brings to the table for them because we are basically our own consolidator and receiver. 

[00:26:27] It’s very expensive in the Boston area for designers to ship things that they buy from vendors over to a design services warehouse where they inspect and receive. We’re doing that. So that is actually another piece of where my warehouse, the cost is being offset because we have per clients for warehousing their pieces prior to install.

[00:26:51] So that’s been great. And I think for a showroom we have combined buying power now. I have a, an annual budget for staging inventory, which is on a sliding scale based on what my revenue looks like. So, if I bill more, I can buy more. Things turn faster, then I might not need to.

[00:27:12] So it’s kind of like a month to month, I adjust it. But there is always budget. And Annie has budget for clients, so she purchases on behalf. And so we’re able to hit minimums with vendors that we like to buy with them and then to receive things in our warehouse. Um, We’re able to do that because we have a loading dock.

[00:27:32] You know, if you are in a public storage unit, you can’t receive deliveries. A lot of vendors are really specific about where they’ll ship. So that’s been a great advantage. And I’ve been talking to a couple other home decor boutiques in the Boston area, where they want to sell more furniture, but they don’t really have margin because they have nowhere to receive it.

[00:27:54] We all have vendors that we like to have a really broad catalog then we can pull together to get great pricing and work together in that way. So almost like forming a local level buying or purchasing group. 

[00:28:09] Cindy: That is a dream, I think for most furniture businesses. For those listeners are not familiar with wholesale.

[00:28:14] Usually when you buy wholesale, you need to hit a certain quantity. So you can’t just go to a vendor, say, I wanna buy one vase. You have to buy a case of vase. So that could be six or 12 depending on the case pack. Or with furniture you might have to have a minimum opening order. So it could be 500, it could be a thousand depending on the vendor, it could be 10,000.

[00:28:33] We look into Fermob, for example, they are a French company outdoor furniture, their minimum order is a container. A shipping container. 

[00:28:42] Yeah. Yeah. That’s a lot . 

[00:28:44] Jess: It is. And, and the thing too is it’s like, you know, a lot of the vendors that I really loved at the Vegas market, their opening order was around 2,500, which, you know, if you’re strategic, it’s not that hard to hit.

[00:28:55] However, if you have a retail channel to your business, then you qualify for a different pricing level, where you’re pretty much a vendor for them, and so you get even better pricing. But, if you ever go to a market, the best thing that you can do, and Annie was coaching me on this.

[00:29:14] Like she had just such a good angle on it. She’s like, we just need to make personal connections with the reps at the places that we really like. Because if you start to understand where their consolidation warehouse is, then you know a little bit more about lead time. So that’s like time from order till time it leaves the door, not arrives.

[00:29:36] And then, you know, for me in Boston, if I find a vendor who stock in New Jersey, then if I order enough to where I’m gonna fill a truck, then sometimes they’ll work down on pricing. So, you know, it’s just like with staging where if you’re staging something that’s five minutes from your warehouse, your margins are a lot better with your movers.

[00:29:59] Whether or not you pass savings along, or if you use that to close a bid, it’s up to you. But sellers don’t ever ask me where I’m stationed out of or if they could get a price break because I’m closer or further. But here I am asking these furniture vendors. If I fill a whole truck and if I’m just in Boston, like with the logistics, then what does that, how does that impact my pricing?

[00:30:20] Cindy: That’s very smart. Cause when you’re talking about that, I start thinking, wow, we’re really lucky in California because a lot of furniture companies, they have warehouses in California , often in Sacramento, which is about three-hour drive to Bay Area.

[00:30:32] So they usually will fill a whole truck anyway cuz they deliver along the way coming down from North. So for us, even though for a staging company, our volume is a fraction of what a furniture company will order, in one order even, not even a whole year that they’re okay with smaller quantity.

[00:30:50] Jess: Yeah. It doesn’t hurt to ask. And you know, I think too, my husband’s a buyer for a big retail company and he does not buy furniture. He buys snack. Actually salty snacks to be specific. Very different product, but, he’ll spend, I don’t know, like $300,000 in a week.

