I recently stumbled on this very moving passage and wanted to share it with you for Mother’s Day.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom, said Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

From: “The Prophet,” by Kahlil Gibran, 1923

I hope your Mother’s Day is filled with love and blessings.

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

Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company that is frequently profiled in the media in both the US and Canada. Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, real estate enhancement businesses.

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After staging tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate and teaching over 800 others around the world how to start a home staging business, I have created the following list of skills and talents I feel a professional home stager should have.

I developed this list by observing my students who were the most successful in building their own real estate staging business.

1. A talent for decorating and working with color.

You should be a creative individual, have a sense of space and be visual. I am not saying you need to be a trained Interior Designer or trained Decorator to be a Home Stager.

If you have a talent for it, it comes naturally. No amount of training can substitute for raw talent.

2. An interest in real estate.

You have to love looking at homes. One of the homework assignments I give in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program is to go and visit open houses and pretend the home belongs to your client. To test your powers of observation and ability to see how things can be improved, walk through the house and think about what changes you would recommend in each room. It’s an excellent way to see if you have an innate sense for home staging.

3. Organizational Skills.

You need to be very organized and be able to pay attention to detail because it is the details in the house that make a difference in a home staging project. Often times clients are emotionally attached to the house and all its possessions, and they cannot look at it with the same objective eye that a professional can.

When visiting clients’ homes, you are going to walk into some of the most chaotic environments. You will be surprised at how many people live— no matter whether they are rich or poor, or the price of their house.

You have to be somebody who innately likes to create order out of chaos.

4. Work well under pressure.

You must be able to work under very tight time lines. Few people call me 6 months before they are going to sell the house. Most call me one to two weeks before they are listing their home, or when it is already on the market. That doesn’t leave much time to complete the transformation.

5. Work well with others.

You need to be comfortable dealing with different types of people and with people who are often under stress, because selling a home can be very stressful. Many times, I deal with couples who are divorcing or somebody has died or somebody is getting transferred.

Part of what makes a good Home Stager is being able to walk in to any situation and calm the person down. You are bringing proven experience to the table to help the homeowners expedite the selling process. It is a valuable service to be able to help someone through this stressful situation and break it down for them into manageable chunks.

This skill also comes into play when you are coordinating the activities of painters, handymen, furniture rental companies and cleaners as I had to do for the house pictured above. This family room in the basement was completely transformed, along with the rest of the house, over a two week period.

The danger of undervaluing your natural talent

Often times, individuals take for granted the things that they just naturally do well and assume that everyone else knows how to do those things too. But they don’t, as evidenced by the millions of really ugly homes for sale all over the world.

Building a business around your innate skills dramatically increases your chances of success. If you feel like you have some or all of the above-mentioned skills, use your natural talents to seize the opportunity to make a living and a life doing what you love.

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

Entrepreneur and Home Staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, knows how to make money as a home stager. Discover her secrets to business success in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Free quiz to see if a home staging business is right for you

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Home owners looking to make more money when they sell their homes can catch my free tips on decorating a house to sell quickly on KFOR1240 Radio which streams live from their website, Friday April 18, 2007 at 12:30 Central/1:30 Eastern.

I’ll be interviewed by Dale Johnson about:

• what home staging is
• why it’s important
• simple design ideas home owners can do on their own
• how to know when you need the help of a professional home stager
• and more.

Listen to Lincoln Live at KFOR1240 AM if you’re in Lincoln, NE, or if you’re not you can hear the show stream live on your computer at www.kfor1240.com. On the right side of the page, look for the box that says “Live Streaming Click Here to listen LIVE!”

Please let me know what you think by adding your comments to this post!

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with 750+ Graduates worldwide. She is the author of “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Colors for Home Staging Projects”, and “Staging Diva Ultimate Guide: Creating The Perfect Portfolio to Sell Your Home Staging Services”.

Debra also offers a Directory of Home Stagers to help homeowners and real estate agents locate home stagers who will decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar.

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Simplicity is the essence of great real estate staging. When it is over contrived it fails miserably in it’s mission of romancing the prospective home buyer.

Must we continue to see tea trays carefully perched at a forty five degree angle at the end of a bed? Or towels in a bathroom with a star fish or other shell placed on top? Is that to evoke a relaxed mood?

