Home Stagers are Hot!

Home staging combines the popular topic of decorating/design, with the even sexier topic of making money in real estate. In other words, home staging is HOT!

Don’t just take my word for it, Entrepreneur Magazine identified home staging as one of the hottest growth businesses, and the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program is the only home staging business opportunity they’ve recognized in their two 2006 guides to business startups.

How do you use being in a hot business to your advantage?

If you’re a new (or even established) home stager, you can use being in a hot profession to grab the limelight and stand out from the crowd at your next networking event (or almost any other gathering you happen to find yourself at.

Read more about how to leverage being in a hot field if you're a home stager.

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) — The Staging Diva Training Program. 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 start and grow a profitable home staging business.

Feeling isolated in your home staging business?

The Staging Diva Network is an online discussion group for Graduates of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

It's a supportive community where you can share the joys and challenges of building your business.

I answer home staging business building questions within this forum and you also get advice from others in the group.

You'll learn lots and feel inspired by the discussions with your fellow Staging Diva Graduates. They come from all over the US and Canada, from major urban centers and smaller cities. All have knowledge and encouragement to share.

Right now we're discussing things like negotiating commissions, speaking at events, challenges on first projects, helpful resources and more.

Learn more about the Staging Diva Network Online Discussion Group!
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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.

Debra Gould stages home to sell $71,000 over asking

This home sold in days for $71,000 over the asking price. The owner credits my home staging advice for getting them so much money, but I didn't even have to personally decorate the house to sell!

They called me for a home staging consultation many months before they were going on the market. The husband and wife followed me around for 3 hours as I went through each room with them in detail. The goal was turning their house into a home that would appeal to the greatest number of potential buyers.

I measured most of their furniture and told them how to rearrange it to create an inviting sense of space. I recommended a new floor and vanity for the powder room, and new lighting for many of the others. I picked new paint colors for the whole house, told them where to get new cabinet hardware for their kitchen and told them what clutter to put in storage. Just like a critical buyer would, I opened every closet and cupboard and told them how to rearrange things to look like they had more than enough room for everything.

They had quite a "To Do" list by the end of my visit, but following through on it really paid off for them! Many homeowners won't have the energy to do all the things I suggest so they get my team to handle it for them. But these folks wanted to save money. Yet, they were smart enough to realize that investing in three hours of a home staging expert's time was a worthwhile investment. In fact I was able to dissuade them from a costly renovation they were contemplating before the sale. That piece of advice alone saved them thousands of dollars!

Bottom line, they invested $900 in my advice, spent about $5,000 on the changes I recommended and sold for an extra $71,000. How many other legal investments do you know of, that produce such a significant return so quickly?

I teach my Staging Diva students the techniques I use during a home staging consultation in my course "Taking the Mystery Out of a Home Staging Consultation." It also includes a critical discussion of how I turn a prospect into a paying client!

You can order a recording of the Staging Diva course and complete course notes along with The Staging Diva Checklist for only $179. An amount you'll make back with your first client!

This course will help get you ready to really build your business for the spring 2006 real estate market! Here's what one of my students had to say about it:

"I enjoyed every minute of the class. Your notes have me totally pumped."

Lori Mofford, Lorinda Moffard Interiors

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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.

Home Stager Debra Gould shares her money making secrets with The Wall Street Journal

Home Staging expert Debra Gould of Six Elements Inc. shares her money making secrets with The Wall Street Journal in Tricks of the Trade "Setting up a Home for Sale".

Gould started decorating client's homes to sell after staging 5 of her own over an 8 year period. Her number one trick to making money in real estate is buying the ugliest house in the best location.

Then she turns her home staging talents to restyling the ugly bits to appeal to the greatest number of buyers when it's time to sell. She has done the same for hundreds of clients over the past 3 years. Most earn somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000 profit on Debra Gould's Home Staging services.

Read Debra Gould's interview with Hannah Kate Kinnersely of The Wall Street Journal.


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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 home staging industry standards 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.

10 reasons to look at home staging as a great new business opportunity

If you have a flair for decorating and you're interested in real estate, Home Staging could be the right business for you.

