Ep.61/ From Real Estate Agent to Award-Winning Stager | Jason Saft
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Jason Saft, the founder of the award-winning Staged to Sell Home, a boutique staging company, talks about shifting from being a real estate agent to founder, his doubts about becoming an entrepreneur and how he co-parents his daughter. Jason says he’s ‘finally found his purpose’ professionally and shares how he built it from the ground up.
In this episode, you’ll hear from Jason:
Tips to grow your social media presence successfully–which he’s done himself over many years!
Tips to stage your home successfully to sell
How he built an award-winning company and battled the self-doubt
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Thinking about making a career pivot but not sure how to get started?
Jason Saft, the founder of the award-winning Staged to Sell Home, a boutique staging company talks about shifting from being a real estate agent to founding his own company, his doubts about becoming an entrepreneur and how he co-parents his daughter with his ex Dan. Jason says he’s ‘finally found his purpose’ professionally and shares how he built it from the ground up.
Plus we also touch on tips for growing your social media following, the challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship and finding work-life balance.
In this episode you will learn:
Tips to grow your social media presence successfully (which he’s done himself over many years!)
Tips to stage your home successfully to sell
How he built an award-winning company
Quotes from our guest:
“For a very long time I doubted myself, I think it's just like the way I grew up. I didn't really think I could do it and I sort of made it a hobby for a long period of time but I kept thinking somehow I could try and figure this out.”
“I wasn't really looking at it from the perspective of how to really create profit at the time. I just was like, I want to continue to keep doing this so I figured out how to do it and create systems and create a replicable process.”
“Understand what you're going to be putting out there on social media.”
Follow host Kim Rittberg on Instagram
FREE DOWNLOAD: Sell more homes ASAP with better video Click Here!
How To Be A Happier, Less Stressed & More Successful Parent: Click here!
EPISODE LINKS:
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Kim (00:02):
Jason Saft joins us to talk about how he made a huge career pivot and became a multiple award winner in his industry, going from real estate agent to launching his own staging firm that's been featured in the Wall Street Journal and House. Beautiful Plus, he talks about how he balances parenting tips to grow your social media following because he did it himself and so much more.
(00:23):
This is Mom's Exit interview, the show for moms who want to craft the career and life they want. Each episode, you'll meet inspirational moms across various industries and levels who are working and living life on their own terms, and they'll bring you actionable tips from finance to business development to happiness to crushing that imposter syndrome. I'm Kim rit. I was a burnt out media executive at Netflix, US Weekly and in TV news. I wanted a career where I was fulfilled at work but present at home with my kids. So I started working for myself and I love it, but not every day was easy or is easy. I wanted to explore with all of you how other moms were creating careers on their own terms. They're carving out flex jobs, starting their own businesses, they're taking back control. Join me and make work work for you instead of the other way around.
(01:24):
Don't forget to tell two people to listen to the show, and I would love it if you drop a rating and a review. And if you're looking to go from professional to thought leader through video and podcast, make sure to check out my website and drop me a line to see how I can help. My clients are seeing huge results they're bringing on. New clients are getting multi-million dollar home referrals and press features cause of the video strategy work we have done together. I've won six different awards for my work and I've been featured in Business Insider and Fast Company. I spent 10 years as a TV news producer and then I launched US Weekly's video unit and I worked at Netflix. Let me apply all of my knowledge of media and social to help you grow your business. I'm so excited for you to hear from Jason saft.
(02:05):
I know him through our kids who go to school together, and this is the perfect example about how showing up online can lead to collaborations and opportunities. Jason and I chatted a bit. I realized he stages homes for a living and I advise a lot of real estate agents on how to grow their client base through video and podcasts, so we have a lot to chat about, but when I checked out his Instagram, I was totally blown away. He has such amazing, beautiful work and he's had so many incredible press features, so I was like, absolutely. I want to hear about Jason, how he grew his business. I was also curious to hear how he handles his very successful company while also co-parenting his daughter with his ex. I'm always interested in peeling back the curtain to see how other people balance business and family life, and in addition to being super talented and having an arm full of awards, Jason is very funny and engaging.