I saw a staging segment on TV awhile back. The staging team actually hung tassels around hand towels and emptied lentils onto charger plates on the dining room table as a decorative touch.

Are prospective home buyers to think the family lives this way? Are they to immediately imagine themselves living that way in such a dream home and want it for themselves too?

“Oh honey, don’t forget to put that shell back after you dry off from the shower!”

Why not just run a special headline across the agent’s feature sheet that says, “Notice the special details to delight and surprise you in every room, because this home has been decorated to make you pay as much as possible for it.”

Homeowners, home buyers, agents, fellow stagers: reply back with comments on your pet peeves and the Stupid Staging Tricks you’ve seen. I’d like to assemble a list of bad staging ideas to share with those who would like to effectively decorate homes to sell quickly and for top dollar— without insulting home buyers intelligence!

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with 700+ Graduates worldwide. She is the author of “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Colors for Home Staging Projects”, and “Staging Diva Ultimate Guide: Creating The Perfect Portfolio to Sell Your Home Staging Services”.

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If you’re a home stager and you’ll be in Toronto Friday Feb. 22, I recommend you sign up for the Interior Design Show Trade Day.

It’s an awesome event held at Exhibition Place and it’s only $10 by advance registration (if you sign up online by today’s deadline).

This show is a great opportunity to see what the latest design trends are and find suppliers for fabrics, paint, hardware, window coverings, flooring and more.

You’ll get yourself on all kinds of industry mailing lists (if you want to), get free magazines, product samples and more. I’ve found some of my best resources at this show in previous years.

If you took my advice in course 2 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program and registered your business, you’ll qualify to attend on Trade Only Day. If not, you can go as a consumer (along with all the extended families and baby strollers) and fight the crowds to see everything over the weekend Saturday Feb. 23 and Sunday Feb. 24.

This is the 10th anniversary of The Interior Design Show with lots of great guest speakers and more.

Learn more about the show and sign up here.

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with 700+ Graduates worldwide. She is the author of “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Colors for Home Staging Projects”, and “Staging Diva Ultimate Guide: Creating The Perfect Portfolio to Sell Your Home Staging Services”

home staging, home stager, real estate staging, Interior Design Show, IDS, Staging Diva, Debra Gould, Six Elements Inc.

It’s important to spread the word about home staging to home owners, home sellers and real estate agents, especially in a softening real estate market like the United States.

To that end, I’ve started writing for American Chronicle. Check out some of my latest articles:

Selling Your Home? 7 Tips to Hiring a Professional Home Stager

Desperate Home Sellers Turn to Home Staging For a Competitive Edge

Home Staging Helps Real Estate Investors and Builders Maximize Profits

By the way, for anyone listed in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers, these efforts will help drive more traffic to your profiles.

Learn more about how to join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with 700+ Graduates worldwide. She is the author of “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Colors for Home Staging Projects”, and “Staging Diva Ultimate Guide: Creating The Perfect Portfolio to Sell Your Home Staging Services”.

Technorati Tags: home staging, home stager, real estate staging, home staging business, house fluffing, real estate enhancement, American Chronicle, Staging Diva, Debra Gould

If you’ve been itching to reinvent your life and do something that reflects your real talents, I hope you will do whatever is necessary to seize the opportunity. Changing your job, career, or lifestyle may take some work. But if you truly follow your passion, the effort will provide infinitely positive results.

Do you want your life to look the same as it does now next year?

According to a study reported in Prevention Magazine, “79% of baby boomers expect to work at least part-time well into their golden years.” The study revealed that “a growing number of adults are looking at their 40s, 50s, and 60s as the right time to start fresh in an entirely new field.”

Craving a more fulfilling and meaningful career is one area of focus during midlife adjustment. This is the time closet authors, entrepreneurs, musicians or artists begin thinking about careers to match their passion for life.

Women are well represented in this trend, with more women than ever using their midlife as a springboard to experience positive career transformations. Most often, these women want to create something that has the ability to help others while at the same time helping themselves.

According to Entrepreneur Magazine, one of the best high-growth service businesses is Home Staging. This business is particularly attractive to individuals with a passion for decorating and an interest in real estate. Home Staging is a very low cost business to start because business owners do not need to invest in inventory or a retail location. And, with the slowing U.S. real estate market, the need for home staging services will grow as desperate home sellers look for other marketing solutions to avoid the significant price cuts recommended by their agents.

