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Business of Home Staging is the podcast for aspiring home stagers and entrepreneurs in any field looking to grow and scale their businesses. Hosted by Joké Durojaiye, a Small Business Consultant, Business Coach, and Mentor with extensive experience as a Real Estate Broker. Joké is an award-winning home staging expert, a Director on the National Board of the Real Estate Staging Association, a Licensed Real Estate Instructor, and three-time nominee for the Most Influential People in Real Estate Staging.
Whether you're in the industry or just curious about what goes on behind the scenes of a home staging business, this podcast delivers practical, field-tested lessons from a fully functioning small business. It offers proven methods to build a thriving business in any industry. The business insights, personal stories, mindset, check and strategies in this podcast applies to most small businesses.
Each episode is packed with no-nonsense, actionable tips on attracting clients, streamlining your staging processes, and boosting profitability. Whether you're dreaming about starting your own home staging business, preparing to launch, or are a seasoned pro ready to scale, you'll find proven strategies and inspiring, candid conversations designed to fast-track your success.
This is not a get-rich-quick business. If you are ready to roll up your sleeves and get things done, tune in to turn your creativity into a profitable reality!
Business of Home Staging LLC does not guarantee any specific results and is not responsible for any losses incurred from the use of the information provided in this podcast. The content shared is based on the author's experiences and personal insights. Neither the company nor the author offers financial, tax, legal, or professional advice. Listeners are advised to conduct their own research and seek guidance from a qualified accountant, financial advisor, attorney and other professional.
Focus on the areas that matter to bring in money. As a CEO of my business, I want to be in charge of bringing in more business so we can grow. I don't wanna work in the business on a daily basis. I wanna work on it. Hey, friends.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the business of home staging podcast. This is your backstage pass to business intelligence for creatives. Are you driven by your passion for design and decorating so much that you're happy to do it for free? That was me until I made 6 figures in my 1st year as a homestager. Yes.
Speaker 1:Real estate staging is serious business with a potential for 6 or even 7 figures in revenue. Your talent is a great start, but building a profitable business requires so much more than creating beautiful spaces. Get the boost of confidence you need to monetize your talent, keep your phones ringing, and your pipelines full. Grab the popcorn as I pull back the curtains on the best kept secrets with inspiring conversations and success stories of challenges, wins, and everything in between. I've made so many mistakes so you don't have to.
Speaker 1:If this Nigerian girl can do it, you my friend can do it too. Let's go. In this episode, I'll be sharing 6 lessons that have shaped my business journey in the last 6 years. These are lessons that you won't find in a textbook or any training manual. And regardless of where you are in your journey, whether you're still thinking about it, is it the right one for you, or you are already doing the business or you're new to it, wherever you are.
Speaker 1:There are so many lessons to learn in here. You're about to get the good, the bad, and the ugly, and sometimes downright very unpleasant. Let's get into it. Lesson number 1, don't be a superhero. I used to be that person.
Speaker 1:We start out as solopreneurs. We're doing it all. You're the beeline. You're the scheduler. You're the stager.
Speaker 1:Some people even do their move by themselves. You don't get any medal for doing it all, and so I have retired my cape. And the thing is that at the beginning, it's important to learn all those things. You're still and in those building process, it's important to document your process. Once you start doing something, you have a process.
Speaker 1:Whether it's the wrong process, it's the right process, it's it's your process. And it's important for you to start documenting that because that is what you're going to pass on to somebody and be able to delegate and walk away and know that things are being done the right way. Now there's always room for improvement and that process will be ever evolving, but it's important to have one. A lot of people have it locked down in their heads without writing it down. And unless you're hiring people who are clairvoyant and can read your mind, there is no way that that you're gonna have success in that process of hiring and delegating.
Speaker 1:And just understanding that you're not meant to do everything by yourself. Yes. You can do a lot at the beginning, but as you grow, it's all gonna get away from you. And I'm telling you this from experience. So focus on the areas that matter to bring in money.
Speaker 1:As a CEO of my business, I want to be in charge of bringing in more business so we can grow. I don't wanna work in the business on a daily basis. I wanna work on it so I can grow. And as the CEO, it's important to work on myself so that the growth that I have will be passed on to the business. And for me to have a somewhat balanced slide, that's a controversial topic because they always say there is no balance, but you have to find some kind of way for you to still be human and have your personal life and have your business without it eating up all your time and without you hitting burnout.
Speaker 1:Because the joy of your passion can easily be lost if you get too far and over your head. You're not an expert at everything. I am not an expert in bookkeeping. I'm not an expert in marketing. I'm not an expert in all those other things.
