“What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.”

-Wayne Dyer

The Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers welcomes Kristen B. Hardman Interior Design, serving areas of New York and Vermont.

Kristen Hardman is a graduate of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program and she has a mini listing on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers in addition to her main home staging website. Kristen’s mini listing enhances the search engine optimization of her own site and ensures her business will be found by anyone searching the Staging Diva Directory for a home stager in New York or Vermont.

Kristen B. Hardman Interior Design serves the following locations in New York: Adirondack Region, Lake Placid, Queensbury, Plattsburgh, Lake George, Northern New York and Albany.

Kristen also serves these locations in Vermont: Burlington and Shelburne

Learn how you can add your home staging business to the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

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Marketing is not just about how you promote yourself, your pricing strategy is also part of your marketing. It conveys something about your business, your professionalism and what sort of clients will be drawn to you. In other words . . .

Your pricing is part of your image!

If you promote your services as being cheap, you’ll attract cheap clients. If you promote your services as having value, people will value them.

“Rock Bottom Home Staging” would not be a good company name, or pricing strategy, if you’re planning on staying in business and if you want clients who are willing to act on your suggestions.

Imagine how unsatisfying it would be to spend your days giving home staging advice only to hear, “oh no, that would cost me,” or “why should I fix that, the next guy can worry about it?”

Getting your pricing right is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in your home staging business and it will ultimately determine whether you succeed or fail.

Learn more about what I figured out the hard way, so you don’t have to.

If I’d known in my first year as a home stager what I discovered in my second, I would not have asked myself, almost weekly, whether it was worth pursuing a staging business at all. I’ve dealt with over 2000 home staging clients and potential clients for 7 years and I share what I know about the proper approach to pricing in Course 2 of the Staging Diva Program, “The Business of Home Staging: What you need to start and how to grow.”

> Read the full story on cheap pricing attracting cheap clients and add your comments

The Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers welcomes Appalachian Home Staging serving areas of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida.

Marty Hale, owner of Appalachian Home Staging, is a graduate of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Marty has a mini listing on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers in addition to her home staging website. In doing this, Marty enhances the search engine optimization of her own site while ensuring she’ll be found by anyone searching the Directory for a home stager in the areas she serves.

Appalachian Home Staging serves the following locations in Georgia: All of Northeast Georgia, Lake Burton/ Lake Rabun Area, Gainesville, Hall/ Forsyth and Lake Lanier and Atlanta, GA Metro Area.

Marty also serves Asheville and the Highlands Area in North Carolina as well as Chattanooga Tennessee.  She also serves the following locations in Florida: Panama City, Florida Area and Tallahassee.

Learn how you can add your home staging business to the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

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I’m working on my latest book which will be published in 2010 and featured on Amazon and elsewhere. The exciting news is that you can be in it if you’re a home stager with an interesting story to share.

Don’t worry — you don’t have to be a professional writer to participate! We will edit your story if it is chosen for inclusion in the book.

“Life as a Home Stager: An Inside Look at What It’s Really Like in the Home Staging Business” is filled with heartwarming, funny and sometimes shocking stories about what it’s really like being a home stager. Inspiring and informative, this book will give you an honest look at what it’s like to work in this exciting and creative industry.

To participate, you might tell us about:

• a client who was going through a particularly difficult or life-changing event when you staged their home and how you helped them through the process.
• a tricky staging project and how you rose to the challenge.
• a client’s strange choice of decor and how you convinced them to change it.
• a time you donated your staging services to help someone in need.
• a funny mishap or a silly mistake you made while staging a client’s home.
• how your staging career has effected other aspects of your life.

I’ll be including many of my own stories from the past 7 years of staging clients’ homes, but I’m looking for your story too. My goal is to paint a picture of “a day in the life” of a home stager to give aspiring and fellow home stagers an opportunity to learn from our experiences and integrate the lessons-learned into their own businesses.

Remember you don’t have to be a professional writer. Anything you submit will be edited, you just have to give us the interesting story to start with. If you’re selected, you’ll get a free copy of the book once it’s printed PLUS the bragging rights of saying you’re featured in a published book, adding to your own credibility as a home stager.

> Learn how to be part of this new book

The Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers welcomes Clesson Brook Designs serving areas of Massachusetts, Vermont and Upstate New York.

The owner of Clesson Brook Designs, Jennifer Heilman, is a graduate of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. She has opted to purchase a mini listing on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers in addition to her home staging website. Jennifer knows in doing this, she enhances the search engine optimization of her own site and she’ll also be found by anyone searching the Directory for a home stager in her area.

