Month: January 2018

Remember when you first started college? As a freshman, the classes you took were all general education courses like math and English.

By your second year if you were a Business major, you started taking general classes within your major like basic Accounting and Economics. Then by the time you were ready to graduate, you were taking advanced classes specific to a subject within your major like Marketing.

This is very similar to your growth as a Staging Design Professional. When you first get started, you’re working with everybody (the general public), or in some cases, “anybody” because your business depended on it. You didn’t have the luxury of being choosey because you just needed to get business NOW.

As your business evolves, you may naturally start creating a niche because you just organically attract certain clients or types of projects. If this doesn’t come naturally, you will eventually want to figure out what your distinct segment of the market is or more affectionately, “define your niche”.

This is not only the “who”, but also the “what” in the marketplace you serve. For instance, as Stagers, you can work with homeowners, Realtors, builders, developers or investors.

Choosing to work with one of these types of folks is part of your niche. The “what” or your specialty, such as model home merchandising or only staging owner occupied properties is also part of your niche.

I was recently at a Mastermind meeting where one of the Realtors mentioned that when she first started her business, she met a mentor who called himself the “Condo King” so she decided to call herself the “Condo Queen” and went on to be known as a condo specialist.

I know of a local Stager that specializes in Staging Lofts.

I found one of my niches was in Managing Remodel Projects for Resale. I was the “go to” person when those projects came up because I was known by the local Realtor community as the expert in that area. That also led to several condo conversion renovation projects that I was hired to consult on.

SO WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO FIND A NICHE?

You want to be seen as the Expert in that particular niche. As an expert you will find that:

– Experts are able to command higher fees.

Your clients want to know that they’re getting the best and they’re usually willing to pay more to have someone who is an Expert. After all, Cardiac surgeons are paid a lot more than a generalist M.D.

– Experts have more credibility.

More people want to work with Experts rather than Generalists. There is a higher demand for Specialists and as a result, they command more respect.

Just as an Enrolled Agent is paid a lot more for their technical expertise in the field of taxation, particularly IRS audits, than your local H&R Block tax preparer.

– Niching can help separate you from your competition so that you’ll be remembered.

Recognition is particularly with the “green” movement. Incorporating those principles into your Staging services will not only get consumer attention but you can potentially dominate that market since this is an emerging concept.

– Niching helps you clarify your marketing message.

Now that you know who your target market is and what your unique service offering is, you can now build your customer’s awareness of your services as well as your brand with more focused campaigns.

SO HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR NICHE?

You need to ask yourself a few questions.

– What do people already see you as an expert of?

– What are you known for or what do you want to be known for?

Take a look at your previous projects or your client profiles.

– Was there a group of folks that you worked with more often than another?

– Is there an area that you’re particularly better at than anyone else?

– Where can you be a “first” at in your marketplace?

It could be that you only do vignette staging which creates a look and feel without the need for a lot of inventory which reduces your overhead expenses.

Perhaps you’re known as a Color Specialist or the “Green” Stager. By positioning yourself as the Expert in this sexy, new niche, you will probably get a lot of media exposure since it is the “HOT” topic of the moment.

As you can see, niching helps you clarify who and what you want to work with. By communicating that specialty to your clients, you can help ensure that you’re not taking on projects that are outside of your expertise and eliminate those that bring you the least joy.

Over time I found my niche just by working on all kinds of projects and figuring out which ones I enjoyed and which I could easily say “no” to, regardless of the money.

Figure out what your niche is and you will find that the journey to your Staging success is a lot more fun!

Copyright (c) 2009 Alice Chan

Home staging means to sell one’s personal property by rearranging its furnishings and other things to make it suitable for selling in the real estate market. One can also bring in new furnishings for the same purpose as it will bring the house to sale at an effective price in the market. For home staging, you can hire a home stager who will help you put your house properly for the selling purpose. A home stager can be hired at a cheap price but make sure he or she is active enough to put the right thing in the right place. While staging your personal house for the sale purpose, be sure to put the front room of your house clean and attractive because this is the place which gives an overall look of your entire house to the visitor at first. The living area of your house should be well lit and ventilated to attract the buyer for your house. Staging your personal premises for the sale purpose brings in a lot of potential buyers for your property. After staging the living area you can target other important areas of the house like the kitchen, rooms, lobbies and lawns and terrace area if present. You can replace your personal stuff with new one by spending some money on it to get good sale value for your house. Staging the dining area is also essential because the home buyers want more space for both dining and function. Therefore, while staging a dining area, many aspects should be kept in mind. The dine area should look more welcoming and open to your buyers. The buyers are very busy now days than they were earlier. They want to buy house that are ready to shift in. There are many ways to stag your property for purpose of sale. These are:- First, remove your clothes and other accessories from various places such cupboards and drawers to give a feeling of ample space to the buyer. Then, remove unnecessary wall paintings or hangings to allow the buyer imagine his own on the walls. Try removing some of your furniture to make the house spacious. Clean the surroundings of your house premises by moving the trash bins to a place where they are not visible to the buyers. Create easy navigation information around the house or in the society so that the buyers do not find it difficult to search for the house. Get the house renovated with some pastel colors to give it a natural look. Clean all the doors and glass windows properly to let the sunlight enter the house. Remove all your family pictures or other decorative things from the walls and the tops of cupboards, chests and so on. Get all the carpets and curtains of the house cleaned properly.

With all these staging done at your personal premises with the help of a realtor will definitely draw some potential buyers at your door who will readily buy your house. Harji Realtors is one of the leading real estate agents in the region of Chandigarh, Mohali and Kharar. For more information on great deals in Flat in Mohali and the best Plot in Sunny Enclave check out our website te

You have probably been to a movie or two where the scene gets all shaky and it starts to look lke something that your dad filmed on a family vacation with his camcorder. This filming technique is known as shaky cam and is made by simply having the cameraman hold a camera in his hand and film the scene rather than putting the camera on a tripod or some other mounting system. This article will argue against using this method for filming and the reasons against it.

The main argument against shaky cam is that lots and lots of people hate it, and I mean HATE it. That seems like a pretty good reason not to do it but yet directors still persist in using it. People hate it because they cannot see what is going on in the scene, it makes them feel sick, and it can give them a headache. They find it very disorienting when the shot is constantly moving all directions and they cannot focus on any one thing that is going on.

This begs the question, why do directors use the technique in the first place? One reason is that it covers up shoddy filming and staging. With a shaky shot, you do not have to worry so much about how good the acting, choreography, props, or set look. This makes it very tempting to use a free camera to save time and money as you do not have to put so much attention into these aspects of the film. So basically, it can be used as a shortcut when filming a movie.

Some directors use the shaky cam method to give the shot a more realistic or documentary feel. Doing this in a limited fashion is sometimes effective, but they tend to overuse it and make it feel gimmicky. Films like the Blair Witch Project use this method the entire film, which caused many people to get motion sickness and have to leave the theater. The movie theaters even had to start posting warnings outside of the ticket booths warning movie goers of the chance that the movie could cause sickness.

A second argument about using shaky cam is that the method gets a bad name from so many people overusing it. When it becomes overused as it has, then people will learn to hate it in all cases, even when a bit of disorientation is the perfect thing to bring a certain scene together and really make it seem real. When some poor directors ruin the effect for all the others it is the movie fans that lose out on this effect which could be useful in very limited shots.

So in summary, shaky cam is hated by many movie fans, directors use it anyway to cover up their incompetence and laziness, and these directors ruin the technique for those who use it sparingly and wisely to add realism to their Hollywood movies and DVDs.