(02:53):
So it's a great chat. All right everyone, I'm really excited to bring in Jason, so I'm going to read his bio, but then I'm going to tell you how I really know Jason. Jason Saf is the founder of Stage to Sell Home, a leading boutique staging firm in New York City and Brooklyn. He is the 2022 winner of the best Luxury Home stager. As voted by the Real Estate Stager Association. He has an innate ability to transform a space from what is to what it should be in order to achieve the highest return for his sellers and help buyers understand value and opportunity With almost 20 years of experience stage to sell Home offers a cost effective solution to yield high return results. Property spark nm to number three, realestate professional on social media. Wow. He's been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times House, beautiful apartment therapy.com and Forbes Magazine. Jason, that's an amazing bio.
Jason (03:39):
Thank you. I wrote it myself.
Kim (03:42):
Yeah, and I'm going to tell the listeners, so Jason and I, our children are in school together, so his daughter Leora and my son Nate are in school together, and so that's how I met Jason, and then I looked at him online and I was like, holy cow. Jason's work is amazing. So that's, that's why Jason's here basically.
Jason (04:01):
Is there a word for, not Nepo, this isn't nepotism, but what would parental
Kim (04:06):
Parent parent
Jason (04:08):
Tism
Kim (04:08):
Parent
Jason (04:09):
Parent?
Kim (04:11):
Jason told me about why he originally got into real estate before overtime building his own home staging business.
Jason (04:17):
20 years ago, I was living in an apartment that one day I got a phone call from my, at the time roommate that rats had infested the apartment and that completely taken over the apartment. They ate through a bathroom wall. It was like rat, but the nightmare version, not the Disney version. So at the time I was working in entertainment marketing. I worked at a firm that handled the marketing and the publicity for a variety of different things. But the two biggest accounts I worked on, this is sort of funny now is Miramax, which was owned by the Weinsteins at the time and Scott Rudin.
(04:58):
But I have to say, out of that experience, we were sort of trained that no one should ever have to ask a question and we learned how to communicate information. We were working for these industry titans who everything you've read about them in those New York Magazine features is 100% accurate and true, but you learn these systems and how to communicate and that I think as a business person then looking for an apartment with people who had no information, you would ask, you would call, someone would say contact agent, you'd call someone and you'd say like, oh, where is this? And they would have no idea, and I just didn't process that.
Kim (05:36):
Jason felt frustrated with his own rental experience and then a friend of his recommended he become a real estate agent. So Jason signed up for real estate school.
Jason (05:44):
I remember walking into a room where there were 400 people, and at the time I was 25, but I had an office, I had an expense account, I had an assistant. I was doing my job through college through my early twenties. And so I was sort of professionally on the right track and I thought like, oh my God, what did I do? I made a huge mistake. But by the end of the first class, which was only three hours, there were six of us in the room and I was like, oh, okay, I got it. People start, but they just peter off. And so that was basically how I got into real estate and it sort of just took off from there. I had a great start in the business and what I loved was always fixing up properties. And as time went on, I started getting rental buildings and portfolios and I learned that it's unbelievably time consuming to file permits, go through the process with the city to just renovate a rental apartment.
(06:39):
And I sort of went to my client and said, look, there's all these D I Y things that I do at home. These apartments which are located by the new school in nyu, everyone is this age. This is their style. It takes this long to file a permit and cost X to do this renovation, but can I just try cosmetically, this would be the budget. And he was like, okay. And so we did one and it worked. It was a phenomenal success. And so from that it just kept sort of growing. And then as my career grew and I started bringing in sales listing estates, I started looking for people whose apartments were not selling. And I knew they weren't selling because they didn't look good. And this is now we've sort of entered into the era where things are online, there's no more fax machines, and people started to become aesthetically driven, like H G T V had become really big.
(07:30):
The expectation has changed. The way people look at things have changed. So that was the thing that I loved is I was always happiest when they would leave and I would just fix up the apartment. And it got to the point where I got so comfortable and created a system and a process that then I was able to just sit down with someone and say, look, it's been a year and a half. You've done this with three other people and the fourth person here, their fundamental problems, do you want to fix it because here's what needs to be fixed. And so some people don't want to fix it. And you say, all right, well if you're not willing to change, if you don't want to change this, how do you expect the outcome to be different? What are we going on? It's done it. And so it just started to work.
