5 Steps to Starting a Home Staging Business – Part 2

Debra Gould
If a career in home staging is what your future holds, there are many opportunities ahead for you and there´s no better time to start preparing than today.

In part one of this article series, aspiring home stagers were given the first two steps they can take now, towards starting their businesses; determining if home staging is the right career for them, and thinking up a name.

The following are three additional steps that can be taken immediately to help build a profitable home staging business:

3. Practice, practice, practice. Arrange and rearrange your own home and the homes of friends and family members who will indulge you! While you´re at it, take lots of before and after photos that you can use for your home staging portfolio and ask for endorsements from the people you´re decorating for. When the time comes to develop your portfolio, you´ll be glad you thought ahead!

4. Fill your head with knowledge. Learn as much as you can. Read home staging blogs and become familiar with your local real estate market. This is key because as a stager, you are decorating houses to sell which means you need to know what's happening in your local real estate market. Sign up for newsletters that will help you grow your business, those that are home staging specific and others that are targeted towards entrepreneurs.Knowledge is power. You can´t have too much of it when you´re starting a new business.


5. Start saving money. You´ll feel better about your self-employment if you have a nest egg stashed away. Home staging is a very low-cost business to start, but you will need some money to live on in the early stages. Plus you will have to spend some money on a good digital camera, your logo and business cards, registering your business and so on. Many people who start a home staging business get their first client right away, but you never know how long it could take. It´s recommended for anyone starting a new business to have some money set aside to live on for at least a couple of months.
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Debra Gould

Debra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

Gould has trained 1000+ Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start their own businesses. All shared a natural talent for decorating and interest in real estate, but didn't know how to make a living in their own house staging business before learning her secrets.

Debra Gould's mission is to inspire and empower others to use their natural talents to earn a living. She followed her dreams and wants to teach others to be able to do the same.

Gould pursued an MBA in Marketing and began a corporate career before moving to advertising. In the 1980s, she launched one of the first integrated marketing firms, which she ran for 10 years. Wanting a more creative life, Debra gave it up to design home accessories. She created the Debra Gould Home Collection, landing a magazine cover story and book feature, followed by her first of several HGTV appearances.

Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a new staging career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since that time she has staged homes for hundreds of clients in addition to providing home staging training.

Gould is the author of "Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home staging tips, tricks and floor plans", "Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The easy way to pick colors for home staging projects", and "Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide: Winning clients with the perfect home staging portfolio".

In addition to HGTV, Debra Gould's media coverage includes: CityTV, GlobalTV, CBC, CBS Radio, CNNMoney, Wall Street Journal, Woman's Day, Reader's Digest, MoneySense, Entrepreneur, House and Home, Home & Decor, Style at Home, Centre of the City, USAA Magazine, FabJob Guide to Become a Home Stager, Home Style, National Post Homes, This Old House, Home Business Magazine, Globe & Mail and others.