Staging Diva Directory featured in House & Home Magazine

The October Canadian House & Home Magazine features home staging expert Debra Gould's tips for hiring a home stager. Being a completely unregulated field, home staging is often misunderstood and it's rife with fake credentials making finding someone even more tricky.

Also featured is the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers. Already Staging Diva Graduates have picked up numerous projects proving that one of the problems has always been letting homeowners and real estate agents find you.

To read more of this story, visit The Business of Home Staging

Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise home staging industry standards and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell.

Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, house fluffing businesses. With over 300 Graduates in the US, Canada, Australia, Wales and South Africa, Debra Gould also offers a free referral service to help homeowners and agents find real estate stagers in their area.

The Staging Diva Shares Design Books with Style at Home Magazine

Excerpt from Style at Home Magazine:
"Home staging expert Debra Gould, a.k.a. The Staging Diva of Six Elements (sixelements.com, stagingdiva.com), shares two books that will help you look at your home in a new way.

What Color is Your Slipcover? How Discovering Your Design Personality Can Help You Create The Home Of Your Dreams by Denny Daikeler

I decorate homes for clients who believe they can't make their current house work, so they decide to sell. The irony is once I've redecorated, my clients see what they could have enjoyed all along. What Color is Your Slipcover? is for anyone whose home isn't the sanctuary they're looking for. Borrowing from What Color is Your Parachute?, this book helps you define your design personality and create an action plan."

More about What Color is Your Slipcover

The Home Zone: Making the Most of Your Living Space by Caroline Clifton-Mogg

Top interiors writers and hundreds of inspirational photos of real homes guide readers through five popluar decorating styles, and discuss how to work with color, lighting, flooring, window treatments and soft furnishings. I say 'real homes; because unlike in some books, these ones look lived in. You'll learn about space planning, and issues specific to each area, from choosing the right bathroom faucet to picking a kitchen layout that works."

More about The Home Zone

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Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise home staging industry standards and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell.

Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, house fluffing businesses.

Staging Diva Graduate in Northwest Current

Staging Diva Graduate, Caroline Carter of Done In A Day, Inc. is featured in the March 8 edition of Northest Current.

I'm really proud of Carol's accomplishments. She knows that staging starts with curb appeal as seen in this photo from her portfolio. She's also done an amazing job staging a number of empty homes in the DC Metro area with her own inventory of fine furnishings.

You can learn more about her in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

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Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise home staging industry standards and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell.

Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, house fluffing businesses.

Staging Diva Graduate gets own newspaper column

Staging Diva Home Staging Business Program Graduate Jenny Olsen-Kennedy of Urban Lane Designs used what she learned in the course "The Staging Diva's Sales & Marketing Secrets to Boost Your Home Staging Business" to land a weekly column in her local paper, The Red Deer Advocate.

With weekly exposure in the paper's Saturday HOME edition, Jenny is well on her way to becoming the local home staging expert.

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Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise home staging industry standards and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell.

Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, house fluffing businesses.

The Staging Diva's Top 10 Reasons Home Staging is a great business to start

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise home staging industry standards and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell.

Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, real estate enhancement businesses.

™ Staging Diva is a trademark of Six Elements Inc.

The Staging Diva shares money making secrets with The Wall Street Journal

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

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

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

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


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Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise home staging industry standards and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell.

Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging, real estate enhancement businesses.

™ The Staging Diva is a trademark of Six Elements Inc.

Staging Diva Graduate makes a profit within weeks

When I first spoke to Linda at the end of November she was just thinking of taking courses to learn the business of home staging.

Fast forward less than two months to the first week of January and she had:

• graduated from the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program

• contacted a few real estate agents to introduce her services

• staged a number of rooms in her own house to get her first portfolio shots

• written some copy about her business

• chosen a name and registered her new company The Detailed Home

• listed her home staging business in The Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers

Within days of putting her company in the Directory, she called to say she had her first home staging project. She had earned enough to pay for all the courses in The Staging Diva Training program plus her full year listing in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers!

I'd say 2006 is looking pretty good for Linda with a whole new business and her all-important first project under her belt. She took action to move toward her dream of having her own business. It took courage for her to decide to "learn in action."

If we wait for everything to be perfect before taking our first steps, unfortunately all too often we never take those steps! We stay in relative safety and continue to dream, to wonder "what if?"

There was a study done in a retirement home. They interviewed all the residents about what their biggest regrets in life were. "Actions not taken," was the number one response. It scored well above "Taking action, even if it turned out badly."

Sometimes in life you have to say, "what's the worst thing that can happen if I take this chance?" And then take a deep breath and dive in and see what happens.

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Home Staging expert Debra Gould is president of Six Elements Inc., a leading home staging company that provides free information to raise the standards in the industry and build awareness amongst homeowners and their real estate agents about the benefits of decorating a house to sell. Debra Gould created The Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses.

™ Staging Diva is a trademark of Six Elements Inc.

Who is The Staging Diva?

Home Staging expert Debra Gould is President of Six Elements Inc. and creator of the Staging Diva Program.

Women all over the US and Canada have been trained to start and grow their own home staging business through the Staging Diva Training Program.

This program is unique in many ways:

It's offered by TeleClass, which is really just like a conference call. You learn with a small group of women from all over the US and Canada, with lots of time to ask your own questions and learn from others.

It's affordable and doesn't force graduates into paying a licensing fee for their "credentials."

The emphasis is on the business side of home staging. No matter how good you are at arranging furniture you're business won't succeed without proper pricing and marketing.

Because it's offered by phone, students are able to train directly with Debra Gould, also known as "The Staging Diva" instead of someone lower down in the organization.

You learn from someone who has personally grown a successful home staging business. Debra Gould staged hundreds of homes in her first three years in business and gained international recognition for her company Six Elements Inc.

You'll hear first hand accounts of the many experiences Debra Gould has had with clients and real estate agents, what has worked, what she knows now that she wishes she knew 3 years ago!

You learn from someone with real business credentials. Debra Gould has an MBA in Marketing from one of the top business schools in North America. She has worked on marketing programs and startegies for companies like: American Express, Nabisco Brands, Bell Canada, Leo Burnett Advertising and Kellogg's.

You learn from someone who is a real entrepreneur. Debra Gould has been running a home based business since 1989 and knows what it's like to build a business on a shoe string budget while paying the mortgage and running a household.