We are proud to announce that Tammie O’Brien, President of Darby Inventory, will be speaking at the RESA conference in Las Vegas. The conference is January 23-25, 2011 at Treasure Island (TI) Casino. Tammie’s talk ‘Inventory Management: It Doesn’t Have to be Green Eggs & Ham’ is a fun, entertaining program designed for stagers of every level. Using real-world examples and sharing anecdotes that can only be learned by experience.

Tammie will be sharing:

• What types of inventory to stock
• When to start carrying inventory
• Where to purchase inventory
• Why carrying inventory can greatly increase revenues
• How to track inventory with minimum effort and maximum results

This insightful learning session is thought provoking and well paced. Any staging professional will appreciate the “try it and you just may like it” message that is the guiding principle and chief take-away of this presentation.

You can learn more at http://resaconvention.com/ Hope to see you there!

Often times when I talk to people about Darby, it is obvious that they know they need an inventory management system but are overwhelmed by the thought of putting one into place. I can tell you that I know the feeling because I was there too! I can also tell you, that once you get it done, you will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. Just like other areas of your life or business, you can break it down into smaller pieces so it is more manageable. If your inventory includes furniture, take a category at a time and start entering it into Darby. You might choose to do all living room pieces, or even just sofas, then chairs, coffee tables etc. If your inventory does not include furniture, start with artwork, area rugs, lighting and then move on to the accessories. The key is to get started and to make sure that happens, add an event to your calendar. Schedule time at least once per week to work on your inventory.

This weekend, Tammie O’Brien, Co-owner of Darby Home Staging Inventory is off to the RESA Conference in Las Vegas. RESA is the National Real Estate Staging Association and the conference will be a great opportunity to continue Tammie’s knowledge and education of the staging business and network with other stagers across the country.

Tammie is hoping to talk to as many people as possible to get more ideas on how we can improve our product. Our goal for Darby Inventory is to make professional home stagers as efficient as possible when it comes to managing their inventory, and therefore, their business. And the best way to do that is talk to stagers about how we can help them. Many of the enhancements to Darby Inventory have already come from feedback from our users and we are looking for more.

If you will be attending the RESA conference, make sure to look out for Tammie. If you won’t be attending the conference, we would still love to hear from you. Leave us a comment here, call or email us any time!

I never really thought twice about why retail furniture stores had names for their furniture collections until I got into the staging business and began purchasing my own inventory. It quickly became clear that it can be difficult to describe yet another rectangular cherry coffee table with a glass top and lower shelf. I probably own 12 different coffee tables that could match that description.

Then I had that light bulb moment — that’s why stores have the Travis collection or the Luke collection! When was the last time you browsed a furniture catalog and ran across “Cherry Coffee Table with Glass Top just $999!” Can you imagine, going into a store and saying, “Yes, I am looking for your round mahogany kitchen table.”

If it works for retail, it can work for your staging business too. I think it makes a lot of sense to name your furniture collections. With Darby Inventory, you can have a name and a description so you might have the Holly Dining Table in the Name field and round black distressed plank table in the description field. The good news is you can search on any of those key words to find just what you are looking for too.

Don’t think you you will remember the names you assign to your furniture? You just might be surprised. Try associating your names with your clients. For example, if you purchased a particular piece of furniture for a client named Jessica, that might be what you name that sofa. If you like a certain coffee table, end table, and dining table with that set, the entire collection becomes the Jessica. If the client name does not make sense, maybe you LOVED the way some of your furniture looked in the house you staged on Sherman. That entire house of furniture can become the Sherman collection.

Give it some thought — the process can actually be fun too!

We received a GREAT testimony from Staging Denver on how using Darby Inventory for Home Stagers has helped their business! Feel free to contact Sarah Dukes at Staging Denver for questions or feedback after reading this.

What a snowy day…….. We can’t afford a snow day today. We have three jobs lined up before Friday, and it is already Wednesday. Will Staging Denver be able to come through for their clients, or will the weather conquer our success for the week? If we didn’t have Darby Inventory for Home Stagers, the weather would have won!

As Geri and I were snowed in at separate places with no way to get to our inventory to see what was in stock, we turned to our computers and logged on to Darby Inventory. We were able to see exactly what was available and where it was. We were also able to pull up sales orders to see what was coming out and what may be available for the next three jobs.

