Staging Sips

Lori Fischer

The live-workshop style business podcast helping Real Estate Staging CEO's redefine success and chase big, beautiful dreams. With mini implementation plans, expert interviews, and behind-the-scenes of my own business learning curves...you will be able to roll up your sleeves, dive in and stage the heck out of your business!

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#164
Saturday · 26 min
MVP: Why Your Home Staging Business Needs Better Boundaries
Are your business boundaries working for you? As your home staging business grows, the way you work with clients, your team, and your schedule may need to change, too. Early on, saying yes to everything can feel like good customer service. You answer messages after hours, accommodate last-minute requests, and make exceptions to keep everyone happy. But eventually, too much flexibility can lead to overwhelm, frustration, and a business that feels reactive instead of intentional. That's why better boundaries matter. Boundaries vs. Policies: What's the Difference? Boundaries and policies work together, but they aren't the same thing. A boundary is a limit or expectation you establish for how you want to operate. A policy is the formal business rule that communicates that expectation to your clients or team. For example, you might decide that you don't want to respond to client messages after business hours. That's your boundary. Your policy might state that messages received after 6 p.m. will be answered the next business day. The boundary defines the limit. The policy communicates it clearly. Where Does Your Business Need Better Boundaries? If you're not sure where your boundaries need attention, look at the areas that regularly create stress or frustration. Ask yourself: Am I constantly adjusting my schedule for clients? Do I regularly answer messages outside business hours? Am I making exceptions that have become expected? Am I still doing work that should be handled by someone else? Are my clients and team clear about what I expect? These situations can reveal where your business boundaries need to be strengthened. You don't have to change everything at once. Start with the one area that's creating the most friction. Create Systems That Support You Once you've identified a boundary, communicate it clearly and build it into your systems. Client agreements, onboarding materials, scheduling procedures, communication guidelines, and team processes can all help reinforce your expectations. This makes boundaries easier to maintain because you're not having to make the same decision or explain the same expectation over and over again. And having boundaries doesn't mean you can't be flexible. You can still make exceptions when you genuinely want to. The difference is that you're making a choice rather than feeling like you have to say yes. Your Business Should Work for You, Too You built your home staging business to create something meaningful, not to spend every evening answering messages or constantly rearranging your schedule around everyone else's needs. Better boundaries can bring clarity, protect your time, support your team, and create a more consistent client experience. Take a look at your business and ask yourself: Are my current boundaries supporting the business I want to build? If the answer is no, choose one boundary that needs to change. Clarify it, communicate it, and create a system to support it. Sometimes, building a healthier business isn't about doing more. It's about deciding what you're no longer willing to make room for. It requires deciding what you're no longer willing to let take over your time and attention. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: The difference between boundaries and policies How to identify where your business needs better boundaries How to communicate expectations clearly How systems can help you maintain those boundaries Why better boundaries can protect your time and reduce overwhelm … and more! RESOURCES: Share your wins and your questions! 1-800-305-7050 Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow Harlowe on Instagram: www.instagram.com/meetharlowe Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool If you want to learn how to market and grow your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. This is a year-long mentorship program where I help you and other staging business owners plan, grow, flow, and thrive with the results that you've always wanted. The doors are open and I would love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEO's find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#163
September 12 · 15 min
50,000 Downloads, One Big Thank You, and a Special Invitation
50,000 downloads: The quiet decisions changing staging businesses Staging Sips is approaching its 50,000th download, and this episode is a celebration, a thank-you, and an invitation. It's easy to see 50,000 as a statistic. How does it compare with last year? Are downloads increasing each month? What does it say about the podcast's growth? But those downloads represent 50,000 individual moments when a home stager chose to listen. You may have been driving to an installation, packing the truck, walking, folding laundry, or washing dishes while trying to figure out what the next season of your staging business could look like. Each download represents a person making decisions about pricing, capacity, leadership, systems, boundaries, and the emotional responsibility of owning a business. Staging Sips began as a way to teach and share the business side of home staging. It created a place to talk openly about the parts of running a staging company that rarely make the highlight reel: raising your prices and questioning the decision for a week, hiring someone and wondering if you chose the right person, or going home at night still thinking about everything the business needs from you. Over time, the podcast has become a place where staging business owners can feel seen, heard, and understood. The most meaningful measure of the show is what happens after you listen. Maybe an episode helped you make a difficult decision, establish a boundary, reconsider a process, have a better conversation with a client, or feel less alone during a challenging season. Those changes deserve to be celebrated. That is why we want to hear from you. Call 800-305-7050 and leave a message sharing a success, a decision you made, or a question you would like Lori to answer in a future episode. Your story can be as simple as: Before listening to the podcast, I was... The