Creative types getting into the home staging industry often get sucked into wasting hundreds if not thousands of dollars on training by making these 5 common mistakes. Here’s what you want to watch out for:

1. Taking home staging courses from someone who has never been a successful home stager.

Staging Diva Debra Gould featured in 8 page spread in National Post Homes, Summer 2008

This is especially common because many companies claiming to offer you home staging credentialsare lead by people who have never earned a living as home stagers.

If you don’t think that matters, consider how likely they are to teach you things that work in the real world.

It’s easy to avoid this mistake, all you have to do is Google the trainer’s names—and company/brand names— you’re considering. You can also check them out on LinkedIn to see their employment history and education. Pay special attention to the dates.

2. Chasing after home staging credentials because you think these will give you credibility.

This is a common mistake when you’re entering a new field and worried that potential clients won’t take you seriously.

The first thing you need to recognize is that contrary to misleading claims being made in this industry, there is no such thing as an official home staging credential. If you are “certified” or “accredited”, it just means you took a particular course. This is a completely unregulated industry and anyone can offer “certified courses” because there is no law or regulation to stop them.

When I started teaching home staging courses in 2005, I deliberately chose to avoid calling Staging Diva Graduates “Certified,” because I find this misleading to potential students as well as the general public. Remember this was my choice! It’s doesn’t mean you’re any less “Accredited” as a Staging Diva Graduate than anyone else from another program. I just don’t play this marketing game for the reasons mentioned.

You can choose to call yourself “certified” no matter what program you take, since there’s not really any such thing.

The second thing to remember is that you won’t get automatic credibility if you say you’re a “Certified Stager.” Seriously, even in legitimately regulated fields (medicine, accounting, law), I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of people you wouldn’t trust no matter how many university degrees they have on their wall.

And, did you know that home inspectors aren’t even regulated? If you don’t need a special credential to call yourself a home inspector (where a mistake could lead to someone buying a property with hundreds of thousands of dollars of hidden defects), it’s unlikely there will be any great rush on the part of governments to regulate home staging.

How to gain credibility when there’s no such thing as “certification”

You get credibility from the quality of your work, the way you treat your customers, your knowledge and contributions to your industry, your marketing efforts and any media attention you receive. The right home staging courses will address all of these factors and teach you what you need to know to present yourself in a professional way.

So make sure you find out exactly what you’ll be learning rather than just letting “certification” be your guide. Take a proper look at the description of each course, get a free sample, talk to your trainer.

3. Assuming that because a home staging course is endorsed by an association that it’s more official.

House and Home Magazine recommends contacting Staging Diva to find the right stager.

There are many associations claiming to be the voice of the home staging industry. Some provide useful information to their members.

If you’re assuming home staging associations are completely independent and objective, dig a little to find out if that’s true.

Most are owned by people who also own home staging schools or offer training themselves, or their boards of directors are made up of trainers. So, naturally they’ll endorse their own programs.

Others charge a fee to home staging training companies to be endorsed by them. So if they don’t endorse a particular program it may only mean that the training company didn’t choose to “apply” to be recognized by them.

If an association is not completely independent, you cannot assume because a home staging course is recognized by them that it automatically means it’s good training. If might very well be a great program, but you should look closer to make sure it meets your needs.

4. Assuming that all testimonials you read are legitimate.

You’ll never know with 100% certainty unless you contact the person giving the rave review personally. If  the website running the testimonial uses incomplete names or doesn’t provide a photo and location, consider this a red flag. There should be enough information provided to show that there’s a real person behind the words, and to make it possible for you to Google them if you want to.

Really read through these testimonials to see what kind of things they talk about. You’ll gain some insight into the types of people that take various programs and what they were looking for and why. If all it says is “great program” that might mean it was great for them, but it doesn’t mean it’s great for you.

Different students have different needs. Consider yours when you’re evaluating any home staging course.

5. Believing that the presence of media logos on someone’s website means the person is a recognized expert in the home staging field.

Sadly, anyone can put logos on their website, whether or not they’ve actually appeared in that magazine, newspaper or on a particular TV show.

So don’t take logos or claims of media attention at face value. Look for actual TV clips, visuals of the actual pages they were on, or story excerpts that appear credible. Sometimes you’ll even find links to the story on the media company’s website. I provide these wherever possible when I mention a story or any Staging Diva media appearance.