[00:31:09] That is not my budget for buying by any means. And so, when I go to market, it’s like, you know, no one’s inviting me into the boardroom and making me coffee or tea for private discussion. It’s more like introducing who we are and why we love their product and just making that connection.

[00:31:28] So it’s like we can email directly and get something going. But yeah, and I think too, there are what I was most surprised about going to market is that there were a lot of vendors that had a really big catalog. Where I was worried with, you know, if I started to buy more in wholesale, that like I would lose the edge a little bit or the look of my work.

[00:31:48] But, I think I’ve zoned in on some great vendors and big categories where I think I can get a lot and really it’s only gonna help me better service the sellers and service the market because with staging, I feel like it is my goal to make the home look as amazing as possible, but by only charging what makes sense so that they’re capturing as much return on that investment as possible.

[00:32:13] So I’m like, okay, how do I get $60,000 of retail inventory for as little as possible. Like how can I stretch my dollar the furthest when buying? And that has been surprisingly one of the pieces that I l
ove most about this business. 

[00:32:29] Cindy: Yeah. And I think it fits your background very well and I think even with such a big, that’s say, with your husband, he’s got $300,000 just to buy one snack.

[00:32:37] I mean, it’s amazing. But that’s probably also a very calculated number from the finance department because they’re looking at all the stores. And we talk about this actually before we start on the show. We’re talking about numbers and finances. It, there’s so much, as your business grows, the numbers grow as well.

[00:32:53] You know, the headache grows a bit too. So the finance gets a bit more complicated and we really have to have a very good handle on it and to understand. And that’s why when you said that you have a, a budget for buying inventory, which I think is fabulous, cuz a lot of stagers actually I think just buy basically from , whatever it’s left on their credit card.

[00:33:13] They just be like, yeah, I need that piece, I’ll buy it right now. But they’re not really actually looking at budget and how that impacts the financial health of your business. The other thing too, I think is important is you’re actually buying on a sliding scale. So if a business is doing well, you are able to stretch up budget a bit.

[00:33:28] If it’s not, then you can, you know, shrink it a little bit. 

[00:33:31] Jess: Yeah. And, you know, it’s multifaceted. So I would say when it comes to budgeting for your staging business, some of the things that are working really well for me. So A) I kind of know roughly how much I have to spend each month, and it’s always a little different.

[00:33:48] It’s like, you know, I’ve got a full size bed one week and I don’t have that and I don’t, I don’t know, you know, which projects around the corner that’s gonna need a king versus a queen versus a full, but I’d say last summer, my family, like I wanted to move houses. I went to go stage a house and I fell in love with it and we put an offer in on it, and so we decided to, to move.

[00:34:11] And so it was kind of at a point where it was like, okay, like I’ve gotta turn profit consistently to be able to do these things that I wanna do for my family. So I was really, really careful not to overbook. Because, when I look at the numbers of what I spend, what goes into my business, I buy a sofa, but like I really need that sofa to work for me for around nine months before it breaks even, and then starts to make me money.

[00:34:39] So, you know, if you go out and buy for a new stage where you didn’t plan to, or you know you’re a little bit overbooked, then that’s where it gets really, really hard to keep a tight reign on your business. 

[00:34:52] Staging, you know, if you’re doing full service, I specialize in full service and I will do occupied for the right home for the right agent, right seller.

[00:35:01] But full service staging, it’s a capital intensive business. I think it was like $9,000 was what I used to start. And I just reinvested for the first two years. I didn’t take a salary or anything. Now I take a salary. I’m committed to taking my salary every month that holds me accountable.

[00:35:20] It’s important for me to be a good example of someone who can do this and build this and make a living doing it too. I feel like it sets a good, you know, like it’s important for people to make money. So when I look at the business holistically, it’s like, okay.

[00:35:41] I want to grow from doing 350,000 in gross revenue to 700,000. To do that, it’s gonna require buying more furniture. So how do I buy more furniture to accommodate that additional business while also meeting all of my overhead commitments, payroll, paying my salary, how do I, how do I get there?