Home Stagers work with a variety of clients, and no matter what the client’s circumstances, these services often make a huge difference in the lives of their clients. Reasons for selling a house vary greatly, but often real estate sellers have to sell and sell quickly because of personal, financial or medical issues.

For example, many sellers are couples going through a divorce. It is often a huge relief to them when an independent third party makes the decisions about what should be done to get the house ready for sale. They appreciate that the professional home stager has no vested interest in either the husband or wife’s point of view.

One of my clients was a couple that had decided to split. They were trapped living together for over eight months because they couldn’t sell their home and get their money out to move on with their lives. It was unhealthy for them and especially bad for their son, who was actually the woman’s from a prior marriage. Imagine all the tension in that home, combined with the pressures of having to keep it showing-ready day after day! They called me in to stage their property and then sold within the month, earning enough to each go their separate ways and buy something else (even after paying me over $2000 for my time).

I love the creativity of staging and how lucrative it is, but I also get a huge sense of satisfaction from helping people (something I didn’t get in my prior career as a marketing consultant for Fortune 500 companies).

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program with 700+ Graduates worldwide. She is the author of “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Colors for Home Staging Projects”, and “Staging Diva Ultimate Guide: Creating The Perfect Portfolio to Sell Your Home Staging Services”.

Learn more about how the Staging Diva Training Program can help you reninvent your life

Technorati Tags: home staging, home stager, real estate staging, home staging business, house fluffing, real estate enhancement, Staging Diva, Debra Gould

Many people ask me where I see the future of home staging, or whether I think it’s a fad that will die out and people will stop decorating their homes to sell quickly and for top dollar.

We’ll eventually get to the point where staging a house is something that you just do when it’s time to sell

Look what happened to “home inspections.” Most people today wouldn’t buy a home without having it inspected first in order to make sure that the roof doesn’t leak, the foundation is solid, the furnace works, etc. There was a time when nobody did home inspections, and now it’s an accepted practice. That’s where I see home staging going.

In fact, I’m already seeing that in certain neighborhoods in Toronto. That certainly wasn’t the case five years ago, but there are neighborhoods like Leaside, Riverdale and the Beach, where a good percentage of sellers always stage their homes when they put them on the market. It’s something they know that they have to do to stand out from the competition. It’s part of the process of selling a home. That will eventually be the case in most locations, especially major cities.

The future for home staging is very strong

It’s not like the world is suddenly going to say, “Let’s just go back to buying really ugly houses.” That’s not going to happen. Greater numbers of people are becoming increasingly savvy about what a difference design can make, yet they don’t have the time or talent to do it themselves.

You only have to look at prime time television to see that. There was a time when HGTV didn’t exist, but even when it first started, it was a real fringe thing. Only certain kinds of people watched decorating shows, and now everybody watches!

Oprah is always talking about decorating and design. There are home makeover shows on prime time networks and there are thousands of decorating (or “shelter”) magazines, so more and more people are becoming aware of the difference it makes when things look good and they aspire to live the lifestyle they see portrayed.

Besides, as more home sellers hire real estate stagers, others will realize they have to follow the practice otherwise their un-staged homes will look even worse by comparison.

Home Staging Marries the Sexy Topics of Decorating and Making Money in Real Estate

As people continue to look for ways to make money in real estate, home staging becomes part of the equation, so that’s never going away. Home staging marries the two sexy topics of decorating and making money in real estate, and people are always going to be interested in those two topics. I don’t see home staging being something that’s a flash in the pan and then suddenly disappearing. I see it continuing to grow.

Home Staging Growth Will Follow a Bell Curve Like Most Services or Products

Product introductions and markets follow what’s called a “bell curve.” The bell curve is like the outline of an upside down bell or a soup bowl that’s turned upside-down. In home staging today, we’re still going up the left side of the bowl. We’re at the introduction phase of home staging, but we’re starting to climb.

When you reach the top of the bowl or bell, and it flattens out, that’s when a market is mature, and it stays that way for a long time before it eventually begins to decline. But as I said, I don’t think home staging is going to decline, because people are always drawn to things that look better. It’s human nature.

There are studies that say people make up their minds about a house within minutes of walking through the front door.