Conclusion/Next Steps

The key message here is take some time to consider what you’re being told rather than taking it all at face value. There are great home staging courses for people with different needs. When you have a better picture of what you’re looking for and why you want to take a course, then you’re in a better position to evaluate whether you’ve found the right one.

Less than an hour of research will point you in the right direction to find the right training for you.

If you need more help, consider reading these 15 questions to ask before investing in home staging courses. You’ll also find The Staging Diva Difference explains what makes my own program unique in the industry.

If you want to learn more about making a great living as a home staging, I hope you’ll grab your free subscription to Home Staging Business Report! Simply fill in your name and email in the box at the top left of this page and you’ll receive an email update whenever I write an article here. Generally once or twice a week, tops, you’ll have a summary of the story with the opening paragraph and you can decide if you want to click through and read the rest. A great way to stay on top of home staging job postings too!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Voice of Possibility Group Inc.

Debra Gould has been an entrepreneur since 1989 and knows how to make money as a home stager. She developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. There are now more than 7,000 students in over 20 countries learning from her many products and services for home stagers.

Home stagers often get frustrated in their home staging marketing efforts to real estate agents. An Ottawa home stager summed up many of our frustrations with this comment on Facebook:

“Answer me this….why are real estate agents so cheap they don’t care about VALUE & RESULTS they only care about the cost?!”

The shortest answer to her question is that most real estate agents are making very little money right now and they’re not willing to spend any more than is absolutely necessary on a listing, especially when they don’t know if the house will sell at all.

Real estate agents aren’t employees with guaranteed pay checks.

Home stagers have almost no ongoing expenses to keep their businesses running and we get paid when we provide our services when we follow the Staging Diva formula for starting and growing a home staging business.

Unlike us, real estate agents have considerable ongoing expenses with no money coming in until a deal closes. Without this positive cash flow, really why would they want to spend money on your home staging services when they won’t get it back for many months, if at all?

This is one of the MANY reasons I advise against putting all your marketing efforts towards real estate agents which is a common mistake made by home stagers who haven’t listened to Course 4 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

That said, real estate agents are one of our 4 key target markets. They can help build awareness for the importance of home staging in general and for a preferred home stager’s services in particular.

To better your chances that a real estate agent will recommend your home staging business over your competition, here are 5 secrets real estate agents need to hear from you:

1. Home staging will make it easier for you to market and sell your listings because your MLS photos will be 100% more enticing, and once visiting a property, home buyers are more likely to make an offer on a home that shows well.

2. With 70% (US) to 90% (Canada) of home buyers searching online before ever calling a real estate agent, you will attract more leads with better photos, not only for the staged listing but from active buyers who will want you to show them other properties too.

3. Home stagers can address problems head on and tell your clients the things you don’t want to say for fear of losing your listing. With so many people selling a home due to divorce, a home stager is an independent third party who will save you from having to get in between the different opinions of each spouse.

4. Home staging is a service you can recommend to your clients as a faster way to sell their home for more money, but it’s not a service you personally have to pay for.

5. Your clients don’t want to hear you recommend a $10,000, $20,000 or $50,000 price reduction because that’s money right out of their pockets. Home staging services can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars for a consultation up to several thousand dollars to fully furnish a large or very high-end home. In every case, the cost to your client will be significantly less than the price reduction. This makes for a much easier conversation with your clients and keeps you on the “same team.”

These are only some of the many marketing ideas, strategies and tips I share in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Program, “Staging Diva Sales & Marketing Secrets to Boost your Home Staging Business.” In this home staging course, I also share how to build your home staging business without spending any money on advertising  while attracting home sellers who are prepared to really invest in staging their homes for the real estate market.

Home stagers, have you found any other phrases particularly helpful when explaining the benefits of what you do to real estate agents? Please share your thoughts and experiences by commenting below.

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

Debra Gould has been an entrepreneur since 1989 and knows how to make money as a home stager. She developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. There are now more than 7,000 students in over 20 countries learning from her many products and services for home stagers.

Tree decorated by Monica Bunde for her client.

As a home stager you have many creative talents that can help you make money, especially during the holiday season when there are fewer home sellers looking for our home staging services.