[00:36:04] How do I path for that? And so then it’s like, if you look at, and this is something that you talked about, I think in like the 5-Figure Floor Plan course. How, like you have to know your business numbers in and out. So if you don’t know how much it costs to stage a one bedroom home, or like, how much money that takes for you and not just like money.

[00:36:22] Like think about like, you have to unbox and assemble or go to the store, send your assistant to the store, dumpster fees even. There’s a lot that goes into procuring, consolidating, assembling. If you don’t know that big number and down to the line item, then you’re gonna really struggle to grow and to scale.

[00:36:43] So for me, and this is something that I did after the retreat. It’s like, okay, if I wanna make sure I’m pricing accurately to reflect my work quality, then I need to know how much money goes into a stage. And then that’s like my, my parameter. 

[00:36:58] For like a sofa, like with the quality level that I want my brand to reflect, I have a rough budget in mind, so like, not to exceed this, the number. Um, and then sometimes I’ll find something at a great steal and I’m like, okay, I’m gonna buy that artwork. That’s a little outta budget, but it’ll balance out. I think it’s like the art of the mix. It’s like the creative piece where like you can really, you know, do the, do the fun stuff.

[00:37:25] So I actually printed out, was like my little Excel spreadsheet, which was like every single piece that I would ever put in a stage. And I took that with me to Vegas market so I could see if I were to buy wholesale on these categories, a truckload, like where could I drive the numbers down? And like how could that, how could I use that to like level up in other categories so that I have the same finished product, but my margins improve.

[00:37:51] Cindy: I love that. That’s amazing. Yeah. I feel like that’s a Jedi trick in inventory buying. Yeah, because we look at numbers and we think usually buying wholesale will be worth it, but actually on some of the accessory items it’s actually better just to buy retail. Because it doesn’t make sense to buy 12 of the same vases, even at wholesale.

[00:38:12] Yeah. It makes much more sense to invest that money into some trendy piece that looks really high end. Mm-hmm. And maybe on the retail, basically pay a little bit more, but it’s worth it for the overall effect for the staged homes. But we also are actually saving money cause I don’t have to think about what I’m gonna do with the other 11 vases.

[00:38:28] So those are some of the things you do want to look at when you’re starting to buy. And I like that we’re having this conversation because I think one of the thing I like about your staging is that. I think one of the, think challenges, I guess that I’m trying to say is that, all of us stagers essentially have the same access to the same stores.

[00:38:47] We all can go to Ikea or go on Wayfair or go to Home Goods. We have the same access to the same stores in every market, right? Pottery Barns, Crate & Barrel. You can order things on internet and things like that. 

[00:38:59] So how do we put a staged home together without looking like someone else’s? And I think yours is a really good example, and I think maybe that is a Wayfair training as well, because your home doe
s look very curated, just like what you said you want to do with your business.

[00:39:12] So what is your trick or your secret in terms of how can you buy so that your staging looks unique every time, not unlike any other stagers in your market? 

[00:39:23] Jess: I love that question. I think I’m a little bit of a furniture snob as it is and cause you know, I worked at Wayfair.

[00:39:29] No, I don’t buy everything from Wayfair though. There’s definitely some things that I buy on Wayfair. If I need a full-size headboard, today is Wednesday, I need by Monday, I’m gonna go to Wayfair, I’m gonna find what I need. I’ll also buy from their open box clearance section.

[00:39:42] I got this cool Jonathan Adler lamp from there, it just didn’t have a shade. And so, it’s knowing what you like and where to source. But you know, another thing that we did on the retreat you showed us, um, I’m blanking on the stagers name, but she’s out. Oh, Kristin, yeah.

[00:39:57] From Philadelphia. Yes. And so that’s something that I did last year where I sat down, creative think tank time. And I did a mood board and it was basically, a brand guide. So what’s on brand for JessFinessed? What’s off brand for JessFinessed? What’s some things that we don’t do.