(08:17):
And then for a good 15 years, this was really just my hobby, my mentor, we had coffee in 2013 and he had just left City Habitats, which was owned by the Corcoran Group and N R T and gone to this tech startup that no one had heard of called Urban Compass. And they had just opened the door the week before and we were having coffee and he was walking towards me and he looked different, he looked younger, he looked fr and I was like, oh my God, I don't recognize you. And I'd always been used to seeing him in a boxy suit and he was in shorts and a polo and he looked 10 years younger. And I was like, what has happened to you? He's, I just like, I'm at this tech startup and I'm around all these young people and ideas and it's just invigorating.
(09:04):
And so we had coffee, we went up to the office and I started talking with Rob Kin, the c e o of what was Urban Compass, and a week later I was one of the first employees of the company. And so from being there very early on and working with all of these really smart, intelligent people who typically are not within real estate but are in the tech startup world, I started seeing what you can do if you just really believe in something, if you test your ideas, if you start to align yourself with the right people, if you allow yourself to fail. And everyone kept saying over all these years like this, redoing the apartments, the staging, the design, this is so you and it, it's very different and a lot of people do this. It's not like I invented something, but my approach was a little bit different. The matter in which I do it was different at the time.
Kim (09:57):
So as you know, I do a lot of video and marketing training with real estate agents. I personally love design also, I have always been in the arts, trained in the fine arts my whole childhood up to college. And now there's wallpaper in every single room of our apartment. But I think it's really interesting because I think staging is an important part of selling homes. I mean, I think that there's no one who doesn't think it's important, it's just whether or not people invest in it, whether or not people take the time and the energy and all that. So when you decided to say, okay, I'm going to go from being an agent who's really, really good at staging, who has a really good eye, who's smart about how to do it, and who can I assume get a higher sales price because it staged so beautifully, at what point were you like, now I'm going to make this a company and I'm going to bet on myself and I'm just going to go in that direction?
Jason (10:48):
To be honest, for a very long time I doubted myself. I think it's just the way I grew up and I didn't really think I could do it, and I sort of made it a hobby for a long period of time, but I kept thinking somehow I could try and figure this out. But I also started this other side of my brain kept saying, you didn't go to business school. You're not from the right family. You don't know how to do this stuff. And I kept sort of pushing myself down and not allowing it to happen, but I kept just experimenting with it and experimenting with creating processes and doing things a little bit bigger and going after clients. And I just kept trying to shape a process and understanding build an inventory. In 2017, I decided to incorporate because more and more people, and again, because I was one of the earliest people at Compass, then the company grew so big.
(11:40):
When I was there, it was 50 people, and now it's probably 30 to 40,000 nationwide. And so I was in a unique space because so many people knew me as one of the first people. And then everyone in New York started seeing more and more of these projects that would the person who sat across from me, because my desk would be covered with staging crops, can you do me a favor and would you consider, and anyone who asked, I would do it right, because that was the way I could test it and figure out how to create a business while I was still bringing in revenue through brokerage. I didn't come from a place where sometimes you hear about these people who are like, oh, I just left my day job and I decided to make soap, and the next thing Johnson and Johnson acquired me for 12 billion, and here I am, I'm, I don't have that right. So I just kept saying, let me somehow figure this out and keep going, but having this to fall back on
Kim (12:41):
And were they paying you? So if an agent would say, Hey, Jason, you're so good with staging, will you stage this? Did you say, I'll take a commission? Did you, did you fee for
Jason (12:49):
It? Some sort of fee. I mean, some were close friends that be like, can we go out to lunch and can we stop by? Can I just get your advice? And that I would just do, but as soon as it gets into bringing in inventory and moving stuff, painting cosmetic work, then I had to charge for it. But I was charging just enough to cover my expenses and buy a couple pieces of furniture. I wasn't really looking at it from the perspective of how to really create profit at the time. I just was like, I want to continue to keep doing this so I can figure out how to do it and create systems and create a replicatable process. And then the pandemic hit. And so at the time when the pandemic hit, I'd gotten to the point where I started with accessories under my bed and on my desk at Compass to one storage unit.
