The Business of Home Staging

Real Estate Marketing - What Does Your Head Shot Say About You?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:55:13 -0700

Real estate marketing pretty much comes down to business cards, advertising, networking, social media, websites, blogs, signage and open houses. As much as we'd like to pretend otherwise, how we look counts for a lot. Since many real estate agents include their head shot on business cards, For Sale signs, advertising and more, it's important to think about what your photo says about you.

Your Real Esate Agent Head Shot Is Key to Your Business Image

Your head shot communicates a lot about you as a real estate agent and gives your prospective clients a sense of what it might be like working with you.

Subtle things like the lighting, angle of your head, and your wardrobe and hairstyle communicate a bit about your personality.

People make assumptions, rightly or wrongly and it happens in an instant. Here are some of the adjectives you’ll likely want your real estate clients, fellow agents, and the general public to think about you when looking at your head shot:

Professional
Trustworthy
Easy to talk to
Caring
Personable
Knowledgeable
Contemporary
Friendly
Smart

Who doesn't hate getting their picture taken? We're rarely as young, rested, or thin as we'd like, and when was your last perfect hair day?

Fortunately we don't have to be "perfect" in real life to get our head shot taken because photo editing programs like PhotoShop can be used to camouflage those bags under our eyes and minimize wrinkles. Though you don't want to go overboard. After all, you want your real estate clients and fellow agents to still recognize you when they see you in person!

There's no advantage to using the same real estate agent head shot for 20 years unless you really haven't changed much. Otherwise, you're only going to look worse when they meet you in person because they'll be comparing you to their outdated mental image.

Whether you're a real estate agent, home stager, or decorator, please share your thoughts on this topic. Have you had a professional head shot taken or did you get a friend to shoot your photo? What tips would you share with other real estate agents and home stagers?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Home Staging and Voice Of Possibility Group Inc.

Debra Gould has an MBA in Marketing and has worked with hundreds of real estate agents. She developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living from their creative talent by decorating homes to sell. Debra is frequently profiled in the media for her staging and real estate expertise and is the author of Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide: Winning Clients With The Perfect Home Staging Portfolio which includes a whole section on getting the right head shot for your home staging marketing.

3 Steps to Boost Real Estate Business with Holiday Gifts

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 10:08:20 -0800

Are you thinking about gifts for your real estate or home staging business clients and prospects? It’s tricky figuring out the best approach. Get it right and you can actually boost your business for 2013.

Get it wrong and you might inadvertently offend the people you want to impress, or send the wrong message altogether.

Like anything else you do to connect with clients or potential clients, business gifts are part of your arsenal of real estate marketing or home staging marketing. Here are 3 steps to getting it right:

Step 1: Decide on your business objectives for gifting

Before you can choose the right business gift strategy, you really need to sort through your objectives. You don’t want to spend too much money overall. And you want to thank real estate or home staging clients appropriately while reminding them of the types of services you offer.

Step 2: Set a realistic budget for your real estate or staging business gifts

Your calculations should look something like this:

Overall budget for business gifts this season is $ _________ .
Gift value per client is $ _________ .
Gift value per prospective client is $ _________ .
(Number of clients x gift value) + (Number of prospects x gift value) = $ ________.

Is this over your budget? If so, be more selective about who you give a gift to.

Maybe some people on your list should only receive a holiday card? If you send a card, take time to write a personal message. Just sending a card with “Best wishes” and your signature does not increase your bond with real estate clients or build your home staging business relationship and will be easily forgotten.

To get back within your overall budget, you can also lower the dollar value per real estate or home staging business gift.

From experience, I’ve found it’s better to be very selective about who you send a gift to rather than including almost everyone and then spending so little per person that you send the wrong message.

For example, the 10 real estate agent calendars I get at this time of year go straight to the recycling bin because everyone has been using this strategy for the past 20 years at least! It seems like such an outdated idea when everyone has a phone in their pocket to tell them what day it is. And the larger ones with photos often don't match my decor and they take too much space.

Step 3: Choose the appropriate business gifts

Once you’ve sorted out your budget, it’s much easier to start thinking of gift options. For many, the default will be a gift card to a coffee shop like Starbucks or Tim Hortons. They’re easy to tuck inside a greeting card and mail so you don’t have delivery costs to worry about. Plus most people use these services.

The problem with giving a gift card to a particular establishment is that you’re associating your business image and positioning with theirs. There’s a big difference between Tim Hortons and Starbucks, for example, because it’s actually "not about the coffee."

You won’t find construction workers and hockey players in a Starbucks ad, but Tim Hortons features them all the time. Before giving a gift card to any store, think about whether they'd likely want to shop there.

The other problem with a gift card is it has a specific dollar amount. So you’ll get clients who might be offended rather than appreciative of your generosity. Once money enters into it, you trigger all kinds of preconceptions and emotional baggage.

In my case, after I found my last house myself, hired a real estate agent to handle the purchase for me and then gave her the listing to sell my previous home (which I staged), she earned over $30,000 in commissions from me within 3 weeks.

Considering she didn't even have to show me any homes before I chose the one I wanted to buy, and I gave her the listing for a professionally staged home in a hot neighborhood, that was pretty easy work!

To say thanks, she gave me a Christmas-themed salt and pepper set! Not only was it cheap and tacky, it was completely not anything I'd have in my home and she should have know me well enough to know that.

This is exactly what can happen to home stagers too when they choose the wrong item.

Your client might think, “Wow I spent $2,000 on her home staging services and she’s sending me a $10 gift card!” Meanwhile, you were hoping for something like, “Isn’t that nice that she thought of me this season. It was great working with her to stage my house. I really must call her to see if she can help me with my new house.”

On the other hand, let’s say you dropped off flowers or a plant. Then it’s not so much about the dollar value of the gift. It’s more that you thought of them and took the time to give them a gift. Plus, it’s an item to enhance the look of their home. Isn’t that what you're all about as a real estate agent? Helping people find their dream home?

And if you're a home stager, adding clutter to someone's life is inconsistent with what you do. Attractive flowers are a much better fit for what your home staging and interior redesign services are all about.

What do you think about the business gift giving conundrum? Please share what you’ve done in the past or what you’re thinking of doing this year!

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

Debra Gould is a serial house buyer, entrepreneur and marketing expert. She developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living decorating houses to sell. There are more than 7000 Staging Diva Students in 22 countries. Debra is frequently profiled in the media for her expertise and is the author of 5 guides for home stagers.

5 Ways to Scare Real Estate Clients Away at Your Next Open House

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:54:26 -0700

The post by Pacita Dimacali on Active Rain Still Holding Open Houses? That's Old Fashioned makes great points about why this real estate marketing tactic still works and why agents should do open houses.

Unfortunately, sometimes real estate agents make mistakes that scare away potential clients!

As a home buyer who has lived in 4 different cities, I've added many a real estate agent to my "Don't Deal With Them" list based on their open house behavior. This means:

I won't hire them when I'm ready to buy or sell my next property.
I'm less likely to go to any of their open houses in the future.
I won't recommend them when a home staging client asks me who they should list with.

Hosting an open house can be tedious (especially on a sunny weekend) and expensive when you consider the value of your time, advertising, signage, feature sheets or other materials you give away, etc. So it's important to get the maximum marketing/sales value out of your investment of time and money.