[00:40:17] I feel it is not me to tell you what you should and should not do. There is room in the Boston market for a variety of different styles of staging. But I don’t want my installation team to do is like angle a rug. We will layer rugs but we don’t angle them.

[00:40:33] So like really, really specific in terms of our do’s and don’ts. I also think where, where I really do a great job is giving talented people some room to just do what they want to do and what looks good. Like my lead stager, Liz, she’s an independent artist and she’s with me half the week.

[00:40:53] And she’s at the point now where she’ll design and curate and install. She’ll pull pieces to do a gallery wall. And yeah, that takes more time and effort. It’s not necessarily any more costly than buying like one oversized canvas. But a lot of staging that you see, it’s kind of like you get one piece of art over sofa and it’s very formulaic.

[00:41:13] We don’t really have a pack list that we go off of. Like, for better or worse, we could probably do a better job, I think with bedding sometimes, getting a little more programmatic on it. But, I also, I source antiques. I’m comfortable mixing with antiques and I know what to search for. 

[00:41:31] It’s training the algorithm to show you what you like is half the battle. On Facebook marketplace, even if you’re not gonna buy something, you always have to save it or heart it because it starts to train the algorithm to show you what you like.

[00:41:44] Because, you know, I feel like I could use the exact same sofa as another stager. We could use the same sofa, rug, accent chairs. But the styling, it is literally the last level. The way that you blend color, fabric, hard versus soft materials, and the way that you play with scale, I think is what makes our work feel and look different and like our work too. 

[00:42:06] I was chatting with a local stylist that works with a bunch of designers. I had lunch with him last week and we’ve both followed each other on Instagram for a long time. And he was like, oh, your work now versus like two years ago, the work quality level looks so much better.

[00:42:19] And so I feel like I’m critical. I’m hard on myself, but it is nice to see that other people recognize how hard we’re working to keep improving the quality of our work.

[00:42:31] Cindy: Yeah. And your clients see that as well and mm-hmm. I love that discussion about gallery wall because I think when we learn staging, especially when I learned staging, it was very cookie cutter.

[00:42:41] You hang artwork side by side, basically it’s very cookie cutter, right? You always hang in twos or in threes and leveled. But most of us don’t live like that. Actually. Most of us probably have some sort of gallery wall where everything is uneven, but it has a grouping of some sort that looks mm-hmm.

[00:42:57] Aesthetically pleasing, or at least ourselves feel like it. So I think that is more of that lifestyle staging that we really wanna strive for nowadays. It’s, we’re getting out of that kind of traditional way of how staging is being taught to now really cater to more how our buyers are living in their own homes.

[00:43:15] Mm-hmm. That’s the other thing too, Like Terry for example, from the retreat last year, I really love her work too. She’s won a bunch of awards last year for the International Staging Awards, and her work is very lifestyley. I think part of that is because she used to be a prop stylist for catalogs, so she is trained to make things look very lifestyle, but not so lifestyle you feel like I’m just like living in their house, you know, kind of thing. It’s that aspirational lifestyle that we are building as stagers for the potential buyers. 

[00:43:44] Jess: I love Terry’s work. Like I look to her Instagram sometimes for styling inspiration. And she’s one too where it’s like she’ll buy something at Home Goods. So I’ll be like, no way. That’s Home Goods. It’s the sum of all the parts the way she puts it, styles it in a room, the context. It always just like things looks so good. 

[00:44:03] Cindy: Yeah. And I think a lot of it is that curation process because when I was talking to Terry about her process. When I had a chance to go to New York, we met and then she showed me a couple of listings that she staged.

[00:44:13] She told me about how she uses rental furniture and I was like, I can’t tell at all. And she said it’s probably because I used two different rental furniture companies. So she would mix inventory from different companies and then in additions to her own inventory pieces as well. And you brought up Jason Saft before we got on the podcast. I love his work too. He’s also very curated in terms of his work. I mean, there’s definitely things he buys from like Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barns or things like that. But he also used a lot of antique pieces. Same thing with Kristin who you brought up, out in Philadelphia. They also do a lot of antique pieces mixed with kind of the things that are ready-to-buy at shops. So I think it’s really about how you blend and how you curate, and how you be creative with your staging to really create that personal style. 

