Why are so many furniture flippers willing to spend more money on supplies — but hesitate to invest in learning what actually moves them forward?

In this episode of Flipping Furniture for Profit, Val Frania explores why small investments in training and guidance often outperform spending more on supplies when flipping furniture for profit.

Using real-life stories (including a lighthearted lesson involving pickles 🍔🥒) and a practical example of AI staging, Val walks through the difference between DIY that builds confidence… and DIY that quietly keeps you stuck.

This conversation isn’t about spending more money — it’s about spending wisely, recognizing when guidance saves time, and knowing when to stop guessing and start growing.

Val also shares a faith-centered reflection from Ecclesiastes 4:9–12, reminding us that we weren’t meant to do everything alone — and that a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. Why spending more on supplies doesn’t always improve results
2. How “friction” — not laziness — slows most furniture flippers down
3. When DIY helps you grow, and when it quietly holds you back
4. Why small investments in training can outperform bigger material costs
5. How AI staging became a clear example of this principle in action

Want help applying this?

If this episode helped something click for you — and you’re ready to stop guessing — Val has created a Resource Guide plus a short, affordable course that walks through AI staging step by step for furniture flippers.

👉 Resource Guide: https://ValFrania.com/ResourceGuide

👉 AI Staging Course: https://ValFrania.com/AiStaging

Ep23 - Why $27 Can Move You Forward Faster Than $40

Val Frania: Hi there. Pull up a chair for a minute, because this story has nothing to do with furniture flipping and everything to do with it. Friday spent one day with a blueprint member and a good friend of mine, Christine. She wanted to learn how to can, and since I'm a die hard prepper and canner, I always share my ideas for creative canning. This time it is how I can chicken gizzards for my cats as treats. Yep, I'm that person.

Christine thought it sounded fun. And since we both spent a lot of time working on our flipping businesses, I told her we'd work on a puzzle instead of talking business while the canner was going. I knew she could use some time away from the constant pressure of doing "all the things." And honestly, it was a beautiful day. Cold outside, warm inside my house. We talked and we laughed about stuff. Silly things. We created something together for our fur babies. We slowed down. We were human for a few hours instead of productivity machines.

So fast forward to Sunday. I was reflecting on that nice day with Christine, just feeling grateful, and I asked my husband DH to drop me off at TJ Maxx while he went to gas up the vehicle. Shopping there clearance session is weirdly a de-stresser for me, so I'm in TJ Maxx testing out some clearance items, a collapsible bucket, a dish drainer and I look down and I've sliced my hand in a couple of places. The blood was fast and dark, which tells you it wasn't just a little paper cut. And it wasn't stopping. At that point, I'm honestly afraid I'm going to bleed all over the floor. So I ask a shopper just a few feet from me, "Do you have a tissue? I'm bleeding." She says, "No." and just stands there. No concern. No, Are you okay?" No coming over to see how bad it was. No human instinct to help another person who's clearly bleeding. And just so we're clear, I didn't look like a scary, unstable person. It was just after church, and I was in church clothes. I was calm, I was clearly injured.

Fortunately, I see an employee heading into the back room and I call out to her, excuse me, "I cut myself. Could I get a tissue?" And she says, "Okay," and then disappears into the back. Meanwhile, the original shopper I asked for help, circles back into my aisle, so I try again, kind of joking to keep from freaking out. Okay, I wasn't freaking out, but, you know, telling someone that you're bleeding, that's not really looked on too kindly these days. Everybody's afraid of everything. "It's a good thing I'm not dying." This is what I said to her. "It's a good thing I'm not dying, because she's been gone quite a while." At this point, I'm genuinely in danger of dripping blood onto the floor. I'm rocking my hand back and forth to keep it from making a mess, and it's actually sort of funny in a dark, what's happening right now kind of way. The shopper just gives me a half smile and goes back to ignoring me shopping the clearance aisle.

Finally, the employee comes back with a box of tissues and a Band-Aid. She sees I actually have two bleeding cuts, so she goes back for a second Band-Aid and I thank her. She hands them to me and she goes on her way. She doesn't check the items. She doesn't look for blood. She doesn't do an accident report.

And I know about accident reports because years ago I worked at Meijer in Michigan as a store detective, so no one documented it. No one checks what sliced me. Well, except DH. I texted him, he was sitting in the car and I asked him to come in and help me. So he did. He was there lickety split, but no one except that one employee really seemed to care inside that store.

So why am I telling you this? Because people, we need to do better. Whether it's helping a friend or colleague learn to can or cook, helping a new flipper figure out where to start, or helping a fellow shopper who's literally bleeding in a TJ Maxx aisle. We need to step up. We need to care about others again. We need to take meals to people when they're sick. We need to mow the lawn of an eighty year old widow. We need to stop pretending someone else will handle it. If we want a better world, we don't get it by complaining about society. We get it by starting with ourselves.

Okay, so that's the end of my rant. Now I want to make a point about your furniture flipping business, because DIY versus investment isn't just about money, it's about how seriously you take what you're building. The title of this podcast, this episode number twenty three, is why twenty seven dollars can move you forward faster than forty dollars. And you are listening to Flipping Furniture for Profit by Val Frania, where we talk about more than just painting and selling. We discuss some hard things, like why we're gladly spending forty dollars on paint, but hesitate when it comes to investing in something that will help us move forward faster, and why sometimes DIY, doing everything ourselves isn't strength, it's simply habit.