(13:42):
And then at the peak had 18 storage units on four different floors at a Manhattan mini storage. And that's the way a lot of people in the industry start. It grows quickly. You're always buying inventory to meet the demands of a project or two, and that's it. So the pandemic hit. I started getting really involved more with the trade association, Reza, and it really helped me get through the pandemic and I was learning a lot. They were doing a lot of seminars. They were keeping a lot of us really calm. What was happening, I had two or three sales left that I'd been working on, which were really difficult and really emotionally draining. One of them was with someone really crazy. That was just where, what's little sanity I had left. She was taking away from me. But at the same time, a lot of the agents who that I knew and work with and had a great relationship were calling me and saying, I have these clients who they decided to move to their house out east.
(14:40):
They left to Connecticut and have not come back and they need to sell and we need to prep the apartment. And so I started to pivot because I realized someone needed a person to become a move manager, a declutter, a stager to bring in painters to do all this stuff. And so I started working on a couple projects and I would get on my bike and I would go to an empty house that had been empty for a long time, and I would just start working on it. And there was no rush. And I found it meditative and cathartic. It kept me sane when there was nothing else going on, I realized it's not really a job. This is my purpose. The things that I was doing, I was doing these things as a young child, as a kid in my room, six, seven years old, I've referred to it before as escapism by design.
(15:33):
The little gay kid who doesn't play sports, parents divorced and is home alone. And I would sit in my room and I would redecorate and then I'd move on to the rest of the house, and that is what I've always done. And it really became clear in the pandemic. I noticed that people had a need for someone who could just take everything on and just say, I've got this. And because I spent all these years slowly shaping a process, but also dealing with people in such an intense level, real estate agents, I understand that there's not a great perception of them within the world of professions, but after 20 years in the industry, I know what they have to deal with. I know the charged energy. I know how difficult people can be. I know how inmeshed you are in people's lives. I know how irrational people can be.
(16:26):
And that became part of my process. One of the things I heard from a lot of agents is other people that they've worked with, you have to handhold them. It's so complicated. They're contacting them nonstop about all these little things. And I was just sort of like, I've got it. I'll send an update at the end of the week or the end of the day with progress, and any questions will be put together in one email, bullet pointed, formatted if I can't figure it out. And that sort of became my business model. It wasn't about design, it was more project management.
Kim (17:00):
This pivot kind of brought you back to what you were meant to be doing, I think is so inspirational to a lot of people to be able to dig deep. At some point in your childhood, did you think, why don't I go into design? If you always loved design?
Jason (17:13):
I mean, I always wanted to, but young boys growing up in the eighties and young Jewish boys in the eighties and nineties, my mother was like, you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer. And going into PR and marketing, I was already a disappointment. You don't say, I want to be a decorator. That's just not, maybe it's different now, but where I grew up and when I grew up in that time period, that's not an acceptable thing to say out loud.
Kim (17:40):
I studied art and I was just like, I don't understand how art could be a career. So I was like, I'm not going to draw all day. I wasn't that good of an illustrator. I wasn't going to be an illustrator, but I always loved art. I minored in art history, and then I went to Penn and I was like, what do I study to get me a job? How do I become independent? How do I pay my own rent? How do I pay off my college loans? That was my goal. I'm have a job that is interesting to me that at some point I could pay off all of my student loans and be independent. Talk to me about your childcare situation, your work life. Well, first of all, does work life balance exist for you and what does that look like?
Jason (18:13):
Yes and no. It's hard mean. My company has grown so much year over year. I struggle with it, but I try and be really focused when I'm with her. Can't always. But there's times that we put on sort of guards of I need to focus and do this. I've gotten a lot better with trying to group my work together so that when we're together, I can be with her. And then sometimes on the weekends is when she's allowed to watch TV and movies. And so sometimes I sit and watch with her. Other times it's like, okay, I have one hour. I'm getting my head on my laptop and I'm not coming out of it until I've got everything done. I also bring her to a lot of my projects. If we have to do things on the weekend or it's a site where it's not an active construction site, I might bring her by to finish up some details.
(19:02):
I do it with her. I always have this fantasy of maybe one day she'll want to come work with me or take over the business. And so I try and teach her some of the principles. Like this past weekend, she's been asking to do a lemonade stand since last summer. It's interesting. I was never good with money. I didn't grow up. We didn't have any, I had a single mom who worked two full-time jobs to support my brother, and I got my first job on my 14th birthday. I went to McDonald's, got a job, and I've worked ever since. And I had to have money to buy clothes and stuff. And to go to college, I put myself through school. It's different the way Dan and I are raising Leora. Certain things are taken care of, but we both want her to work for stuff and not to take everything for granted.