Sipping hot chocolate and watching the flakes accumulate, our team pulled together all we needed without moving a muscle (except our delicate finger muscles, of course).  So what does Darby Inventory have to offer that this experience may not have covered? Need to figure out if you have gotten your money’s worth on those adorable zebra pillows? Darby’s got you covered. Just go to Reports: click on pillows and see where they are, where they’ve been, where they’re going, how much you paid; and is it really worth selling - or should you continue to send them out to make more money for you?

Where is that camel sofa? Okay, so you have 3 camel sofas. Do a search and pull up all the camel sofas to see what’s on hand, what’s going out and which ones are already out. Darby also offers a customer database, photos of your entire inventory, sales order print outs, barcode print outs and so much more.

Tammie from Darby Inventory and Pineapple Interiors is the ‘mastermind’ behind all of this, and it is incredibly easy to work with her. She will listen to your needs, adapt what is adaptable, and maybe even offer a little IT support. What baffles me is how she can be a ‘left brain meets right brain amazing creative stager computer geek’-all bundled into one person.

No matter the size of your inventory I can find a good reason why all home stagers could and should be using Darby Inventory for Home Stagers.
Sarah Dukes

One of the things I love about software development is sitting with clients to see how they use the product and get their feedback. It’s amazing how much information you can glean in just an hour by watching the way they enter data and navigate the application. Thanks to Sarah Dukes, of Staging Denver, Darby has a couple of new enhancements. She requested we add the Barcode to the Sales Order as that is a field they use often. She also requested to be able to view media from within the sales order. Simply highlight the item and go to View > Media for photos of the item. Thanks Sarah for both of those suggestions. You will be happy to know they are live so you will see them the next time you log in!

I am excited to announce that Darby Inventory has been accepted into the University of Colorado at Boulder, Leeds School of Business Online Marketing Project. As part of this project, we will be working closely with two marketing students on various ways to improve our online presence. Areas we may focus on are our current website, Google Adwords and Social Media. Our first meeting with Rana and Michael will be Friday, October, 16th. I will update this blog with our ideas and hopefully some good feedback on what we come up with!

I am one of those people that feels nauseous just thinking about making a sales call. With that being said, I think becoming a better sales person can help with many aspects of my businesses. There are so many opportunities for ’sales’ without even trying. How many times per week do you get asked what you do for a living? How many emails do you send for your business or simply answer your business phone? The list of sales opportunities can be long. So my question is “can I become a great sales person even if it does not come natural?” And if so, what is the best way to do that? Should I read sales information online? Is it best to just dig in and either attend sales training seminars or classes? Does online sales training work? I would love to hear your feedback!

In our many years of experience in working with end users, we are still amazed at how differently each person uses a program or website. Every so often, we receive a bug report that we cannot reproduce, only to find out that in the series of steps to reproduce the bug, we clicked enter while the user entered the tab key. When sending us feedback, help us help you by recording the exact steps you took when you found the bug — down to the tabs and clicks!

As a small business owner, I understand how much more difficult it is to find new customers than it is to retain existing customers. And in my opinion, customer service is the best way to keep customers. Sometimes that may mean going above and beyond what seems reasonable at the time.

Nordtrom’s is always the perfect example of going above and beyond and I can personally cite another great example of their service. I purchased a pair of sandals several months ago and wore them around my house to make sure they were comfortable. When they passed that test, I wore them to make some sales calls and was disappointed to have a blister on every single toe when I got home. While, I never had to test out Norstrom’s customer service in my many years of shopping, I could not get past the blisters. They refunded my money without a receipt, no questions asked. I will continue to shop at Nordtrom’s.

On the other hand, last night I returned to one of my favorite local pubs, Pogue Mahones in Parker, Colorado with a gift card in hand. After dinner and drinks with my husband and friends, I happily enclosed the gift card for payment. The waitress returned the card to me saying the pub was under new ownership and would no longer accept the gift card. Amazingly, the waitress *got* how inappropriate it was, but the new owner would not budge on his decision. The end result? He chose to lose 4 previously loyal customers over about $20 (an estimate of his cost) in beer.