Jedi mind-tricks are suggestions that’d typically be resisted, but are acted upon when Jedi has the Force with them.

Home sellers know about staging, but they expect you to know more.  Sellers also need to participate in their own success, but if you can’t comfortably introduce both topics to your seller, POOF! time lost and opportunity blown.

Feelin’ full of Force on this beautiful day, can’t think of a better way to commemorate Star Wars’ 45th Anniversary today than sharing these Stager Jedi Mind tricks. 

You’ve got to know some stagers! 

• Google stagers. Check out their digital footprint, get comfy with some language. What’s their personality? How about their range, geographic and service-wise? Any accreditations? Is this a F/T career, or a P/T side hustle?
• Contact agents who’ve given them testimonials. What’d they do, and how long ago?
• Actually speak with stagers!  Knowing who they are and how they work adds fluency and confidence.
• PLAN. Do your due diligence before you have to. Right before, or during a listing presentation is not ideal. Nor is after a property has been on the market for a while.

Develop your own position

• Expand your vocabulary. When people think they know what you’re going to say they don’t listen. Lose the hackneyed ‘declutter and depersonalize’, its just as ho-hum as ‘gleaming wood floors’
• Find words that engage and elevate. Words that say something in a slightly different way. Nothing crazy-different, just something to get their attention. Curating, editing down, or lightening up- all good alternatives to the above.
• Develop your own way to explain things.  Sellers hire you. It’s much more natural explaining something in a way that makes sense to you and aligns with how you do everything else..
• One Look Reverse Dictionary is my go-to; humor and incongruous analogies are my style.

Get it on the table early, but don’t get stuck in the weeds

• Agents are like attorneys and surgeons. Trained to know the answer and able to discuss it (usually in great depth) before the question is asked. It’s understood why, but resist that instinct here.
•  Early on, make a statement to this effect:  ‘At some point we’ll need to address getting your property its camera-ready best’.  THAT’S IT. If and when you get the listing is the time to pursue it at greater length.
• Avoid the “S” words. Instead, introduce/explain the process as ‘getting a property its camera-ready best’ as above, or describe the person as someone who prepares properties for sale.

Be the agent who knows the best people 

• Is also being a stager part of your VAP? You know this will leave you less time to do the rest of your job, like chasing down attorneys, fighting appraisals, and legalizing spaces. You just have no idea how much less. 
• You’ll be finding and hauling things around. And you’ll have endless conversations that’ll veer from ‘is this pillow ok?’ and things like legalizing spaces and old oil tanks.
• Carefully weigh what saying hard or difficult things to sellers could do to your primary relationship, that of agent-seller.
• Staging is like any other trade. If a sellers’ roof is leaking you don’t get up on the ladder with a roll of tar paper, right? RIGHT! You want a basic understanding of roof construction, but more, want to know someone good at what they do, is fair, trustworthy, and who’ll treat your seller with respect.

Full-time+ since 2007, The Refreshed Home specializes in updating, and preparing occupied/furnished Westchester County properties for sale.  Our heart, our raison d’etre is the same as our steely business model: To elevate the industry one property, one seller at a time.

Ask around, chances are good you know people I’ve worked with. How can I help you and your clients make the most of their selling situation?