Thank you to all of our great guests on our November 10 show! If you missed the show and you want to get access to the sneak preview of the Real Estate Staging Association 2011 Convention, you can catch the recording here:
Shell Brodnax, President & Founder of RESA: An introduction to the RESA Convention: http://resaconvention.com/ Jackson West, Staging Guru of Industry Trends & Information: How to close more sales and raise your profits by perfecting client proposals: http://www.revealestate.ca/portfolio.htm Melissa Marro, Founder of First Impressions Home Staging & Interior Redesign : Turning Statistics Into Sales; FREEBIE: E-mail melissa@stagingandredesign.com for a free copy of our excel statistic tracking spreadsheet Sandy Dixon, Staging Strategy Specialist: Going for the gold – building a dynamic repeat and referral based staging business; FREEBIE: Top Ten Staging Scripts: the perfect responses to the most challenging questions asked by agents and clients: Listeners can request this Free Special Report at http://www.interiorarrangements.com/contact.htm Jana Uselton, Successful Staging Business Owner & Trainer: Growing your business by bringing on other stagers; http://www.modelmyhome.com/jana.html Alice T Chan, Alice T. Chan Enterprises;
These are just a few of the questions we'll ask our upcoming Design Biz Radio guest, Julea Joseph.
Julea Joseph of Reinventing Space has created her own recipe for success with her signature Interior Stylist Philosophy. Always a few steps ahead, Julea launched her home design business in 1999 when interior redesign & home staging were just in their infancy. Rather than offering up two services, she instead created a menu of services that embraces the lifestyle of a home.
She Celebrates the Soul of a Home - Welcoming what you already have, knowing that good design isn’t about a price tag, and the key to an amazing home is celebrating it to the fullest. From an awesome color palette, to being able to entertain with ease, Julea's job is to help you develop your style, put your personal stamp on your space, and make the most of what you already have.
A self-proclaim “no-cost media opportunist,” Julea has been featured in countess articles in newspapers and magazines, HGTV’s “Decorating Cents, “My First Place,” and array of Chicago TV, and even hosts two hometown Cooking & Decorating Cable shows. Over the past 8 years her expertise has extended to educational forums ranging from libraries workshops to a Board of Realtor Instructor.
It's a well-known fact that 87% of home searches begin online. So what does that tell you? You & your listings need to have an online presence.
Here are just a few ideas for leveraging home staging as part of your marketing plan and increasing your presence on the web:
Use pictures: A good before and after picture is worth a thousand words and money in your pocket. There's no better way to show prospective clients how you are truly a real estate expert than by featuring photos of your listings which have been staged in your marketing efforts. Use photos of your beautifully staged listings everywhere you can: in your printed marketing collateral, press releases, your blog and your website.
Talk about staging during your listing presentation:What better way to show that you are an expert than by sharing a few home staging statistics and tips during your listing presentation? By integrating the topic of home staging during your listing presentation, you can set yourself apart from the competition AND build confidence with your prospective client. Highlighting the fact that you work with a professional stager will certainly be a value add for your client, and it will most certainly set you apart if they are interviewing multiple agents.
Tell a news-worthy story: Let's face it, with hundreds of homes being sold each week in any given market, and thousands of Realtors in the marketplace, it's not that interesting of a story to just announce that you sold a listing. What isinteresting is to highlight a staging success story (complete with photos and tips, of course). HGTV has created a whole line up of shows around the staging concept: The Stagers, The Unsellables and Design to Sell just to name a few. Heck, even Interiority Complex was featured in a series of show segments on Fox 7's Good Day Austin! Why? People love it, it's entertaining, it's educational --- it's info-tainment! Use that to your advantage.
Social media & staging:If you are working with a professional home stager, it's not only important to check out their portfolio, their references, their insurance coverage, their training & experience and their people skills, it's also important to make sure your stager has an internet presence and marketing savvy. Your stager can help create or strengthen your online presence, and vice-versa. You can reciprocate and partner together in writing blog content, tweets, facebook updates, social media and more. In fact, you and your stager can and should partner together in creating marketing events and activities which will grow your presence, strengthen your relationships and increase your value in the market place.
It's amazing that so few Realtors leverage home staging to the fullest, even though they all believe in the efficacy of staging. Separate yourself from the pack -- integrate staging into your business and marketing plan today!
For more information on how you can integrate home staging into your real estate business here in the Austin area, be sure to check out our TREC-approved MCE Course called The Secrets of Staging to Sell. By the way, Interiority Complex is proud to be a sponsor of #REBCATX (ReBar Camp Austin) on Thursday, March 11, so please come on out and say hello!
KB Home is treating the first 20 Realtors to sign up to a FREE MCE Class this month!
Click here for more details or to RSVP!
