The President Meets: Klaudia Leszczynska

Verena Mumford 4 December Blog No Comment

In this episode, The EAHSP President meets Klaudia Leszczynska, Founder of Instastaging and of Instastaging Home Staging Course in Polish language approved and accredited by EAHSP

Sanja Radovanovic: Please tell us a little bit about your Home Staging journey, what are the distinguished characteristics of Insta Staging and who are your clients prevalently.

Klaudia Leszczynska: This is a very interesting question because I have never felt any artistic or creative in my life. I thought I had a scientific mind and was the best with numbers. That is why I graduated in finance and then worked in a corporation to manage a team of over a dozen at the age of only 25. When I got pregnant I felt that I would like to start working in a different mode.

This is how I found myself in real estate, where, together with my husband, we established a flat rental company. In the meantime, I heard about Home Staging and I was sure that it would only be useful for me for managing the apartments. I never thought that this would be my main occupation, and the slogan Home Staging will bring together several thousand people in Poland interested in the industry.

However, the investor community in which we operated was very interested in our results and profits from the lease – they wanted to know how we do it. And this is how I started talking about Home Staging more and more, I wrote my first e-book, to finally publish the first business course in Poland for Home Stagers after a year.

Life surprised me a lot, because I remember exactly the sentence I said after the Home Staging course – “nice and cool, but it will not be of much use to me in life”. And yet Home Staging turned our entire life upside down, and I had no idea how wrong I was in saying this sentence.

And how was Instastaging created? It was the result of my observations of interior design trends on social media and including them in home staging activities to monetize them for our clients. Analyzing what social media users like, what target groups they belong to and how we can use this knowledge in Home Staging.

Personally, I mainly work with investors, but there are also individual apartment owners who usually found me on social media

S.R.: You organise and host one of the most followed Home Staging event in Poland: Home Staging Gala. With which aims and purposes do you organise it?

K.L.: Home Staging Gala is a whole month of industry conferences, webinars and talks, which aim to both promote knowledge about our industry and improve the skills of Home Stagers who already operate in the industry.

I came up with the idea of organizing this event during a pandemic, where we badly needed to know how to reorganize work in our industry in order to be able to continue functioning. At that time, there were discussion panels with investors, real estate brokers or a negotiation expert.

The final highlight of the Home Staging Gala is the announcement of the results of the competition for the best home staging and decluttering projects divided into 5 categories.

It is a unique event because so far it has been organized entirely online for 3 years in a row and lasted … a whole month. It is a very intense industry development time, but also so loud that many new people learn about our industry thanks to this gala.

S.R.: The Home Staging course offered by InstaStaging has been approved by EAHSP at the beginning of the year. What characteristics separate this course from any other online or in-person training program currently offered in Poland.

K.L.: From the very beginning, my dream was to provide people who want to operate professionally in our industry – a course that will provide them with both process skills and business skills, so that they can earn money not only for their clients, but also for themselves. That is why I divided my course into two main parts: Home Staging process and business. In addition, there is a year-round support, both in a closed group on Facebook and a course chat, where all students can consult each other on an ongoing basis.

I also wanted to be able to help new people start, which is why I run special masterminds twice a month – both Q&A and experts exploring specific industry topics.

I also work with my students on an ongoing basis and show their projects both on social media on Instagram and on my YouTube channel – this allows them to show themselves further and gain local customers.

Once a year, I also run a group mentoring program for students, during which for 8 weeks we study the course together, analyze tasks and refresh our businesses. Thanks to this, I am convinced that every person who has completed my course, who wants to start operating in the industry, has the opportunity to do so.

S.R.: How many Professional Stagers exist in Poland, who their clients prevalently are, and what type of properties are mostly staged.

K.L.: Currently, there is no official industry data available in Poland yet, but about 400 people have already graduated from my courses. Several thousand people are interested in the industry itself, and these are both Home Stagers, interior designers, as well as investors and real estate brokers.

There is a very strong investor group in Poland, thanks to which Home Staging could actually develop. What distinguishes our country is certainly a strong emphasis on Home Staging of apartments for rent – both short-term and long-term. In recent years, the industry awareness has also been growing, which is why individual landlords more and more often come to Home Stagers.

Real estate brokers are also a group that has gained a strong interest in Home Staging in Poland, often including the basic Home Staging service in their portfolio of services.

As for the type of flats – these are mainly flats prepared for investment or occupied.

This is a very interesting question because I have never felt any artistic or creative in my life. I thought I had a scientific mind and was the best with numbers. That is why I graduated in finance and then worked in a corporation to manage a team of over a dozen at the age of only 25. When I got pregnant I felt that I would like to start working in a different mode.