(19:46):
And we try and teach little lessons. And so she's been asking to do this lemonade stand, and I was like, all right, we're going to do a lemonade stand. But we sat down a couple weeks ago and we made a list of all the things that need to happen. I didn't want to just do all this work, set it up, and then she stands there and gets bored in 10 minutes. So we talk a lot about whenever you want to do something, you know have to make a plan, you have to set it up. So we worked on our marketing assets. I didn't make a six year old make a business plan, but we worked on logistics, we sourced our materials, and I explained it to her like that. I want her to see this bigger picture in everything. So she also understands how to organize certain things and also certain things are not as simple as they appear.
(20:31):
She says, I want to do a lemonade stand, but she doesn't realize, okay, how many pounds of lemons? Where am I going to get the lemons? What kind of cups? So at the same time, we went to one of the stores to go buy cups, and she's like, oh, do they have toys here? And I was like, well, they do have toys here. She's like, can I get a toy? And I was like, well, why don't we go to the toy aisle and you identify the toys that you want, and then after the lemonade stand if you have profit, she's like, what's profit? I was like, if you have profit, you could buy your own toy with the profit. And she's like, I like that. And so we've been teaching her, she wants to buy things, and so we've been teaching her how she has to make money. And so I explained to her what profit is, and so then we're going to buy the cups. And I'm like, okay, so do you have your money? She's, I don't want to use my money for the, and I was like, all right, so what you're saying is you want papa and data to invest in your lemonade stand? She's like, yeah, can you pay for it? I'm like, no, no, no. I can't pay for it, but I can invest in it. She's like, well, what does invest mean?
Kim (21:31):
Or I can give you a loan at a usurious rate. Yes, yes. 20% interest.
Jason (21:36):
So it's interesting that work life balance of, look, I'm a workaholic who lives for what I do, and I don't look at it like a job. It's my other baby. It's my passion. It's a huge part of who and what I am. And so I'm trying to instill that in her and have time and be focused when I'm with her, but also figure out the stuff that I didn't know as a kid or take for granted. And how do we slowly in a fun way, teach those lessons, right? So that she just starts to understand. I was telling her how I want to buy a weekend place. It's so interesting because she talks about it as if it's going to get a donut, right? She's like, can we go get the weekend place now? And I'm like, no, it's not really like that. Pop has to save money.
(22:27):
It's very expensive. So it's so funny because she's like, can we get it? So we have the pool for next summer. And I was like, I don't know if that's going to happen. I was like, I think it's going to take two years. And she's like, how long is two years? And so I try and find all these little opportunities to teach her in which the way things work and also life. And I think being an only kid, we talked to her a little bit differently and she's growing up in a slightly different way and she's used to more being a part of these mature conversations and trying to explain it in a way she understands is good.
Kim (23:04):
So we did a flower stand. We're in the North fork of Long Island right now. We did a flower stand and we have a great garden here. So we get mason jars and they cut the flowers and we put them out. So two years ago we did it. They cut it all themselves. I let them really take charge. I'm like, you cut it. You decorate each vase. I want you to pick. We price it. Three years ago, we made like $33, which was great for the kids. Last year we made very little because they weren't standing there. So this year I told them actually this year, the slower stand, I'm going to tell you something. It's all about sales. People want to buy from cute kids. So if you want these flowers to get sold, we're going to have to stand outside and be there.
(23:40):
Neighbors want to meet you, neighbors want to meet us, we let's talk to everybody. They made $77. Nice. Which is a ton of money for children selling flowers. Yeah. But it was interesting. They started being like, oh, what VA should we use? And finally over time, I'm like, these mason jar are really cutting into your profit. They're like, what do you mean? I'm like, if you're charging $5 for the flowers, but the mason jar charge is three, how much profit are you making? We started talking about those things. To your point, just those little lessons of being, actually you have to think about it. Maybe we just put it in little tinfoil and people take it home in tinfoil, and I do love all of that and bringing them in. But I think I find it interesting because I know you and Dan both have big jobs where you're both, a lot is expected of you and long hours. What's a childcare situation? You have a nanny. How do you balance it?
