In my work helping professional home stagers all across the country build and grow their businesses, I often hear that they’re struggling to get clients. My first question then is what are you doing for marketing? On many occasions, I hear about various networking events that they’re participating in. Without a doubt, networking events are a great way to meet prospective clients. The error usually is with the type of networking event they are participating in. If you’re going to spend time on these efforts, you want to make sure that you use that time wisely. If attending a networking event is not generating the results that you’re looking for, you may want to ask yourself the following questions.
1) Are the attendees at the event my target market?
and
2) If your target market is in attendance, are they available in large numbers?
Allow me to elaborate. First, as a Professional Home Stager, your target client is most likely a Realtor/Real Estate Agent. A Chamber meeting or BNI meeting may have attendees that fit this profile, but out of 50 or 100 members, how many of them are Realtors/Real Estate Agents? Maybe a handful? Alternatively, if you were to attend a Realtor Association Meeting where the majority of the attendees are folks in your target market, you increase your chances of connecting with a prospective client significantly.
So you have to ask yourself, would you rather spend an hour meeting 2 people who MIGHT fit your client profile or 50-80 people who ARE your ideal target client? Assess your options to ensure maximum results.
Here are some of my top recommendations for networking events for the Professional Home Stager:
1) Local Realtor Association Meetings – http://www.realtor.org/directories
2) Local Women’s Council of Realtors - http://www.wcr.org/
3) RE BarCamp - http://rebarcamp.com/
4) Real Estate Meetup – http://realestate.meetup.com/
5) Real Estate Investor Clubs – http://google.com to find local clubs
Think about who you’re trying to attract and find out where they hang out in large numbers and go to those events. Avoid networking activities that sound good, but produce little or no results and definitely avoid spending too much time networking with your competition (i.e. other Stagers). It’s fun to connect with colleagues, but since it’s unlikely they’ll end up hiring you, beware of spending too much time fostering those relationships as they will not be add to your bottom line. Good luck and have a great time!