Staging Diva Graduate, Monica Bunde of Create Home Staging takes her staging hat off at this time of year and promotes her services decorating for the holiday season.

For example, she just completed a holiday decorating project for a local senior’s home. She says that “A tree, a Santa’s village display, exterior pillars, railings and urns were transformed into a festive winter wonderland. The seniors were so very excited, almost as excited as I was to do it … and it’s those little things that just make this time of year so special.”

You could call Monica an international stager as she runs her staging business in both Ontario and Michigan. This is not as uncommon as you might think! Several Staging Diva Graduates spend part of the year in one location or travel back and forth between cities, states (and even countries), depending on the season, where other family members are, etc. That’s why when you join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers, you can choose up to 4 states/provinces and 10 locations to serve.

Monica will be continuing to build her home staging business in the new year with a regular home staging column for a local news website, Today’s Windsor. This is an excellent marketing strategy for establishing yourself as a home staging expert and to have your name and company name appear more prominently in Google search results. Way to go Monica, you’re off to a great start for 2012!

Have you had any success marketing your holiday decorating services? How about writing for other publications or websites? Please share you thoughts and experiences here!

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

Debra Gould has been an entrepreneur since 1989 and knows how to make money as a home stager. She developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. There are now more than 7,000 students in over 20 countries learning from her many products and services for home stagers.

Sarah Richardson holiday decorating idea as featured in the Globe and Mail.

Home stagers, the holiday season is definitely upon us and this means a gradual slow down in your home staging business over the coming weeks.

A great way to bring in extra money at this time of year is with holiday decorating. A TV News producer contacted me to appear on camera this week with my tips to “deck the halls.” They know I’m an expert home stager, yet I have never promoted myself as a seasonal decorator.

I declined the tempting offer because it’s totally not my expertise and something I personally feel intimidated by.

Everything I know about holiday decorating is what I pick up from reading news stories, like this one in the Globe & Mail featuring Sarah Richardson’s festive decor tips. She suggests combining orange and pink for an alternate festive color scheme which I found clever.  I also loved what she did with the urns pictured in this post.

For my own media opportunity, I put the word out to Staging Diva Graduates who might be interested in appearing on camera this week instead of me. As always, first dibs went to members of the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

If you’re not a member yet, you should be. It’s not only a great place for clients to find your staging and redesign business, but it also leads to media coverage and guest speaking opportunities.

We build a professional webpage for you within 7 days of when you submit your Directory materials for less than the cost of a nice blender (I happened to be reading Christmas sale flyers filled with kitchen gadgets so I know!). You even get a custom company brochure that website visitors can download, and a print version that you can hand out in meetings— it’s included in the cost of an annual hosting plan! Get the full scoop on how to join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers here.

Anyway, back to seasonal decorating . . .

If you’re more comfortable than I am with the art of decorating for the Christmas season, and you love doing it, consider how many people are too busy or overwhelmed to take this on themselves. You might decorate the inside and outside of their home, decorate for a Christmas or New Year’s Eve/Day party or even transform an office or showroom for the holidays!

Home Staging is not equally busy all year round because it follows real estate cycles.

In the Staging Diva Program I discuss ways for you to even out your cash flow by combining your staging business with things like:

• interior redesign
• color consulting
• professional organizing
• seasonal decorating

What you choose should not only come from your desire to make money but also be a function of your interests. I don’t believe in starting your own business only to do things you don’t like! If you’re going to make the effort to be your own boss, make sure you consider what your interests and natural talents are.

If you love holiday decorating and have a natural talent for it, then why not go for it?

There are no rules when you’re an entrepreneur. If you see an opportunity that inspires you then why not take advantage of it? The idea that you should only build a business that you’ll REALLY want to work in, is a theme that runs throughout the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, especially in course 4 “Staging Diva Sales and Marketing Secrets to Boost Your Home Staging Business.”

I don’t act on every opportunity that comes my way, but I certainly consider the ones that inspire me. When it’s something that just isn’t “my thing” or I’m too busy to take it on, I refer those inquiries to Staging Diva Graduates as I did with the TV News story for this week.