The Secrets of Staging to Sell
3-hr RealtorMCE Class
Course #03-00-060-7051
Provider #0596
Course taught by Ashley Whittenberger of Interiority Complex
You will learn how to effectively stage a home as well as tips and tricks from the professionals, including:
· Top 10 most common sins of staging
· How to get your clients on board with the concept
· How much a seller should expect to spend on preparing a home for sale, including national
studies and statistical information
· Facts and advice to help "cushion" your suggestions and keep from offending your clients
· Photos showing helpful examples of effective staging
Thursday, February 18 · 10am - 1pm
at The Oak at Twin Creeks
FREE MCE course for the first 20 people who RSVP to
Colette Fitzgerald at cfitzgerald@kbhome.com
Course is $30 for remaining spots
RSVP by February 16
• Brunch served
Ashley Whittenberger is a chronic entrepreneur, business consultant and speaker who has learned to successfully balance her left brain with her right. Visit www.ashleywhittenberger.com for more info.
Short Bio
Ashley Whittenberger is a chronic entrepreneur, business consultant and speaker who has learned to successfully balance her left brain with her right. As President and CEO of several companies Ashley knows exactly how to harness her creativity, vision, business savvy and leadership skills to inspire others to “play a bigger game” in life and business. You can learn more about Ashley at www.ashleywhittenberger.com.
Full Bio – Ashley Whittenberger
In 2002, Ashley Whittenberger combined her love of interior decorating with her creative talents and entrepreneurial spirit, and began her first company. Today, her Austin based company, Interiority Complex, LLC has grown from a one-person shop-at-home business to a successful company and managed team of talented stagers and designers. In 2009, Ashley began expanding her company through the Interiority Complex Network, and now Interiority Complex Certified Design Therapists serve up creative and affordable design ”therapy” to decoratively perplexed clients across the country. When she’s not helping clients, she spends her time writing, teaching, training and consulting through The Interiority Complex University, a sister company of Interiority Complex, which launched in 2008.
After recognizing a need for support, inspiration and empowerment for the design industry entrepreneur, Ashley founded the International Association of Design Industry Entpreneurs (IADIE) in 2010. IADIE is a professional association founded for design industry entrepreneurs who are passionate about transforming and growing their design-related businesses while also making a positive and lasting social impact.
As Ashley continues to grow her companies the heart of her business philosophies remains the same. She encourages a strong focus on family, creativity, community and contribution in every facet of her businesses. Because her first business and her first son were born in the same year, she’s learned exactly what it means to trade the corporate six-figure job to become a lifestyle entrepreneur and enjoy the benefits and challenges of being her own boss and balancing work & life while creating her own vision and manifesting her unique destiny.
Prior to launching Interiority Complex, Ashley was an award winning top-producer with two national homebuilders, as well as a licensed Realtor who served as the Director of Sales and Marketing for an urban luxury development in downtown Austin. Few people know that before beginning her career in real estate, at the young age of 22, Ashley started a career in the publishing world and became a successful literary agent who worked with many of the best-selling authors we know today. Though she truly enjoyed her work in the literary world, she could not keep her entrepreneurial spirit at bay and chose to pursue her passion(s).
When she’s not developing new business ventures, Ashley enjoys camping with her family, hiking and mountain biking, chasing a fuzzy yellow ball around a tennis court, serenading her family with Broadway show tunes and generally acting silly. She has learned to live successfully with compulsive and chronic re-designing disorder and a touch of paint-a-hue-licism.
Ashley has been featured on several local television shows and publications.
Professional Memberships and Certifications
FUN STUFF...
When she's not busy decorating, staging or training, Ashley loves to spend time RV'ing with her family, mountain biking, hiking, fishing, spending time at the beach, reading, painting, enjoying live music and life! Ashley has been happily married for 14 years. She and her husband reside in Austin, Texas and have one son, now 7.
LIFE BEFORE REAL ESTATE AND INTERIORITY COMPLEX...
Before launching her career in Real Estate, Ashley enjoyed a successful career in the publishing world as a literary agent. During this time, she met some of the leading self-help, business and coaching gurus of our time (in addition to whole bunch of other famous people.) Her name can be seen in the acknowledgements section of several best-selling books!
Check out Interiority Complex in the news...
"Your training programs have helped me to achieve the business of which I've always dreamed! Thank you for your ongoing support and your unique curriculum!" - Andrea S.
"Ashley, thank you for the Window Coverings 101 Webinar and training program. I can't believe I haven't added window covering sales into my business before now. I'm looking forward to a very profitable and exciting year!" - Becky G.
"Wow! I've used the Secrets of Staging to Sell program 3 times now and I get clients EVERY time I give the class! Definitely the best investment I've made in my business since I started it!" - Jennifer S.