If open houses aren't working for you, it may be because you're doing it wrong! I'm not a real estate agent, I'm sharing my views based on visiting thousands of homes over the years and the really unprofessional behaviors I've personally experienced that put someone on my own "Don't Deal With This Real Estate Agent" list.

5 Ways to Scare Real Estate Clients Away At Your Next Open House:

You're too busy reading the paper or talking on your cell phone to show interest in anyone else.
You've thrown your coat over the furniture, left your shoes in the middle of the hall, and haven't bothered to turn on the lights. This communicates that you don't really care about this listing or doing right by your client.
When a visitor comments on the lower-than-expected asking price you immediately list all the problems with the property, it's location and/or the neighborhood. (I know, hard to believe, but it's shockingly common!)
When asked about the comparable listing that's down the street or around the corner, all you can say is, "I haven't seen it." This sends a pretty clear message that you're unknowledgeable, lazy, or you simply don't care. It might also suggest that the other house is better/better value and that's why you don't want to comment. If you haven't seen the other listing (which you should have!), at least be willing/able to look it up online and comment on how it compares to this property. If the open house is particularly crowded and you can't do it on the spot, be prepared to suggest getting back to them that evening with answers. After all, wouldn't you like to become their trusted real estate advisor?
You jump to immediate conclusions about a person's ability to buy this, or any, property based on race and/or sex and then condescend to them accordingly. Enough said.

I've hired several real estate agents over the years based on how they handled their open houses. I also bought my last property the day after discovering it at an open house, even though I had to outbid 8 other potential buyers. I have also met many agents during their open houses who I've subsequently recommended as a home stager. These were very hot leads because they were serious sellers who had already gone to the time and expense of decorating their homes to sell quickly and for more money.

So my list of warning signs is based on my personal experience as a house buyer, seller and home stager.

By the way, if you're a real estate agent who lets others host an open house at one of your listings, make sure they aren't raising these red flags, after all it's your name on the For Sale sign!

Are there any warning signs that you would add to this list? If you're a real estate agent and you have an explanation for why any of my 5 observations shouldn't be seen as red flags, let me know!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Home Staging and Voice of Possibility Group Inc.

Debra Gould's mission is helping people realize the many possibilities that lie around the next corner when they build a business around their passions. Frequently profiled in the media and author of the popular blog, Home Staging Business Report, Debra has trained 7,000 home stagers in 21 countries and has published 5 guides for home stagers.

The Truth About Lying in a Real Estate Listing: A House Hunter's View

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:34:25 -0700

We all know what "quaint", "cosy", "gem", "first time on the market in 25 years" mean in real estate ads.

But how far do you go to try and make your latest listing sound attractive to potential buyers?

I'm writing this not as a home stager or home staging trainer. I'm writing as someone who personally bought 7 homes in various cities. I lived in and staged all of them which is how I got into home staging.

I'm always on the look out for my next house so I'm an active reader of real estate ads, visitor to real estate agents' websites and open houses, etc. Besides my own desire to find my next home, I keep up on what sells and for how much so that I can better serve my staging clients.

This house was promoted as being "steps to the lake... sit back and listen to the waves... lake views... walk out to balconies/veranda from almost every room..."

By now you're probably imagining (as I was) a house on the water (or pretty darn close to it), listening to waves from all those balconies!

This house in fact several blocks from the lake making it completely impossible to hear any waves without walking for 5 - 10 minutes down a hill on a busy street, and then making your way around a large water filtration plant.

Yes, technically there was a lake view if you define that as the ability to see a thin band of blue in the distance beyond what appears to be government subsidized low cost apartment buildings.

I am not naive enough to think that this wouldn't qualify for "lake view" in an ad. BUT, when "lake view" is combined with a description of hearing waves, an entirely different expectation is created in the buyer's mind.

All that said, it IS a lovely house both inside and out (and it did sell quickly - in no small part because it was priced way below market value in an already hot market). So my question to agents is:

What is the point of creating a completely false impression in an ad to promote a listing? If the potential buyer ends up annoyed at being lied to, are they likely to respect your professionalism or trust your claims in the future?

It's my view that when you become a trusted real estate advisor, you have a client for life.

What do you think about short term tactics to get the phone to ring like overblown claims in ads, versus the longer term view of building client relationships?

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

Debra Gould's mission is helping people realize the many possibilities that lie around the next corner when they build a business around their passions. Frequently profiled in the media and a contributor to Century 21's blog, Debra has trained 7,000 home stagers around the world and is the author of several guides.

Home Staging Jobs Go To Home Stagers Who Get Media Attention

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:27:43 -0700

It seems crazy to me that there are so many home stagers in California, yet a builder in Burbank has come to me to help find him a home stager for a staging job on three vacant condos. Yet this happens all the time. I've posted over 400 home staging jobs at the Home Staging Business Report.

For this particular opportunity, there are 3 vacant condos in the same small building, priced in the $450,000 range. They are already on the market and not selling.

Here's where you can get the full scoop and apply for this home staging job.

This builder found me because of my recent appearance on CBS Radio on the Money101 show in Los Angeles.

Media coverage is a huge help in building your home staging business because it:

Gets the word out to a huge audience in a way that you could never afford to buy on your own. Can you imagine what it would cost to have 5 minutes on air in the middle of a talk radio show that reaches millions of listeners?
Reinforces your position as a home staging expert (being in the news gives you instant credibility).

If you're interested in how I get so much media coverage for my home staging business, please check out the FREE series of articles I wrote on this subject, beginning with this "how to" piece: Solving 5 Home Stager Media Challenges.

Home stagers, do you consider getting the attention of the media in your marketing plans?

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

Debra Gould 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. She is the author of 5 guides and has been featured on HGTV, CNNMoney, The Wall Street Journal, Readers Digest, Women's Day and more.

When You Become a Trusted Advisor, You Have a Client for Life

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:18:02 -0800

I recently finished reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, which is written for people still toiling away inside corporations but it offers some interesting insights that we can use as real estate and home staging professionals too.

Godin argues that every workplace has traditionally had “management” and “labor” but that now there is an important third group, which he calls “linchpins.” Regardless of whether they are low down or high up in the pecking order, these are the people who make things happen. They create order out of chaos, make connections and they lead others. In so doing, they become indispensable to their organizations because they are the essential elements that hold everything together.

I would argue that a great real estate agent or home stager is a linchpin.

Our clients are facing one of the most stressful times in their lives. We all know that moving is right up there with death and divorce as one of the most stressful life events. Now consider how many people have to sell their homes and move because of death or divorce, or other major life changes like a new baby on the way, a new job, transfer to another city, etc.

When people are in a time of change, they're stressed, feel overwhelmed and sometimes operate from a place of fear (this is not where best decisions are made). Many are just looking for someone to tell them what to do!

As a real estate agent or home stager, you can be the calm voice in the storm. The "friend" who provides advice and organization. The person who isn't emotionally involved in the situation and can provide perspective.

When I first meet a client for a home staging consultation, most of them look like a deer caught in the headlights ! I suspect you find the same if you're a real estate agent dealing with a listing presentation or when you're there to sign the contracts or negotiate an offer.

By the end of our staging consultation time, my client's shoulders aren’t pulled up to their ears, their faces are more relaxed and they know exactly what needs to happen to get their home ready to hit the real estate market. The home seller has regained their feeling of control, and that’s why the panic is gone.

When Real Estate Agents Become Trusted Advisors, They Have a Client for Life!

I believe real estate agents can do the same by taking the time to listen to their clients' and potential clients' concerns and fears and explaining what's going to happen step by step.

