What It’s REALLY Like to Work With Us (AKA: Our Secret Staging Sauce)
The Glen Street Blog: Musings on the psychology and business of
home staging from a Greater Boston area luxury stager
Let’s talk about what we bring to the table… besides the ACTUAL table, of course.
LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW PICTURES CAN BE BIG LIARS
Ok, I'm going to state something we all know but rarely say - photos lie.
MLS photos, Instagram photos, portfolio photos - they can all look fantastic, but still be big fat liars. From distortion to filters to PhotoShop to AI, there are a million and one ways photos can deceive you. To use an expression from my childhood that seems SO appropriate now, photos can lie like a rug ;)
And this is coming from someone (yours truly) who invests heavily in professional photos for our staging portfolio. We gain a significant number of new clients from Instagram alone! So, I'm not saying photos are evil, but they're sometimes just not 100% truthful.
Why is this important? Because investing in staging requires a leap of faith - and if you’ve never worked with a stager before, it can be hard to tell the difference from one to another from photos alone. Additionally, as a real estate professional, you know there's a whole other side you have to consider: the impact of the staging experience on you and your sellers. I don't even need to mention what brining the wrong stager into the listing process at such a critical juncture would do to your agent/client relationship - let alone your stress levels.
I get it, it's not easy.
Considering the significant upfront investment required to stage, how do you gain a level of comfort in a stager you’ve never worked with before?
While we can’t speak for other stagers, what we can do is give you a deep dive into how we work. Because, while our stagings always look great, you’re not getting just beautiful furnishings. What you’re actually getting goes way beyond what you see - and understanding what that is may just help you decide if we are (or are not) the right stager for you.
So, let’s dive in! Here’s what you’re really getting when you hire us as a stager:
FIRST THINGS FIRST: YOU GET ACCESS TO OUR INVENTORY
Think of staging as the perfect soundtrack for the dance between the buyer and the home – that sultry, slow music that makes the sparks fly and the two fall in love.
Just as a beautiful song starts with a collection of notes, staging starts with your stager’s inventory.
This coffee table is one solid piece of wood and weighs more than my (very fit and muscular) husband. Sorry not sorry.
Our carefully curated collection of luxury furnishings is filled with items your potential buyers would want to live with, not just items that only look good in photos or are easy to transport (we do try to select items that are both high quality and will be easy for our movers to carry, but we also have a coffee table that– no joke – weighs more than my husband. Life is about balance 😊).
So, what exactly is in our inventory? Think: solid woods, textured upholstery, hand painted art, and layers of textiles, all carefully selected to appeal to your target home buyer. Every piece is designed to fit seamlessly with the rest, allowing us to mix and match to create a unique look in each home we stage.
Our inventory is our lifeblood, it’s integral to our brand, and it’s one of the things that will elevate your listing above the rest.
One thing it’s not, however, is bottomless. We’re not Pottery Barn – we don’t have an endless supply of furnishings to match every taste. And that’s okay. We don’t need to have a never-ending supply of inventory to get you the highest possible return on your investment. What we do need to have is high quality, versatile furnishings and the expertise that allows us to optimize our inventory to showcase your (sometimes very) unique listing in the best possible light.
One of the ways we ensure your profitability is through careful, sometimes even ruthless curation of our inventory. Every piece is evaluated with four questions in mind:
Is it up to our quality standards?
Can be used in multiple settings?
Is it on trend (think: what you’d find in Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, RH, etc.)?
Does it align with the Glen Street look (the common thread between all our stagings)?
If the answer to any one of those questions is “no,” we pass on it. If we find any item in our inventory is no longer a “yes” to all these questions, we get rid of it. By being ultra selective with our inventory, we ensure we have the raw materials on hand to provide a high quality, luxury staging – every single time.
And while you gain access to our inventory, please don’t expect to be given free reign over it – because staging is not design. Staging is marketing, psychology, logistics, inventory, and expertise combined for the sole purpose of selling your listing for as much as possible.