Jason (24:26):
We have a nanny and we have a babysitter who will stay late sometimes, or the nanny stays late Monday to Friday sometimes when we need her. I try not to use a babysitter on the weekend. I want to be with her. I don't want to make other plans and have a babysitter come. So I think part of it is obviously as we're talking, Dan and I are separated. We're not together. And so my weekends with her are really precious and I have to make decisions. And so this past weekend I discovered that my aunt who lives uptown has dementia and it's pretty bad. And I was completely unaware until a few days ago, and it was my weekend with Leora and I had reached out to our babysitter to see if she can come. And then I know this sounds really crazy, but Dan's mother also has early signs of dementia.
(25:13):
And so we've talked with Leora about it. She's conscious of it. And I thought about it and I was like, oh, it's my weekend with her. If I get the babysitter, then I lose a full day. She loses a full day with me. And so I had some other family that were coming in that I've never met, and one of the cousins is older that she's probably 25, but she's a teacher, she loves kids. And so I talked with Leora about it and I asked her would she want to come? Would she want to visit her aunt, my aunt, and explained to her about her memory and she's like, it's okay. And she knows from Dan's mother what that means a little bit. But I had said, we're going to go here. We're going to go get the lemonade stuff. We'll go to the, and she was like, cool.
(25:56):
And so I just made a full day out of it. And so I think about that stuff a lot and I pick places that I can go with a child and that are kid friendly. I spend more time with friends who have kids than a single friend who would be like, I don't want to hang out with a kid or go to a kid's park. Those are just decisions you have to make. Again, because we're separated, my time with her is limited. And so I personally don't really want to find a babysitter or have to have a babysitter in the time that I have with her. I want to be with her. I really look forward to it.
Kim (26:30):
Do you feel like you have work-life balance?
Jason (26:32):
Sometimes I feel like I have work-life balance between work and being a parent, but if you ask me do I have work-life balance and having a social life and a personal life, no, I'm okay with that. I spent all of my twenties and thirties digging around and doing whatever I wanted, however I wanted, when and where. And so I think it's really different when your work life balance is so off kilter, but you're working for a company and you're working for other people and you're just in a bad environment. I think when people ask this question and someone says, no, I don't have great work life balance, it's often if you dig deeper, you find out they're working at a big company, they have a tough job and they're just a slave to the boss or this corporation, I don't know. When you create something from scratch, this is all my crazy ideas that I was doing over slowly, over 20 years to now I'm sitting here at my desk in my warehouse. It's just so different. That idea of work life balance. And I think especially when you realize where you are in your life, and again, I did whatever I wanted through my entire teens, twenties and thirties. And so now to have that imbalance but have it so much because this company is growing and I'm growing it and I'm creating something and hopefully have a legacy to pass down, I don't look at it in the way that people often have this association that's negative for an imbalanced work life.
Kim (28:11):
I like that perspective. A friend of mine recently asked me, she doesn't have kids, and she was like, do you feel like you socialize much? I'm like, no, probably not. I was, I mean, I do things with other families every once in a while have dinner with some girlfriends. I mean, not a ton, but I was like, I'm really happy. I feel, yeah, I'm doing work that I, I'm working for myself. I'm in charge of my time. I'm getting to see my kids as much as I want to the right amount. And I was like, I don't find anything wrong with that is what I agree with you. Yeah, I'm, I had plenty of travels by myself, went out a lot in my twenties. I feel like I did it. It's all good. I think the one thing that I struggle with and I'm trying to do more of is you get a lot of creativity in your job.
(28:52):
And obviously I teach people how to use video, which is, it can be creative, but I'm really tactile. And so I'm trying to force myself once a quarter to make something artistic, take a class, do a weaving, do a sculpture or something because that actually feeds me. And I think it's something like that where I feel like that can feed me for months saying, oh, I did that thing that's on the wall that can feed that side of me. And so when I think of balance, those are the sort of things weirdly that I notice is if I haven't fed the creative side of myself or if I'm totally not exercising, that those are the two things that I'm more keenly aware of when it's out of balance. Because the other stuff I really work on, do
Jason (29:29):
You garden out there or
Kim (29:31):
Yeah. Yes, we finally got some carrots, lettuce, we've eaten our carrots, we've eaten our lettuce, having a garden and getting your feet dirty and all that I think has really recharged me. I feel like that's some of the stuff. And this quarter, I mean, was totally bonkers for me. I did a lot of speaking engagements across the country and just really my business is growing and it's good. I also have to get organized and put systems in place and operationalize it. So knowing that the spring was so crazy this summer, I'm trying to have it be more chill. And so for me, that's balance. But the socializing, I don't whatever the hobbies, it's investing in some hobbies a little bit. But anyway, last year I put one of my artworks into a gallery in the North Fork, which was exciting,
Jason (30:15):
So very cool. Nice. That's awesome.