Home Staging is also called House Fluffing, Real Estate Enhancement, Home Styling. This service business is based on the art of decorating a home to sell quickly and for top dollar.

And Home Staging is a great service business to run from a home office for these 10 reasons:

1. Home Staging is a low cost business to start.

You don't need to invest in any inventory (unless you want to). You also don't need a store front or expensive advertising to grow your home staging or house fluffing business successfully.

2. It does not require specialized training or official credentials because there are none for the Home Staging industry.

Despite what some organizations claim for their own marketing reasons, there are no official credentials to be a Home Stager. You can call yourself a Professional Home Stager today and no one can say anything about it. Of course calling yourself a Home Stager doesn't mean you'll automatically know how to price your services, build your business and get clients.

These are important skills to acquire if you want to be financially successful. The relevant point here is that you don't have to undergo years or even months of training to get into this business.

In fact, The Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program will teach you how to grow a profitable and creatively satisfying business in only 10 hours! But you need to already have a basic talent for how to arrange furniture in a room because this is not a hands-on decorating course.


3. There is no need to invest in inventory or recruit others into the business. Home Staging is not a multi-level marketing scheme.

If you've researched the subject of home-based business, you've probably encountered lots of schemes that want you to buy inventory and recruit others into the business too.

These are multi-level marketing businesses. Home Staging is not a multi-level marketing business. You don't have to buy anything and you don't have to recruit anyone else to join the business. This is something you can do on your own without any recruiting pressures. You aren't expected to pester every friend and casual acquaintance you've ever had to invest in your "unique opportunity."

4. The financial rewards are there if you work hard to build your Home Staging, House Styling business.

Home Stagers create real wealth for their clients by effectively decorating their homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. Once clients realize the significant return they can make on their investment in a home stager's services, they don't feel it's unreasonable to spend hundreds of dollars for even two hours of stager's time.

With real estate markets slowing in many parts of the US and Canada, demand for (and interest in) home staging services will grow.

Les Christie of CNNMoney.com interviewed Home Staging expert Debra Gould on how home staging could give homeowners an edge as real estate markets slow down.

5. You can still have time for your family or other demands while running a Home Staging or Real Estate Enhancement or Styling business.

You control when you meet clients. If you only want to work during the day when your children are at school you can arrange it that way. "I have an opening for you on Wednesday morning at 9:00 AM" works well!

Or, if you want to start this business on the side while you already have a full time job, then you can meet your clients on evenings and weekends. Many of them will really appreciate it as they work themselves.

6. As a Home Stager, you will have daily opportunities to be creative and meet interesting people.

Home Staging projects very much depend on the creative solutions you develop for your clients. You get to see the end result very quickly and meet lots of different people as you deal with real estate agents and homeowners.

7. You will enjoy variety and a sense of adventure in a Home Staging or House Fluffing business.

Home Staging projects are very short term in nature, lasting days or a couple of weeks. Each house is different and you'll be visiting streets and neighborhoods you didn't know existed as you build your home staging client base.

8. You can control how fast you want to grow your Home Staging business.

Being your own boss, you are in control of how fast you want to grow your home staging business. There are no outside income pressures because this is not a multi-level marketing scheme.

9. You decide who you want to work with and what kind of Home Staging projects you want to take on.

Since a Home Staging project is short term in nature, if you find yourself with a "client from hell," you know they won't be in your life very long. If you find there are certain real estate agents that don't share your approach to business, or treat you with less respect than you deserve, don't work with them again! There are thousands of real estate agents to choose from in most markets. Did you know that in California alone there are 200,000 agents? Clearly not all of them are equally good or equally pleasant to be around!

10. Since you visit clients in their homes, you do not need to worry about what your own home looks like to run a successful home-based business in Home Staging.

Nobody needs to know where your home office is and they certainly don't need to visit your home. So, don't worry if your house isn't a reflection of what you want to present to Home Staging clients. As long as you always present yourself in a professional way, that's the important thing.


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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 home staging industry standards 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.

