No One Needs to Know You’re a Part-Time Home Stager

One thing many aspiring home stagers have in common is that they need to continue working while they start up their home staging business on a part-time basis. In an ideal world, everyone could quit their job and work on starting their business full time, but this is not an ideal world and this isn’t possible for everyone.

The biggest concern for someone in this position is that they’re not going to be seen as professional since they’re “only” part-time home stagers.

When aspiring stagers come to me with this concern, I tell them the same thing:

Nobody needs to know you’re doing this part-time.

If I had a full-time job and was doing home staging on the side, I would still set up my business. I would have my business phone number, business cards, a home staging website and a page on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers. If someone were to call me, they would get a professional sounding greeting. It’s not going to say, “Hi you’ve reached Debra and by the way, I’m a part-time home stager and I only work on weekends.”

When you get a call from a potential client and they want to meet with you, you don’t have to tell them you’re moonlighting as a home stager and can only meet them on Wednesday after work. If that’s the only time you have available, tell them you happen to have an opening on Wednesday night at seven.

If that doesn’t work for the homeowner, just keep going back and forth until you find a time that works for both of you. Unless you tell them you’re trying to do home staging around your full-time job, they’re likely going to assume you’re a very sought after, heavily booked home stager.

Remember it’s all about perception. If you have a professional looking website and home staging portfolio, and carry yourself with confidence, nobody is going to question whether or not you’re doing this part-time or not. It won’t even cross their minds.

To learn more about what to say and what not to say to prospective home staging clients, order Debra Gould’s Staging Diva® Sales Script: How to Avoid the Free Estimate Trap and Turn Homeowners into Home Staging Customers in One Phone Conversation.