[00:45:01] Jess: And, and here’s what I’ve learned too. With with Jason’s work too, it’s like, you know, I staged a home in Beacon Hill last week that had like a, one of the like Brickle bears in it, like it was the seller’s.

[00:45:11] And I was like, oh, I know Jason uses these and I don’t know if Boston’s like ready for this, but I’m gonna go for it. And like, you know, styled it and the home, it’s like one of those like, um, it’s like an Andy Warhol collab, but it’s like a teddy bear figurine that almost looks like a Lego, but it’s like, you know, people collect all different sorts of things.

[0
0:45:30] But it was cool, it’s edgy and it was really neat. And I think you’re always gonna have real estate agents, sellers, and buyers who appreciate great design and art and those are the buyers that like, like you really wanna win and you really wanna capture. It’s important in Boston and some different neighborhoods that I stage in. Where there’s a different quality expectation, like taste level.

[00:45:56] We win a lot in that market, but it takes a lot of time to train your eye. I think I have over 10,000 pins on Pinterest over the years. I mean, it’s like, I didn’t just like, you know, wake up one day and like know how or what I liked or how to buy it and, It takes a lot of time to like go antiquing or source these like, cool, amazing things and, and play around and figure out exactly how to style them.

[00:46:23] And so, you know, it took me awhile to gain confidence in how I would put a price on that in terms of how I bill and how I estimate. Because it’s not cookie cutter, formulaic staging. I lose bids sometimes because they don’t have budget or they don’t quite care or value that extra level that we’re aiming to provide.

[00:46:44] And I think that’s okay. You know, I wanna work with great people, deliver great results and, you know, bill enough to support the kind of work that you know I wanna do. And, and the finished product. So. 

[00:46:58] Cindy: Yeah, a hundred percent agree. Ultimately this is your business, right?

[00:47:01] You need to run your business the way you want it to. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , and I think that’s really important, we talked about this on a retreat as well, is to align your business goals with your personal goals. I think that’s really important to really create that business you want. 

[00:47:15] Jess: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m still working on that, but making big strides.

[00:47:21] Cindy: It’s always a work in progress, but I think that’s an exciting thing about running your own business because it kind of takes on a new life. You just never know, you know how you’re gonna pivot or maybe something’s changed and it changed your feeling about how you want to run your business. But I think that’s the amazing thing is, you know, I never thought I’m gonna start a school on staging, but felt right at the time to make that transition from a stager to an educator. 

[00:47:48] And obviously podcasts played a huge part of that to really help me see that I can reach a lot more people by doing what I believe I should be doing mm-hmm. . And so that’s been really encouraging so far. Yeah. 

[00:48:02] Jess: Yeah. And I think too, beyond being an educator, it feels like Staged4more is, like I know I can go on your website and like find , find something that I need. Like you’re really, the, the way that you have built it is kind of like a platform and like a network I think has been so invaluable.

[00:48:19] I’m going, I don’t know if I told you I’m going to LA next week and I’m going to meet up with, um, um, why am I blanking on his name? I took his, oh. 

[00:48:29] Cindy: Is it Daniel? Yes. Oh my God. Are you really? 

[00:48:31] Jess: You know, that likes to do Zumba, right? He does. 

[00:48:35] Cindy: I’m so jealous. 

[00:48:37] Jess: Yeah. . Yeah. So him and his partner run the business together and they have four kids.

[00:48:42] And so my husband and I are like, I would love to just talk to you about like how that’s like working together with four kids. We only have two. 

[00:48:49] Cindy: That’s amazing. No, that’s great. You should, you should definitely talk to Daniel. He’s amazing.

[00:48:53] I don’t know how he runs the staging business with four kids and with his partner too, because I used to run my business with my sister and we live together and I feel like we drive each other crazy. And I don’t know how he does it with his husband. 

[00:49:07] Jess: Oh, you know, my husband’s not super involved. I mean, if I get sick, I don’t have paid sick time, you know?