Kim (30:17):
Okay, and now I want to get into your advice. So I would love, first of all, I'm going to start in two different ways because you're amazing at staging, you're also great at marketing. So I'm going to first start with what are your top three tips for someone staging their home to sell it?
Jason (30:33):
Number one is you have to remove yourself and your thinking from the situation and look at everything from the eyes of the buyer. The way to do that is that person is almost like your enemy, right? Because any flaw, anything wrong, anything that they can use is leverage to take your price down. So if you open the front door of your apartment and the floors are scuffed and dented, they're multiplying that by 20 x. And I often talk to people about fix your flaws proactively because it costs here to do it. But at the negotiating table, and especially right now at this moment, we're in a buyer's market, the market here is not good. It's weak. They're going to, if it costs this, they're going to take it off at here. So number one is you have to remove yourself. It's role playing. Take yourself out.
(31:29):
It's not as wonderful as you think it is. Look at this from the perspective of you are walking in the door for the first time. Maybe you want this, but you want to figure out how to get a deal and you're looking for problems to weaponize against you. Number two, I think the biggest thing is to go physically look at the competition before you start this process and see and feel what that experience looks like. If you're thinking about listing your home and you go online and you search and you see there's 30 comps, that's a lot. And you have to visit them and see what is the experience like, because then you know how to position yourself to stand out in a crowded marketplace and some segments of the market, you may go due to that search and there's two, and then all of a sudden you're like, okay, it's a little bit easier.
(32:15):
And you also start to understand supply and demand and scarcity in a marketplace. Number three is the basic foundational stuff, the inexpensive, easy fixes, changing out the lighting, changing out the light bulbs. Sometimes I walk into an apartment, I'm like, there's six different light bulbs in this hallway. This is, they're small things, but they show people that the space is maybe not fully cared for. And again, it's just handing someone leverage. So change perspective, come at it from the perspective of the buyer to understand the comps and the marketplace and how to properly position yourself and then start with the basic foundational stuff.
Kim (33:00):
Great. Those are great tips. And you are additionally in terms of being, in addition to being an awesome stager, you're great at marketing. What would you advise someone who's trying to promote themself, their business, their service on social media?
Jason (33:11):
I think the thing I've learned over a very long period of time is it takes time. I think people think you're just going to hop on there a few times and all of a sudden you're going to have this amazing audience. And I think the idea of the audience has really confused people. If you have 300 people that are interested in what you are doing and engage with you and want to use your services and share your information and are referring you to people that is so much better than just 10,000 random people who have no interest in your service. Or maybe something caught their attention once and so they followed you and then don't look at anything again, or you fluffed up your numbers or whatever it is. A lot of it is psychological, but it takes so long. I mean, again, my background is marketing, and so I feel like I have a tiny bit of an advantage, but it's more just that I've been doing it for a really long time.
(34:12):
Consistency is key. I've found an authentic voice. I'm not scared to tell a story. One thing that took me about a year to talk about, but I put it out there as again, Dan and I separated. I bought an apartment a few blocks away. It's essentially a studio apartment. And so I felt, again, because of my work, I wanted to share photos of this apartment and talk about it. It would be very odd for a lot of people who know that I was in a relationship and have a child. How could three grown adults be living in what's like a studio apartment? And so I had to just address it in my voice and in my way and you know, have to look at those situations and have an authentic voice with it. The other thing that I think is really important is finding a formula of content, but by testing it out over time and seeing the things, really being conscious and looking at what works and what doesn't work.