Speaker 1:You have to pick your jam. The things that you do well without effort, those are the things you should focus on. And then you can hire somebody to do the other things because there are people who are trained in doing those things. They are smarter than me and therefore I prefer for them to do it so that we can get faster to where we're going and it takes less effort and it's more efficient. And I hear a lot from people that hiring is expensive.
Speaker 1:Yes. It can be if you're hiring the wrong people. But if you have the right people with the right skills, the right attitude, it is actually an investment that will get you faster to where you're going. So you have to think about the things that you don't enjoy doing, don't like doing, don't have the time to do, and delegate those things. And the clue most of the time is things that you procrastinate and things that you're always dropping the ball on or things that are always on the back burner even though they are important.
Speaker 1:That is your clue to things that you can delegate. Once you have a process, you have a guide to hand over to someone to do those things. So that was lesson number 1, do not be a superhero delegate. Okay? And then lesson number 2 is uncomfortable and failure is inevitable.
Speaker 1:You will fail a lot. You'll fail often. Embrace failure like it's your b f f because growth is awkward. It is messy and sometimes downright painful. Each step I take towards growth or to the next step of my business, it's been excruciatingly painful.
Speaker 1:I've been afraid. And guess what? I'm still afraid today. It never goes away regardless of where you are. There is no growth in the comfort zone, and our brains are wired to keep us safe, and safety is not taking risks.
Speaker 1:Every time you wanna grow, there's risk involved. Whether I'm getting a new warehouse, investing in inventory, hiring people, the fear is always, will I be able to make payroll? What if business doesn't come in? Will I be able to pay my rent? The fear is real.
Speaker 1:But you know what? There is joy and reward on the other side if you take the leap. And I have to be realistic and tell you that sometimes all your strategies, all your growth plans don't always work out. But so what? That's where the failure comes in, and failure is also part of the process.
Speaker 1:You have to be willing to fail because there are failures that come and you allow it to happen only once because they thing so bad, you have learned that lesson and you'll never let it happen again. So give yourself the permission to fail so you can grow. So the lesson is if you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing. So next time you feel out of your depth, embrace it. You're stepping into bigger, better vision for yourself and your business.
Speaker 1:And trust me, it always feels amazing on the other side. Each time I have taken that leap of faith and I've done it afraid, I've always reaped the result of it. It's painful in the moment, but the rewards are huge. So fail fail often. Allow yourself to fail.
Speaker 1:Be ready to be uncomfortable so you can reap the reward and get to the next step of your business. Okay? Lesson number 3, growth is not linear, and growth does not necessarily mean expansion. I used to think that for me to grow my business, it means that I needed to get a bigger warehouse, and I did. I needed to buy more inventory, and I did.
Speaker 1:I needed to hire more people, and I did. And guess what? I am back to a place now where I have learned to embrace linear growth. And let me explain what that means. Linear growth is you don't have to go in the traditional sense of growth where everything needs to be bigger and expand in order for people to see that you're growing.
Speaker 1:And it's not a show of who has the biggest warehouse or whatever. Growth is very personal, and what growth means to you may be different from what growth means to the other person. For me, I have decided that growth means that I am lean and mean and efficient. I'm doing more with less. I am working smart and not hard.
Speaker 1:We have actually reduced our square footage when it comes to our warehouse, reduce our inventory by embracing the linear growth approach. And I'll explain what that means. It means that we are diversifying our business offering, we are adding multiple income streams. And in order for me to do that, I had to go and learn to do new things and then add new services that does not necessarily translate to more space, more inventory, more people, therefore, more expenses. So we're growing our bottom line.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, our expenses are shrinking, and that is the place that I want to be, and it's very comfortable. So I've come from going into the 5,000 square foot warehouse, and I decided that I did not want to go any higher. I actually came lower to a smaller square footage, full inventory, you know, team structure change. And now I'm in a comfortable place where I can breathe and I can grow and my expenses are not growing along with my investments. So growth is personal and it can look different for everyone.
Speaker 1:Bigger is not better. Better is just better and better for you is not always better for me. So embrace your own growth and find out what growth means to you and what is important to you. And there's so many different ways to go without expanding in the traditional sense. Okay.
Speaker 1:Lesson number 4. I learned to keep my pipelines for always be selling. That is a term in real estate, always be selling. There's an acronym, abs. And I learned this the hard way because I had a client that was a top producer and he gave us all of his business.
Speaker 1:We would do up to, like, 10 stages in a month and their business structure changed And they had a new partnership, and they went with in a different direction with their staging needs. That was a major client. It was actually our number one client. And thank god that I'd always been marketing, my pipeline was it's so strong. It was painful because I think about it as a relationship.