I've sold 7 homes in 4 cities with different agents over the years and I can honestly say that the agents who got my listing every time, were the ones who seemed the calmest and most knowledgeable. They were the ones who provided a logical argument for their pricing strategy and backed it up with facts.

But choosing an agent (like buying a house) isn't a purely logical decision, it's an emotional one too. It's the agent who shows they actually care who comes out ahead. They were the ones who took the time to show me the competition in my market and explain how we could gain a competitive edge together, through how well my home showed, the pricing and their marketing plan.

Whenever I've bought a home, the agents who won my business were the ones who seemed most knowledgable about the neighborhoods and homes I was considering. They found out what my biggest concerns and needs were and made sure they could talk to those. If any agent wasn't a parent, I still expected them to know alot about local schools. If the neighborhood was "up and coming," I expected them to be honest about that and point out which streets were trouble and which weren't.

The great agents are organized and always did what they said they would, which built my trust. When moving to different cities, I chose my agents not by referral, but by their websites (this was even before Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.).

The "Social Web" is the perfect medium to build trust with prospective clients because it gives you multiple opportunities to educate them, without having to do it all one prospect at a time!

This means you can leverage your time more effectively, which is key to building a successful long-term business. Instead of spending hours knocking on doors one-by-one trying to drum up leads, you could take those same hours and create a video or write some keyword-rich educational articles that position you as a knowledgeable and trusted advisor.

Do you think, are you a linchpin? Do you create order out of chaos and make connections for your clients as well as your own real estate or home staging business? Please add your thoughts, we all learn from the discussions here.

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

Debra Gould's mission is helping people realize the many possibilities that lie around the next corner when they build a business around their passions. She has trained 7,000 home stagers around the world and is the author of several guides, including The Home Stager's Guide to Twitter. She also operates Six Elements Home Staging and Interior Redesign and has helped homesellers earn $10,000 to $100,000 more for their homes, which opens a world of possibility for their lives.

Real Estate Agents Stop Preaching To The Choir, Start Convincing Clients!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:25:21 -0800

Charlie Dresen's recent post, "What Do Realtors and Bookstore People Have in Common?" inspired me to write this. I'm not a real estate agent, but I've been a client of many agents while buying and selling 8 homes in 4 cities.

I believe real estate agents today are in much the same position travel agents were about 15 years ago.

Back then, if you wanted to book anything but a very routine trip, a travel agent was your "go to source" for:

information about the destination
insider tips on what to see and do there
advice on where to stay, which hotels had the best location, etc.
advice on how best to get there
better pricing (sometimes)

That all changed once travelers could start accessing most of this information online themselves! It also changed when mega sites could be used to find/book the best rates and air/hotel/car packages.

Some people continue to use their travel agents because they have built a relationship with them over time and trust their advice.

Most of these travelers also probably don't care about saving a few bucks, they'd rather save time and have the best travel experience by having a trusted source plan and book their trip according to their known preferences.

New/younger travelers, who have never used a travel agent before, naturally turn to the online travel sites to book their trips and I doubt many of them even consider what special insights an experienced travel agent might provide (unless they're going to an especially exotic or off-the-beaten path location).

While I've said that I think the real estate industry is where the travel industry was 15 years ago, it doesn't mean you have that long to adapt. Technological advances are made at exponential rates, yet I see very few experienced agents keeping up with where your industry is headed.

First-time home buyers make up the bulk of the market and they don't have the same bias towards relying on a real estate agent for information. They are more comfortable with technology than most of you are, especially judging from the posts I see here in Active Rain and the marketing I see out there in the "real" world.

In defence of the real estate agent's current position, Charlie Dresen says, "You can trust an agent to work for you and rely on them to give you all the information you need to make the right decision." Since he wrote his post for fellow real estate agents, I would argue that he's preaching to the choir.

While it might be true when you're dealing with the right agent, real estate agents need to realize that many potential customers don't trust real estate agents to have their best interests at heart. In the past they've viewed them as a "necessary evil" if they wanted to buy/sell a home, but that is rapidly becoming no longer the case.

There are lots of bad apples tainting the barrel and you need to rise above that to maintain your importance in a world where much of what you do has been replaced by technology.

If I were a real estate agent today, I'd make sure my offline and online marketing, blogging, videos and community involvement demonstrated and supported the "trusted source" position.

Because of stumbling on Charlie's blog post I went to his homepage on Active Rain and watched his YouTube video. Let me say that if I were moving to Steamboat Springs CO, he'd be the first (and likely only) agent I'd contact! In under 4 minutes he convinced me that he is the "go to source" for:

information about Steamboat Springs
insider tips on what to do there and what a life there would be like
advice on the best locations, what types of homes to look for, what to expect at different price ranges, etc.
advice on schools and activities
what the "smart buys" would be
how to present my home when it was time to sell in Steamboat Springs
using the latest technology to help me both when it's time to buy and time to sell

Now I never heard of Charlie or Steamboat Springs until 30 minutes ago. Imagine if I had already been looking to move there or was already a resident wanting to sell my home! Such is the power of effective marketing, embracing technology and not being afraid to invest in your own business to get the right message out there.

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

An entrepreneur and marketer for 25 years, Debra Gould has been featured in countless books, magazines and newspapers for her marketing, staging and business expertise. Prior to becoming a professional home stager in 2002, Debra bought, staged and sold 7 of her own homes. In 2005 she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. There are over 4,000 Staging Diva students across the United States, Canada, and 20 other countries. Debra's latest venture, Sell What You Know teaches entrepreneurs, real estate agents and coaches how to leverage what they already know into a passive income stream.

Ladies, Is That Voice in Your Head Killing Your Business?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:29:26 -0800

I loved the Active Rain blog post Rich Real Estate Agent, Poor Real Estate Agent and accompanying report. It has a lot of great examples of the differences in marketing activities of both groups and the resultant earnings.

Their research also found that rich real estate agents (those earning at least $100,000 a year) tend to be male, while the poor real estate agents (earning under $35,000/year) tended to be female.

I'm sure many readers would automatically think, "that's because more of them work part-time, they have kids to take care of, etc." You know, the usual "reasons" we trot out for the relative under-earning power of women in almost any field.

My theory is it also has a ton to do with mindset and the way women sabotage themselves with negative self-talk.

I speak with hundreds of female home stagers and real estate agents during business coaching calls and I'm always struck by how much negative self-talk is going on.

In a single 30-minute conversation, I'll hear someone say "I'm so stupid when it comes to xyz" 4 or 5 times. Imagine how many times they're saying it to themselves when no one is there to hear it?!

I'm guilty of negative self talk too, we all are!

Most of the time I know I'm not consciously aware of that voice inside my head that can suck all the joy out of a situation. For example, I'll take a break from working to walk the dog around the block. It can be a beautiful sunny day, one of the few we have left before winter rolls in. Ten minutes into it, I'll suddenly realize that I haven't stopped to enjoy the sun on my face or the fact that I don't need a warm coat, because I've been too busy fighting with someone inside my head, or berating myself for not working hard enough.

Last week I was listening to an interview with Rev. Karen Russo, author of The Money Keys: Unlocking Peace, Freedom and Real Financial Power,and she made a suggestion that really helped me around this whole issue of negative self-talk in terms of realizing how debilitating it can be.

