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

Judging by the professional quality of her photographs and the dramatic transformations shown in her before and afters, you would probably never guess that the owner of Holly’s Home Matters, a home staging company located in Bel Air Maryland, has actually spent the past 20 years working as a Registered Nurse.

In fact, Staging Diva Graduate, Holly Battaglia is the mother of four children aged 7-14 and she still works part-time as a nurse while operating her creatively fulfilling home staging business on a full-time basis.

The fact that Holly can make positive changes in people’s lives through home staging while working part-time to help people in the most literal sense as a nurse is remarkable.

Holly recently wrote me to share her most memorable home staging experience where she left quite a lasting impression on her client.

After a home had sat on the market for ten months, the owners switched real estate agents and the new agent called Holly on Labor Day. That evening, Holly met with the exasperated homeowners and their new agent to discuss what needed to happen get the home sold. Four days later the home was completely transformed.

The property sold that weekend after its first showing post-staging.

The price had been increased to cover the costs of staging and updates, but they actually received over and above their asking price.

Holly writes, “This was a couple that spoke minimal English but they were very trusting of everything I did. Four difficult days of rearranging, bringing in updated furniture and hauling unwanted clutter to the dump, all paid off. It was a great feeling. This past New Years the homeowner emailed me from his home in Korea to thank me once again. He wanted to know if I remembered him because he would never forget me. It was the most rewarding project I’ve ever been part of.”

The fact that Holly is able to manage a large family, continue working as a registered nurse part-time and operate a successful home staging business should inspire many people wondering if they could manage to stage homes around their “day job.”

Do you operate your home staging business alongside another professional career? Did you leave a meaningful career to explore the world of home staging? Please share your experiences 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: home stager, home staging business, staging diva, holly battaglia, home staging business, home staging success story, proof home staging works

There are a handful of Staging Diva Graduates who stay in very close contact with me making them impossible to forget. I love connecting with students on Twitter, Facebook and through the comments they leave on my blog.

One of these home stagers is Heather Stewart of HS Home Staging located in Langley, British Columbia. Heather recently informed me in a message on Facebook that she has been named the 2009 New Entrepreneur of the Year for her local Chamber of Commerce.

I am very proud of Heather whose reason for starting her business inspired me and many others after she left a comment on a blog post I wrote almost a year ago about the price it can cost you to not follow your dream.

Heather candidly shared that after struggling to recover from a mental illness, she decided to honor her ability to survive by combining her creativity and business skills to start her own home staging business. She wrote, “I’m working hard to grow the business, maintain my health and survive while the business develops. This is one path I will NOT regret not having taken! I draw on my courage every day and know that I am in the right place at the right time, doing what I need to do.”

Heather is using all of the marketing advice she was given through the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program and has embraced the world of online marketing and social media being very active on Twitter, Facebook, Active Rain and as a frequent commenter here on the Home Staging Business Report.

HS Home Staging is listed on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers where Heather showcases her fabulous logo, smartly written sales copy and before and after photos that only reflect true transformations, demonstrating her talent.

I hope you all join me in offering my sincere congratulations to Heather. I know she’s an inspiration to all of us.

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: staging diva, staging diva graduate, BC home stager, heather stewart, HS home staging, home staging training, home stager

Vacation is usually a wonderful thing. Rest, relaxation, an escape from the everyday. But sometimes, a brief break from a job we hate forces us to face what life can be like when we enjoy our days rather than dread them. Long before the holiday is over we feel our stress level go up again as we recognize that returning to our job actually sucks the life out of us.

If you’re feeling a little jealous of your children getting excited about going back to school while all you have to look forward to is another long stretch of doing work that doesn’t fulfill you, this is the perfect time to consider your options.

Life is all about choices and believing that you have to just endure, rather than enjoy, your days isn’t living in the real sense of the word. When you start a business doing something you love and excel at, it will feel like a privilege to get up and go to work every day.

Staging Diva Graduate, Traci Sampsell of The Finer Stage, wrote me after starting her home staging business to say, “Every day I hit the floor with my feet running and I’m disappointed when the day is over because I still have so much that I want to do!”

If you’re sick of spending your days working for someone else in a job you don’t care about, and you have a passion and a flare for decorating, have you considered becoming a home stager?

Remember, when you’re unhappy in your work, you can’t help but bring that negativity home with you. You owe it to yourself and your entire family to explore all of your options until you find what makes you happy. After all, do you want to teach your children to live for weekends and vacations, spending most of their lives doing work that doesn’t make them happy?

If you think it might be time to consider a career in home staging, take the free Staging Diva Quiz and see if a home staging business could be the right fit for you. If it is, you’ll be one step closer to going on a permanent vacation from your job and living your real life!

Imagine waking up excited because you get to spend another day using your innate talents to do work that you love while also helping others.

Home stagers, I’m sure many of you have quit a job you hated to start your businesses. Please share your story by leaving a comment below. You might help inspire someone to follow their dream!

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 training, home staging business, staging diva, staging diva graduate, debra gould, becoming a home stager