Speaker 1:In so many relationships, let's say, we'll take romantic relationships. You're dating your head over heels in love. You're married doesn't guarantee that there will be no breakup, that there will be no divorce. So you have to have a plan b when it comes to your business because relying on one source, one person, I've had I have a lot of agents who work with us repeatedly, but I never rest on that. I want my pipelines to keep bringing in new business.
Speaker 1:You always have to keep your pipelines open for new business to flow in, new people to find you because anything could happen to anyone. Their business is not guaranteed. Therefore, your business is not guaranteed. I am an equal opportunity stage. Anyone can find us on Google and work with us.
Speaker 1:And that is how our business thrives because the ones who are bringing you repeat business, they don't owe you anything. They don't have a stake in your business. The most important part of your business is to keep bringing in business. And that is one thing, the number one thing that keep entrepreneurs up at night is not knowing where the business is coming from. So if you're constantly marketing and your phone is always ringing, you can breathe well.
Speaker 1:But if you rely on one person or a group of people and something changes in their business, it ricochets and affects your business. So you have to be the one in charge of bringing in your business. Don't rely on other people because it's not their priority, and, frankly, they don't owe you nothing. Okay. So learn to keep your pipelines for always the marketing.
Speaker 1:That was your lesson number 4. Okay. Lesson number 5, business is business. It's not personal. We can get emotionally riled up wasting unnecessary energy on things that don't affect the bottom line.
Speaker 1:I just, like, don't sweat the small stuff. For example, I'm sure you've experienced this if you've been staging for a minute. You walk away from the staging. You've done a good job. After a long day, you see the photos online, and you see that the client agent, whoever you stage for, they have moved things around, and it's no longer representing your work.
Speaker 1:It is quite upsetting. And the fact that I can no longer now put this on my portfolio, but it's so what? Not everything I do need to make it to my portfolio, and they have paid me well. I I did a beautiful job. And if they decide to move things around, it's their house.
Speaker 1:It's their money. Onto the next one. I don't lose sleep over that anymore, but I used to. That energy that we're giving to things that don't matter, little things, it can take away the important things that we need to focus our energy on. Bringing in more business and finding more people, I'm always about the bottom line.
Speaker 1:It's the drama versus the math. If it's not bringing me money, I'm not giving it energy. Focus on the big picture. If a client adds a flamingo sculpture after your stage, so and, yes, that really happened. They were committed to the flamingo.
Speaker 1:They had one structure in the corner of the living room. They had a picture of another one. It's somewhere in the house. They had a little flamingo on the bed. You know what?
Speaker 1:It's none of my business. I have done my part. They've paid me. It's their money. It's their house.
Speaker 1:They can do whatever they want. So give your energy to things that improve your bottom line and make you money. Alright. So and the last lesson, lesson number 6, is do not compare your beginning to somebody else's middle. You have no idea what their journey has been like.
Speaker 1:I used to be so focused like and grossed in other people's business. I was following the big staging companies in my area and everywhere, and I'm like, oh, they're doing this. Oh, they're doing that. I should be doing this. I should be doing that.
Speaker 1:And the thing with that is once I realized I wasn't minding my business and I was trying to do what everybody else was doing, and it wasn't coming together because it was completely off my vision. And nothing was coming together the way it should because it wasn't my journey. It was somebody else's journey. It wasn't even somebody else's journey. So many different people's journey, and I see people do this all the time.
Speaker 1:Like, what what are you doing? I wanna do this. I wanna do that. And it becomes all consuming, and you're not minding your business. You're not watering your grass.
Speaker 1:That's why it's not growing. I went in the opposite direction where I became tunnel vision focused on my business, and I went to learn the things that I needed for my business. Even if I see somebody else doing it, I don't know where they've been. The resources available to them may not be available to me. Therefore, I have to focus on the resources available to me and what I need, how are they aligning with the vision that I've created for myself, and returning to my why.
Speaker 1:I know when it sounds cliche when you say your why your why, but it's really, really important to help you recenter and recalibrate. It's your compass that guides you back home to what you should be doing to fill your passion, to increase and grow your business, and grow as the person. Because if you keep focusing on what other people are doing, you're gonna miss a mark and you're just not gonna get where you need to go and you can build a journey that's uniquely you and uniquely yours if you focus on your business. I don't recommend hyper focusing like I have been because you still need to know what your competition is doing. It's all part of business strategy to learn and study the competition, but not one on healthy level like I was doing and like I know a lot of people do.
Speaker 1:So mind your business and focus, give your energy to growing yourself. And there you have it. Those are my top six lessons that I've learned, and I hope that they help you fast track your success and skip some of the common pitfalls that happens to all of us. And thank you for celebrating the 6th year anniversary with me. I wish you all success and many, many celebrations to come.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Business of Home Staging podcast. Remember to share, like, and subscribe. Thank you for joining me on this episode and keep doing all the things until next time.