If you're a mother like I am, you'll probably really relate to this. Imagine saying to a 9 year old girl:

"You'll never amount to anything if you don't work harder. Too bad, if you weren't so stupid about xyz you might be able to make money in your business, but given who you are, it will never work. If only you were smarter/prettier/skinnier your life would be perfect, but you're not, etc."

Doesn't that make you want to cry?! Would you expect that 9 year old to have confidence and be inspired and go out and do big things in the world? We'd never talk to a child that way because we know the long-term damage that would cause to her self-esteem and ultimately her chances of living a happy and successful life.

So why are we so verbally abusive to ourselves?

Rev. Russo said something that really hit home with me. I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something like, "Speaking to yourself with a voice of compassion doesn't make you weak and you're ambition won't dry up because you're nice to yourself."

In that moment I realized that I have been operating from a belief that if I don't keep pushing myself to conquer ever more challenging business situations, my business will stop growing and I'll stop accomplishing anything.

Does this resonate with you? What negative messages have you been listening to that are killing your home staging or real estate business and more importantly, your spirit and happiness? Please share your thoughts by commenting below. I know this discussion can lead to insights and inspiration for others.

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

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.

Are Home Stagers Born With Decorating Talent?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:07:44 -0700

I’ve been addicted to decorating since I was a kid. I remember insisting that my room be painted a deep turquoise, and my rattan headboard white, because I could totally picture how one would stand out against the other and compliment the pale creamy-yellow duvet. At the risk of revealing my age, I’ll admit it was the 1960s. Even now I can see that decorating scheme in my mind’s eye, and it still looks cool.

As a teen, I painted murals on my bedroom wall and also the high school cafeteria. In my first marketing coup and “payment” for my creative talent, I managed to convince the vice principal of the high school to exempt me from swimming as reward for decorating the cafeteria. Hey if you don’t ask, you never know!

Then came adulthood and a series of rental apartments.

Finding the perfect bedding, shower curtain and towels were always highest on my list of priorities since I had almost no budget for furniture and painting the actual walls was against my rental agreements.

When I finally became a homeowner with my first real estate purchase at the age of 29, I was in heaven! There was still no real decorating budget for my tiny condo, especially since I had just quit my 6-figure job as a Marketing Director to become an entrepreneur. No matter; with a few cans of paint and the right accessories, I could create magic. I even managed to get about 12 years of use out of the ugliest sofa you’ve ever seen by putting a piece of plywood under the sagging cushions and covering it with a huge canvas painter’s drop cloth. Sounds like something a home stager would do, right? I hadn’t even heard the term at that point.

About 7 years later, I had created as many different looks as I could think of for my condo and it was time to move so I could get my next decorating fix.

Condos and houses seem to speak to me and I knew I had reinvented the same space as many times as I could. Within the next 4 years, I bought, decorated, and sold 5 more real estate properties, living in them all along the way! It was not until the last one that I realized I was born to be a home stager, and launched my home staging and redesign company Six Elements Inc. with no more information than:

Knowing I was talented at quick makeovers and decorating on a shoestring
Knowing I could decorate a home to appeal to buyers
Wanting to keep decorating without having to keep moving all the time
Believing I could use my marketing talents to market myself and my home staging services
Believing I could make relatively easy money selling my knowledge and expertise to home sellers who wanted to sell their homes fast and for top dollar

Many Staging Diva Students and Graduates have told me similar stories of knowing they were born to decorate. Some rarely played with dolls because they were too busy decorating and redecorating their doll houses. When I heard that, visions of cut up Kleenex boxes and creative uses of empty toilet paper rolls came flooding back to me as I remembered the complex floor plans and “furniture” arrangements I’d lay out on our basement floor! Even then I recall thinking real Barbie® houses and furniture were kind of lame because there was no creativity to it (or at least that’s what I told myself because there was no way I was getting the real thing!).

The funny thing is, ever since I started my home staging business in 2002, I haven’t had the constant urge to move anymore! I’m convinced it’s because I can get my decorating fix working on my clients’ homes. And it’s actually quite creative having to make something beautiful out of furniture I might never have picked on my own.

Did you start decorating when you were a kid? What’s your first memory of decorating or realizing it was something you just “had” to do? How do you get your decorating fix now; are you a home stager? Please share your story by commenting below!

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

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. Her Home Staging Business Training Program has over 4,000 students in 21 countries.

Home Stagers Is Bargain Hunting Putting You Out of Business?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:16:37 -0700

When you're a professional home stager, it's important to try and do the best home staging job for your clients. Unfortuntately, too many home stagers get so caught up in trying to save their clients some money that they are slowly putting themselves out of business without realizing it.

Here's an example to show you what I mean.

I've heard many home stagers discuss on Facebook and elsewhere, how they've gone on Craig's list, run around from store to store, or visited a garage/estate sale multiple times, trying to scoop up the best bargain on home staging accessories for their clients. After all, most home stagers are addicted to decorating, which is a great thing and one of the reasons we chose this profession!

While it's easy to get caught up in "The Hunt" you need to be aware that in a service business you are basically selling your time.

If you spend 2 hours to save your client $200 and you're not charging for your time, the only one who is ahead is your client. Let's say you charge $75 an hour for your staging services (if you want to make money as a home stager, I hope you're charging at least this much!). If you haven't billed them for your shopping time, you've given them a donation of $150 and saved them an additional $200 on the cost of accessories. Very nice for them, hope you enjoyed The Hunt because you actually lost money here.

If you did charge them for your shopping time at your normal billable rate, in this case $75/hr, you should be charging them $150 for your time to save them the $200. So yes, they're ahead and so are you. But what if you only saved them $50 (something you could not know in advance) and what if you got so caught up in The Hunt you actually spent 3 hours? Will they be happy to get your bill for $150 or $225 for your shopping time? My guess is you'll be reluctant to bill them that much, so you'll cut your billing rate, or the number of hours you say it took. Again, if you're being really honest with yourself, you've probably lost some money here too.

How I make money from bargain hunting

During slow periods, or when I'm out on other errands, I make a point of walking through stores and keeping my eye out for who has great home staging accessories and what the approximate costs are.

I don't get caught up in (or attached to) the exact pillow, vase, or candle stick at this stage. What I'm looking for are sources with a range of items at reasonable prices.

This gives me something to refer to when I'm giving my client an estimate and getting their money to go shopping.

If you want to know how I get paid in advance for my time to go shopping at $125 an hour and how I get my client's money in advance to shop with, be sure to attend my FREE mini course 5 Simple Secrets to a Home Staging Business: How to Make Money Doing What You Love, by telephone conference call, Wednesday night, July 27. You can get all the details at: http://www.stagingdiva.com/homestagingfreepreview.html I hope to meet you by phone then! I've got about 90 minutes of material to cover and if you're pre-registered you'll also get a FREE recording of the mini-course after the event.

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 home staging courses to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. Prior to becoming a professional home stager in 2002, Debra bought, staged and sold 7 of her own homes. There are over 4,000 Staging Diva students across the United States, Canada, Australia and 18 other countries.

Wishy-Washy Clients Wasting Your Time?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:16:45 -0700

Some people just can’t keep an appointment. When you’re in a service-based business such as real estate or home staging, if you are dealing with The Wishy-Washy Client, you will receive voice mails full of excuses.

One day they might call to tell you they aren’t quite ready to have the house staged or for you to take your listing photos so they want to reschedule. Then when that appointment rolls around, they call saying they double booked and have a meeting with their lawyer, their child’s soccer game or a dentist appointment.

