This month’s feature article is about “staging” a home to make it more marketable by removing the personality and personal stuff of the seller.
According to professional “stager” Maureen Dunn of ReDunn Rooms, “staging” allows you to make a “lasting impression” with buyers, especially in a glutted market with so much housing stock available.
As I understand it, “staging” a house for sale means moving around existing furniture, adding pieces where needed, and updating with accessories. But, the key seems to be to “depersonalize” the property.
As I reviewed the story, it started me thinking about how “staging” a house is in some ways like “staging” an individual, but with one major difference.
Think about it.
In a way, “staging” and “coaching” are similar. It’s pretty normal for us to hire coaches or trainers to help us with our personal and professional lives, and often so we can make a “lasting impression” on others.
If we want to improve our golf game, we probably pay a golf pro to give us some tips to improve our swing.
If we want to improve our sales and marketing skills, chances are we either associate with a mentor, hire a trainer, join professional associations, or attend seminars and training classes.
People hire others to help them “stage” themselves. We want to know how to dress for success. We look for help to improve how we make presentations to groups. We hire trainers to help us lose weight so we will look and feel better.
But, unlike “staging” a house, when we decide to do something that will help us put our best foot forward, change or improve our own image, increase our professional skills, or make us better people, we don’t normally try to drive out our own unique personalities. We don’t “depersonalize” ourselves to improve.
More often than not, it’s just the opposite. We are attempting to understand who we are, know our own assets and then enhance our skills around who we are as a person.
While “depersonalizing” a house for sale can be a good thing, “depersonalizing” a person generally does not work. And, for a good reason.
I believe that we should all operate from a set of Core Values.
There are many things that we value. But, there are some values that are primary. These are the values which are so important to us; values and beliefs that are constant and do not change, no matter the changes that go on all around us.
It’s not important that each of us shares the same Core Values, but it is important that each of us has Core Values.
Recently, Eugene Patterson, the retired Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the St. Petersburg Times, was named a “Great Floridian” by the Secretary of State.
Patterson knew something about Core Values, and in 2002, he wrote this: “State your values. Then state them again, and again, and again, until the people you lead can have no doubt about your own devotion to your guiding standards and principles, and your insistence that those values guide them.”
Core Values are personal. Core Values should be part of your personal DNA.
That’s why, as you rearrange the furniture in your own life, you don’t get rid of your most personal and valuable possession: your Core Values.
Core values don’t describe the kind of work we do or job we have.
Core Values are not strategic. But Core Values do underlie our work.
Core Values determine how we work with each other.
Core Values drive the decisions we make to get the job done, and about how we go about our work.
Core Values should be what we use every day in everything we do.
You have them, but you may not even know it because you’ve never taken the time to sit down and write down what’s most important to you. If you’ve not done that, I encourage you to do it.
Keep them with you and refer to them often, especially when you get in those kind of edgy situations or circumstances that confront all of us from time to time.
In closing, I want to share my own Core Values with you.
• Be a team player
To me, nothing has the power of teamwork. Playing well with others and sharing positive attitudes are the keys to success.
• Lead with passion
There is no such thing as leadership without passion. It’s the fuel that drives achievement.
• Treat people with respect
It’s about the Golden Rule. There’s no other way.
• Take personal responsibility
Accountability and personal responsibility hold us together as humans and as a society. Stand up and step up.
• Over communicate
Remove doubt with discussion, eliminate confusion with clarity, and give everyone an opportunity to succeed by making sure you are understood, your vision is seen, and your mission is focused.
• Have fun
We’re not here just to be serious all of the time. Smile and others smile with you. Spread your joy around. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Embrace the happiness of others.
- Jim Bailey is president of Bailey Publishing & Communications and publisher of Realty/Builder Connection.