From Boseman to Billings, home stagers are in high demand in Montana. Could this be the career for you?
You’ll put your creative talents to the test, staging properties for sale across the state, to maximize profits for the vendor, and secure a sale as quickly as possible by drawing in a large number of potential buyers. You’ll work with different styles of homes across Montana and set the scene both inside and outside the house. In beautiful Montana, making the most of the outdoor spaces is so important. The job can certainly be varied. You may be working with a vacant property, so you’ll need to bring in furniture and accessories to make this empty house look like a welcoming home. Or perhaps you’ll be faced with a truly lived-in property, that could benefit from a good clean and declutter in order to showcase the house at its best and allow viewers to see its full potential. When it comes to home staging, every job is different!
Could this be the life-changing profession you’ve been looking for?
So, how do you become a home stager in Montana?
We’ll look at this from the point of view of starting your own home staging business. If you want to start with getting a home staging job, read our articles on resume tips, how to get a home staging job, and our overview of home staging careers.
Getting started as a home stager can be daunting, but you’re sure to succeed if you have the motivation, vision and determination to make it happen.
Don’t be put by thinking you need to spend years taking an expensive degree-level course to become a home stager. In reality, you can become a certified home stager within just a few weeks, with flexible, affordable home staging training in Montana with the Home Staging Institute.
Steps to becoming a home stager in Montana
So now it’s time to take a look at the next steps you need to take to become a home stager in Montana…
Step 1: Take a home staging certification course in Montana
As we’ve already said, there is no legal requirement for you to have a degree to become a home stager. But if you don’t have any proof of your abilities, getting the work in, before you have a lot of experience, can be difficult. It’s certainly worth becoming a certified home stager, so you can prove your credentials to realtors and homeowners. There are various options for home staging training in Montana, but you need to read the small print, as not all home staging courses will reward you with a certificate. You’ll be pleased to know that all the courses at the Home Staging Institute deliver certification on completion, as standard.
You’ll find our courses informative and engaging and we make sure our courses are highly flexible so you can work at your own pace, to fit in with your personal schedule. Having home staging certification will put you at a great advantage when you start up your home staging business.
Step 2: Understand the local Montana market
When you work as a home stager in Montana, you’ll be staging a wide range of properties, and you’ll need to adapt your style to present each house at its absolute best. The goal is to portray a lifestyle, but the lifestyle of someone looking for a cosy log cabin in the woods to use as an occasional holiday home is going to be quite different to that of a large family searching for a huge ranch in the mountains for their permanent residence.
The climate must also be taken into consideration. Across the state, different cities have totally different climates. From hot summers to snowy winters, you can experience it all in Montana! You’ll need to know how to create spaces for all seasons and be as comfortable creating light, airy rooms for the summer, as you are staging spaces that are warm, cozy and welcoming in the cold winter months.
Step 3: Learn from other home stagers in Montana
The next step is to get together lots of ideas and inspiration for your home staging business. A great way to do this is to search online for other home stagers in Montana. Search across all of Montana with ‘home stagers in Montana’ or drill down to a city level to find those working closest to your area, those home staging businesses that are most likely to be in direct competition with you. Go through the listings, spend time looking over every website, and take notes. Don’t forget to click through to their social media channels too.
Look at both design and content. Think about how each home stager has made their work stand out. See what tips you can pick up. Soon you’ll be putting together your own website and social media accounts, so this stage can be very useful to make sure your site stands up well against the others.
Step 4: Start a home staging business in Montana
You’ve learnt a lot; you’ve done so much research – you’re ready to go!
Work through our checklist so you don’t forget anything important…
- Create a company name and logo and register your business
- Ensure you have the right insurance policies in place
- Create a website and set up your social media accounts
- Remember to mention your home staging certification on your website and marketing materials!
- Get a dedicated phone number for your business
- Keep good accounts – you may require specialist software or the services of an accountant
- Create a list of stores and contacts, you’re going to need furniture, accessories, movers, decorators and more
Step 5: Begin marketing
Good marketing will bring business to your door. By this point, you’ll already have a great website, packed full of beautiful photos that perfectly show off your home staging skills. But there’s no point in having a fabulous website if no one ever finds it! You need your website to list highly in the search engines, and there are a few ways to do this. Your website needs to be optimized in order for the search engines to pick it out from the crowd and decide it contains valuable content that should be featured high up in the listings. You can pick up lots of tips and advice online on how to increase your chances of this, or you can hire a specialist SEO expert to work on this for you.
You can also jump the queue, as it were, by paying for advertisements that will show up high on the page when someone searches for your chosen search term, such as ‘home stager in Missoula’ or ‘Helena home staging services’. Be active on your social media feeds too – you may also want to consider paid advertising on these channels. Every little helps in the early days of running a new business.
Other facts about becoming a home stager in Montana
How much do home stagers make in Montana?
Based on our findings, home stagers in Montana generally earn between $34,000 and $54,000 annually, with hourly rates ranging from $17 to $27. Experienced professionals or those in high-demand areas may earn over $64,000 per year. Earnings can vary depending on factors such as location, client base, and the number of projects undertaken.
Do I need a license to become a home stager in Montana?
No, there are no licensing requirements to become a home stager in Montana. If you want proof of your abilities, then home staging certification is the way to go.
Do you need a degree to become a home stager in Montana?
You don’t need a degree to be a home stager in Montana. In fact, you don’t need any qualifications whatsoever to set up a home staging business. You will find though, that realtors are more likely to hire stagers that have achieved certification.