change I made was... Now I can... The thing I'm most proud of is... Your success does not have to be a huge, shiny milestone. Perhaps you raised your prices, made a great hire, stopped accepting every project, used one of our communication templates, or created a system that allows you to be present with your family again. Maybe you made one quiet decision that completely changed the way you feel about your business. Conversations with staging business owners at every stage have also reinforced an important truth: there is no single version of what a successful staging company has to look like. Some owners have established teams and clearly defined processes. Others are still doing most of the work themselves and deciding when to hire. Some have been in business for two years, while others have been doing this for twenty. Their operating styles may be different, but many of their underlying questions are remarkably similar. What part of your business works because of you? What only happens when you remember to push it forward? What are you tolerating because fixing it feels harder than continuing to carry it yourself? What did you change this year that made your company feel more like a business? And what success have you barely acknowledged because you immediately moved on to the next problem? As Staging Sips approaches 50,000 downloads, take a moment to recognize the decisions that have made your business stronger and more sustainable. Then call 800-305-7050 and tell us about one of them. We'll continue the celebration in an upcoming episode with Lori's mother, Gina, who recently reached an extraordinary milestone of her own: 50 years in business. She'll share what she has learned about navigating change, releasing unnecessary worries, and continuing to grow through different seasons of business and life. Thank you for listening, sharing the show, and building a business that matters. LEARN MORE ABOUT STAGING BUSINESS SCHOOL HERE WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: What 50,000 podcast downloads represent beyond the number How Staging Sips grew into a space for honest staging business conversations Why your quiet decisions and less-visible business wins deserve recognition Questions that can reveal where your business still depends heavily on you How differently successful home staging companies can be structured How to share your success story or submit a question for a future episode RESOURCES: Share your wins and your questions! 1-800-305-7050 Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow Harlowe on Instagram: www.instagram.com/meetharlowe Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool If you want to learn how to market and grow your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. This is a year-long mentorship program where I help you and other staging business owners plan, grow, flow, and thrive with the results that you've always wanted. The doors are open and I would love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEO's find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#162
September 5 · 21 min
The Flexibility Trap in Growing Businesses
The flexibility that helped grow your staging business could now be keeping you stuck. In the early stages of a home staging business, saying yes can feel like a competitive advantage. You accept a different payment method, squeeze an installation into an already-full week, skip a step in your standard process, or create a special arrangement for a longtime client. Each yes feels like flexibility, hospitality, and excellent customer service. But every custom accommodation also adds another layer of complexity to your business. As your project volume grows and you begin hiring a team, those small exceptions become harder to manage. A process that appears simple may have seven different variations depending on the client, payment method, service, or history of the relationship. Your team has to continually come back to you for answers because you're the only person who understands all the unwritten rules. That's the flexibility trap. Flexibility helps you learn what your clients need while your business is young. Eventually, you have enough information to create a standard process. If you continue saying yes by default, you can end up with an operating system that depends on you personally navigating every variation. And that makes delegation incredibly difficult. The solution is to define your standard process first. Decide how clients pay, when agreements must be signed, how projects enter your schedule, and which steps happen every time. Then you can evaluate individual requests from a clear starting point. Sometimes an exception will be worth making. When it is, tell the client what your normal process is and explain that you're making an exception for their specific situation. This helps the client feel cared for while protecting the standard your team needs to operate consistently. You can also examine one process you currently customize for every project. Look at how you handled it across your last several jobs, identify which variations truly mattered, and choose the version you would feel comfortable handing off completely tomorrow. Your next stage of growth requires intentional flexibility. You can preserve the warmth, care, and personal service that make your staging company special while creating processes your team can confidently follow. The goal is to know which exceptions are genuinely valuable and which ones are habits your business has outgrown. LEARN MORE ABOUT STAGING BUSINESS SCHOOL HERE WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: How saying yes can create hidden complexity in your staging business Why too many exceptions make delegation harder for your team When flexibility shifts from great service to self-sabotage How to define a standard process before documenting exceptions What to consider before accommodating an unusual client request Three practical steps for simplifying and standardizing your operations RESOURCES: Atomic Habits E-Myth Revisited The Gap and The Gain Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow Harlowe on Instagram: www.instagram.com/meetharlowe Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool If you want to learn how to market and grow your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. This is a year-long mentorship program where I help you and other staging business owners plan, grow, flow, and thrive with the results that you've always wanted. The doors are open and I would love to see you in the classroom!
