our best investments
We have made significant investments in our business over the last five years, in money, energy and time. The initial financial costs to start a home staging company are quite large, particularly to grow and scale the staging inventory. And while we are currently in a position where we don’t have to make significant inventory purchases all that often, we do continue to make ongoing purchases to keep our inventory fresh and current. But in addition to inventory, there are several areas in our business where we have invested heavily and reaped the benefits. Here are some of the best investments we have made at Olive + Opal:
INDUSTRIAL RACKING
We have worked out of several spaces over the years. After bouncing around from our own homes to a monthly storage rental to a small shared space, we eventually we moved into our own 2,000 square foot warehouse in 2018. We knew we would eventually outgrow the space, but it was the perfect fit at the time. To make the most of the shotgun layout we invested in a small amount of industrial racking to allow us to utilize the height of the warehouse. While we still struggled to maintain a perfectly organized warehouse, the small amount of racking helped tremendously. So when we moved to our current 6,000 square foot warehouse, we prioritized organization and set aside money to invest in industrial racking for the entire storage space. It was difficult to write that check, but the efficiencies gained from having an organized warehouse were well worth it. Our amazing warehouse manager, Alicia, spent countless hours designing and implementing our racking system. While we still move inventory around from time to time, we now have dedicated areas for inventory categories and a fluid system for storage. Industrial racking = worth every penny.
ONLINE SYSTEMS
In our early days, we spent a lot of time in Microsoft Word and Excel to generate proposals, invoice clients and keep track of general business needs. We quickly learned that we needed more robust systems to manage the day-to-day activities of our business. We rely on a number of online systems these days, namely our customer relationship management (CRM) system, Dubsado, and our project management system, Trello. We utilize Dubsado for all client-related communications, including proposals, contracts, invoices and customer satisfaction surveys. And we use Trello to track our staging project progression, manage business binder activities, and create social content calendars. It took time and energy initially to set up these systems for maximum efficiencies, but we could never look back. The combined monthly fee associated with these two systems is under $100 and overall we spend around $300 per month on various systems. It may seem like a hefty operating expense, but we’ve found that automating our processes has helped free up our time to focus on other income-generating activities. So at the end of the day, we highly recommend investing in online systems.
BUSINESS COACHING
We met our business coach, Meg, at a local networking event a few years ago. Within a few minutes of chatting, Meg had identified one of the key weaknesses in our little 3-man team: we did not have defined roles and were stepping on each other’s toes, essentially all working the same 40-hour week. Needless to say, we signed up with Meg immediately and began to work with her to find efficiencies, define goals and establish best practices in our company. The idea of business coaching initially seemed intimidating, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. Meg listens to our concerns, pushes us to try new things outside of our comfort zone, and holds us accountable to our goals. Often we find ourselves stuck working in the business instead of working on the business and coaching has helped us recognize the importance of setting aside time for administrative and other goal-oriented tasks so that we continue to grow and thrive, rather than just survive. Business coaching has been instrumental in our recent growth and success - we definitely think it can help all small business owners. You can learn more about our coach, Meg, right here.
TOOL BAG AND STEAM BAG
While not terribly expensive items, our tool bag and steam bag still make it on the list of best investments. I honestly don’t even remember what we did before we purchased these bags. Because wow, we bring so much stuff to every project. Melinda’s husband gifted her with a monogrammed Carhart tool bag about two years ago and while it may not seem like much, he clearly understands Melinda’s love language. We pack the tool bag full with everything we might need on a stage - hammers, nails, painters tape, furniture pads, etc. You can watch Stephanie unpack our tool bag to see all the goodies here. We keep smaller items, like nails and bolts, in labeled mesh zipper bags to keep it clean and organized. The tool bag seems to weigh about 100 pounds, but she’s our baby and we never leave home without her. The steam bag also never leaves our sides at staging projects. We keep more of our finishing products in the steam bag, like our steamer, cleaning products, extension cords and extra light bulbs. And we are so grateful for Alicia, she keeps it stocked at all times so we never run out of supplies at a project. If you need some great storage solutions for your project day stuff, we definitely recommend these bags.