CNN Money interviews Debra Gould, The Staging Diva

Les Christie wrote a story January 13, 2006 on selling a home when the market turns south, entitled "5 slow-market strategies: It takes a little effort to move a home when the market has turned."

Basically, he identifies 5 effective, yet inexpensive, measures a homeowner can take to make their property more desirable and valuable.

Any guess what number one was? Yes, Home Staging and he interviewed home staging expert Debra Gould of Six Elements about what a homeowner can do on their own and how a professional home stager can help.

You can read the full article here.

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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.

Should I go to Interior Design School or become a Home Stager?

Many women approaching their 40s write to me wondering whether they should go to Interior Design School or take a home staging business training program instead. I love that question because I struggled with the idea of leaving a successful career and going back to school to study interior design myself many times over a 20 year period.

I interviewed a number of schools at various points but never followed through on actually applying. I already had a BA and an MBA and years of experience behind me too. The thought of being a full time student for 2 to 4 years, with a bunch of kids 20 years younger than myself was not that appealing. And the cost was huge considering the significant income I'd be giving up over that long a time.

Now that I've staged hundreds of homes in less than 3 years I'm so happy I went with my instincts! By the way, you wouldn't believe the number of interior design graduates that have approached me during that time to hire them for Six Elements Inc., my home staging company! Most seem to be working as sales people in furniture stores and looking for a way out.

In a nutshell here's what I learned being a Professional Home Stager instead of being an "interior designer":

• Being a home stager you get lots more projects to work on because they are shorter term in nature. So, lots more variety.

• Being a home stager your clients give you creative control because they know they don't really have to live with what you do to their homes. So, you get to be creative and make the decisions.

• Being a home stager you get interior redesign and color projects because your staging clients love what you do with the house they're selling and ask you to work on the one they're moving into.

• Being a home stager you get to work with the kinds of people who wouldn't normally hire an interior designer or decorator, in other words a much larger target market.

• The other important thing I learned, is that I would have hated being an interior designer! It's really frustrating doing a beautiful room only to see your client later clutter it up with additions that clash with everything you've done. Or, having to sit there for hours while they can't decide which fabric they want to pick.

I love having the creative control I get from staging houses. I get to execute my vision because clients realize I'm decorating their house to sell, not for them to live in it. I know there is no way I could have done hundreds of homes in so short a period with an interior design degree fresh out of school.

A graphic designer in New York, was considering going to the New York School of Interior Design in January. She decided to go through the Staging Diva Program in December. Here's what she wrote me after completing the courses:

Debra, you are a force of nature and a formidable combination of smarts from education and excellent marketing experience, business savvy, practicality, self-and-sanity preservation and super-focused energy. You do what you do with generosity, high ethical standards, common sense and a can-do spirit that is irresistible. My background is that of a designer, still, you provided information about applying that knowledge to this business, without which, my talents would be hardly useful at all. If you were a publicly traded company, I'd invest in your stock. You are a winner.

With highest regards,
Kathleen F.

Granted because I've never gone through an Interior Design program, (or ever taken an interior design or color course!), I can't tell you if a chair is Louis the XV, or draw plans to build an addition off the back of a house, but I don't miss having those skills!

The kind of people that hire me (upper middle class, usually professionals) don't really care! They hire me because they know I'm an expert in decorating a house to sell because they've visited my three website, they've heard about me from their neighbors or real estate agents or they've read about Six Elements in the media.

For the things I don't know, I'd happily refer them to a trained interior designer! I know they have many skills that I don't. But like I said, I learned I wouldn't want to be an interior designer so that's OK by me. And, it was a relief to finally let go of all the wondering about it!

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Debra Gould is President of Six Elements Inc. an internationally recognized Home Staging company. She is also the creator of The Staging Diva Program which includes training, licensing and many other services to support women who have always dreamed of turning their passion for decorating into a home-based business.

The Staging Diva Program is the only Home Staging Business opportunity recommended in Entrepreneur Magazine's 2006 Be Your Own Boss Guide to the best businesses to start-- the same magazine that called Home Staging one of the hottest new businesses!