#161
August 29 · 19 min
MVP Epidsode Slow Seasons: How To Grow When Business Feels Stuck
A slow season may be exactly what your business needs. Every business owner experiences slow business seasons when ideas stop flowing, outreach goes nowhere, cash feels tight, or the systems and team you built suddenly feel messy. It's easy to panic during these seasons, especially when we're constantly told to keep pushing, stay consistent, and never slow down. But slow business seasons are a normal part of growth. I've experienced plenty of them in my own staging business—from quiet summer and winter seasons to credit card debt, overflowing inventory, and moments when I wondered if my business would ever gain momentum again. Instead of seeing these periods as failures, I learned to use them as opportunities to step back, look at what wasn't working, and decide what needed my attention. When business slows down, your first instinct might be to push harder, but sometimes you don't need more pressure. You need grace and space. Take a look at what's working. Identify the gaps. Clean up a process. Revisit your numbers. And instead of trying to fix everything at once, focus on your next step. Books, podcasts, coaching, and conversations with other business owners can also help spark new ideas and motivation when you're feeling stuck. Most importantly, remember that the season you're in is temporary. If your business feels like a boulder you're pushing uphill right now, take a breath. You may not need to push harder. You may simply need to pause, pay attention, and decide what comes next. LEARN MORE ABOUT STAGING BUSINESS SCHOOL HERE WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: Why slower periods are a normal part of business growth When you need grace and space instead of more pressure How focusing on the next step can reduce overwhelm Practical ways to identify what's working and what needs attention How intentional learning can re-energize your ideas and motivation RESOURCES: Atomic Habits E-Myth Revisited The Gap and The Gain Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow Harlowe on Instagram: www.instagram.com/meetharlowe Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool If you want to learn how to market and grow your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. This is a year-long mentorship program where I help you and other staging business owners plan, grow, flow, and thrive with the results that you've always wanted. The doors are open and I would love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEO's find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#160
August 22 · 18 min
MVP: How to Get Your CEO Time Back in Your Staging Business
Your brain may be the reason you can't escape the daily demands of your staging business. You hired the team. You built the systems. You finally have enough revenue to get some help. So why are you still answering every question, managing every installation detail, and stepping in whenever something goes sideways? Your brain has become really, really good at keeping you busy. When your days are filled with mover coordination, client messages, invoicing, item pulls, and last-minute fire drills, your brain adapts to that environment. Reactivity becomes its default setting. Even as your business grows, you may keep finding new ways to insert yourself into work that someone else could handle. Meanwhile, the work that actually requires you, like strengthening partnerships, refining your pricing, planning future revenue, and leading your team, keeps getting pushed to another day. In this episode of the Staging Sips podcast, I'm exploring the neuroscience behind reclaiming your CEO time and why waiting until you feel "ready" to let go usually keeps you stuck. You'll learn what happens in your brain when you operate in a constant state of urgency, why that makes strategic thinking harder, and how buying back your time can retrain your brain for higher-level leadership. I'm also sharing the two filters I want you to use when deciding whether a task still belongs on your plate: math and mission. What is your time worth, and is this task beneath that rate? Does this move you closer to your vision, or keep you buried in the weeds? Because busy is a warning light. And protecting your CEO hours is how you begin building a business that can grow, flow, and thrive without requiring you to hold every single piece together. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: How your brain becomes wired for reactivity when your days are consumed by urgent tasks. Why waiting until you feel ready makes reclaiming your time even harder. The connection between mental space and strategic CEO-level decision-making. The math and mission filters for deciding what should stay on your plate. How to choose the first tasks and hours to buy back in your business. Why freeing the right hours matters more than finding the least expensive help. The mindset shift that moves you from short-term panic into long-term builder mode. Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Harlowe on Instagram: www.instagram.com/meetharlowe Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEO's find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
August 12 · 44 min
How Harlowe's Founders Turned Frustration Into Better Business
