In real estate, there’s nothing quite as sad as a vacant home. When a potential buyer walks through a home with no furniture besides bare mattresses in the bedrooms, even if it’s the ideal property for them, their thoughts are distracted as they wonder what caused the homeowners to leave in such a hurry. That’s one reason why home staging is so important!

Staging Diva Graduate Dolly DeWald, owner of Omaha home staging business D3 Dolly DeWald Designs, was approached by a couple who had recently moved out of town. They knew they’d have better luck selling if their home wasn’t a mish-mash of empty rooms and randomly placed remaining furniture like a couple of beds and a baby grand piano.

The homeowners agreed at their home staging consultation to clear out the clutter and take care of some cosmetic changes Dolly suggested. While they were doing that, Dolly shopped for accessories and sourced rental furniture. The entire home staging project took fifteen hours and it was completed just in time for the homeowner’s first open house. Dolly stopped by before it started to arrange some fresh flowers (plucked from the property’s gardens) and to freshen everything up.

That evening the real estate agent called Dolly with the good news that the home sold at the open house for 99% of asking!

Everyone involved was thrilled.

About her home staging training, Dolly says, “My goal was to do something I truly enjoyed doing. I love staging homes. The Staging Diva Program has given me the tools necessary to help me realize my goal.”

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach thousands of people like Dolly how to earn a living doing something they love.

This is a short week for those of you in the US who had a day off for Memorial Day and last week was the first long weekend of the summer for Canadians who celebrate Victoria Day in May.

I love spending long weekends with my family, trying new restaurants or just sitting and listening to the fountain in my garden. I love my downtime but I don’t live for those days off because as a home stager, I get to dictate my schedule and take days off whenever I want.

Besides, when you do work you love it’s really true that you never work another day in your life because it doesn’t feel like work!

I know what it feels like to be biding time behind your desk until the next holiday weekend – I was there once before. It is a terrible feeling. Counting down the days until your vacation and focusing on that all the time is no way to live!

If you’re still trying to work up the courage to start your own home staging business – if you have a feeling in your gut that it’s what you should be doing with your life – I urge you to really listen to that voice. And when you hear that voice of self-doubt whisper in your ear, telling you that a regular person like yourself could never be successful as a home stager, that those success stories only apply to a different select group…don’t listen!

Because I hear this question from so many aspiring home stagers, I’ve put together a new free report: Ask Staging Diva: “Can a regular person like me become a successful home stager?”

It’s filled with completely true inspirational stories of successful home stagers who started out as regular people just like you, and found the courage to follow their dreams.

I want you to download this free report for home stagers and read it from cover to cover (it’s a very fast read!). Then I want you to give it to your spouse, your friends, your sister – anyone in your life whose support you crave but who isn’t 100% behind you in your dream to embark on a home staging training journey.

My mission is to inspire others to create opportunities in their lives and I believe this free report will give many people the courage to do just that.

When you read the report, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.

Technorati Tags: home staging, home stagers, home staging business, home staging success stories, home staging course, home staging program, staging diva

Not everyone who has the desire to start a home staging business has the luxury of quitting their full time job to do so. Some people enjoy their day jobs but feel they’d like to use a staging business as a sort of creative outlet while they continue to work full time.

The good news is, it’s very possible to have a successful part-time home staging business that operates alongside a full time job and Staging Diva Graduates are proving it.

Amuradha Rathore of Wisconsin had always wanted to start her own business but she didn’t know where to start. A public relations consultant working full time as a banker, she loved her career but had a constant nagging feeling of creative discontent. However, with the uncertainty of job security and the poor economy she was reluctant to give up her job to start a business.

One day, Amuradha came across StagingDiva.com and discovered that starting a home staging business was exactly what she needed to do considering she’d been helping family and friends decorate their homes for years and she was already a qualified consultant.