[00:49:15] So I’ll use one of his sick days, send him out on a job for me, occasionally sick and stay home. So he is incredibly supportive, but he’s really not involved in the day-to-day anymore. I actually did bring my sister on board though last year in August.

[00:49:29] You were saying you shouldn’t be building all of your quotes and doing all of your Canva. Like I, gearing up for this. I’m like, I don’t know where my laptop is. I haven’t opened it in like a while. Cuz she’s like the backbone in my business.

[00:49:40] I report to her. I go where she sends me when the job is booked. She sends me the scope that they selected. I mean, she’s really providing such a great customer experience and like, I don’t know how I did it without her. It was like I would come home from like a really long stage day, put my kids to bed and then jump on my laptop and try and like, You know, catch up to the next one.

[00:50:03] And when I look back in QuickBooks at my P&L on a month over month snapshot, it was peaks and valleys in terms of revenue coming in because I was going out there to book all these jobs, but then I was going to execute on the jobs. And while I was executing on the jobs, I wasn’t, you know, out there looking at and booking for the month ahead.

[00:50:22] So it was like I couldn’t be in all these places at once. And the months were so inconsistent. And so now it’s like, I’ve got a quota every month and like how much I want to bill. And there’s multiple ways to get there. You know, a couple places that go on contract extensions since that’s a little profit, comes in that way.

[00:50:41] And then some scopes are larger than others. Annie who runs design, if she books a big client, then I have an income stream that way. But it’s given me just, okay, I’m gonna go out there and I’m gonna find the jobs that I’m really excited about, fill my calendar up.

[00:50:58] My sister will handle the logistics. I mean, she sends out a pre-stage day questionnaire that’s like, what is the key to the lockbox code? I always have that information at my fingertips. It takes a lot of texting and back and forth off my plate. This is my fourth year in business, but I feel like by the fifth, I’m gonna be feeling really, really good about where I’m at.

[00:51:21] Cindy: I think that’s amazing. It sounds like your sister’s your handler, which is great. 

[00:51:24] Jess: It’s funny cause she’s my handler. 

[00:51:26] Cindy: Yeah, because before you, I just did another podcast interview, which is gonna air before your episode and the speaker Steph talks about how we have different leadership styles.

[00:51:34] Mm-
hmm. Some people actually need a lot of operational, structural support so that they can stay focused on the creative side of the business. I think we have that misconception. It’s like, oh, once we become a business owner, for some reason, we should be good at all things of our business.

[00:51:50] But that’s really not possible, and we’re all humans. But it’s about recognizing the need of delegating and finding someone who’s gonna be able to fit that bill and leveraging their strengths and really empower them to do what they do best in their position. And it sounds like you found that person with your sister, so that’s amazing.

[00:52:07] Jess: Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, the podcast that just went live, I think today on hiring I haven’t listened. 

[00:52:14] Cindy: Yeah. With Jamie. 

[00:52:15] Jess: But I will, because I think that’s been a challenging part for me because there’s so many talented people out there, but sometimes it’s like, oh gosh, I really need less talent and I need more moving or organizing or strategy or steaming shower curtains, you know, and so it’s tough because I’m not so big yet to where I can leverage people just for their talent alone. And that’s been one of like the, I think, challenging things about finding the right people, because they could be the right people in so many ways, but, the right person for my business at a time requires less passion for interior design and more passion for making beds, helping with those fine tuning things.

[00:52:59] Cindy: Yeah. We noticed that with our staging business is that, we want someone, because when I used to hire assistants, I wanted them to be able to organize pillows and or inventory in the warehouse and be able to work on job site. And I realized quickly that it’s two different personalities.

[00:53:14] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:53:15] Cindy: Somebody who likes to sort pillows by colors and want work quietly all day with their headphones on. They’re not the type of people who want to go on job site and like, deal with clients. Cause you know how clients always pop in last minute, oh, I just wanna check in to see how everything is.

[00:53:33] Jess: Mm-hmm. 