What happens when business owners stop accepting scattered systems, manual follow-ups, and time-consuming workflows as "just part of running a business"? In this episode of Staging Sips, Lori sits down with Harlowe founding members Kishah Langham and Erin Galvin to talk candidly about the frustrations that led them to search for a better way to run their staging businesses. Kishah brings 15 years of business experience in Houston, Texas, while Erin is approaching her first anniversary as a staging business owner in Colorado. Although they entered Harlowe at very different stages of business, they shared the same goal: creating systems that would make their work simpler, faster, and easier to grow. They share how bringing scheduling, proposals, agreements, payments, client communication, renewals, reporting, and business insights into one place has changed their day-to-day operations. Erin explains how she reduced the time required to complete a consultation report and can now send a professional proposal in about five minutes, even from the pool with her children. Kishah shares how Harlowe helped streamline her staging services and educational events while eliminating the need to chase registrations and payments across multiple platforms. You'll also hear how their real-world feedback helped shape Harlowe. Kishah's staging school inspired Harlowe's event functionality, while Erin's workflow inspired new ways to use project images within proposals. Their experiences reveal what it truly looks like to help build a platform while actively using it to run a business. Kishah and Erin also share the human side of adopting a new system: finding bugs, suggesting improvements, trusting the process, and watching their ideas become features that can serve staging businesses throughout the industry. Their stories show what becomes possible when technology fits the way you actually work. Fewer disconnected tools. Faster proposals. Smoother payments. Clearer business information. More time to grow your company and live your life. LEARN MORE ABOUT STAGING BUSINESS SCHOOL HERE! WHAT YOU'LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE: Why Kishah and Erin prioritized better systems at two very different stages of business How bringing scheduling, proposals, agreements, and payments into one place simplified their workflows How reusable templates helped turn proposal creation into a five-minute task How automation created a faster, easier experience for their clients while reducing manual follow-up How Harlowe gave Kishah and Erin more time for business growth, passion projects, and family How their real-world feedback and beta-testing experiences helped shape Harlowe's features LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE: RESOURCES: Connect With Our Guests Kishah Langham Texas Stagers https://www.stagingtexas.net/about-us www.instagram.com/texas_stagers Erin Galvin Finishing Touch Interiors https://www.finishingtouchinteriorsco.com/about www.instagram.com/finishingtouchinteriorsco Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Harlowe on Instagram: www.instagram.com/meetharlowe Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEO's find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#158
August 8 · 27 min
The Truth About Credit Card Fees and Getting Paid Faster
Let's talk about a topic that sounds boring but isn't: how you get paid. I started this episode wanting to talk credit card processing fees, but the deeper I went, the more I realized the fee is the smallest part of the story. The real question is what it actually costs your business to collect money, most of which is invisible. Checks, e-checks, Zelle, Venmo, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay; every payment method has a price tag, even the ones that look free. I'm walking through the hidden labor behind manual payments, the legal side of credit card surcharges you need to know, the exact math for building card fees into your pricing instead of tacking them on, and a policy lesson from my mom's very hot, very expensive 4th of July weekend. If you've ever resented that 3%, this episode is for you. What You'll Learn: Why a payment with "no processing fee" often costs you more in time, follow up, and delayed cash flow than the fee itself The real tradeoffs between checks, e-checks, ACH/PAD, Zelle, Venmo, and Apple/Google Pay for a staging business The exact percentage to add to your prices if you want to build card fees into your pricing instead of surcharging clients Why holding firm on your payment policy even when a client has a great excuse protects your business RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist: https://waitlist.harloweco.com/ Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#157
August 1 · 23 min
The Business Puzzle That Took Me 10 Years to Solve
One Saturday morning, doing my New York Times Spelling Bee (don't judge me, it's a whole ritual), I decided to write down every piece of software my staging business runs on. I even had to dig through my bank statements to remember everything I was paying for. Nine or ten tools. Every one of them doing exactly what it was supposed to do. But staring at that list, I realized I hadn't built a system. I'd built a collection of tools that didn't know the others existed. That's the moment fragmentation clicked for me. None of those tools were wrong. They just weren't built for a staging business or designed to work together. Today, I'm sharing the story behind that realization, the decade of trial and error that led up to it, the conversations that nearly stopped me from pursuing the idea, and why I ultimately chose to build something from the ground up instead of settling for another workaround. What You'll Learn: What I mean by "fragmentation" and how to recognize it The question I started asking about every tool in my business Why I chose not to build on someone else's platform How years of solving small problems led to one much bigger solution RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist: https://waitlist.harloweco.com/ Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#156
July 25 · 16 min
Why Home Stagers Are Still Drowning in Admin Work
