Why more staging business tools didn't solve my biggest challenge.

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 as I stared at that list, I realized I hadn't built a system. I'd built a collection of staging business 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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.

Why does home staging admin never seem to end?

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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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 Harlowe was built differently

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.

Simplify your staging proposal workflow from proposal to payment.

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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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
• 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 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.

Why your staging report tool matters more than you think.

For years, I was convinced I just hadn't found the right staging report 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 many opportunities I was losing while trying to force tools to do a job they were never designed to do.

Today, I'm sharing what lesson that journey taught me. Not just about technology, but also about systems and opportunity cost. I think it's a lesson every staging business owner should hear.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

RESOURCES:

• 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 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.

How to Build a Six-Figure Staging Business That Lasts

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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

RESOURCES:

• 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 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.

The night I realized I needed to change my staging business systems.

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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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 staging business systems without a formal spreadsheet, but by focusing on 3 things
• The first operational change I made that began reducing my workload 

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.

Why your staging business software Stack is creating more work than it solves.

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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.

Staging Business Framework: The 3 Roles You Need to Define

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 the staging business framework and 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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.

Why better scheduling systems for staging businesses matter as you grow.

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 for staging businesses 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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.

Expand capacity without chaos using this staging business hiring framework.

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 and stepped back from doing everything herself. 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, a guide to thinking 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 FROM THIS EPISODE:

• 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.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:

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 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.