A client like this who schedules and reschedules appointments over and over again, leaving you with gaps in your calendar that can’t be filled on short notice, can really damage your bank account.

If you're a real estate agent and this is a new listing, this should also be a red flag that booking showing appointments will be equally tough. Since you can't sell a house you can't show, do you really want to waste time and marketing expenses on this client?

Home stagers can charge a cancellation fee to be compensated, but if you neglect this important detail when you set up your pricing structure, you can go broke if you deal with several clients of this nature. It's also tough to collect from someone like this and how much time and energy do you want to invest in chasing your money?

Another symptom of The Wishy-Washy Client is one who keeps changing her mind about what she wants done in her home. One day she wants you to plan time for painting before the furniture arrives, the next she wants to be on the market a week sooner than originally agreed.

Your stress level and the time you spend on this project rises— but the amount you’re earning remains the same, unless you have the right payment structure in place.

Real estate agents and home stagers, I'd love your thoughts on dealing with wishy-washy clients who waste your time and money. And, at what point do you decide to cut a client like this loose?

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. Widely featured in US and Canadian media, most recently on HGTV, she has over 4,000 students across the United States, Canada, Australia and 18 other countries. Save on staging courses, guides and other resources for home stagers during July only.

Why Real Estate Agents Discourage Home Stagers

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:14:52 -0700

If you’re looking for the best way to talk yourself out of becoming a home stager, immediately get on the phone and call a dozen real estate agents in your market. After a few “No one will ever pay for it around here” or “It will never work in this market” or “There’s no need for staging, if a house is priced right it will sell” responses you’ll be almost embarrassed with yourself for ever thinking up such a silly idea.

If I listened to everyone who told me home staging wouldn’t work in my city 9 years ago, there would be no Staging Diva today.

Of course there are agents who understand that if they have a more attractive product to sell, that it will sell faster. There are also many real estate agents who insist that all their listings be staged, you just have to find them! These agents who “get it” are the 20% of real estate agents who likely make 80% of real estate commissions.

In your hunt for real estate agents to discuss the potential of home staging with, more often you’ll run into the 80% who do the remaining 20% of the business. Many of them only work part time or for their friends. But there are others (and sadly, you’ll have no trouble finding them) who are just plain ignorant, lazy or both. I realize I’ll get hate mail for saying this, but so be it. The truly professional real estate agents who are always looking for ways to get the most for their clients know who they are and I’m sure they’re not fond of that other group either because it reflects on them as part of the same industry.

Recently I talked to the owner of a vacant condo that she’s about to put on the market for $895,000. It will be the most expensive unit in the building and one of four that’s for sale on her floor. The agent recommended the listing price (likely too high) and suggested that she put tape on the hardwood floors to indicate where furniture might go to give prospective buyers a sense of how big the rooms are!

Imagine expecting home buyers to be inspired by tape on the floor and fall in love with an empty condo that’s priced well above anything else in the building. Imagine also how lovely her real estate listing photos will be with all those white walls and boxy empty rooms! Does this agent not realize that 90% of home buyers in her market search for a property online before ever even calling an agent to go see it?

Fortunately this home seller is smart enough not to take this bad advice and went online to search for a home stager. So while her agent made no mention of the possibility of staging her vacant property, she’s now prepared to invest at least $5,000 in having me stage it for her.

A lot of agents are shell-shocked right now because they got into real estate thinking they could make a quick, easy buck. All those years of only having to put a for sale on the lawn and wait for offers led to a ton of complacent agents who took their incomes for granted.

In most markets, real estate agents are depressed because their listings are sitting on the market forever, and they’re not making any money. They don’t want to spend money on their listings because they don’t make their money until the home sells and these days that can take a long time (especially when the house isn’t staged). Many of them got in way over their own heads too with easy credit and homes they couldn’t afford once the market slowed and those commissions stopped rolling in.

This puts real estate agents in a scarcity mindset and I’m not surprised that they’re telling you home staging won’t work. But when they’re saying, “Oh, nobody will ever pay for that here,” what they really mean is they won’t pay for it. They haven’t talked to all of their clients about whether or not they would pay for staging, they just know they don’t want to.

Plus, if they’re sitting with an inventory of non-selling listings that show badly, it’s mighty awkward for them to go back to their clients now to say that the problem is they don’t show well. Any client would rightly ask, “Why didn’t you tell me that 12 months ago when you took the listing?”

Talking to real estate agents will be very discouraging. It’s not just you.

With home sellers, it’s a whole other story and that’s why I teach in the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program that real estate agents are only one of the four major target markets for a home stager.

Instead of focusing all of your energy on what real estate agents think, put some energy into educating the home sellers about the benefits of home staging and you’ll be much better off.

Home stagers, what’s your favorite real estate agent story? If an agent tried to discourage you and you went ahead and found success anyway, we’d love to hear it. You might give someone the boost of confidence they need to follow their dream. Please leave 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 while helping others at the same time.

FSBO Selling Tips for Home Stagers

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Sat, 14 May 2011 16:44:29 -0700

Active Rain member Laurie Jarett wrote a blog post this week for real estate agents about how the FSBO Seller is NOT a Big, Scary Monster! What a great title! It occurred to me that home stagers might be worrying about similar things and not approach them either.

With FSBO properties being so common in the marketplace, you’re probably wondering how to attract some of them to your home staging business. Targeting FSBOs or “For Sale by Owner” properties is a great idea but remember, they’re selling their homes themselves so they don’t have to pay an agent.

This could mean they don’t want to pay anyone for anything or it could mean they aren’t spending money on an agent so they have a lot of money to invest in helping their house show better.

If you’re thinking of approaching these homeowners about staging, try doing an Internet search on “FSBO yourcityname” which should bring up some of the FSBO companies that operate in your area. Check photos of your local FSBOs to find out which ones need the help of a home stager. I would then directly approach these owners explaining what home staging is and what it can do.

Be mindful however, that many FSBO properties have specifically requested not to be contacted by sales people and you have to respect that.

Before meeting with them, ensure you have a collection of before and after photos of your own work to show what a difference staging can make. Explain to them that 70% of prospective homebuyers in the US and 90% in Canada shop on the Internet before ever scheduling a viewing. These buyers are reading listing information, poring over photos and deciding which homes to see with or without their agent, regardless of whether it’s a FSBO or not.

Make the homeowner understand that with people shopping online before they decide to see homes, the way their house is presented on the Internet is absolutely critical. Good photos are essential when listing a house on the Internet.

Explain that you can help make their photos much more enticing by how you would decorate their house to sell. In conjunction with that, you could offer to give them better quality after photos for their website, and that could be part of a package you charge them for.

> Read what one Omaha Staging Diva Graduate did for a FSBO property.

Home stagers, do you market to FSBOs? Have you found a foolproof approach? Have you had little luck? Please share your experiences 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 Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love

Are you wasting time and energy right now?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Thu, 05 May 2011 10:15:09 -0700

As real estate agents, home stagers or any other type of business where you basically work for yourself, it's so key not to waste time and energy because really in the final analysis, that's what we're selling!

I wrote a blog post on Active Rain about not taking rejection personally the other day. A comment from Sally Weatherley inspired my idea here, that we should all put a post it note on our computers or somewhere prominent to ask ourselves whether what we're doing right now is a waste of our time or an unneccessary drain on our energy.

