Book More Home Staging Consultations With This One Simple Strategy

My Strategy for Booking Home Staging Consultations

Before I landed on this strategy to handle all of the incoming sales inquiries into my business, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. I'd answer calls from my car, while I was waiting in car line for the kids, while I was in the grocery store. You name it, I answered my phone every. single. time.

All this to say, not optimal, not sustainable, and not professional. You know I'm about keeping it real even when it outs all of my embarrassing learning moments!

So, as I up-leveled my business, I created my Get Acquainted Call process so that I was a thousand times more professional but also more effective at selling our services. Today's episode is all about how I did that.

We also cover the Get Acquainted Call process in great detail inside of Rethink You, the year-long program where you get access to course modules and me twice a month to get your questions answered. Join the waitlist to be the first to know when enrollment opens next!

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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

What is grounded selling
What's the Sales Triad
What are belief plans and belief biases and how they affect your sales
What's the flow of the GAC

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

FEATURED ON THE SHOW:

Join the Rethink You Waitlist here
Follow Lori on Instagram

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

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Book More Consults

Book More Home Staging Consultations

Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast.

This week I am actually recording from Thailand, from Bangkok, Thailand. My husband is on a work trip and I joined him.

And whenever I travel, I always seem to get some really fun, inspiration and ideas kind of integrate. So today's podcast is really kind of a lot about what my brain has been thinking about.

So while I've been on a 12 hour flights, so today we're talking about booking more homes on staging consultations with one simple strategy, the Get Acquainted Call.

And while I say it's one simple step, that probably is a little misleading because there's some, some kind of background that you need before you jump on and Get Acquainted Call with a prospective client.

But I want you to know this as we dive into the content of today's podcast, that selling is really just a practice skill, like anything else.
So it's not like you're either born to sell or not. So we've got to dispel that belief right off the top of the bat.  You know, the top of the episode here, it is absolutely a practice skill that you can get better at the more you do it.

But it's personal to who you are. And so whatever I'm going to share with you today, you're going to take this as maybe some scaffolding, but you're going to create something that feels great for you.

I'm just sharing with you what I have found works for an introvert like me. And so yes, there is a disclaimer there.

If you're an introvert, you can absolutely sell. I'm an introvert and I can sell and I can sell very, very well.

So don't feel like that should be an impediment to your sales process.

So as we're talking about, Get Acquainted Calls today and, and kind of going through the episode, what we're going to be talking about is first of all, grounded selling, what is it how do you get into a grounded selling mindset?

What is the sales triad? So the three things that you really need to have in place in order to begin to build your selling muscles, the type of people who you'll have sales conversations with the results that will come from those sales conversations, and then the flow of a Get Acquainted Call.

So let's first dive into the idea of grounded selling. So grounded selling is all about coming from a place of selling from a place of this grounded neutrality.

So it has nothing to do with your price or your experience level or your certifications, by the way, I've never been asked, not a single time if I am a certified real estate stager.

So if you are letting that hold you back from finding yourself in selling conversations I'm going to encourage you to not stress about that.
It has really grounded selling has everything to do with delivering a powerful message about what you do, how you problems and how comfortable a client feels with you.

So it's coming from a place that is full of belief and confidence, and that you're thinking about your client's needs, not about your needs.
Sometimes we get into a place where we feel like we just want to you know, sell the service, whatever that is, whether that is a consultation, whether that is a vacant staging or an occupied staging or whatever.

And that's really thinking about what your needs are and not what the client's needs are. Grounded selling. Also, isn't coming from a place of being needy or graspy.

So not feeling a desperation to book the service. Maybe you have bills that are coming up or overhead expenses that you need to cover.
And you just are feeling like a little bit needy. Like you've got to lock this person in. Well, that energy, that vibe has a little bit of a smell to it.
It's almost like I'm selling body odor. It's like selling the, oh, people can smell it. They can feel it, and they're not going to buy if they get that sense.

So no desperation, right?

So we want to come from a place before we get on to any Get Acquainted Call and any sales call that is where we want to get into that place where we're grounded.

So if sales is as much more about solidifying your belief in the actual words you say, then you really should have some belief plans, right?
So if sales is more about solidifying your belief than the actual words you say, then we need belief plans. Remember that the, the belief you have under the words you say is really what impacts people just as, like I said, you know, you can have that be, oh, underneath all the words, you can say all the right words.

But if that smell is air, people will react to it. But as your belief grows, your communication comes from that more comes into that more grounded energy.

So what we've really got to work on is belief plans, which is where that sales triad comes into. Is there are three places you need to create some belief plans, and those are in yourself in your process and in your prospective clients.

So let's talk about what those belief plans are. So the belief in yourself is really just that belief that you are excellent at what you do that you or your team is excellent about what you do.