Amuradha combined her talent and flair for decorating with her education, experience and what she learned in the Saging Diva Program to start her home staging business, Nine Dimensions. Not only does her home staging business serve as a financial safety net but she also gets a tremendous sense of creative freedom from it which makes her enjoy her full time job even more.

She writes, “As of now, I am working full time, raising my family and running my own business and it’s possible because I love my job, my business is my hobby and my family keeps me going. Home staging has helped me turn my passion and talent for decorating into a real business and Staging Diva, Debra Gould made it happen.”

Remember, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can keep your job and work at your home staging business on the side and have a very satisfying life! If you would like to read more about how having a home staging business on the side can really help you whether you currently have another job or not, check out my free report, “Ask Staging Diva: Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?”

Home stagers, have you found a way to operate a home staging business around a job you love or are afraid to give up? Please share your story by leaving a comment below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.

Technorati Tags: home staging, home staging business, home staging course, home staging program, staging diva

Many home owners choose to sell on their own instead of working with a real estate agent and giving 5% or 6% of their selling price over in real estate commissions. These properties are known as FSBOs, an acronym for ‘For Sale by Owner.’

The very fact that they’ve chosen to sell without an agent tells you these types of clients are interested in making more money on their sale. Home staging is an excellent way for the owners of FSBO properties to maximize their selling price, as demonstrated in the following story about Staging Diva Graduate and Omaha home stager, Dolly Dewald.

Bedroom before home staging

After doing an initial home staging consultation for a busy couple with three young children who were selling their home without a real estate agent, Dolly was asked to stage the home for them.

The home owners spent weeks cleaning and painting their home. They had little in the way of furniture so Dolly helped them get set up with a furniture rental company and assisted in selecting furniture for 4 bedrooms and an entertainment room. Dolly went on to purchase bedding and accessories. The home took an entire day to stage.

Bedroom after staging

Each Sunday they held an open house and they ended up receiving multiple offers, not bad for a FSBO. The couple eventually sold for 96% of their asking price.

The clients were thrilled with the results and later told Dolly the buyer said her staging is what sold the house.

About her home staging training, Dolly writes, “My goal was to have a job I loved. The Staging Diva® Program gave me the structure and know-how to create a business and make it work. With Debra Gould’s help I now have an outlet for my creative juices and a job I love.”

Do you have a story like Dolly’s that proves home staging works? Just follow this link to share it with me and you can be featured in a post like this too!

Have any of you worked on FSBOs? Have they provided any special challenges or opportunities? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows the key to success in business is in how you market it. She’s taught thousands of people around the globe how to make money using their natural creative talent as home stagers through the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Technorati Tags: FSBO, staging FSBO, home stager, home staging, dolly dewald, staging diva, home staging success story, home staging program, staging diva graduate, home staging course

I haven’t heard a story that demonstrates the power of follow up better than one recently sent in by Staging Diva Graduate, Susan Atwell of New York-based AtWell Staged Home.

On a spring day in 2008, Susan was out touring model homes being built nearby, a practice she considers “continuing education for home stagers.” During her visit, Susan signed up for the builder’s mailing list under her personal email account.

Weeks later, an email came through from that builder announcing a seminar for potential home buyers with home staging being one of the topics.

This is one of those potential potholes in one’s road to success that can swallow you up if you’re not careful to simply go around it! I’ve seen so many entrepreneurs get stopped in their tracks for no good reason.

Here’s what I mean:

Many new home stagers would have been discouraged by this builder’s announcement assuming he already had a solid relationship with a home stager. Some would even blow their own disappointment into something bigger and use it as an excuse not to keep promoting themselves. They would listen to the negative voice in their heads saying, “See, this will never work. There are already well established stagers who are better than you. Who are you kidding, trying to make a living as a home stager?”

Fortunately, Susan Atwell knows that growing a business takes work and she is very single-minded in her commitment to her staging business success. She thought that in view of his upcoming event for home buyers, the builder might be interested in speaking with a local home stager so she picked up the phone and called the manager.