(35:09):
And the thing that helped me with that at the early stages was, again, because everyone gets really overwhelmed, what should I share? What should I do? I don't know, it's so much. And I sort of thought of it very early on of, okay, here's this platform. There's seven days in a week. They say post every day or whatever it is. And I knew I wasn't going to post every single day because I don't have that much information to share. And I think that is one of the issues is people who overshare and overpost. But I thought about it, okay, well I get the newspaper every day and the newspaper has sections and we're trained that we know New York Times, the food section is Wednesday style section is Thursday Real estate, if you get it at home, part of it comes on Saturday, the other part comes on Sunday.
(35:58):
And I was like, okay. So it's a news magazine. And I just started in the very early days when I was a real estate agent, it was just Market Mondays transformation. Tuesdays were before and afters. Wow. Factor Wednesday was either my best looking project or something I love that I just thought was a complete visual. And then for the weekend, I had the style section. It was just a beautiful image from an apartment and an open house time. And so over time, that's shifted for me. And I obviously don't stick with it as much anymore because my content has changed. But that's how I sort of look at it as I've bucketed things out. There are certain days of the week, but I've also come to realize some things. If they're hitting and they're doing well, I don't post. I let it sit and marinate for a couple days, maybe even a week. And again, I find if you are doing different forms of content, because there's so many now, right? You have your carousel posts, you have stories reels, and now they just came out with threads, Twitter threads, you know, find this balance of maybe you have a great carousel post that's still performing well and you just leave it up on Monday and you do these other things and it's driving traffic to that post still and let it really have an impact. And I focus the bulk of my time for social on Instagram because it's all me.
Kim (37:26):
Jason has built a very strong social following since really leaning into Instagram in 2017.
Jason (37:32):
You'll see it much more real estate focused. You'll see it come to this open house, come to this. And that's the stuff that now I don't do because no one cares. And that's something I talk with about to real estate agents is like, you have to be creative. You have to find the story. What is the narrative here and there? Someone will look at something, but you're not going to create a mass audience being like, here's my new two bedroom.
Kim (37:55):
I think about it this way. So Jason and I met through being parents at school together. I then saw your social media and was like, wow. And I think that that's the other thing. People forget that it is a time to take people into your business and actually show them what your life looks like. So I think that times people forget, they're like, oh, it's a chore. Sometimes it's a chore. And then you should go to the beach and play tennis and go to work and don't be on social media. But in the best case scenario, it is truly a way to be social, put the social back in social media and totally to your point of growing from social, basically when I started my business like four, four or five years ago or something like that, but I shifted away from corporate clients and I was like, if I want business owners to want to work with me, they need to know Kim Richberg.
(38:36):
They, they're not going to know some person who produced that video for Netflix, not, they're not going to know that lady who was an executive at US Weekly. They have to know me, son. I was like, oh my God, I don't have any brand. No one knows me besides the people I worked with, which it doesn't amount to that many people. It's very high level corporate executives. It's not going to build me a business of professionals and business owners. And I was like, oh my God. I got to start showing up. And then I realized I have to practice what I preach. I teach people how to be good on camera. I teach 'em how to be creative with video. So I started the podcast more of a passion project, but I started the podcast and I started showing up on social media. The last 18, 18 months has been bananas.
(39:13):
I quadrupled my leads, I tripled my speaking engagements. Awesome. I have a totally different business. So I agree with you that I definitely credit social media, but also podcasts. I think when people are like, how are you getting featured in this business Insider or fast company? I'm like, I'm always in it. I'm always in it. I'm meeting people, I'm putting my thoughts out there. But also putting yourself out there is like the number one thing because no one's going to seek you out if you're in your office with the doors shut. That's not going to happen. This is so fun, Jason. Thank you. And you can check out Jason's work at staged two sell home.com or on Instagram at stage two Sell Home.
(39:55):
Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to drop a review, and if you want to send in a real mom moment that we'll share on the air, check out moms exit interview.com. And if you're a professional or small business owner looking to grow your brand through amazing content with no silly dances and with no burnout, check out my website kim rit.com, and you can hit contact to chat with me. And thanks for listening. Like this is the most amazing community. You guys send in the best feedback. So share it with your friends. Let anyone know who you think would appreciate it. And this is Mom's Exit interview. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim rit. The show is produced by Henry Street Media. Jillian Grover edited this episode, and Aliza Friedlander is our editorial producer and publicist. I'll see you next time.