And you get to decide that plain and simple, there really isn't any magic wand or any person who's going to reflect back to you that you're amazing, or that your team is amazing at what you do.
It is fully a belief generated from your own thoughts in your own brain about you or your team and what they do and the, and the results that you create.  Right?

So if you are relatively new as a staging business owner, and you are looking to develop your belief, you're going to probably have a lot of to-dos on your list, right?

You're probably have things like creating a website or I don't know, working on content or blog posts or things like that.

What I'm going to encourage you is that you want to take that to do list and make sure that whatever those two dues are, they are all about solidifying your belief in yourself.

So maybe that means you're out networking. You're meeting people, you're telling them that you were a stager and that you are a staging business owner and you are sharing how you can help.

That can absolutely help you grow your belief in yourself. Maybe you are posting things on social media about what you do and how you do it.
And you're getting feedback about how, how beautiful the work is. Maybe it's as simple as styling rooms in your houses or your friend's houses or things like that.

Just to develop the belief that you can create a transformation and a half a house, right?

So you want to make sure that whatever your to-do list is for your business, when you're new, involves establishing your belief in yourself, because it's going to come in very, very handy when you start having your sales conversations.

Now, if you're new, if you're not a new business owner, if you're more established a couple of years into business at this point, you've probably had projects and you've got clients and all of that.

So one of the things that I used to do when I was lacking belief in myself in the moment, it felt like nobody was listening and I was talking to a wall, was I would go back and review the work that I had done. We take before pictures and after pictures of the work that we've done, I love to review those things, to just excite myself about what we've been able to help people accomplish.

You can review your testimonials. That is a great place to solidify your belief in yourself, and you can review your results another great way to solidify your belief in yourself.

Because what you want to do is when you get on the call and we'll talk about this in a minute, you, you want people to feel like you are the one for them.

And the only way they'll get that feeling is if you have that feeling, that you have that feeling, that you have so much belief in yourself that of course anyone should want to work with you, right?

Like that's just basic. And you want to believe in yourself so much that regardless of what your price is, regardless of what your process is that people want to work with you.

It's very, very key.

So let's talk about the belief in your process. Like, first of all, let me just ask you this.

Do you feel like what you do is damn amazing? Like, do you really know and really believe that you change people's lives?

I know I do. I know in my business, we absolutely feel that we have a firm belief that our process is what helps drive results, drive exceptional results for people.

And it changes people's lives. They are able to work, or we're able to take stress away from people, add enthusiasm, excitement, even fun, to a really stressful situation.

We can alter the course of people's lives. People who need to downsize, they need to upsize. They need to relocate for work situations.
They're divorcing, they're sick and their house doesn't support them. We help people make those moves, that move their lives forward.
It's pretty amazing. So if you are struggling at all, I want you to start tapping into that and thinking about that.

Those are some amazing thoughts to have when you are getting ready to get on a, Get Acquainted Call with somebody, just borrow those thoughts right there, write those down.

Do you know that you change people's lives and that what you do is damn flipping amazing. Right? Incredible.

Okay. So first two parts of the sales triad are believing in yourself, believing in your process.

And the last one is believing in your clients. And before we dive into believing in your clients, we actually need to talk a minute about something that Stacy Damon calls, belief bias.

The definition of bias is prejudice, prejudice in favor or against one thing, person or group compared to another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

And the thing that is so fascinating here is that it can be in favor or against something. So in this case, you may come to a call believing in favor or against your client moving forward.

And I'm sure you're wondering, like, why would I have a bias against them moving forward? And I know that you can have a bias against them moving forward, because I've had people tell me that not, not those terms, but that they have experienced having a bias against a client moving forward.

And this is because you believe them when they say they can't afford it, or it's more money than they thought, or that's too expensive.
Or there was another stager that charge less and on and on and on you believe those brains. Now the truth is there are costs associated with not moving forward with staging and not moving forward with your staging, right?

And you simply want to help them to choose between those costs, but you are there in a sales call to eliminate those for them.
Right? So when we go through the process, we'll share how you're going to do that, how you're going to help the client decide that moving forward with you is the best option for them.
Okay? So all that said, the belief in your clients, there are four key beliefs that you need to have. First is the belief that people are getting on the

call because they have a problem that they can't solve, right, right off that they have a problem that they can't solve.

They either have a, that they are worried. Won't sell for a whole host of reasons. They have a client's house who they are concerned.

Won't sell for a whole host of reasons, or they have a vacant house that they are worried that they won't be able to sell because there is not an emotional connection, right?

So right off the bat, anybody who's willing to get onto a Get Acquainted Call with. You will have a need that they haven't been able to solve.
And so that belief right there should be an easy one, right? But the belief that they are ready now, and that they are willing and able to pay you what you are worth and what you charge and that they want to work with you specifically.