To be honest, I don’t even plant my own outdoor urns for winter and I always hire someone else to do it for me. I’ve never used little white lights in them but Sarah has given me the idea to try it out this season!

Home stagers and redesigners, have you been approached by potential clients to help them with their seasonal decorating? Do you do any marketing of that service?

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is President of Six Elements Inc. and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. An entrepreneur for almost 25 years and author of several guides, Debra has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate and uses her expertise to train others worldwide.

This is part 2 of a feature on home staging marketing strategies, where home stagers learn how to promote their services to real estate agents at an open house.

In part 1, I discussed your first objective in using this home staging marketing strategy which was: initiating and starting to build your relationship with the real estate agent.

Now for part 2. Here I discuss your second objective which is:

Demonstrating your own expertise as a home stager

This is where you give the real estate agent a sample of your expertise. You might say something like this:

“If I were doing a home staging consultation for this home seller, I might have suggested . . . for this room. This one simple change would really . . .  which will make the home much more appealing to prospective buyers.”

In this way you’re providing a free sample of the kind of helpful advice you give your clients.

The analogy here is the free spritz of perfume you get while walking past the cosmetic counters in a department store, or the food samples you get at the grocery store. My 3 year old used to love going to Costco and shouting “free food” while pointing to each new sampling station. If you’re anything like me you went in for 5 must-have items and came out with a cart full of stuff you never intended to buy, especially from the food section!

Notice this “free sample” of your home staging talent, delivered to an agent at a real estate open house, only took a maximum of 15 minutes of your time (to walk around the house and then provide your one or two suggestions).

This is a much more effective strategy than falling into the free home staging estimate trap which is where you go out to do an estimate for a potential client and before you know it, you’ve actually done a free home staging consultation!

The real estate agent may pass your suggestions on to the home seller as his/her own, but that doesn’t matter. The point is you’ve still given a solid example of how you know how to make a home easier to sell without doing anything too complicated, expensive or time consuming. And, this is key when you’re speaking to agents who may have no first-hand experience working with a home stager, or who may have been unhappy with a previous experience.

For easy design ideas that you can use with both real estate agents and home sellers, see the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans.

Giving the real estate agent an easy way to recommend you to their client

By handling your meeting at the open house with the agent in this fashion, you’ve also provided a way for the agent to bring up the subject of home staging to his/her client by saying something like:

“We’re really not getting any offers on your home as it stands right now, but a home stager can make suggestions that will make your home more appealing to buyers. One stopped by the open house today and she recommended for example that you . . . . imagine what other ideas she might have for us? Here’s her card and brochure, perhaps you should give her a call!”

You can plant that idea in your conversation. Consider how tough it is for an agent to bring up home staging if they’ve already had the listing for a long time. You’ve just given them a way to ease into the topic with their clients!

Stay tuned for part 3 in this series where I discuss objective number 3 of using this marketing strategy, which is:

Educating the real estate agent about how home staging can help him/her make more money

Until then, I would love for you to share your thoughts on this article so far.  Have you tried this sampling technique when meeting agents at open houses? Had they ever used a home stager before?

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

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business. There are many ideas for marketing to real estate agents in course 4, Staging Diva Sales and Marketing Secrets to Boost Your Home Staging Business.

Home stagers are noticing that home values have dropped significantly in many areas of North America with “short sales” becoming more common, although they still represent only a fraction of all listings.

A short sale occurs when (as defined in the Home Staging Glossary by Staging Diva) a lender agrees to allow a homeowner to sell a home for less than what is owed on the property. This typically occurs because the seller has a hardship (unemployment, medical issues, divorce) or because the seller owes more on the mortgage than the home is worth. A short sale allows the lender and homeowner to avoid the lengthy and expensive foreclosure process, and while a short sale often has a negative effect on a homeowner’s credit, the impact is typically less than that of a bankruptcy or foreclosure.

Home staging can play an important role in short sales, but it’s all about the timing.

The short sale process varies with each lender, but in many cases, the lender requires that a buyer submit an offer at the same time the seller submits the short sale paperwork to the bank. In this situation, it may not be in the seller’s best interest to stage the property since the lender will likely require an appraisal before approving the short sale. Home staging has been proven to raise the value of a home, so it could work against a seller who is counting on a low appraisal in order to obtain short sale approval from the bank.