[00:53:33] Cindy: And they’re very uncomfortable on job site because it’s very overwhelming for them. So then we start splitting hiring position and it worked out so much better. 

[00:53:44] Jess: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:53:46] Cindy: I know we’re at the end of our show, so I can’t believe how fast time has gone. I do wanna ask though, cause I think this is kind of on everyone’s mind.

[00:53:54] Is there an ideal percentage that stagers should be making on their inventory? 

[00:54:00] Jess: So I don’t look at it just on inventory. I think of my inventory and even the way that my bookkeeper and my CPA, like that we talk about it is a staging expense. So I carry it on my P&L versus on my balance sheet.

[00:54:14] So when I put my quote together, when I price out a job, I look at it like moving labor. So I’m pretty sharp on that and I have to be, it’s Boston, so sometimes I’m like, okay, we need four guys cuz we have to hoist or we have to park around the corner so it’s extra steps. And so I’m looking at that number and then sometimes I look at what I think the home will list for, because that helps me to understand buyer expectation. Am I gonna put a higher level tier of inventory in here versus if it’s a home that’s selling for a quarter of the price than in order for me to price it to where I know I’m delivering the best ROI for the seller, this is around what I think they should be investing for a great staging job.

[00:54:59] And then I work backwards from that. And so for me, I look at it on a high level, how much do I need to bill per month? What is my budget to buy per month? And then am I within budget on all of the other layers on my P&L? So like I know what my heat bill is here. I know what my electric bill is.

[00:55:20] I always budget for a couple parking tickets, but I’m parking ticket free so far this year. And then basically I look at the profit margin on the business as a whole, month over month, because I never know exactly when a home will sell or when I’ll turn inventory or if things will go on extensions.

[00:55:40] And so that’s one of the hardest parts about this business is like you just don’t have a magic crystal ball to show you how everything will play out. But I know I’m gonna hold 15 spots for stages this month, doesn’t matter what day. And then I’ll book them in. I know I have inventory to do most of it and I know, if I have a home that really, really, really needs a round dining table and I don’t have one in my warehouse right now, I am always gonna source and do what’s right by the home and that layout because I have planned for the budget to do that.

[00:56:13] So that’s kind of the rhythm. That’s really been working for me. I increased prices along the way to match my cost of doing business. Like working with a professional moving company is something I will always do. I will always contract out to professionals.

[00:56:29] It’s skilled labor in Boston. A lot of stagers in this area, really don’t love going to areas like Beacon Hill, where it’s logistically complicated. So there’s always a premium on moving furniture in and out of complex areas. All of my BOLs from my movers, I save, I document, I analyze, so I know about how long it takes for them to load the truck for a one bedroom versus a two bedroom versus a three bedroom.

[00:56:55] In and out of the warehouse. I have a smart lock too, so I can see when they come and when they go, they’ll come at like seven in the morning where I’m like, you know, brushing my kids’ teeth. I’m not here with them and I meet them at the job site. And I feel like looking at it that way has helped.

[00:57:10] So I’m actually getting really close to like a 50% margin on the business as a whole, which I’m really proud of. It wasn’t like that always. I was talking to another stager in the area. She rents her furniture and she made the point that like she was profitable right from the get-go and she knows stagers who buy their inventory and they’re still not making profit.

[00:57:28] And it’s been years down the road and it’s like, it’s not always that you’re not making profit, it’s you’re reinvesting profit to grow so that your fourth year in business, it’s like your peacock year where you like, you know what I mean? You can reap the benefits of all of your hard work. I, around like last summer, started taking a salary consistently.

[00:57:48] It was kind of like the only way I could feel good about making this a really long-term career. I don’t think, I can’t imagine ever selling my business, unless someone really wants to buy it. We can talk, but, I just feel like I’m gonna be doing this like deep into my eighties.

[00:58:03] I really enjoy it. So. 

[00:58:06] Cindy: I think it’s really smart to look at your budget as a whole. I mean, every number tells the story, right? But as business owner, we need to see the whole big picture, right? To make that strategic decision. So I think that’s really important.