So those are four key beliefs that you have. And here's the thing. If you aren't putting yourself out there, marketing, networking posting on social media, doing Facebook lives, Instagram lives, whatever, whatever it is, you've chosen as your doing presentations and offices.

If you're not putting yourself out there, it's because you have an underlying belief that there aren't clients out there on the other side of that effort, right?

Like plain and simple. If you think that your efforts aren't going to be worth it, then you're not going to be doing the work.

So I want to talk about the thousand ready concept. And this is another Stacey beam and concept. And I think it is so amazing.

And what it is is what if you knew there were a thousand ready clients out there, what would you be doing with your time?

Right? Like, that's simply, if you already knew there were a thousand clients ready to work with you, what would you be doing with your days?

You'd be busting your ass. You'd be busting your butt the very best, possible way, but you'd be busting your butt because you would want to find those people.

You would want to get in front of those people and let those people hear your message. Right? So even if it appears to be a realtor, who's just doing their due diligence for a client, which will happen.
You want to, you want to treat them as though they are already client, because someday they will be someday. They may be right there.

There are a few kinds of outcomes from any sales call. And that is no, maybe a yes than a no, or I guess so they're either clients that are ready for you now, or they're clients that will be ready for you later.
But let's just assume right now that anytime somebody is getting on a call with you, they're ready right now, they're ready, willing, and able to pay you.

And they are ready and able to work with you specifically. So anyway, like I said, there are those three outcomes of the colors.
The, the, no, there's the yes. Then a no, right? So maybe they got cold feet. They, for whatever reason they become a no.

And then there's a, yes, those percentages change over time as you get better at selling in a grounded way. Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about the mechanics now. So we've talked all about the belief, your belief plans, your belief, biases, your sales triad, believing in yourself, your client, your process, and your clients.

Let's, let's get into the mechanics of the Get Acquainted Call itself. So the first thing is that you need to know is that clients will reach out to you in various ways.

They will call you email you, text you, Facebook, you, I, you know, Instagram, you, but you get to define your sales intake process and a Get Acquainted Call is an excellent way to start that, to funnel people to a Get Acquainted Call.

Now you can use an app like Calendly or acuity, or oh gosh, there's probably so many HoneyBook 17 hats. I'm sure they all have a scheduling capabilities, but basically what you want to do is schedule your, Get Acquainted Calls with people, have them choose a time that works for them and works for you.

That's why you want to give them a calendar to look at. And it's about a 15 to 20 minute call to help your client make an empowered decision about whether they want to move forward with staging and why scheduling.

It is super, super important because both people really need to be focused in order to make an empowered decision. You don't want to catch people, or you don't want them to catch you while you're driving or distracted in any way, right?

We want both sides, both you and the prospective client to be in a place where you can ask meaningful questions and get meaningful answers.
And they can ask me to vote questions and get meaningful answers without distractions in the way, also scheduling a Get Acquainted Call

demonstrates a willingness on your client's part to make a decision and take an action step toward their future.
Right? So it's it, it's a tiny little micro conversion as they call it. It's a micro conversion to taking a step forward to their future.

So the big thing is you want to make sure that you're creating time blocks for your Get Acquainted Calls to happen on a daily basis.
Maybe you schedule them for early in the morning. You schedule them for middle of the day. You schedule them for the evening so that you can provide a variety of time slots for people, but you want to make sure that they are situated at times that, you know, you're going to be available.

You know, that you'll likely be at your desk in a quiet place most of the time, or you're able to be right.

So make sure you create those time blocks and their time blocks so that you don't need to be worried about those appointments, getting on your calendar at all hours of the day.

So this way, you know, like in my case, I do them first thing in the morning and I do them at the end of the, the quote unquote, Workday as it were.

Right. So that I'm available to the clients. And if they need to call in at the end of a Workday kind of thing, but either way, I know those are my time chunks for Get Acquainted Calls.

So once you get on the Get Acquainted Call with a client, and actually the important thing is that you call them at the time of the scheduled appointment.

This way you are demonstrating your professionalism back, almost forgot to leave that up or forgot to put that in until you get a queen of process.

The first is when you first get on the phone, it's going to be just a first couple of minutes of icebreaking.

You'll explain the process that the call is 15 to 20 minutes so that you can learn more about their situation and share how your team can help them.

And then, you know, you'll talk about the next steps and, you know, answer any of their questions. And then you will simply say, how does that sound?

And the reason you want to do that is because again, it's a little micro conversion, you're getting their buy-in to move forward.

So then once you've kind of done that little explanation about what the call is about. I like to get some very simple information.
How did they find out about us? So, because we like to thank the people who referred us and get their contact information so that you have that for your next steps.

So a little housekeeping there, then what you're going to do is you're going to take the client through what I call the P D P T process.