In other cases, a lender might approve a short sale before the home is put on the market. (Similarly, a home might be considered an “approved short sale” if it has already gone through the process described above resulting in bank approval, but the buyer chooses to cancel the contract.)

In situations like these, home staging can be beneficial for the seller in order to better compete with other properties on the market. While the seller will not benefit directly from an increased sales price since the bank receives all proceeds of the sale, there is still an important reason for homeowners to put their best foot forward: The short sale process can take a long time with many buyers dropping out along the way, so it’s important to create a situation where a serious buyer falls in love with the home and is willing to see the process through from beginning to end.

For example, Staging Diva student Peggy Harrington of Wow Factor Home Staging waited until her property was approved for a short sale and then staged it. She had 4 offers within a day! She says, “We did not get anything at closing nor did we bring anything to the table. We did, however, get out from under the financial burden and were able to move on with our lives very quickly. To us, that was priceless!”

This topic is covered in my latest FREE REPORT, “Ask Staging Diva: Should I start a home staging business in this economy?” It’s been updated with 2010 statistics and the latest numbers for 2011, you can get your free copy here.

Home stagers, do you have a story of your own about how short sales have helped you build your business? Please share by leaving a comment below.

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

Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. More than 4000 Staging Diva Students around the world have been trained by Debra, who encourages anyone concerned about starting or growing a staging business in this economy to download her special report: “Ask Staging Diva: Should I start a home staging business in this economy?”

Photo credit: Woodleywonderworks

Many aspiring home stagers are reluctant to start a business because they claim that nobody will spend money on home staging in this economy. However, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has released statistics saying that American consumers plan to spend more than $447 billion dollars today – the day that has become the unofficial launch of the holiday shopping season.

Traditionally on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers go from being in debt (in the red) to turning a profit (in the black), luring shoppers into their stores with fabulous sales and promotions, hence the name, “Black Friday.”

Compared to 2009 spending habits, $447 billion is an increase of 2.3%!

Home stagers, while it’s true that everyone’s pretty careful about spending these days, as those numbers from the NRF say, if someone really wants or needs something, they WILL spend money on it.

As a perfect example, Apple released their new iPad in April, right in the middle of a recession. This is a gadget nobody had ever heard of before and nobody truly needs. They range in price from $499 to $829 before factoring in the cost of required accessories.

By September, they had sold 3.27 million of them!

Just like Apple did an excellent job of making 3.27 million people think they need their new gadget, as home stagers, you have to make homeowners understand that you can improve their bottom line!

So stop thinking that nobody will spend money on home staging because they will if you show them why they need it.

One way to do this is to remind homeowners of the difference between a cost and an investment. When I think of something that “cost” me money, I understand the money’s gone and that’s that. But when I make an investment, I plan to see a return on my money. Home staging is an investment in your single largest financial asset, just like home staging training is an investment in your future.

This is the perfect time to make that investment because until midnight (Eastern time) tonight, during my Black Friday sale, when you spend a minimum of $100 at the Staging Diva Store you save 15% on your total order!

With Thanksgiving on everyone’s mind, I hope you’ll think about how you want to live in 2011 and what it will take to get you there. I’ve made my staging courses, checklists and other resources as accessible to you as possible. For example, you can save from $400 to almost $600 on the 5-course training program today only. When you order the courses in the download format, you’ll receive it in your inbox within minutes so you can get started on your training right away from the comfort of your own home.

This offer ends at midnight so to take advantage of the savings, visit the Staging Diva Store now!

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

Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. More than 4000 Staging Diva Students around the world have been trained by Debra, who encourages anyone concerned about starting or growing a staging business in this economy to download her special report: “Ask Staging Diva: Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?”

I read a post on Active Rain a few weeks ago written by a real estate agent fed up with people trying to work out his paycheck by multiplying the price of a house he was selling by 6%.

Everyone assumes he must be filthy rich and he said in his post that many agents do the same type of math, lulling themselves into a world of delusion where they believe they’re actually doing okay. He stated (and I agree) that this is a dangerous perception that will lead to bankruptcy.

