A recent question was asked, “What do I do when the client asks for an itemized quote? Is it customary to provide this?”
At RESA HQ our team is asked questions from home stagers throughout North America on a daily basis, from where to get training, how to keep up with inventory, where to find clients, the best resources for contracts, and more! For our Ask The Experts Blog series we take some of these questions to experts in our industry to get their advice.
The RESA mission is for home staging to be an industry where high standards are well-established and practiced universally, and by sharing some tips from the experts we hope to help those in the staging industry be the most successful they can be.
Cindy started Staged4more in her parents’ garage when she was 25 and grew it to an award-winning home staging company operating out of a 5,800 square feet warehouse.
In addition to teaching home staging online since 2016, Cindy’s latest in-person teaching post was at University of the Arts London (UAL), where she piloted and created the home staging short course for UAL.
“When a staging client asks for an itemized quote, generally they are asking for a list of specific inventory that we are planning to bring to the project.”
Cindy Lin gives advice on what to consider when clients ask for an itemized quote:
When a staging client asks for an itemized quote, generally they are asking for a list of specific inventory that we are planning to bring to the project. This creates additional admin work on the backend for us, which is not included in the proposal.
In this instance, I would respond to the client with our usual script:
“Our staging is very consistent. If you want to get an idea of what we do for each project, you can view our staging work on our website at www.staged4more.com. In order to provide a list of inventory we are bringing to the home, my assistant will need to create a spreadsheet for you. This will take her 5 hours at $25 per hour to create the spreadsheet, which comes out to $125. Would you like us to move forward with it?”
Usually the client will decline this once they realize this request is not covered in the original proposal quote.
Hope this helps! -Cindy Lin
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