Learn how to use Twitter to grow your staging business

If you aren’t already using Twitter to market your home staging business, it's probably one of these two reasons that's keeping you from getting started:

* you don’t see how "tweeting" could possibly benefit you as a home stager
* you’re much too nervous and intimidated by the technology to sign up

Having a Twitter account should be a requisite for operating a business today and if you don’t have one due to one of the above reasons, you need to order my newest book: Home Stager’s Guide to Twitter.

Click here for full details and to see the full table of contents of this essential guide for home stagers.

Keep on marketing your home staging business

No matter how busy you are, or how busy you're worried you might become with the growing popularity of your home staging business, you must never stop marketing it!

I go into more detail about why in a recent post on the Home Staging Business Report. You can read that article here.

Getting a professional email address for your staging business

When you have a domain name for your home staging business the first thing you should do is set up a matching email address. This is especially important if you’re using a cutesy email address such as, pookiebear@hotmail.com or something similar. You absolutely can’t use something like that for your business, you need a professional sounding email address.

To learn how you can go about setting up a professional email address for your home staging business, click here to read a recent post at the Home Staging Business Report that covered this topic in detail.

Aspiring home stager ignores friends' advice about "credentials"

I received a comment on one of my blog posts last year from aspiring home stager, Katie Mines. She mentioned that she was finding the decision of where to get her home staging training an overwhelming one. She was learning a lot from my newsletters and blog posts, but someone was advising that she take a course that would give her some real "credentials" instead.

Read about how Katie decided to heed my advice instead of her friends' and learn more about her success as a home stager in this article on the Home Staging Business Report.

Marketing a home staging business goes beyond price

I’ve never made any apologies for being one of the most expensive home stagers in my city - and I have been since I started my business. Just because everyone else seemed to be fine with giving their time away for almost nothing didn't mean I had to do the same.

Instead of trying to compete on price I focused on marketing so I would be perceived as the expert home stager in my market. My goal was for people to come to me when they wanted the best.

If you promote your services as being cheap, you're going to attract penny-pinching clients who don’t value what you have to offer.

Read more about how marketing is more than just about price, in an article on the Home Staging Business Report.

Home Stagers should not work for free

I have written many articles on the topic of home stagers giving their services away for free and I strongly object to working for free in the Staging Diva courses, but this issue continues to come up.

I don't like to hear about home stagers working for free. However, most of the aspiring stagers I speak to seem to think they have no choice but to do their first projects for free in order to rack up experience.

The thing is, it's often those stagers offering to do home staging projects for free who will always struggle to get business. Much of this comes down to perception.

After all, if you’re giving away your services for free, how good can you be?

I recently wrote about home stagers working for free on the Home Staging Business Report. You can read the entire article here.

Home Stagers don't have to worry about job security

It's hard to avoid recent news headlines about the massive numbers of job losses in the US. In a post on the Home Staging Business Report I talked about why a career in home staging can offer more job security than your day job.

You can read that story here.

Home Stagers should not be defeated by negative economic news

If negative news headlines about the economy are interfering with your plans to start a home staging business, or grow the one you have, please take a step back.

The media feeding us this negative news are profit-based corporations. When we're glued to the all the latest news of economic "crisis" they're making money.

This distorts the bigger picture and it's almost impossible to see the opportunities that exist with all the news of doom and gloom.

I recently posted an article to another Staging Diva blog which goes into detail about why you shouldn't let this negative news defeat you. You can read it in its entirety here.

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Debra Gould’s mission is to inspire others to follow their dreams and use their innate talents to also earn a living. She has trained over 1000 women and men on five continents how to take their talent for decorating and turn it into a successful home staging business.

One page marketing plan can remove intimidation factor

To follow up on my last post, I would like to share one of my favorite tips with you. When it comes to developing a marketing plan for your business, many people envision a formal, inch thick document. The thought of coming up with such a thing can be daunting enough to prevent some entrepreneurs from ever coming up with a marketing plan.

When it comes to my own marketing, I like to do things a little differently by using a one page marketing plan. It's true! Read more at the Home Staging Business Report.

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A Fortune 500 company veteran, Debra Gould has been a business writer since the 1980s and wrote a chapter of the book "Marketing Masters" published in 1998. She is also known as The Staging Diva and 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 Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. There are currently over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates around the world.

Reach the goals you set for 2009

One of the most important things a business owner can do is set goals to ensure steady movement in the right direction. In a two-part story I recently posted on the Home Staging Business Report I shared my favorite advice for goal setting.

Check out the posts and this year, make the goals you set for yourself stick!

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Intrepid entrepreneur and home staging expert Debra Gould, also known as The Staging Diva, has been running her own business since 1989. She knows how to make money as a home stager and has taught over 1000 others to use their decorating talents and run their own home staging business in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.