And this is problem, desired result, process and transformation. Okay. So let's dive into the P D PT process.

So the first is the problem.

You're going to ask why the client reach out to you because, you know, we want to hear what their story is about staging, and maybe you need

to help them, you know, maybe they'll say, oh, I reached out to you because I was referred to you by my realtor.

Great. Tell me a little bit about your situation is typically where I go from there. If they don't tell me their situation and they might tell me that they're getting ready to list on a certain date and that they want to make sure they get the most money possible.

And you know, they're not sure where to start. And so I will typically say, well, what are your concerns about your property?

Like if you choose not to sell, what are you worried about happening? 
Or what are you struggling with? What do you feel like you're struggling with the most, as you get ready, some people will tell you, you know, their concerns are that maybe they're in a neighborhood where, you know, their house is on a slab and not basement.
And most people have basements and their finished basement, or, you know, there's something unique about their property, or maybe they're struggling with there's too much stuff.

And they just don't even know where to begin. And they don't want to spin their wheels and waste their time.

You know, whatever that is. You just really want to ask open-ended questions that draw out from them. What is the current situation that they're in?

And maybe it's what questions are they having about staging? Whether you know, that kind of thing, what are the questions that are coming up as they're getting ready to list their house?

So that is helping them tell you about the problem. And it's really important as they tell you about their problem for you to listen very carefully.

And maybe you're even going to jot down couple of the things that they say using their words, like try to capture their words as they are defining for you, what their struggles are, what their problem might be, what their concerns might be, because that'll, that will come in handy in the process, explaining the process part.

The next part is the desired result of the D the PD P T process is the desired result. And this is where you want to let them paint the picture of what they are hoping for.

So you, they are going to outline the problem for you, the struggles they're having, and then you will ask, okay, so given all of that, you know what, what's the best outcome that you are hoping for in working with our company, our stagers.

And they're going to tell you exactly what they're hoping for. They'll tell you they want more clarity. They want to know exactly what they need to pack.

They want their house to look amazing and make more money and on and on and on. So let them paint that picture, get in their own minds.
This is really, really powerful from a neuroscience perspective. So then at that point, once they've shared with you, what their desired result is, you are going to bridge the gap.

So that is your process. You're bridging the gap. You're going to share how your process takes them from where they are now, to where they want to be.

You're going to outline that problem. You mentioned that you're concerned about X, Y, and Z. And you're really hoping that by working with us, that we're going to be able to do that.

And you're going to use their words as much as possible while you're doing that. And you will share exactly how your process works to help them do that.

And in the process, what you're going to be doing is starting to share the transformation. And that's the final step you're going to share the vision for the future.

So what you'll say is in the process phase, you'll bridge the gap and you'll say, yes, we can absolutely help you do this.

And this is how we do it. We have a two hour consultation where we walk you through and we go room by room and we develop a, you know, a selling success plan that prioritizes all of the focal points.
We know that a photographer is going to want to capture. So your online listing photos look amazing. And so that you can ultimately sell your house.

We're going to create a lot of demand because those, the online photos are going to be incredible. They're going to be so beautiful that it will create demand.

People will, you know, a lot of people will show up to the open house and it will insight that competition in people, and you will get a higher listing price for faster when we've finished taking you through this process.

How does that sound? Again, we go back to, how does that all sound? So once you've gotten there, that's when they will bring up any of their,

you know, resistances, their concerns and any of that, they, or they'll ask you for the price, or how do they book or some logistics like that.
So coming out of that, get acquainted Process of the, the problem, desired result, process and transformation. You'll head into your next phase, which is handling any objections and or moving on to scheduling.

What I have found is when we do that process, there are typically very few objections that we need to handle, or typically it's questions.
They simply have questions. It's not really objections. So when you get on that, Get Acquainted Call, I really want you to be thinking about this whole P D P T process, get them to tell you their problem, get them to tell you what their desired result is, bridge that gap after they've painted the picture, bridge that gap for them and how your process gets them from where they are to where they want to be.

And then what the transformation is, and what's the result. And then the next step is getting them to that. Yes.
And getting them to them to get on your calendar. So we'll talk about the objections and resistances and another podcast, but I want you to simply start here, start with your beliefs, creating your beliefs, belief plans.

So how are you going to believe in yourself? What are you going to do take your action steps to believe in yourself and what you can create for clients, belief in your process, and then believe in your clients that they are there.

They are waiting for you and get your butt out there. All right. Get out there and start telling the world about yourself so that you can have these Get Acquainted Calls, sales conversations, so you can share exactly how you transform people's eyes, because it is flipping amazing.
All right. Get out there. Have a great, great day. And I will see you in the next episode. Bye.

My Strategy for Booking Home Staging Consultations

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

FEATURED ON THE SHOW:

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Book More Consults

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