This week I'm continuing our series on how I simplified my staging business and how fifteen years of lived experience is directly shaping how Harlowe is built. I walk through the full project life cycle for vacant staging: prospect, preview, proposal, sale, planning, install, and monitoring. Mind you, that last phase, monitoring, is nowhere near as passive as I used to think. There's real home staging admin work hiding in contract renewals, follow-ups, and invoicing. I also talk about why patchwork tools – my old Zapier workarounds included – were never going to hold up long-term. Lastly, I share why I'm more convinced about Harlowe than anything I've ever built, plus how to get on the waitlist before we open it in waves. What You'll Learn The full project life cycle for a staging business Why the monitoring phase is one of the most admin-heavy (and most overlooked) parts of our business Why flexibility with clients can quietly add complexity to your workload Why software built by outsiders never quite fits a staging business, and why Harlow was built differently RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist: https://waitlist.harloweco.com/ Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#155
July 18 · 20 min
End Your Staging Proposal Friction With One Workflow
For years, every time a client wanted to move forward, I found myself jumping between multiple tools, entering the same information over and over again, and waiting for the next step. I'd send the proposal, wait for a response, send the agreement, wait for a signature, then figure out payment. It was just the way I thought the process had to work. Then I tried something different. I combined two of those steps into one. The very first time I sent it, the agreement came back signed within the hour. It was one of those moments when I thought, "Why have I been making this so much harder than it needs to be?" Today, I'm sharing what that process looked like, what changed when I simplified it, and why I eventually realized there was still one piece missing. If you've ever felt like your staging proposal workflow involves too much waiting, too much follow-up, or too many moving parts, I think this conversation will give you a different way to think about it. What You'll Learn Why treating your proposal as its own standalone step creates friction instead of removing it The exact process I used for years, and every re-entry point that was wasting my time The one change that got me a signed agreement in under an hour How what I have built finally closes the gap for good RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist: https://waitlist.harloweco.com/ Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#154
July 11 · 24 min
The 10 Things I Wanted in a Staging Report Tool
For years, I was convinced I just hadn't found the right tool for our styling evaluation reports. So I kept searching, rebuilding, and starting over. Every new solution fixed one problem while creating another, and every switch demanded more time, money, and energy than I ever expected. Looking back, I wasn't really searching for better software. I was trying to create a workflow that actually fit the way staging businesses operate. What I didn't realize was how much opportunity I was losing while trying to force tools to do a job they were never designed to do. Today, I'm sharing what that journey taught me. Not just about technology, but about systems, opportunity cost, and why the right solution isn't always the newest one. What You'll Learn The hidden opportunity cost of forcing software to do a job it wasn't designed to do What worked and what didn't with paper checklists, Google Docs, Dragon Dictation, GoCanvas, and Jotform The features I was searching for but couldn't find in any existing platform Why efficiency matters just as much as presentation when creating client deliverables RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#153
July 4 · 48 min
The Six Figure Stager: Big Announcement With Heather Cook
When you think about growing your staging business, it's easy to assume the next step is better marketing, more social media, or a steady stream of leads. But what if those aren't the exact things holding your business back? This week, I'm joined by my friend Heather Cook, founder of Social Savvy Stager, to talk about a realization that completely changed the direction of her business. After spending the past year helping stagers with marketing, Heather discovered that the real challenges weren't content calendars or Instagram posts. They ran much deeper. Business owners were struggling with brand positioning, systems, leadership, and building businesses that could actually support sustainable growth. As we unpack what she learned, we also have two exciting announcements to share. Heather introduces her brand-new mentorship program, The Six Figure Stager, and I share why I've decided to officially pass the torch on something many of you have been waiting for. Sometimes the best way to serve our community isn't by creating something ourselves, but by recognizing when someone else has built exactly what our industry needs. Whether you're brand new to staging or you've been in business for years, this conversation is a reminder that building a successful staging business takes more than becoming a great stager. If you've also been looking for guidance on building the business behind your staging business, you'll want to hear this conversation from beginning to end. What You'll Learn The four foundational pillars of a sustainable six-figure staging business How strong brand positioning helps you compete on value instead of price How to identify what makes your staging business different from everyone else Why mentorship can accelerate your growth more than another online course My exciting announcement about the future of Staging Business – Growth and why I'm so excited to support Heather's new program RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#152
June 27 · 19 min
The Note Under My Door That Changed My Staging Business