In fact, some people spend less time deciding which house to buy than deciding which big screen TV to buy. It’s crazy. It’s because we respond to a home on an emotional basis. We shop with logic but we buy on emotion. When you walk through a house, you decide very quickly whether you love it or you don’t, and that’s always going to be the case.

Home staging creates an environment where more people are likely to fall in love when they walk through the front door, and that’s not going to change. I see that continuing to increase, and as more people begin to understand that, more people will realize that staging is something that they really need to do before they put their houses on the market.

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

Entrepreneur and Home Staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, knows how to make money as a home stager. Discover her secrets to home staging business success in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Free quiz to see if a home staging business is right for you!

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Members of the Staging Diva Network enjoy a supportive environment online, but there’s another benefit. Members have the opportunity to arrange to meet in the real world.

New Staging Diva Graduate Kelly Davis of The Royal Redo, LTD. in Flathead Valley Montana met Lea-Ann Virnig of Home Beautiful Staging and Design over coffee while visiting Minneapolis. Kelly writes, “it was fun to chat with another Staging Diva Graduate and have face-to-face contact with someone with the same goals and passions!”

Lea-Ann made this comment, “Getting together with a fellow Staging Diva Graduate and sharing stories and inspirations is really motivating and encouraging! Networking with other Stagers has been a huge key in the success of my business - I have learned so much and now I have been able to enjoy passing on a little of my knowledge to others! Working together we can grow our businesses successfully and help to increase awareness about the Home Staging Industry.”

This was only one of many meetings in the real world between Staging Diva Graduates. Last year four Staging Diva Graduates from New York, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey met in New York on the set of the Martha Stewart Show and enjoyed lunch and an evening out.

There’s nothing like connecting with others going through similar challenges, especially in the early days of growing a new business. That’s why I created the Staging Diva Network. For only $20 a month, members participate in an online discussion group where they can have their questions answered by me as well as fellow members.

All the discussion threads have been archived dating back to January 2006, so there is a wealth of information in addition to the new discussions going on.

Learn how to get a month FREE membership on the Staging Diva Network

Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise the standards in the industry and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell. Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, real estate enhancement businesses.

Technorati Tags: home staging, home stager, online discussion, Staging Diva Network, Home Beautiful Staging and Design, Kelly Davis, Lea-Ann Virnig, Debra Gould, Staging Diva

Many home stagers who complete the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program make $2,000 to $5,000 on their first project. Not bad for a business that costs next to nothing to get into!

But, does that mean it’s a good idea to start a business when you’re already deep in debt?

I started thinking about this after I was approached by the producer of the W Network TV show Maxed Out. It’s one of those reality shows where a financial expert helps a financially stressed woman understand how she got so deeply in debt and then gives her a plan to get out of it.

I have to admit I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who is in debt over extravagant trips, a luxury car, and a closet full of designer clothes and shoes. So perhaps I was a bit biased when they called.

But back to their concept. Apparently the wife in a couple that’s over $40,000 in debt wants to become a home stager. Maxed Out wanted me to appear on the show to help her learn about running a home staging business.

Although it’s always nice to have media exposure, I refused to participate. I don’t think anyone that’s deep in debt, with no resources behind them, should be starting a business!

You can make tons of money in home staging but it takes a great deal of commitment and follow through to make it happen. Ken Sater, a Staging Diva graduate in California, just wrote me that he staged 17 homes in his first year with an average fee over $10,000 each!

That might sound attractive to someone swimming in debt, but would such a person have the self-discipline required to get their business to that level of success?

In course 1 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program, I share my secrets of success as an entrepreneur. One of these includes having a financial safety net. If you can’t keep a roof over your head and food on your table for the next 3 months, then you don’t have the resources needed to allow you to focus on your business growth.

Start staging part time while you keep your paying job, or start an aggressive savings plan while you have a regular income. And for God sakes, stop shopping for items you can live without!

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

Home staging expert Debra Gould is the only person teaching the business of home staging who combines an MBA in marketing, almost 20 years experience as an entrepreneur and the proven track record of actually growing a successful home staging business herself from scratch— not as a sideline to a real estate practice, but as a stand alone and profitable home-based business. Debra knows from first-hand experience what it takes to get a home staging business off the ground with a shoe string budget, and she knows how to attract home staging clients as proven by the hundreds of satisfied clients she’s served.

Learn more about how to become a home stager

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