Home Stagers Should Never Waive Their Consultation Fee

As a professional home stager, you're making a living selling your time, your talent and the accumulation of your experiences. Yet, many home stagers waive their consultation fee when they're dealing with a vacant home.

I do not agree with that practice. How much time do you have to take out of your day to book the appointment, travel to that vacant house, go through all of the rooms and come up with a plan as to how to tackle it?

Why shouldn't you be paid for that time?

Have you determined how much an hour (or three) of your time is worth? When you get a real handle on that, you'll see that it makes absolutely no sense to give that time away because the home is vacant and not occupied.

After all, it takes a lot of expertise to walk into an empty house, take all your measurements, imagine how the rooms can best be furnished, determine the style and type of furniture, calculate that you need 2 couches, 8 tables, 10 lamps, 15 pieces of art, etc.

This is not the same as doing a ball park estimate over the phone; of course you can tell someone the rough costs of furnishing a three bedroom home of a certain number of square feet. But actually planning it out is an entirely different matter that requires you to be at the property using up your creative energy.

When you choose to give a free consultation, you're devaluing your knowledge and your talents, not only for yourself but for all home stagers as a collective industry.

If you're nervous about how to approach the issue of charging for your time spent at a home staging consultation, order a copy of Debra Gould's Staging Diva Sales Script. You'll get The Staging Diva's word-for-word script that she uses when on the phone with a prospective client.