Some moments stop you cold. This episode is about one of those moments and it came in the form of four words written in my youngest son's handwriting, slipped under my closed office door on a Sunday night. This is one of the most personal episodes I've ever recorded, and I hope it lands for you the way that night landed for me. Because what started as a wake-up call became the question that changed everything about how I run my business. What You'll Learn Why the closed-door boundary I set with my kids showed me how broken my business really was How going from asking how do I get more done? to how do I make this easier? changed everything How I audited my business without a formal spreadsheet, but by focusing on 3 things The first operational change I made that began reducing my workload RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerateJoin the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#151
June 20 · 16 min
Staging Business Software: The Six-Stack Problem No One Talks About
Have you ever opened your computer in the morning and immediately found yourself clicking between six different tabs just to figure out what's happening in your business? As we've been onboarding founding members into Harlowe, I've been asking our staging business owners a simple question: How many tools do you log into every day to run your business? The answer is almost always the same…at least three, usually more. The reality is that most of us didn't build these systems intentionally. We solved one problem at a time. We added a booking tool, then an email platform, then project management software, then invoicing, then file storage, then proposals. Before we knew it, our clients were living in six different places. In this episode, I'm giving a name to that problem: the Six-Stack Symptom. I'll talk about why it happens, what it's really costing your business, and why adding more tools is rarely the answer. What You'll Learn What the Six-Stack Symptom is and why so many staging businesses experience it How disconnected tools quietly create more work as your business grows The difference between automation and true integration What a unified operating system for a staging business can look like RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#150
June 13 · 25 min
The 3-Role Framework That Instantly Clarifies How to Run a Staging Business
I want to talk about a question I get asked all the time: Where does the admin role stop? Where does the lead stager role begin? And where exactly does the CEO fit into all of this? The truth is, most of us never learned to think about our staging businesses this way. We started because we loved staging. We learned the craft. We got clients. We grew. And then one day we looked up and realized we were running a company with real complexity while still trying to wear every hat ourselves. What I see over and over again is that businesses often grow faster than their structure. We hire people without clearly defining the role they're stepping into. We add services without assigning ownership of the operational pieces that support them. And before we know it, everything feels heavier than it should. Today, I am breaking down three core roles that exist in every staging business—whether you have one person on your team or twenty. Understanding these roles is one of the fastest ways to identify where your business is creating unnecessary complexity and where you may be carrying work that does not actually belong to you anymore. What You'll Learn What the CEO should actually be focused on (and what they should not) Why the Admin Ops function is often the most overlooked role in a growing business How operational ownership impacts everything from scheduling to inventory visibility The hidden mental load many staging business owners carry every day RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#149
June 6 · 16 min
How Better Scheduling Systems Can Help Your Staging Business Scale More Smoothly
Most staging business owners don't wake up in the morning excited to think about scheduling. Yet somehow, it becomes one of the biggest invisible jobs in the business. As I've spent countless hours mapping workflows and talking with staging business owners, one theme keeps showing up. Most scheduling systems work beautifully when the business is small. The challenge comes when growth introduces more team members, more service types, overlapping appointments, public booking links, warehouse logistics, and multiple moving pieces that all need to stay connected. If you've ever felt like you're the glue holding your calendar together, this episode will make you feel seen. I explore why scheduling becomes increasingly complex as businesses grow, where traditional systems begin to break down, and what it could look like when your scheduling system starts doing more of the work for you. What You'll Learn: The two key variables every scheduling system must balance How multiple calendars, color-coding, and manual processes can create hidden points of failure The difference between client schedules and team schedules in staging businesses A simple scheduling strategy Lori used with her first team member to reduce back-and-forth communication RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#150
May 23 · 19 min
The Stair-Step Hiring Framework for Staging Business Growth
If you've ever hired someone and still found yourself overwhelmed, still turning away work, and still wondering why your capacity hasn't moved, this episode is for you. We were recently talking about hiring, growth, and capacity when one business owner shared that she had successfully hired and trained team members, stepped back from doing everything herself, and yet she was still turning away work. Her spring felt better personally, but the business still hadn't truly expanded capacity. Not only her, but that is what most staging business owners do not realize: having a team does not automatically mean having more capacity. That one distinction is exactly why I built a framework around it. Today I'm walking you through what I'm calling the Stair-Step Capacity Framework to act as a guide for how to think about hiring at every stage of your business. Once you understand it, your hiring decisions start to make so much more sense, and a whole lot of the frustration and self-judgment disappear. What You'll Learn: The four distinct hiring stages in a staging business and what each one accomplishes. Why replacing yourself as the lead stager doesn't automatically increase your capacity. The critical moment when your business can truly begin to expand its volume. Why simultaneous hiring often creates organizational whiplash instead of smooth growth. RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Inner Circle Waitlist Here: https://waitlist.harloweco.com Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