Things that would fall into that category for me include:

Obsessing over a negative comment or email, when I have plenty of positive ones I could focus on instead.
Checking and re-checking my email every 10 minutes. Really, it's best to focus on one important task until it's finished rather than using this distraction to procrastinate.
Spending too much time on Twitter, Facebook and—dare I say it here?— Active Rain. These are all important tools, but they can be a huge time-suck if you're not careful.
Research. I'm an information junkie and sometimes let a perceived need for more information get in the way of simply taking action and adjusting course as necessary.
Television - with few exceptions, most of it doesn't really enrich my life or knowledge.

What's on your list of time and energy wasters? How could you cut back on these?

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

Home Staging expert and long-time entrepreneur Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is the author of 5 home staging guides and has appeared on HGTV, CBS, CBC, CityTV, GlobalTV and in major newspapers and magazines across the US and Canada. She knows how to make money as a home stager. Discover her secrets to business success in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Home Stager Rejection: It's not always personal

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:30:04 -0700

Even though I've been staging homes since 2002 and I'm well known, not everyone who calls me to discuss their staging project actually hires me. This is a reality of the business and one that you can't take personally. I know it is hard not to take this as a personal rejection, especially when the potential home staging client sounds so interested at first.

Here's the scenario. The potential client calls and says they're interested in hiring a home stager. You've felt like they really connected with you on the phone, they sounded excited about your services and then at the end of the conversation, instead of booking a paid home staging consultation, they say something like, "I'll have to check with my husband and get back to you."

Here are 11 reasons that not all project leads turn into paying home staging projects and why you can't take every lead that goes nowhere as a sign that you've failed:

Home sellers are talked out of hiring a stager by their real estate agent.
Home sellers are talked out of staging their home by friends or relatives who say, "your house looks fine." Sometimes the husband or wife wants to go forward with staging, but the other partner disagrees. Since a large percentage of homes are sold because people are divorcing, there is often no way around this challenge.
They get an offer before they actually hire a home stager and take that as a sign that staging isn't needed (even if the offer doesn't result in an actual sale).
Home seller decides to take the house off the market instead of staging (which means they might still contact you to stage their home when they decide to sell it later).
The real estate agent who initially contacted you about the home staging project didn't get the listing, or lost the listing if they already had it.
Like any industry, there will always be "tire kickers" who ask for information but never follow through. That's why you need to avoid the free estimate trap.
They are calling a bunch of home stagers just looking for the lowest price (trust me you don't want this client anyways).
Some stagers do inadequate follow-up preferring to wait passively for the client to contact them again after the first "get to know you" conversation. Meanwhile the potential client assumes the home stager isn't really interested or available.
Some aspiring or even established stagers make up bogus projects to check out the competition in their area. This is normal, you just need to realize that someone who calls you and seems very interested might not really be a potential client. Never make an assumption though. I had one call that I was sure was from a competitor just checking me out and it turned out to be a real client who hired me.
The potential client may not be impressed by how the stager deals with them on the phone, or after viewing their website/portfolio they decide that particular home stager isn't the right person for the job. This might be because the stager actually did something wrong (not projecting the right image) or it could also be that they simply didn't emotionally connect with the stager (that's human nature and happens to everyone including me). Not all potential clients are actually the right clients for you!
Sometimes an "urgent" project get delayed because the client's priorities change. As a stager you may not know this, and when you think all is lost they finally call you again in 3 or 6 months ready to hire you to stage their home!

Stagers, have you found other reasons that a prospect didn't turn into a real paying home staging project? How do you handle those feelings of personal rejection? Please share your comments, I know everyone will learn from your experience. Your ideas may also turn into a topic for a related future post so we can continue the dialog on this key topic of how to build a staging business.

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.

5 Warning Signs You Have a Home Staging Hobby Not a Business

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:51:31 -0700

Here are 5 warning signs that your home staging business is really a home staging hobby:

No one else takes your home staging business seriously, and if you're painfully honest with yourself you might realize that you don't either (this is often a symptom of being too afraid to really "go for it").
You love shopping and buying cute decor pieces on sale. Now you have a collection of home staging accessories sitting in a storage locker costing you money, instead of home staging accessories sitting in your clients' homes earning you rental income.
Your phone isn't ringing with new projects right now. If you're in North America, this is the busiest home staging season of the year, so you should be hearing from potential clients.
You're running around doing free home staging estimates, but no one is hiring you to do a paid home staging consultation.
You are not actually making any money. A home staging business by definition, is one that makes money. If it doesn't, then all you have right now is a home staging hobby.

Now, many successful home staging businesses start out as hobbies.

If you're ready to take yours to the next level and start making real money doing what you love then I encourage you to listen to the FREE call I'm doing this week called, "5 Simple Secrets to a Home Staging Business: How to Make Money Doing What You Love."

During this FREE conference call you'll learn how to turn your staging hobby into a real business. I'll share:

How I took my own leap of faith in 2002 and got into home staging from an unrelated career

What a day in the life of a home stager is really like, including examples from many successful stagers

5 simple secrets to help you start making more money as a home stager right now

There is limited space in this event, click here to learn more and get on my VIP list for this $79 mini-course absolutely FREE.

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

Home stagers and real estate agents, just step into your future

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:18:06 -0700

In coaching home stagers since 2004 and working with real estate agents since the 1990s, I'm constantly reminded how important mindset is to what we can achieve.

The bottom line is you have to be willing to stick with it if you want to achieve home staging business success or build your real estate commissions.

Perhaps I contemplate mindset so much because I can be very negative when I'm living inside my head listening to that little voice that only talks about problems or fears.

There is no way I would have been able to support myself as an entrepreneur since 1989 if I didn't always battle with that particular demon. I need to keep myself motivated, and to fulfill my mission of inspiring the thousands of home stagers who follow me, I need to watch my own mindset and look for inspiration, even in the face of whatever negative news is out there.

I was at the gym and I'd been working out for over an hour with weights before hopping onto a stair climbing machine. I have to say this particular piece of equipment intimidates the heck out of me. You have to climb up these huge stairs and you're about 5 feet off the ground when you start. Since I'm only 5'1", this looks like a huge climb to me standing beside it. I worry it will go too fast, or I'll trip and fall off. So just deciding to climb on is a bit of a victory for me, though to bystanders I'm sure it's no big deal.

Anyways, I get up there and I'm climbing stairs and pushing as hard as I can. I'm about 10 minutes into it with another 10 minutes to go and I'm tired, dripping with sweat, thinking about how late it is, the errands I have to run, how I should get to my office and start working, etc. Mostly I'm thinking "I can't do this, I'll never make it another 10 minutes!"

Then I start looking down at the steps below me as I keep putting one foot in front of another. And I realize with great clarity that with every step, I'm walking into my future. I can take that step saying "I can't do this, it's too hard!" or I can take it saying "I CAN DO THIS!"

That's actually how it is with anything. We do walk into our future with every step and we are the only ones who can shape what it will look like. If we go forward saying, "I can do this!" we bring infinitely more ENERGY to what we do.

You just don't know what's waiting for you around the next corner if you just keep at it and stay committed and really say "I can do this" and live the truth of that even if there are doubts that keep you up at night. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other and step into your future.

What future are you working towards? How do you keep yourself motivated and get back on track when you're feeling tired, scared or overwhelmed? Please share your comments below!

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

Featured on HGTV, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, House & Home, Reader's Digest, CBS, CTV, CBC, Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager. She developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love and she continues to develop ebooks and other home staging resources to help stagers on their path to success.