Now I want to share another small story, a simple observation and a reminder that we're never meant to carry everything alone. Not judging, not frustrated, just recognizing something very human because I used to be that person. And in some ways I still am. I have the DIY heart. I love the DIY spirit. I love learning things the hard way. Sometimes I love experimenting, figuring it out, getting my hands messy. Not too much because I'm not really a messy painter, but I don't mind working with messy things. I'll read an entire page, sometimes an entire article, just to find one sentence that helps something click. That doesn't bother me. In fact, I enjoy it. But I've learned over time that not everyone is wired that way, and that doesn't make one way better than the other. It just makes us different.

My husband and I joke about this all the time. We're wired very differently. If I ask him whether he wants tomatoes on his burger and they're not already sliced and sitting on the counter, he'll say, "No, I'm good," and keep right on building his burger. But if I go get the tomato, slice it and bring it back, he happily takes it. Same with pickles. I'll remind him, "We have pickles in the fridge," but he won't stop what he's doing to go look for them. Partly because it can be sitting right in front of him. He doesn't really see it in the fridge. I tease him a lot about that. So at that point, I tease him and say, "You're so lazy." And then I go get the pickles for him. It's one of the many funny moments we have together on a daily basis. The teasing is non-stop. Because here's the truth he doesn't dislike pickles. He dislikes interrupting the momentum to go searching.

And this was the moment something clicked for me when I was thinking about it. Most people aren't unwilling. Every extra step matters. Another click, another paragraph, another tab, another explanation they have to hunt for. It's not that they don't want the benefit, they just don't want the process of getting there. And once I saw that, it changed how I saw people. Here's the part that might surprise you. I don't resent doing that for my husband. You know, you hear a lot of people online complaining about their husbands, not me. Boy, I've got the best. It doesn't feel like effort when it's motivated by love. I'm not keeping score. I'm not annoyed. I'm not thinking. Why can't he just do it for himself? I do it because I love him. Because it makes him happy. Because I enjoy being helpful. And maybe this is something we don't talk about enough.

Helping someone else isn't always entirely unselfish. There's joy in it. There's satisfaction in it. There is meaning in being useful. So here's the business parallel. That realization changed how I think about teaching. I'm not trying to dumb things down. I'm not trying to rush people. I'm trying to remove the friction because I care if I can save someone time, frustration, or unnecessarily having to deal with trial and error. That brings me genuine joy. And that's why clarity matters. That's why sometimes investing in understanding moves you forward faster than doing everything yourself.

Now let's apply that to AI staging. Last week in episode number twenty two, I introduced a suggestion that you consider using AI to stage. It could be a great tool for your business. I saw this firsthand when I started applying clearer, more intentional presentation to my furniture listings. Not magic, not hype, just clarity applied consistently. The conversations changed. The momentum changed. The confidence shifted. It became easier to present my work because when you remove friction, people don't have to convince themselves, they can simply respond.

This isn't about paint or pricing or even DIY. It's about discernment. Knowing when learning on your own is beneficial and when it quietly keeps you stuck. And knowing when letting yourself be guided is not weakness, but wisdom.

Here's some Scripture that came to mind as I've thought about all of this. About effort. Help doing things together instead of alone. It's from Ecclesiastes chapter four. I love these verses. "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. If they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him that is alone when he falleth for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat. But how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him. And a three fold cord is not quickly broken." That's Ecclesiastes four: nine through twelve. And I love that phrase. A good reward for their labor, because it doesn't say the labor disappears. It says the reward is greater when it's shared.

We weren't created to do everything on our own. Not in marriage, not in life, not in the work of building something meaningful. There's strength in partnership, warmth in walking alongside someone else and wisdom and knowing when to accept help. Sometimes that looks like a hand reaching down to lift you up, and sometimes it looks like someone bringing the pickles to the counter. Not because you couldn't find them, but because love says, "Let me make this easier for you."

And this ties into something else I need to say honestly and without sugarcoating it. We need to stop thinking, "I want everything for free," and start asking ourselves, "What do I actually need? What will move the needle for me? What is already out there that could help me grow faster and become more skilled?" Because here's the uncomfortable truth: people who refuse to invest in themselves almost always get stuck and stay stuck. Not because they're not capable. Not because they're not smart, not because they don't have potential, but because they keep trying to DIY everything instead of letting themselves be helped. They spend hours googling, months piecing together YouTube videos, years making the same mistakes, all to avoid spending twenty seven dollars, Ninety seven dollars, or a few hundred dollars on something that could shortcut their learning curve by years. And then they tell themselves, "I'm being wise. I'm saving money." Well, no, you're paying with time. And time is the one thing you don't get back.

So if you're serious about your furniture flipping business, this is the mindset shift. Stop asking. "How can I get everything for free?" Start asking, "What's the smartest next investment in my growth?" Because growth isn't free. But staying stuck is far more expensive. So we talked about a couple things today, taking the time to reach out and help others, and allowing ourselves to be the one reaching out for help. Both will cost us something and both are absolutely worth the effort. We really do need to do better.

If you're someone who enjoys figuring things out on your own, that's a good thing. And if you're in a season where you're ready for help from someone more experienced, or just need support from a fellow flipper, that's a good thing, too. The strength isn't in doing it alone. It's in knowing when to weave another strand into the cord, because two really are better than one, and a three fold cord is not quickly broken.

So if you're ready to stop trying to figure everything out the hard way, I've put together two helpful next steps in the show notes. I have a free resource guide to help you get oriented, and my AI staging course to help you sell faster and more professionally. Sometimes the wisest move is simply letting yourself be helped. Thanks for stopping by today and have a great week!