Clesson Brook Designs serves locations in Upstate New York, Vermont and the following areas of Massachusetts: Shelburne Falls, Northampton, Easthampton, Greefield, South Hadley, Amherst, Lenox, Great Barrington, Westfield and Belchertown.

Learn how you can add your home staging business to the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

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Congratulations to Staging Diva Graduate Tracie Lacroix of Sold by Design (BC) on her decision to follow her dreams into a new career as a home stager and involve her kids in her new career. She also didn’t let a previous (less than ideal) home staging training experience stand in her way.

She writes, “I love that I’m now pursuing a career that pays me to be creative, rather than spending my time working for someone else. I have the freedom to choose my own hours, and I’m available to my family when they need me. On a side note, my girls have both expressed interest in home staging and are always giving me their input. My youngest, who has always had a disaster in her room, has re-arranged her furniture and is finally keeping the room clean! The Staging Diva Program filled in all the questions that I still had after completing another ‘hands on’ program. Thank you Debra, I now have the confidence to build my staging business.”

> Before investing in home staging training, it’s important to check references

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” It’s ironic that home stagers tell their clients this when referring to the pitfalls of putting an un-staged home on the market, yet don’t see the correlation with how they put themselves on the market.

Home staging is an image business and YOUR image counts!

Dr. Phil and others have done shows on what your profile picture says about you if you’re in the online dating world. But make no mistake, when you’re running your own business, you are still selling yourself, just with a different goal in mind.

If you dress provocatively, you won’t be taken as seriously or worse, you might have the wrong kind of clients inviting you over.

If you look like you couldn’t bother to brush your hair why would anyone think you’ll take care with their home?

If your wardrobe looks like you’re dressed for New Year’s Eve, a 1970s basement party or a 1980s power lunch, you’re not communicating that you are up on design trends or that you understand how to package a product. When you are selling your staging services you are the product. They have to trust your design sense to want to buy what you do.

Your head shot is about appealing to prospective customers, the buyers of your home staging services. It’s not about being “pretty” enough or “young” enough or “thin” enough. You don’t have to look like a professional fashion model, you should look like a real person.

Here are some great examples of head shots used by some Staging Diva Graduates; each one has a personality that shines through even if you don’t know anything about the person yet.

Leah Fritz (WI) Perfect Place Home Staging, LLC	Isabel Singh (QC) Immobilior
Ken Sater (CA) Creative Home Visions	LaToya McPherson (ON) Seven Divine Home Staging & Redesign

Your goal should be to look current, professional, creative, friendly and approachable. Of course, your head shot should be in focus and free of distractions. I’ve seen incredibly blurry photos shot in front of sunny windows or with multiple items in the background. All these detract from your face and look less professional.

Consider subtle makeup for the photo shoot, even if you don’t normally wear it. That goes for men too. Even the business tycoons in magazines are made up for their photo shoots.

For more tips to getting a great head shot for your home staging portfolio check out the Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide: Winning clients with the perfect home staging portfolio. It includes tips for how to write about yourself, get a great logo, take before and after photos, and more. A “portfolio” is a key tool in presenting your talents to the world and can make all the difference in whether you’re successful as a home stager or not.

Check out the full list of what’s in this important guide for home stagers.

The Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers welcomes Ivy Home Staging located in Ontario, Canada.

Cheryl Ward is the owner of Ivy Home Staging and she is also a graduate of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Her full listing on the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers currently serves as Cheryl’s home staging website because it includes three sets of her own before and after photos, sales copy about Ivy Home Staging and all of her contact details. It was also much easier to get a full listing on the Staging Diva Directory than having a website built from scratch!

Ivy Home Staging serves the following areas of Ontario: North Bay, Callander and Powassan.

Learn how you can add your home staging business to the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

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“For me, the biggest value in the course was the information about how to get money and how to charge. I plan to follow Debra’s advice as it makes a lot of sense.

Debra is a great resource for anyone who is even remotely interested in the home staging industry. She does a good job of explaining what to expect when running a staging business, and she gets you excited about it at the same time. Many of us have the talent, but we are scared to death to put it to work. Debra can help you overcome that fear. She gives you the tools—you just have to decide what you are going to do with them.” Tammy Mercado, Dressed to Market, LLC (OH)

“My initial concerns about starting a home staging business were knowing how to market it, knowing how to charge for my appointments and time, and knowing how to overcome obstacles and objections. Debra covered all the topics that I needed to understand prior to starting my business, even though my talent and desire were already there.” Donna Mancini, Donna Mancini Staging & Redesign, Inc. (FL)

> Read more comments from Staging Diva Students