I recently upgraded the look and feel of my new website/blog and I can’t tell you how excited I am about the new image. It makes me giddy every time I see it. I called it “Staging the Stager’s” blog and really, that’s what it was. It took a couple of months to finally get the right platform (I highly recommend WordPress), working with my Blogmaster to get the right format and all the behind-the-scenes technical stuff (thank you WebSuccessDiva) and I was feeling good about the content, but it was lacking pizzazz. The original look was clean, but boring at best and one of the reasons why I didn’t have it “designed” initially was because I really wasn’t sure what I wanted. I had some ideas, but I wanted to be sure of the underlying message it portrayed. I knew I wanted to play on the “Set the Stage” brand and I wanted something glamorous, exciting, very “Hollywood” like my Backstage Pass branding. I had a lot of ideas and some had to be dismissed because it started to clutter the look and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a contradiction to my message since decluttering is synonymous with home staging. Unfortunately, I’ve seen many Home Staging websites that have way too much visual clutter which is a direct disconnect from who they say they are and what they do – it’s the old “practice what you preach” and “walk the talk” theory.
So, here are a couple of tips to keep in mind when you’re building your brand:
1) Keep Your Brand Consistent with Your Message – as Home Stagers, we are in the business of first impressions – what kind of impression are you portraying?
2) Image is Key – take a long hard look at your company’s image – business card, website, fliers, brochures, your own image. If you want people to trust you with the image of their home, you must show that you are worthy of that trust. It might be time for a redesign or upgrade of your own.
3) Just like Staging a home increases its perceived value, same goes for your brand. It’s all about the packaging so if you’re not attracting the type of business you want, perhaps it’s time to upgrade the packaging to make sure it resonates with your ideal clients. For example, if you are interested in staging high end, luxury properties, but your company or your own image speaks more to the foreclosure market, you’ll only attract bargain hunters. Just as a list price of a property comes with it a certain level of expectation, so do levels of business. To attract the more affluent market, you have to be appealing to that segment of the marketplace. We’re talking credibility here. For example, I remember consulting on a $3M property and I noticed that one of the co-agents of the listing wore very ill-fitting clothes and had holes in his socks. That was an instant loss of credibility in my book. I would want the person representing my $3M property to exude a level of sophistication reflective of the list price of my property.
4) What kind of walk-away impression is your brand creating? People want to buy from a brand. If you can make them feel like they’re buying an experience rather than just a service or a commodity, you have won the game. Turn your brand into an experience which is what we’re in the business of. Home Staging is all about the emotional triggers and how a person feels when they enter a staged home v. a non-staged home. Find a way to create that same feeling with your company and you’ll have customers for life. Make sure that their experience with you is consistent every single time, from the moment they contact your office to the staging experience. Study and model brands like the Four Seasons Hotel who have created systems to track everything their customers want and need so that when you leave, they can’t wait to go back.
5) You are your Brand – whether you choose to market your company name or your name, you are your brand. You are the face and the identity behind the brand so be wary of your actions – it’s a reflection of you and your business. I had to remind my husband of this when he was driving our 10′ Boxvan around town with our company logo and contact information splashed around all 3 sides. Just like celebrities, the tabloids are always watching. For you, it’s the public and your community.
Here’s a before and after photo of my new branding. You’ll be seeing a build-out of this in the near future. What do you think? Love it, hate it? I want to know…please share your thoughts with me.
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