During this call, she learned that the builder would be offering a $1000 credit towards home staging for any buyer needing to sell their home before buying.

They had a brief discussion about recommending her company to his clients and several days later, Susan got a phone call saying that the builder would recommend Atwell Staged Home as a preferred local staging company.

Of course, Susan didn’t hang her hat on that and sit back waiting for new projects to fall in her lap, instead she continued to work on marketing her business.

She started a home staging newsletter and a blog, two topics she’s been getting coaching on during her monthly participation in Staging Diva Dialog. She also got a new company brochure (free) because of her listing on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

By the time January rolled around, having received no calls from the builder and approaching a new spring selling season, Susan decided to follow up under the guise of sharing these new resources she’d been developing.

Two weeks after that follow up note, Susan was asked by the builder to present to two potential home buyers, a presentation that ended in two scheduled home staging consultations.

After that successful engagement, Susan was asked to present again and again and she ultimately ended up with 25 hours of home staging projects from that one builder in 2009.

One of those homes was staged for a couple in the Bronx who were up-sizing to a new home. They got a signed agreement from the first couple to view their existing home making them and the builder very happy with AtWell Staged Home’s staging abilities!

About her great home staging success, Susan writes, “Having a solid business plan is key. Debra Gould’s  home staging program is extremely logical and effective. The beauty is that it is also simple. With a strong IT background, this appeals to me!”

This is not the first time I’ve written about Susan’s home staging successes. She’s followed what she learned about marketing to the media in Course 4 of the Staging Diva program and realizes that by virtue of all the articles and blog posts I write about home staging, I am a member of the media on this topic!

As a Staging Diva Graduate, Susan shares her news, giving me everything I need to write a story about her and then put it on this blog and submit it to hundreds of other sites across the Internet, which gives her tons of free publicity and web links back to her listing in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

If you’d like to take advantage of this free service for Staging Diva Students too, simply visit this link and tell me your story!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows the key to success in business is in how you market it. She’s taught thousands of people around the globe how to make money using their natural creative talent as home stagers through the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Technorati Tags: home stager, home staging, susan atwell, staging diva, home staging success story, home staging program, staging diva graduate, home staging course

Becoming a home stager was a natural evolution for Debbie Fiskum who worked with her husband doing “fix n flips” and rentals in Denver, Colorado before taking the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program and starting her business, Perfect Home Staging Denver.

It didn’t take long for Debbie to learn that there was a future in home staging because through successful staging projects she was steadily educating her market that staging works.

One excellent example is a “fix n flip” she was hired to do for a real estate investor husband and wife pair last month. The wife was sure home staging was an excellent idea but the husband wasn’t so quick to get on board. The home had been beautifully renovated and upgraded and he didn’t see the need to go further before going to market.

Luckily, the wife ended up making the ultimate decision to go ahead and stage the vacant home before putting it up for sale.

Rental furniture and accessories were brought in. Furniture was kept minimal but Debbie splurged on accessories, creating vignettes and “emotional pockets” throughout the home to draw in potential buyers.

To her clients’ delight, the home sold in two and a half weeks, at Christmas time!

That’s all it took to educate the husband about the power of home staging and needless to say, both investors will be staging all of their future investment properties.

“Taking the Staging Diva Program helped me to speak more effectively to agents, investors and homeowners and to convince them of the value of home staging,” writes Debbie. She adds, “I gained insight about marketing my business and that continues to be an ongoing process as I follow Debra on Twitter and keep up with her blog posts. By doing the things Debra recommends in her program, you can build a profitable business.”

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: home stager, home staging, staging diva, home staging training, home staging business, staging diva graduate, home staging training

Statements like, “You’re so lucky you get to work from home” and “Oh, I wish I was lucky enough to be my own boss” really bother me because it completely discounts the amount of hard work that goes into making opportunities happen in one’s life.