The style of the staging may not be to your personal taste, but that is a-okay as long as it resonates with your target buyer.
And please allow me to drop a little truth bomb here: you are not your target buyer. Your seller is not your target buyer. I am not your target buyer. The only one who is your target buyer is – you guessed it – your target buyer. It’s their dance, not yours.
This is why your target buyer’s desires are the most influential factor in both our inventory purchases and individual selections for your listing – because their personal connection with the home is the prerequisite for a high-quality offer. By giving them what they want (i.e., a beautiful home that seemingly fits their every need and desire), they’ll give you what you want.
Staging is temporary; profits are forever – and when they dance with the house, you profit.
SECOND: WE MANAGE ALL THE CRAZY LOGISTICS (AKA: SCHLEPPING)
If you think stagers spend their days dressed in the finest clothes, walking seductively through homes while drinking champagne and lounging in our perfectly staged living rooms… well, we need to have a talk.
If you only knew the logistical challenges involved with this staging in Newton. But the end result was stunning (and sold)!
Regardless of what some stagers’ social media feeds may suggest, staging is not a glamorous business. Do you remember the day you moved into your home? Were you dressed in your Sunday finest to unpack all those boxes? Would you have even wanted to be seen picking up a take-out pizza looking the way you know you did? I didn’t think so.
Staging is more logistics and sweat than glitz and glamour. We may use high quality materials and our product looks amazing, but the process to get there is an operational juggernaut.
When you boil it down, staging starts with inventory curation and ends with removal:
INVENTORY CURATION:
Most stages are executed within 2-3 weeks from when the staging agreement is signed and our inventory is carefully selected (see above), organized, and cared for to ensure this quick installation. In other words, we anticipate you before you ever contact us.
And don’t even get me started on warehouse logistics – that’s a whole other blog post.DESIGN + SELECTION:
Once your staging is scheduled, we create an optimal floor plan, select each piece that corresponds with that floor plan in our inventory management system, carefully wrap and pack it all up, and physically mark each piece prior to your staging day to ensure what we need will make it onto the truck. And, as a point of reference, our average staging requires over 90 individual items from our inventory.Needless to say, the design and selection phase is a multi-day process.
DELIVERY:
We use professional movers. Our movers protect both our inventory and the homes we stage, making them a non-negotiable for us. I’ve seen them bring chairs in through the window when the door frame is too tight, work magic to get full-sized sofas down old New England staircases, and perform too many feats of strength to even mention. About 1/3 of your staging costs go directly to our movers, and that’s a good thing for all of us.
The timing and coordination involved in the delivery process alone is it’s own mini operational case study. Based on the size and location of the staging project, we know (based on past data) how long we need in the house to complete the stage. From there, we back into the delivery timeline and the number of movers we’re going to need for that project in order to stay within that timeline. And we need that delivery timeline to stay on track because delivery delays on Staging Day back everything else up - and we definitely don’t have time for that!
INSTALLATION:
Staging Day is both a marathon and a sprint – after all, we’re furnishing and styling an entire house to the point of being camera-ready by the end of the day.
Not only does a Staging Day require physical stamina, it’s also requires the coordination of a million moving parts – and it never goes according to plan. Like, never ever.
Sometimes the furniture layout we’d planned on paper doesn’t work in real life; sometimes items accidentally get left behind at the warehouse. There are dozens of ways a staging can go sideways – and we need to be able to manage our way through all of them with both speed and grace (making on-the-spot problem solving skills one of our superpowers). The result looks beautiful and serene and all the things, but the installation process is anything but that.
REMOVAL:
Once the home is pending sale (congratulations, BTW!) we come back and reverse the process, removing everything within a matter of hours. It’s another trip for movers and another logistics challenge. We’re often just as tired after a de-stage as we are after a stage– both installation and removal are physically and mentally exhausting.
so, yes, it’s a lot. And all of this requires one of the most expensive and most valuable assets any company can provide: human capital. Staging is a capital-intensive business in every possible way. But it’s also a lot of fun – which makes it all worth it.