"Thank you for our training meeting yesterday. I really enjoyed your presentation and plan to continue to "dig deep" for new prospects & clients. I would love to be a part of your newsletter mailings!" - Cortney Ziety, Realtor, Wedding & Event Coordinator
"I enjoyed your training at our office. You provided some great information. It's obvious you love what you do!" Scott Union, Realtor
"Wow! I will certainly recommend you to other brokers looking for a shot in the arm for their agents. What a great job. One agent said her goal for the day was to create her ‘elevator' speech. Thanks to you, too." - Sami Dinhoble, Broker, EXIT Realty.
"We all enjoyed your training class yesterday. You truly have a gift for speaking and training. Thank you for an informative AND interesting class. I'm looking forward to implementing what I've learned to get to the next level." -Ruby Wilcox
Dear Ashley,
Thank you so much for coming out to the house and giving us so much helpful information!. We have already painted the kitchen, put in the wood floor in my son's room, painted the living room wall from red to cream, and painted my son's room. These changes have made a big difference already!
You are so very good at what you do, Ashley! My brother and I couldn't believe how fast you analyzed a room and gave us specifics for each! Thank you for taking your time to help us. This makes selling our house an experience we feel confident about (for the first time). Please don't hesitate to use me for a reference or a letter of glowing accolades!
Warm regards,
Jan
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Interiority Complex is the very best in the best in the business. I always know the job will be completed on-time, on budget and will look awesome. Looking for an interior decorator, a stager, someone for window coverings, there is no one better. Interiority Complex Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
Sincerely, Kevin Elliott Principal/Owner, Home Resource Group - Keller Williams Realty - May 15, 2008
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This is just an FYI on the property @ 10806 Olympia Fields Loop. Ashley you met with the Nuccio's last fall on how to stage. The Nuccio's staged their home and we placed the home on the market mid May and it went pending in one week. They took all of you advice to a T and I believe that was the driving force. This home showed better than any other home in the area. Thank you guys for all your expert opinions Steve Adams, Avalar Realty
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"Ashley is the best home stager in the business. She stays at the forefront of the industry attending seminars, reading relavent articles. She understands and effectively communicates with sellers on effective home merchandising strategies! Whether a home is already beautiful or needs some love, she will bring it to its full market potential. I highly recommend Ashley! Matt Menard, Realtor" August 8, 2008
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Ashley,
Looks like we are headed to closing on our Acapulco house on the 22nd. We can't thank you enough. We now know that staging a home, helps to sell it. We have you on our referral list and hopefully we will be able to send you some clients.
Penny Fairchild
Turnquist Partners
560-5860
Ashley,
Thanks so much for your help with Logan's room. He loves it! Next Travis wants a consult...
See you soon,
Wendy Saari
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Hi Ashley,
What a great intro!
I am impressed by your enthusiasm for decorating as well as your philosophy of involving the client in the decorating process. I am not a decorator, but as a writer and marketing specialist, I can see that you have clearly defined your "unique selling proposition." By instilling confidence in a client's decorating style, you are providing much more than design services. If you are able to communicate this in your marketing and web materials, I am sure you will have much success.
I like that you are of the philosophy that says, "Decorate a person's house and she will be have a fabulous living room today; but teach her how to decorate, and she will live in style forever!"
Welcome aboard - I am sure you will be a valuable addition to the team!
- Rob
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Dear Ashley,
I just love my new draperies in the dining room! I can't stop looking at them! Thank you so much for your help and expertise! - Julie Smith
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Everything went great with the installation and the shutters look beautiful. The guys were really nice with moving our furniture etc. Also Ashley picked the perfect stain color to match our cabinets! Shannon, I left my credit card info on your voice mail but if you have any questions call me. Thanks again, and we will be happy to recommend you to others in the neighborhood.
Sincerely, Jamille Ljungdahl
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Ashley-
I just spoke with Buster and he thinks that we are going to be able to close early! I would really appreciate it if you could get all of your beautiful work out ASAP! Thank you so much for being so wonderful through all of this... and for all of your help in making this sale possible.
Please contact me with the removal date as soon as you know what it will be. You can count on a referral from me.
Thanks again,
Heather H. Price
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Top qualities: On Time, High Integrity, Creative
"Ashley is fantastic with clients. She makes great staging recommendations, has great systems and goes above and beyond what she promises." November 21, 2008
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Ashley,
I am SO glad I took your training class on staging. It was extremely informative and filled with helpful information I can USE! You are a very talented speaker and trainer, and I look forward to attending more of your classes.
- Anne Marie Susat
Both Sarah and Samantha love the living room. Thanks again for all your help today. I feel great. I feel like we have directions. I mean, literally, I feel like I have been given directions/instructions and now all we have to do is execute. We can do that!!!
- Conny
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On a downtown condo staged by Interiority Complex's Tara Wilt...
"I showed your unit yesterday, absolutely one of the nicest in the building. It actually is nicer than mine..LOL. My client is sleeping on it but wanted to thank you for having such a lovely unit to show!!! Thanks again-Rich
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