May 16 · 32 min
AI for Staging Businesses: What Most Owners Are Missing
AI has become one of those conversations that instantly makes people feel either excited or completely overwhelmed. This episode is for the staging business owner sitting somewhere in the middle. The tools available right now are changing the way businesses operate in real and practical ways, and there is so much opportunity in learning how to use them intentionally instead of avoiding them altogether. This week, I'm walking through the AI tools I'm personally seeing used well inside staging businesses and sharing practical examples of how they fit into real workflows. ChatGPT, Canva Magic Studio, Plaud, and Notebook LM all have the ability to remove friction from parts of the business that normally take hours. The opportunities with these tools are only growing from here. What is however most important to know is that AI is not actually the missing piece for most businesses. Infrastructure is. A generated layout still needs somewhere to live. Notes still need to be connected to the project. Presentations still need to be easy to find and share with your team. How then do you combine AI and systems to work together to make your staging business feel lighter and more efficient? Come find out. What You'll Learn: Why most people are already using AI without realizing it How AI can help you with hiring and capacity planning, image generation, client communication and so much more. The difference between AI tools and business infrastructure What I am considering in my own staging business about AI while building Harlowe RESOURCES: Join the Harlowe Founding Members Waitlist www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/harlowefounderapp Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#146
May 9 · 13 min
The Hidden Emotional Weight of Running a Successful Staging Business
There's a very specific kind of exhaustion that comes with running a staging business. People often see the finished installs, the styled shelves, the walkthrough videos, and the polished final product. What they rarely see is the operational side happening late at night after the installs are complete, where the CEO is trying to hold everything together with proposals, invoices, scheduling, client communication, bookkeeping, and operations through systems that were never actually designed for the way staging businesses function. The responses to Harlowe echoed "I thought it was just me." But like I have always said, it is never just you. In what ways does running a staging business overwhelm CEOs like you? In what ways do you expect relief with your systems and processes? Let's talk about that! What You'll Learn: The invisible workload behind a "beautiful" staging business Why so many stagers feel like they're constantly white-knuckling operations The emotional weight of holding an entire business in your head What happens when systems finally support the way you actually work RESOURCES: Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.
#145
May 2 · 22 min
The Hidden Revenue Leak Quietly Hurting Your Staging Business
A missed renewal, a lost proposal, a delayed payment… we often brush these off as "one of those weeks." But often, these tiny, mundane moments are actually red flags pointing to a much larger problem. Working more closely with staging CEOs lately, I've noticed a pattern: a quiet drain on time, energy, and money. It's not that these Stagers are disorganized; it's that their systems are failing them. Running a staging business on fragmented, disconnected tools creates a massive, hidden mental load and operational bottleneck. Instead of trying to "duct-tape" a broken backend, it's time to build systems that support your growth. Let's talk about how to implement a functional fix that serves you for good. What You'll Learn: Why a booked-out, thriving staging business can still be one admin's resignation away from chaos. Four shifts that make the biggest operational difference, regardless of what tools you're currently using. What "designing for delegation" means and why it matters even if you're a team of one. What Lori has been quietly building for staging businesses and how to be part of the founding group. RESOURCES: Apply to be a Harlowe Founding Member: www./rethinkhomeinteriors.com/harlowefounderapp Apply for Private Coaching: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/privatecoachingapp Enroll in Staging Business School Accelerate Track: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/accelerate Join the Staging Business School Growth Track Waitlist: www.rethinkhomeinteriors.com/growth Follow the Staging Business School on Instagram: www.instagram.com/stagingbusinessschool Follow Lori on Instagram: www.instagram.com/rethinkhome If you want to learn how to streamline your operations so you can grow with less stress and burnout in your staging business, enrollment is open for Staging Business School Accelerate Track. I'd love to see you in the classroom! ENJOY THE SHOW? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts so that more Staging CEOs find it. Also, include links to your socials so that more Staging CEOs can find you. Follow over on Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Audible.

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