Luck has almost nothing to do with someone being their own boss or making their business a success. That mother working from home to be there for her family isn’t lucky. She has taken risks and invested countless hours of hard work to get herself into a position to create that life for herself and her family. She’s not doing anything that you couldn’t do yourself if you really wanted to.

One such mother who comes to mind is Staging Diva Graduate Laura Kakoschke of Hunter Lake Home Staging and Design. Laura isn’t “lucky” because she’s able to work from home and home school her three children while she earns more money than she ever did working her fancy government job.

Home Stager and Mother of 3, Laura Kakoschke

Laura made this happen by setting herself up to succeed in a business based on her natural talent for decorating.

Laura did her research and took the home staging training program that would suit her needs and allow her to build a profitable business. Then she put what she learned to use.

It was smart marketing tactics (like being listed on the highly trafficked Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers) rather than luck that helped Laura get the projects she needed to make this career work.

It wasn’t luck, but what she learned about properly pricing her home staging services that allowed Laura to start making more money than she did working in management position with the government.

Just like it’s foolish to wish you could win the lottery even though you don’t buy tickets (and actually even if you do), you can’t waste your life wishing you could fire your boss and go into business for yourself unless you make a move to make that happen.

Being in the right place at the right time can play some part in the success of a business, but mostly it’s commitment, hard work and doing something you’re passion about that will let you make your own “luck” in this world. What are you going to do with your future? Will you leave it to luck, or will you work hard to create the life you want to be living?

Home stagers, am I the only one bothered by someone saying “oh it’s different for you,” or chalking success and lifestyle up to luck? Now that you’re in your own business doing something you love, do you hear this from others too? How do you react? I’d love to hear what you think, please leave a comment below and we’ll discuss!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to become a successful home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living using their natural decorating talents to make money doing something they love.

Technorati Tags: home stager, home staging, home stagers, home staging training, staging diva, home staging business, staging program, directory of home stagers

It wasn’t until Interior Designer, Linda Scaglione, found herself in the midst of Southern California’s housing collapse that she became desperate to find a way out of the sinking retail side of design.

When a friend suggested that with her skills she should consider getting into home staging, Linda made the decision to take the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

What Linda’s friend knew was something Linda hadn’t realized at the time.

In poor economic times, nobody is spending money on frivolous things like interior design. But, with people being forced to sell their homes and wanting to keep all the equity they possibly can, they are willing to invest in a designer who is skilled in home staging.

By taking her talent and experience in interior design and combining them with the business knowledge she gained by taking the Staging Diva Program, Linda was setting herself up for great success.

Linda’s home staging business is called Haute Decors. Marketing primarily to the real estate industry, Haute Decors is known for updating existing cabinetry using decorating painting as well as providing home staging services.

Her first project after reinventing herself as a home stager saw Linda staging a condo that then sold within 24 hours! On top of that, it sold for more money than many other units in the same condo development.

The remarkable success of that project led to Linda being hired to stage a 2.6 million dollar beach home that had been sitting on the market for more than a year. After a kitchen renovation and Linda’s home staging the owner had several pending offers within one week!

About the training she received through the Staging Diva Program Linda says, “It gave me the courage to start my own interior design business specializing in home staging. For anyone wondering if the investment will be worth it, I say ‘Go for it’!”

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: reinvention as a home stager, home stager, home staging, interior designer, california home stager, haute decors, staging diva, home staging training

It’s rare today for anyone to keep the same career for a lifetime. And since we’re all living much longer than our parents’ generation, many people at the traditional retirement age, realize they still have many years ahead that they’d like to be productive, not to mention doing work they would love.

I posted an article last week about how a registered nurse and mother of four found success and creative fulfillment as a home stager. Many home stagers commented on that post sharing how they reinvented their own lives to become home stagers.

62-year old Carol shared that after working for 36 years as a hair dresser she made the decision to make a change and start her own home staging business.