[00:58:19] And for our last question of this show, what would be your number one tip for home stagers when it comes to buying inventory for their staging businesses?

[00:58:27] Jess: I wanna say trust your gut, but I’m not gonna say that. I’m gonna say put a spreadsheet together with a budget, and then see what your gut says, and then look at what the spreadsheet says and then that can be kind of your yay or nay. 

[00:58:40] And then if I can offer one more advice too. People all the time, send me things that they think I should buy or that like, oh, their cousin’s clearing out their house, you’re a stager.

[00:58:50] Oh come buy all this stuff and pick it up. And it sucks when sometimes it’s a big client that wants you to buy it. And I have gotten really comfortable saying I don’t have any open to buy budget at the moment. Great pieces, hit me up in a month if you don’t sell them on marketplace. But I don’t need a fiddle leaf fig tree right now I have 30. Like if you have any full size mattresses, we will talk about that. But you have to get really comfortable, just politely telling people, I don’t have the budget right now. I’m sorry. Because then otherwise you get saddled the stuff you don’t love.

[00:59:23] I’m a really opportunistic buyer, but there’s nothing worse than looking around in your warehouse and not liking what’s in there for your stage. So going with your gut but then also sticking by the numbers. 

[00:59:36] Cindy: I feel like that’s also a very Elaine answer. Remember during the retreat she showed us all these spreadsheets of everything that they’re tracking. It’s just amazing to be able to see the back end of a business that size. 

[00:59:48] Jess: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:59:50] Cindy: Yeah. And the way she runs her budget as well, it’s very line item, which I think it’s really what everyone should do. Yeah. To be honest. Yeah. 

[00:59:58] Jess: Her book too. I read it on the way back, like on the plane back and it was amazing.

[01:00:03] The Sell Fast and Sell High. I feel it has helped me refine my talk track on the value of staging and to think a little bit more about how to talk about the performance of the work that I’m doing, in terms of numbers. 

[01:00:16] Cindy: Yeah as a business owner, we’re also salespeople.

[01:00:19] We’re the best salesperson usually for our businesses, and you really need to know how to talk to, sometimes provoke, you know, your client’s pain point. Maybe it’s their fomo, whatever it is. Not in the sleazy car salesman’s type of way, but really to get their attention because nowadays it’s so noisy in their world.

[01:00:36] You know, with social media, with ads and things like that. We really need to be able to stand out not only just from a competition, but also every other thing that is competing for our client’s attention, like Instagram. So, you know, those are some of the things we need to do to really stand out in our marketplace.

[01:00:53] And I think Elaine is a really good example of that, where she’s very attuned to what she does best in her business, and she hires the right people to run the other parts of her business. Like when we were in retreat, for example. And then remember like, we need to make a change on the slide. And then she’s like, let me email Kirsty.

[01:01:13] Kirsty is her executive assistant. Yeah. And she’s like, I’m totally bad on making slides or anything like that. Kirsty does everything. And even when I had to get in touch with Elaine with scheduling, for example, I always go with Kirsty. I never email Elaine. Cause I know Elaine’s just gonna be like, can you email Kirsty? Cause I, I have no idea how to set up my own schedule. Yeah. So yeah.

[01:01:37] Jess: She even has Kirsty puts on the slide the last time it was updated so that they know when to go back and revisit and update them all at the same time. It’s just like amazing. 

[01:01:47] Cindy: It’s like advanced level, isn’t it? Because we were all just like, how do we find a Kirsty for our own businesses? Yeah. But anyway, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was absolutely a pleasure. 

[01:01:59] Jess: Thank you for having me. 

[01:02:01] So that’s it for today’s show. Thank you so much for listening. If you wanna help and support the show, you can leave a review and rating on iTunes. You can share the show on social media. If you haven’t left a review on iTunes, please do so. This will help us grow the show and book more guests. If you have any questions, feedback and suggestions, you can comment on the show notes. You can find the show notes by going to staged4more.com/podcast. That’s it.

[01:02:26] Have a fantastic week and happy staging. 

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