Pricing Your Home Staging Services

I am exchited to share the following article written by Joan Inglis, Accredited Staging Professional Master® Barb Schwarz, ASP®, ASPM®, AB, IAHSP® Pricing seems to be one of the most guarded and mysterious aspects of the Home Staging profession.  No one wants to “fix” pricing or do anything unethical, so it may seem like pricing may feel like an elusive topic.  I’ve found that new ASPs® coming into the IAHSP® chapter have a lot of questions – and pricing their Home Staging services is at the top of the list.  Sometimes even seasoned ASPs® wonder if they’re pricing competitively. When I attended my first ASP® course under instructor Wanda Hickman, she asked the class, “How much do you want to personally earn on a Staging project – $500, $1000, or more?”  After you determine how much time you will put into the project and how much you want to earn, then you add in your expenses and come up with your bid amount, she said.  Wanda gave the average hourly earnings for novice and experienced ASPs® and ASPMs®.  Simple, right? Pricing is a difficult subject for some ASPs®, but that doesn’t have to be the case.  Refer to your ASP® manual, retake an ASP® class, have a pricing discussion in your IAHSP® chapter meetings.  When I was president of Charlotte IAHSP® in 2008, we held a chapter discussion on pricing.  The members who spoke up had pricing formulas that were all over the place – from charging a flat fee per room to charging a percentage of the list price.  One member said, “Whatever works for you.”  And that holds true to this day.  Whatever formula or method you use to price your Staging business should enable you to pay your expenses and earn a profit. Without profit you cannot stay in business.  So it is important to develop a pricing strategy that will keep you in business.  There will always be “stagers” who work for expenses or work for free.  They come and go, so don’t believe that you are competing with them.  Don’t be concerned when you lose quoted projects to those “stagers.”  Customers who appreciate your worth are right around the corner.  Value yourself and value your ability so others can see the worth that you are bringing to them. Joan Inglis, Accredited Staging Professional Master® 2013-2014 IAHSP® Int’l Board of Directors, Public Relations 2011-2012 IAHSP® Int’l Board of Directors, Membership 2011-2014 IAHSP® Chapter Liaison – NC, SC, NV, UT, IL, WI 803-628-8053 [email protected] www.CarolinaSpaces.com

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