Pauline’s commented that she was in such misery in her career in criminal law that she would find herself literally getting sick on her way to work in the morning. Now, as a home stager, she’s eager to start work every day.

These women inspired me to take a closer look at what some other Staging Diva Graduates have done in their lives before turning to home staging.

One of those Staging Diva Graduates is Fran Matsumoto, co-owner of Pristine Staging in Beverly Hills. Fran held jobs as an airline employee and also as the office manager to Rodney Dangerfield and his wife Joan before reinventing her life as a home stager!

The mother of a large “yours, mine, ours” blended family, Jayne Steuart’s career was spent caring for eight children, waiting for her turn to do something for herself. With her youngest child now 14 years old and her own work off the back burner, Jayne is having the time of her life as a home stager and owner of Pearl Home Staging and Redesign. (Read about one of Jayne’s home staging success stories here.)

In her early 50s, a layoff saw Donna Dazzo out of a 25+ year career in the field of financial services. Rather than taking that time to find another job in her industry, she started her own successful home staging business, Designed to Appeal. (Read more about Donna’s success as a home stager here.)

Gary Baugher left a secure management position he’d held for 15 years at a car rental company to start his Nashville home staging company, An Eye 4 Change.

Ken Sater in California started his home staging business, Creative Home Visions, after working for 18 years in mortgage banking and 14 years in the insurance industry. (Read more about both of these men and their stories here.)

In one of the more recent stories I’ve heard and possibly the most romantic, Sophia Mose “escaped” her job in London where she worked as a lawyer, to the countryside of France to work as a home stager.

Sophia writes, “I’m not having an easy time getting clients as Home Staging is an unfamiliar concept here, but I’m not giving up. If it doesn’t work here, we’ll just move to a more populated area! All the time, people are questioning my choices and telling me that I’ll regret it, but you can’t listen to that. You have to give it a try, otherwise you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Have you reinvented your life to begin your career as a home stager? Please share your own story by leaving a comment below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: career change, home stager, home stagers, home staging training, home staging business, debra gould, staging diva

Today Oprah is announcing on her show that she’s ending The Oprah Winfrey Show in September 2011 after 25 years. It’s not like she’s retiring of course. Aside from her current media empire, she’s launching her own cable TV channel and will in all likelihood have a show on there.

I saw a great clip from an interview with her last night. It was from 24 years ago and she was asked “what if your new show fails?” Without missing a beat she replied, “I’ll be OK. I’m not defined by my TV show.”

Imagine if she had let the “what if I fail” question stand in her way back then, or at the many points since where she obviously took another risk to try something new? She certainly wouldn’t be one of the most respected or the richest woman on the planet!

This week during Ask Staging Diva Live, a 56 year old woman asked me the very same question. She said, “I love decorating homes to sell. I have a career I don’t like. But how can I switch now to have a home staging business, what if I fail?”

Indeed, what if?

What if she “fails” but has some fun and learns something about herself and what it’s like having her own business along the way?

What if she keeps her current job and tries home staging on the side?

What if after a few months she decides she doesn’t like it and stops, having already made back any money she spent on staging courses and getting her staging business going?

What if, she actually discovers she was born to stage homes? That it’s the most fun she’s had in years and she realizes she can actually make money at it, quits the job she hates and has the time of her life for the next 10 or 15 years?

My biggest “what if” fear is that I’ll get to the end of my life and realize I wasted it not being happy or not doing what I was meant to do. That’s what keeps me out here pushing myself in new directions, testing my talents in new ways, risking failure but going ahead anyways! Because to my mind, wasting your life would be pretty sad.

Have you ever been afraid to fail but moved forward anyway? Or are you stuck right now thinking “what if (fill in the blank)”. What if, what?

Please share your thoughts by adding your comments to this post.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love while helping others at the same time.

Technorati Tags: home staging, fear of failure, oprah, what if, home staging business, Debra Gould, Staging Diva