I graduated high school in 2005, which I think technically makes me a millennial.
I was at my husband’s holiday party last year sitting next to an 18-year-old, and I started asking him questions because I was genuinely curious how his generation accesses things (this gal’s marketing brain just never stops).
If he needed a new barber, where would he look?
A new restaurant?
A good date spot?
Somewhere to hang out with friends after work?
Every single answer was the same.
“ChatGPT.”
Not Google.
Not Yelp.
Not Instagram.
ChatGPT.
And honestly, that conversation stuck with me.
Because I came from the era of Ask Jeeves, then Yahoo search, then Google and Yelp becoming the default answer for everything. Even though I personally use ChatGPT constantly now for brainstorming, workflows, writing help, and research, I realized I had not fully wrapped my brain around how quickly younger consumers are starting to use it for general search behavior, especially local recommendations.
But it is happening.
And it is happening faster than a lot of businesses realize.
Which leads to a very important question for home stagers:
When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or another AI tool to recommend a home stager in your market… does your business come up?
Or does your competitor’s?
That is exactly why I wanted to host RESA® member Lindsay Simpson for our May Professional Development Webinar.
Because whether we’re adopting AI practices or not, AI-powered search is already influencing how businesses get discovered, and the staging companies that understand this shift early are going to have a major advantage over the next few years.
What Is GEO and Why Should Home Stagers Care?
You may have heard people throwing around terms like GEO or “Generative Engine Optimization.”
In simple terms, it is the process of helping AI tools understand who you are, what you do, where you work, and why your business should be trusted enough to recommend.
This goes beyond traditional SEO.
AI tools are not just looking at who ranks highest on Google anymore.
They are pulling information from reviews, directories, business listings, blog posts, FAQs, local mentions, structured website data, and signals that establish credibility and authority.
And honestly, a lot of stagers already have pieces of this in place without realizing it.
The problem is that many businesses are not connecting the dots strategically.
You might have great reviews, but they are too vague.
You might have a beautiful website, but AI cannot clearly understand your service areas.
You may have years of expertise, but no content online that actually answers the questions homeowners are asking AI tools.
That gap matters now.
AI Search Is Changing How Clients Find Stagers
One of the things I think many business owners who are in the grind of running their business underestimate is how much consumer behavior is changing.
People are getting comfortable asking AI for recommendations because it feels conversational, fast, and personalized.
Instead of sorting through ten websites themselves, they want AI to narrow the list down for them.
That means visibility is no longer only about social media aesthetics or ranking on page one of Google.
It is increasingly about becoming a trusted, well-documented business across the internet.
And this is where I think this webinar is going to open a lot of eyes.
Why Lindsay Simpson Is Teaching This Webinar
Lindsay is not speaking about this from a purely theoretical marketing perspective.
She serves as the Chief Marketing Officer for Showhomes and also owns and operates Showhomes Summit in Park City, Utah, meaning she is actively applying these strategies inside a real staging business.
She has spent so much time studying how AI-driven search tools determine which local businesses to recommend and translating that into practical strategies staging companies can actually implement.
This is not going to be one of those webinars where you leave overwhelmed with technical jargon and no idea where to start.
Lindsay is breaking down:
- How AI search differs from traditional SEO
- What AI tools actually look for when recommending businesses
- How reviews influence AI trust
- Why your Google Business Profile still matters
- What kind of content AI can pull from and cite
- How to improve your local authority online
- The technical mistakes hurting discoverability
- A step-by-step implementation plan you can start immediately
And honestly, this is one of those topics where even small improvements now could make a very big difference later.
The Businesses That Adapt Early Usually Win
We have seen this pattern before.
The businesses that understood Instagram early built audiences faster.
The staging companies that adopted video early built stronger brand recognition.
The companies that learned SEO early dominated local search.
AI visibility is shaping up to be another one of those shifts.
And the businesses that take time now to understand how these recommendation engines work are likely going to position themselves very differently over the next few years.
Join Us for This RESA® Professional Development Webinar
“How to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Staging Business” is part of the RESA® Professional Development Webinar series and is free for RESA® members.
Non-members are welcome to attend for a small fee.
Presented by Lindsay Simpson, CMO of Showhomes Franchise.
You can register here:
If your goal is to become more visible, more discoverable, and more competitive in an AI-driven search landscape, this is definitely a webinar worth attending.