The real estate agent in the article worked out his hourly wage. He figured out all of the fees that he has to pay his broker and added that in with his other bills including:

• Car payment/maintenance/fuel, etc.
• Cell phone bill and other utilities
• Desk fees
• Signage
• Office supplies
• Assistant’s salary
• Referral fees
• Gifts
• Registration fees
• Business meals
• Apparel
• Health insurance
• Taxes
• Promotional items
• Marketing
• And the list goes on and on and on

When he got that big number and figured it all out – including the fact that most times there are two agents sharing that 6% commission which is now more often 5% – and he wrote down the number of hours he works (roughly 14 or so a day), he discovered after doing his calculations that he was actually only earning $17/hour.

This real estate agent was one of the top producing agents in his office. I suspect that most agents are actually earning closer to half of that number, especially those who are new to the business.

Home stagers have a much higher earning potential than this. In my second year as a home stager I was earning up to $10,000 a month and unlike real estate agents, home stagers don’t have to worry about starving to death in a “slow real estate market” because no matter what the market is doing, home staging still works.

If you’re a real estate agent giving away free home staging advice to your clients, did you ever stop to consider that your passion for interior design and talent for home staging could make you a lot more money than collecting real estate commissions?

Depending on where you live, you can earn anywhere from $300 to $600 for a single home staging consultation. And your only real expenses are your fuel because everything else is billed to the client. Remember, that’s only the money you’re making from home staging consultations, that’s not even counting what you can earn if you actually turn some of those consultations into full-blown home staging projects.

Real estate agents, are you giving away your valuable home staging knowledge for free when it could be earning you tens of thousands of dollars per year? I urge you to read an article I wrote on this topic called “Recession Proof Your Real Estate Career” because it will really help put things into perspective for you.

You may also benefit from reading a free report I wrote about why home staging works in any economy (opposed to how it works in real estate) titled, “Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?”

Home stagers, did you start out as a real estate agent sick of living from commission check to commission check? 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 Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.

A home stager will struggle to make money when they don’t charge enough for their staging services. Here are 3 tips to help you establish your home staging fees:

1. Consider all the time you don’t get paid for.

If you think $75 or even $200 per hour is too much to charge a client for home staging, remember the many hours you put into your business that no one pays for.

As a home stager, you spend time on many other non-paying tasks, like:

• researching decorating and design trends
• understanding the local real estate market
• writing home staging blog posts and newsletters
• networking with real estate agents, home owners and home sellers
• negotiating with suppliers
• preparing for client appointments
• answering potential clients’ questions in advance
• scheduling and re-scheduling appointments
• travel time to and from meetings and running business errands
• follow up calls (before, during and after the staging or redesign project)
• keeping track of client expenses and time on each staging or redesign project
• bookkeeping
• standing in line at the bank
• shopping for office supplies
• maintaining your home staging website

2. Consider the many benefits you bring to your home staging clients.

Do you believe you provide real value to your clients? If you don’t believe this, it will be very difficult to convince them. It might help to think about the many benefits you can bring to a client if you do the job well.

Don’t fall into the trap of feeling embarrassed about your rates. Done well, a home staging project should generate anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 profit for the homeowner.

So, why shouldn’t a professional home stager be paid well?

This was my home staging client’s house. It sold for $71,000 over the asking price.

The client invested about $950 in my advice during a home staging consultation.

Someone could easily say, “wow, $950 just for advice, that’s a lot of money!”

But if you asked them, “what if you could invest $950 and make $71,000?”, few people would consider that too expensive.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “it’s a slow real estate market, my clients aren’t going to make that kind of profit on my services.”

There are thousands of “proof home staging works” examples of homes that have languished on the slow real estate market for months (or years) until they were decorated to sell. If home staging can save a client from the costs of carrying a house they don’t want, not to mention saving them from the emotional costs of having their lives on hold waiting to sell, how much is that worth?

Home Staging is an investment in a potentially significant return for the client. Consider this when determining your rates.

3. Remember that when you’re in a service business you are  selling  your time.

You have a limited “inventory” of your time.  Since you can’t manufacture more hours in a week, the only way to earn more is to charge more for your time. You will never make real money as a home stager until you get your pricing strategy right!

The Staging Diva course “The Business of Home Staging: What you need to start and how to grow” includes a detailed discussion of how to properly charge for your home staging services.