7 Ways Real Estate Agents Shoot Themselves in the Foot

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:56:12 -0800

Rita Fong wrote a great blog post How come some agents can't close a deal?, which attracted a ton of comments from real estate agents. Some acknowledged that there are agents who just aren't that good at what they do, others pointed out that some clients really don't know what they want. All true of course.

Since I've worked with a ton of agents (good and bad) in 4 different cities along the way of buying and selling 7 different homes (I lived in all of them), I wanted to weigh in with my perspective as a CLIENT, hoping it will give some insights into what can turn off a real estate buyer or seller.

Here are 7 ways different agents could NOT close a deal with me— even when I needed to find/buy a home within a week, or had already purchased another home and therefore really needed to sell. In other words, even though I was highly motivated to make a deal:

An agent who is aggressive and beligerant to try and destroy my confidence so I'll be grateful for his low-ball offer. Insulting the vendor is not the way to get them to be open to negotiations! If I dislike the presenting agent enough, I'll dig in my heels and he'll get nowhere.

An agent who mistakenly assumes that because I'm a single female, I'm not a serious prospect. This is more common than you'd expect and it doesn't matter if the agent is male or female.

An agent who claims to show my "everything" in my target neighborhood and price range, but doesn't. In two of my moves I found my own house! I still don't understand how that's possible given all the computer technology and inside information at your disposal as an agent.

An agent who doesn't bother to find out anything about a listing before taking me there. Like when the listing says "listen to the sound of the waves" but the house is 15 mintues from the beach and that's a surprise to both of us.

An agent who is late, consistently gets lost, or doesn't have the keys/lock box code when we get to the appointment. If it happens once or twice I can overlook it, but when it's clearly a pattern, I'm out of there!

An agent who doesn't take proper listing photos or writes up a feature sheet with typos.

An agent who doesn't do their homework when coming up with a recommmended listing price either because they want to price it so low it's guaranteed to sell immediately with little/no effort on their part, or they want to price it so high they think they can "buy" my listing with erroneous information.

Now I don't want this to sound like a rant, but I've experienced all of these types of agents on more than a few occasions. Thankfully there are also great agents out there who REALLY understand their markets, know about the listings in their areas (because they've actually seen them in person), are smart about pricing strategies /negotiations and are organized. They're the ones who get and keep my business as a client.

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. With more than 4000 Staging Diva Students in over 20 countries, Debra is frequently profiled in the media for her home staging expertise and is the author of 5 guides for home stagers.

What are your Wow Moments in the Real Estate Industry?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:36:39 -0800

Listening to a talk by author Neil Pasricha yesterday, I started thinking about all the things I love about being a home stager. The moments that make me say “Wow!”

Whether you're a real estate agent or a home stager, I'm sure you've experienced those highs a "WOW Moment" can bring. Since we're just starting a new year and looking for inspiration heading into the spring real estate market, I thought this would be a good time to reflect on the great things that happen and share them with others!

I’ve included 10 of my own “WOW Moments as a Home Stager” here to get us started, and I hope my fellow members of the real estate industry will add to this list:

Finding the right duvet cover that pulls all of the rest of the home’s accent colors together.

Walking into my client’s home after the painter has finished removing the old wallpaper, covering the ugly wood paneling, and painting all the colors I chose for the house.

Trying not to giggle while walking into a tiny condo bathroom to talk about how it needs to be staged because the camera man and lighting guy from HGTV are huddled together in the bathtub.

Having my client (who was totally stressed out and feeling defeated when I arrived) hug me at the end of the home staging consultation and say she’s looking forward to selling her home.

Re-rolling that final bath towel for the stack of 3 beside the jacuzzi and having it finally look like it does in the magazines.

Getting a call from a reporter from CNN who wants to set up an interview about why home staging works in a slow real estate market on the very same afternoon that I’ve already spoken to The Wall Street Journal! It really did happen and I felt like I must have fallen into “The Twilight Zone”!

Savoring those 10 minutes after the furniture delivery truck is gone and I’ve finished making the beds and placing all the accessories and I’m walking through the house taking in the “model home” I’ve created simply from my own creativity and hard work.

Answering a call from a past client who tells me she feels like she “won the lottery” because she got so much for her home she’s debt free for the first time in her life.

Spending 5 hours with a couple rearranging their home at our first appointment and realizing the house is totally ready to sell.

Getting paid right away for my services and not having to chase my money.

Real estate agents and home stagers, please add your “Wow Moments in the Real Estate Industry” by commenting here so that we can all remember how many incredible gifts a career in real estate brings to our own lives, as well as those of our clients. If we can get a good size list going, I’ll collect the best and put them into a free report to share with my readers, naturally you’ll get a copy too!

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

Debra Gould staged hundreds of homes before creating the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. She has written 5 guides and appears on HGTV and in numerous magazines and newspapers. She has also bought, decorated and sold 8 homes in 4 different cities and only stopped flipping homes when she could get her "creative fix" staging homes for her clients.

Camera buying tips for home stagers and real estate agents

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:34:32 -0800

As a professional home stager or real estate agent you really need to invest in a good camera for a top notch staging portfolio or listing shots that attract home buyers. Choosing that important piece of equipment can be a daunting task, though, especially if you don’t know much about photography.

When you go shopping for your camera, don’t go to a department store. Go to a proper camera store where that’s all they sell and the people you deal with are experts in digital cameras, not washing machines and microwave ovens.

Explain to the sales person that you’re a home stager or real estate agent and you’ll be shooting home interiors so you’ll need a wide angle lens to be able to capture as much of a room as possible. Tell them you won’t be bringing specialty lights with you and you won’t have an assistant standing there holding reflectors. Just say you need something that you, as an amateur photographer can basically turn on, point and shoot.

I suggest you have a wide-angle lens that screws onto your camera rather than choosing a camera with a built in wide-angle lens, because the separate lens offers a wider angle.

The camera I use is a Nikon Coolpix P5100. There’s most likely a newer version of it because I bought it a couple years ago. It has lots of settings I never use! I just put it on the setting with an icon of a shaky hand (how "technical" am I?!), the one that compensates for you if you are a little unsteady when you take your pictures, I turn off the flash, point and shoot.

This is only the second camera I’ve bought in 11 years and it only cost a couple hundred dollars so you’re not talking a huge investment but it’s so important to buy a good camera as one of the key tools of your trade.

You’re going to be taking before and after pictures of all the properties you visit for as long as you’re a home stager. You can get a good camera for a few hundred dollars and it’s worth doing because that camera is what creates your portfolio that actually gets other people to hire you!

Don’t cheap out on your camera purchase – it’s a very important tool for stagers that you should look at as an investment. If it's too late to put a new camera on your wish list, why not buy one for yourself for Christmas? You’ll be able to write it off on your 2010 taxes!

>Click here for real estate photography tips

Stagers and real estate agents, what kind of camera are you using these days?

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

Would having 4 more hands help?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:39:35 -0800

We live in a culture that celebrates multi-tasking as if it’s really possible to do 3 things at once, and therefore magically squeeze an extra 24 hours into our working day. Many studies have shown that this isn’t possible though.

The human brain can’t simultaneously engage in more than one activity that requires real thinking and processing.

If you’ve ever tried to read an email while talking on the phone, you know that you are either doing one or the other at any given moment. And in all likelihood, the client you were speaking with was very aware that you weren’t really listening— which is clearly bad for business because you're breaking the trust of your client.