THIRD: WE HAVE EXTENSIVE STAGING + BUSINESS EXPERTISE
Home staging is a business function that ensures our clients’ maximum profitability. It incorporates visual marketing, buyer psychology, merchandising, and interior design principles for the sole purpose of enhancing the sale of the home.
Make no mistake about it, staging is sales. Your ticket to success is ensuring your stager has all the aforementioned skills – plus the expertise to execute on them.
Should a small bedroom be a nursery? A kids’ room? An office? A sitting room? It all depends on your target buyer profile.
We’ve staged millions and millions of dollars’ worth of luxury real estate in the Greater Boston market. From Wellesley to Needham to Concord to Brookline and beyond, we know what sells in each unique community. Our listings average of less than 7 days on market, and most sell for well over asking. And while these results are admittedly pretty great, they don’t tell the full story – because how we achieve them is integral to the fact that we consistently achieve them.
Many stagers will tell you they got into staging because they loved design and wanted to be creative – and found out quickly that the design and creativity portions of staging are just a small fraction of the business. This is not us.
I started Glen Street because I fell in love with the business side of staging. It allowed me to combine my extensive business training and experience in a way that was more interactive than sitting behind a desk. With a BA from Babson College, an MBA from Boston University, and over 20 years in areas such as human resources, marketing, sales, customer success, and executive leadership, I honestly know no other way than to focus on the business of the business.
And while our results speak for themselves, they are not random – and they are not the result of just having a “great eye”. They are the result of constant education, data analysis, continual business evolution.
When you hire us, you’re hiring our expertise. Our expertise drives our inventory purchases and management, what we select from that inventory to use in your listing, and how we arrange and style it to maximize both photo angles and the physical buyer experience. It drives our constant eye on your ROI (return on investment). It is the secret sauce behind everything we do.
You’re paying for our expertise - and you can trust us. Trust that we have built a solid inventory based on the tastes, desires, and expectations of Greater Boston luxury home buyers. Trust that we have the experience to use that inventory to your greatest advantage. Trust that we will make you and your listing look like (several) million bucks.
FOURTH: WE BECOME A MEMBER OF YOUR TEAM
If you’ve been multitasking while reading, please come back to me here – because this is likely the most important point I will make - and, potentially, the least popular.
While what I’m about to say may not be what you want to hear, please take it to heart: If you’re looking for your relationship with your stager to be purely transactional, we’re not the staging company for you.
This listing in Natick was a beautiful collaboration between us, the agent, and the seller - and sold for over $50K over asking. That’s the power of partnership.
Experience, in both staging and life, has shown us our best work is accomplished when we are a true part of the selling team.
We like to say we “get in the boat and row with you” – and we mean it. Once you enter into a staging agreement with us, it is our duty and responsibility to help you sell that listing for as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
If you or your client feel the need for excessive control over the staging project, or the desire to proceed in a purely transactional vendor/client manor, please let us know and we will be happy to provide you with a list of referrals to several other amazing stagers in our area – because we want you to have amazing staging results, but that’s not how we work best.
If, however, you’re looking for a stager who:
You can trust to execute and generate results,
Will work collaboratively with you to generate a staging plan based on our collective expertise,
Will want your listing to sell as badly as you do
Will continually champion you with your clients and other agents, and
Will do everything within their power to make you shine like the rockstar agent that you are…
That’s 100% us. We’re here for you, and we’d love to work with you!
THE BOTTOM LINE
While there is a lot in the real estate transaction that we can’t control (think: interest rates, pricing, world economics, etc.) there is a LOT that we can and do control to maximize your sale.
When you hire us, you’re not just getting access to amazing inventory - you’re gaining a staging and visual marketing expert on your team. If that’s what you’re looking for in a stager, we just might be the right stager for you!
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