Pineapple Interiors

We often like to say that Home Staging can help create that “perfect storm” for buyers.  When a home is priced right, is move-in ready and then staged by a Professional Home Stager, the results will speak for themselves. This home located at 3504 S Hudson, in Denver, Colorado was definitely one of our “perfect storm” success stories. This particular home was purchased by an investor who always knows how to make her homes stand out from the competition. She is not afraid to spend the dollars to make the necessary upgrades, she prices them well and ALWAYS stages them. Her staging investment of less than $1600 brought a great ROI!

We invited buyers right into the home with a cozy seating arrangement. It’s easy for buyers to see how the room can “live” right when they walk in the front door.

Since the dining room also functions as the main eating area, the team at Pineapple Interiors showed how it can function as both an everyday gathering area and a great place to entertain dinner guests.

How often do you see a kitchen like this in a home for under $250,000 in Denver, Colorado? This investor knows exactly what it takes to create the “perfect storm” and we are proud to be a part of her team!

As Professional Stagers, one of our marketing tools is to let our clients know that they only have one chance to make a great first impression. We let them know that the largest surge of buyers come in the first two weeks of a listing, and that 90% of home buyers start their search on the internet. We tell them these facts because we want them to know how important it is to stage their homes or listings before putting it on the market.

Just as Staging helps sell homes, your website helps sell your services to prospective clients. If your website is not staged, are you calling the kettle black?

Here are a few reasons to Stage your website:

1. MLS. Just like homes should be in the MLS system,  Stagers should have a website. Statistics show that 90% of home buyers start their search on the internet. Likewise, many people research products and services on the internet to familiarize themselves with what is out there, are you?

2. Marketing. Your website should be a great marketing tool. Use your website to tell people what you do and of course how well you do it with great photos of your work. Are you proud of your website like you are proud of your staging portfolio?

3. Contact Information. People are often using search engines over yellow pages (both printed and online) when searching for contact information, make sure your contact information is easy to find on your web site.

4. First Impressions. Why do we stage homes? To make them appeal to the widest range of buyers and look their best, right? Shouldn’t you apply that same rule to your website?

5. Architecture and Focal Points. When you look at a room you are staging, you pay attention to architectural details and focal points, make sure you are doing the same on your website. Look at your website on all the major browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox. And remember websites look and act differently on a Mac vs. a PC.

6. Trends. You strive to keep your staging updated and fresh, do the same with your website. Make sure you are changing the content every so often. This helps with your SEO ranking too.

7. Color Pallet. And no, it doesn’t have to be neutral; but is your website pleasing to the eye?

8. Flow. Stagers make sure the flow of a home works well so as to guide buyers through the home. Your website should be no different. It should be easy to navigate.

9. Testimonials. Consumers love reviews! Your online testimonials can serve as reviews of your staging products and services.

10. Tout Yourself. Be creative and show your personality. Small businesses thrive on personal relationships, let your clients get to know you.

We are proud to announce that Tammie O’Brien, Co-Owner of Pineapple Interiors, will be speaking at the RESA Convention in Las Vegas. The convention  is January 23-25, 2011 at Treasure Island (TI) Casino. Tammie’s talk ‘Inventory Management: It Doesn’t Have to be Green Eggs & Ham’ is a fun, entertaining program designed for stagers of every level. Using real-world examples and sharing anecdotes that can only be learned by experience.

Tammie will be sharing:

• What types of inventory to stock
• When to start carrying inventory
• Where to purchase inventory
• Why carrying inventory can greatly increase revenues
• How to track inventory with minimum effort and maximum results

This insightful learning session is thought provoking and well paced. Any staging professional will appreciate the “try it and you just may like it” message that is the guiding principle and chief take-away of this presentation.

You can learn more at http://resaconvention.com/ Hope to see you there!

As a Professional Home Stager, do you know your numbers? What is your closing ratio? If you can’t answer that, how do you know what to do to grow your business? Our Pineapple U students are learning to track their numbers so they can create a growth plan. We learned that spending just 3 hours per week on Proactive Marketing keeps us in front of 90 prospects on a consistent basis. Wow! Start tracking your marketing efforts now rely on your own data to advance your business. Look for future notes on Pineapple U here, and share with us the success stories you create by following these great business tips.

Our last newsletter highlighted the benefits of working with a business coach.While we strongly believe that business coaches are worth every penny, we understand too, that they can be costly. With those things in mind, Pineapple Interiors decided to launch a new endeaver; Pineapple U.  Pineapple U is an effort to help professional stagers succeed in their business with the help of a seasoned professional business coach that is primarily subsidized by Pineapple Interiors.  Pineapple U looked for a small group of stagers who were committed and ready to take their business to the next level in 2010, and willing to make a 6 month commitment to dig in with hard work, and enjoy the results that a business coach can deliver.  We are excited to announce that 13 stagers have made the commitment and this awesome program was kicked off last month. Congratulations stagers! Keep your eye on our newsletter and blog! in the coming months to hear of their successes; who knows maybe you’ll be so motivated you’ll want to apply yourself to be part of Pineapple U’s second class of students!

Happy New Year! 2010 marks Pineappple Interiors 5th year in business. When Shelley and I were first certified in Staging back in 2005, we thought the majority of our business would be staging occupied homes and doing one day redesign or makeovers. It’s interesting to look back at our marketing materials to see that focus. It turns out, that one of our first BIG jobs was staging a vacant home in the Bonnie Brae neighborhood in Denver, Colorado.  We staged that home to the hilt, placed a placard on the counter with our business cards, and things took off from there. We can still attribute a lot of our staging business to that very first house!

In a short time, the majority of our business became staging vacant homes, so we began to build up our inventory. Just two years later, our business took on another change when Pineapple Interiors Furniture Leasing was born. As established experts in vacant staging, we knew we could offer a level of service to other stagers for leasing services that was unmatched in the Denver area.

After having the privilege of working with many professional stagers through our leasing business, we discovered another need and embarked on creating a one of kind Vacant Staging class.

So what is my point of all of this? Well, first I am proud of what we have built over the last five years and we certainly have the support of our local stagers to thank for that. I also want to point out that our business completely changed from what we thought it would be! Don’t be afraid to try new things in your business in 2010. You may be surprised at where a few changes can take you.