Multi-tasking works fine if one of the activities is fairly mindless. You can sort your business expense receipts while watching TV for example , but if you're trying to follow a complicated storyline, don't try to analyze comparable real estate listings at the same time.

Many of my students listen to the Staging Diva home staging course recordings while walking the dog, driving to a client meeting or cleaning the house. They can concentrate on what I’m saying because their other activity doesn’t require constant active thought.

Studies have shown that if you try to do two activities that require a lot of thought at the same time, your attention will go on and off each one (like the conversation you attempt to have while reading).

The problem is, each time you cycle back to what you were doing before the interruption, it can take you 10 to 15 minutes to mentally get back to where you were.

So if you’re deep in thought writing a story for your newsletter or blog, for example, and you stop to look at Twitter or Facebook for 5 minutes, you can lose another 10 minutes to 15 minutes before you get back to what you were doing beforehand. It's literally "one step forward, two steps back"!

To give you another example of multi-tasking, someone just wrote to me for advice on combining multiple businesses. She is in a multi-level marketing scheme plus another business and she wants to add home staging. This is totally possible; you just can’t work on all 3 businesses simultaneously.

Either divide up your time to focus on one business in the morning and another in the afternoon, or pick different days to devote to each one. They can all be built at the same time, but it’s key to focus on a single activity at a time to maximize your productivity.

If you're running as fast as you can and not getting much done, think about how many interuptions you allow each day and what strategies you can use to minimize them when you need blocks of thinking, research, planning or creative time.

When you sit down to write sell copy for your new listing or to think about your marketing strategies for the new year, turn off your email, Facebook, Tweetdeck and anything else that's pinging and beeping at you. Otherwise another work day will slip by and you'll be no closer to accomplishing that big task that will really move your real estate or staging business forward!

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 over 4,000 students worldwide. She is the author of 5 guides including "The Home Stager's Guide to Twitter", “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick colors for Home Staging Projects”, and “Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans”. 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.

How do you deal with distracted clients who suck your time and energy?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:30:55 -0700

It has happened to me more times than I can count in the 8 years I’ve been staging homes. I walk into a home and I am greeted by someone with a phone to their ear, smiling and gesturing for me to come in while they finish up the first of many calls they will take during our home staging consultation.

Just as we start to make some headway, we’re interrupted by yet another ringing phone or a barking dog, or a child screaming for a snack or because her big brother pulled her hair.

The Distracted Client, can make you wonder why someone would invest in a consultation of any kind when they don’t seem to have the presence of mind to make it worth their while.

A home staging consultation like this can take you twice as long as you initially expected. If you know how to properly charge for your services as a home stager, you'll make more money with this type of client (even if they are frustrating to deal with). If you don't, this type of situation will leave you undercutting yourself time and time again.

If you're a real estate agent, I'm curious how you deal with distracted clients who burn through your time?

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

Home staging consultation reports are a waste of time

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:19:32 -0700

If you’re sitting down with a stack of photos after a home staging consultation, struggling over the report you’re preparing for the homeowners you are really wasting your time. Unless…

You just love doing paperwork
You enjoy knowing you have a lengthy report to complete before moving on to the next client
You’re getting paid extra to write it

In my opinion, this practice is a pure waste of time…valuable time you should be using marketing your business and getting more paying clients!

Preparing staging consultation reports is one of the many contributing factors to new home stagers going out of business. Staging Diva Students learn in Course 3 “Taking the Mystery Out of Home Staging Consultations" to not do home staging reports unless all of the above conditions are true.

Most often they aren't.

By now, you’re probably thinking, "But everyone else does them!" Actually NOT everyone does.

I've staged hundreds of homes since 2002 and there are thousands of Staging Diva Graduates out there who have been following my advice for 5 years and they don’t prepare reports either. There are a couple of reasons why doing home staging consultation reports isn’t a good use of your time.

It’s often hours of extra work you’re not getting paid for
If you’re services are priced properly, you’re losing hundreds of dollars with each report you write
The client may never actually look at it
You’re giving yourself something else to fret over
Clients don’t want to read a great big report. They just want their house staged so it will sell faster for more money.

Home stagers, can you give me any reasons why preparing lengthy home staging consultation reports is actually a good idea?

Or if you used to do them and gave them up, tell us how you came to that decision. If you still do them, do you love it or have you found it an obligation that always feels like it's hanging over your head?

Please comment with your own opinion and let’s discuss!

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.

Grab More Attention with the Right Exterior Listing Photo

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:34:43 -0700

Real estate photography quality has never been more critical. I'm dismayed when I see real estate listing photos that look like they've been shot from a moving car, or when the photos show a home at its least flattering angle.

As a home seller you need to insist that your real estate agent use quality photos to market your property.

As a real estate agent, you need to consider whether you have the time, equipment, and/or talent to take the best shots.

Here's why: In the US 70% of home buyers search for properties online before calling a real estate agent to discuss properties they want to visit. In Canada, that number is as high as 90%. This means that quality photos are key when promoting a real estate listing.

For the exterior listing photo, rather than the usual daytime image, consider how much more interesting the home might look when shot at dusk with the interior lights on. This is a home I staged as seen in this photo by real estate photographer Dan Chan.

By shooting the house at dusk, it's possible to communicate more of an idea of the home's interior even from a single exterior photograph. This makes the real estate listing much more enticing to potential home buyers when seen on MLS. I invite you to share your comments and ideas here about real estate photography.

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

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate, including eight of her own homes.

She is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. and has trained over 4000 home stagers to start and grow their own businesses. Debra is the author of four home staging guides and 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.

Should Real Estate Agents Pay for Home Staging?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva (Six Elements Inc.) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:07:46 -0700

While it's true that home staging will help a real estate listing stand out from all the other homes for sale, and while home staging will also increase the probability that the house will sell more quickly and for more money-- all of which are of considerable benefit to the real estate agent trying to earn an income from commissions-- I don't believe that agents should pay for staging.

I'm sure there are plenty of home stagers and home sellers who will disagree with me, but here's my reasoning:

If the home seller is prepared to invest in the advice of a home stager, they are far more likely to act on the recommendations they receive.

There is no point getting professional recommendations and then ignoring them. It's human nature that we place more value on something we've paid for. So if the advice is free to the seller (because the agent is paying), they just aren't as committed to the process. Or worse, they don't even believe staging is important. These are not the sellers who will do their part to ensure the home is always showing-ready and they're not the ones who will willingly invest in things like minor repairs or painting.

Some agents include an initial consultation with a home stager on their high end listings. Others will reimburse the homeowner for a portion of the fees after they've collected their commission. Obviously, the higher the price point of the listing, the more room you have to maneuver in terms of what you invest to sell the property.

I've seen top agents who include a staging consultation for all of their listings and others who bring in furniture and artwork at their cost. I have also heard of agents who say they won't take a listing unless it's staged because they don't want the carrying costs and hassle of a listing that doesn't show well.

Personally, I feel it's best to make sure the seller has "some skin in the game" by at least getting them to pay part of the staging costs. This also signals you as the agent that they're serious about selling before you spend too much money on flyers, photography, virtual tours, ads, etc.

Many real estate agents just refer their clients to home stagers, in much the same way as you would recommend a home inspector or real estate lawyer. You aren't expected to pay those fees so why would home staging be any different?

Agents, home stagers, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think or what policies you have in place!

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 20 years and author of several guides, Debra has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate and uses her expertise to train others worldwide.