If you’ve already taken the course, now is a great time to review your notes so you make sure you earn what you’re worth this fall real estate season. Would you believe people start hiring home stagers for the fall market in only 3 weeks?

If you haven’t taken course 2, you can order and download a recording of it right away. You’ll make your investment back easily on your first client because I share with you everything I’ve learned about pricing based on my MBA training and the real world experience of being an independent entrepreneur since 1989.

I have also built a lucrative home staging business from scratch in a very competitive market.

In Staging Diva course 2, you’ll learn what I charged clients when I started in 2002 and how I systematically increased my rates over time. I’ll share the single biggest discovery I made in how to best price home staging services for profit.

You’ll also learn what home stagers charge all over North America and how to avoid the mistakes most of them are making!

Discover the ONLY Home Staging Business Training Program taught by a seasoned entrepreneur who has successfully grown her own home staging business (not as a side-line to selling real estate). With an MBA in marketing and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to make money as a home stager.

I often hear form aspiring home stagers who say, “There are no home stagers in my area, so there must not be a demand for this service.” Just as often, I am told the exact opposite by others, “There are already home stagers in my area. I’m sure there will be too much competition for me to enter this market.”

In both cases, these notions become excuses for not going forward. You can talk yourself out of anything with the right arguments, but you may be jumping to a whole bunch of conclusions that are not justified. If you really have a dream of becoming a home stager, you owe it to yourself to verify these negative assumptions before just giving up.

If there are no home stagers in your area and there are also no homes for sale, then you’re right there is probably no demand for home staging in your area. You need to live in (or within driving distance of) an actual real estate market for there to be any potential demand for your home staging services.

I guarantee that your market isn’t saturated with home stagers, I don’t care where you live.

Compare for a moment how many real estate agents there are in the same area! Then research how many homes sell in your real estate market in a year. How many of these properties will you have to get as clients to make a living? An incredibly small percentage if you learn how to price your staging services correctly which is something I cover in detail in course 2 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

If you fear there is already a lot of home staging competition in your area, you need to find out if this is really the case. More importantly, you also need to find out the calibre of the competition. I don’t mean how well they arrange furniture (though this is important), I mean how well they market themselves. For example:

• Do they come across as real professionals?
• Do they sound confident about what they do?
• Are they able to explain what they do for clients in a compelling way?
• Are they easy to find when you’re ready to hire a home stager?
• Are they easy to speak to?
• Do they listen well?
• Are they likeable?

Don’t just look at their websites and assume all these great qualities if it’s a great site.

The competitive picture might look a whole lot different if you actually pick up the phone and speak to them.

There are a lot of “home stagers” who aren’t actually serious about their businesses. It’s more of a creative hobby for them, and you’ll be able to spot them as soon as they open their mouths to explain what they do!

And if your “competitors” have unprofessional, do-it-yourself-and-I’ve-never-done-it-before-websites, you’ve learned you don’t need to worry about competition from them as long as you market your own home staging business the right way.

One of the first homework assignments I have Staging Diva students complete during my home staging courses, is an assessment of their competition. This is not homework they have to submit for marking. It’s homework they should be doing as part of starting up a home staging business, which is why I make it homework. It’s my little way of nudging new home stagers to focus on the tasks that will be the biggest boost to their businesses.

I’ve taught thousands of students and they consistently discover that the home staging competition is not as intimidating as they first thought. If you’d like more tips on how to measure the need for home staging in your local real estate market, download this FREE report, Ask Staging Diva: Should I Start a Home Staging Business in This Economy?

So what if the competition does look tough?

Then you have to resolve to step up to the plate and give it all you’ve got if you truly want to make money as a home stager. I’ve learned from experience over the years that a lack of serious competition can make you a bit lazy. It’s human nature to start taking it easy once we’ve mastered something. One sharp competitor and it’s amazing how much better you get at boosting your own home staging business! I always fine-tune my own game when I look at what others are doing. And if you’re in the lead, it pays to look over your shoulder occasionally to see what the newcomers are up to.

The cool thing is that home staging is a growing industry and the sooner you jump in and establish yourself as THE local expert, the better you will stand up to any competitors coming up behind you.

Home stagers, how has the competition affected your staging business? If you’re just starting to think about home staging, has worrying about the competition stopped you? Please share 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.