Done! Develop you Database in No Time

The idea of developing a database for a home stager can be a scary proposition for many people. But don’t be intimidated by the thought of starting from scratch for your customer database. There are a few important things that you need to remember when developing your system and before you know it, it will be up and running. The first thing is to choose a database program or supplier that suits your needs. There are a wide variety of programs available on the market, ranging in price and sophistication. Balance your needs with your budget and be careful not to choose a program that doesn’t offer you enough. And likewise, be careful that you don’t pick a database that offers far more than you need or you’ll be wasting your money and overwhelming yourself. Once you have the program, you need to start assembling the data. You may actually surprise yourself and realize that you have much of the data you need to get started. Look back through invoices and sales orders. You can start with the basics: customers name, address, services purchased, and any other information you may have collected. In your database, you will likely want information such as the customers service history – what you have done for them, any specific things that they requested, didn’t like, did like etc. Their account history – did they pay on time, promptly, any issues with their account etc. And if you have it, it’s good to know how customers heard about you and your services. Did they respond to an ad you placed, find you in the phone book, on the internet or hear about you from a friend? When it comes to developing your database, don’t forget to include the information of potential customers. This contact information is crucial when it comes to marketing and future sales. Just because a contact is not a customer right now, does not mean that they won’t be a customer in the future. Collect all the information you can to use later in future marketing efforts. Building your database will take some initial time and effort but once it’s up and running the maintenance that is required is minimal and the dividends that result from a well developed system are immense. This you will learn in your home staging training. About the Author: By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, and her home stager school, you can learn more about staging, marketing, selling houses quickly and make property buyers swoon over your home staging career.

By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, and her home stager school, you can learn more about staging, marketing, selling houses quickly and make property buyers swoon over your home staging career.

Add Curb Appeal without Breaking the Bank

We have all heard the term curb appeal before, but what does it really mean? In a nut shell, when it comes to curb appeal – you want potential buyers to fall in love with your property right when they pull up to the curb, before they ever set foot inside the front door. Many people, particularly those that are new at flipping properties, or home staging career down play the importance of curb appeal because they don’t want to spend money on the outside of the home. Do not make this mistake. Creating a beautiful looking exterior does not have to cost a fortune. In fact, with a few simple changes you will have buyers tripping over themselves to get in the front door to see what else your property has to offer. The first thing that you need to do may be obvious, but clean up and do general maintenance. Make sure there are no garbage cans sitting by the front door, or loose patio stones. Everything should be in good repair, and be clean. If necessary, rent a pressure washer and get all the dirt and grime off the siding to give the property some sparkle and shine. A fresh coat of paint for trim or shutters is not expensive and will go a long way to making a property pop. Choose colors that are fresh and draw the eye towards features such as windows and the front door. If it’s really needed, painting the entire house may cost a bit more but will be a worthwhile investment in the long run. The least expensive and most impressive way to add curb appeal is with landscaping, and you can often do these simple jobs yourself. Prune any overgrown shrubs and trees, making them look neat and tidy. Remove any weeds from the garden and plant a few bright flowers along a walk way or by the front door in order to make the home look welcome and inviting. In order to flip property quickly, investing a small amount into increasing the curb appeal will pay off in the end when your property sells faster and for the dollar amount you are asking. You can learn these and more in a reputable home stager school. About the author: Karen Schaeferis the founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers which is composed of home stagers who have accumulated the best home staging training there is. Through Karen, you can learn more about staging, marketing and selling houses quickly.

Make Them Cry, Make Them Laugh – Make the Sale

In today’s real estate market, if you’re selling a home you are up against a lot of competition. That doesn’t make it impossible to flip a property; however you are going to know the secret behind home staging training in order to make your property stand out from the crowd. If you are like most people, you have heard about what home stagers do before. You will know all about smell of baking bread, and scented candles. Now I want you to forget all of that. I’m sure that some of it works, but in order to make your home stand out to potential buyers, you need to create Pockets of Emotion. Pockets of Emotion are little moments in a home when as the potential buyer walks through they are hit with a strong emotion. These moments make them stop and feel. Instead of simply browsing through a home evaluating the closet space and the layout, they are feeling the house and become emotionally connected. An example of creating a pocket of emotion in a condo aimed towards an upscale young urban couple would be to set up the dining area for a romantic dinner for two. Carry the theme over to the kitchen with a bouquet of roses with a hand written note. Take it into the bedroom with a bottle of champagne on the bed side table and rose petals floating in the bath. This scene sets a stage for a romantic evening, one that a potential buying couple can relate to. When you create Pockets of Emotion throughout a home, potential buyers will remember your property as the one that made them cry or laugh as they imagined their own lives playing out in the home. Taking the time to properly stage your property to make it memorable and not just another house that smelt of fresh bread will help you flip your property faster and with more success. By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about staging, marketing and selling houses quickly go to http://apsdmembers.com/homestager/directoffer.html for a free 30 day trial. About the author: By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, and her home stager school, you can learn more about staging, marketing, selling houses quickly and make property buyers swoon over your home staging career.

Stage your Success with one of the Hottest Opportunities

Entrepreneur Magazine recently rated the home staging career as one of the best businesses to get involved with for coming years. And with good reason. This market is hot right now! With the recent down turn of the real estate market, people need to sell their homes – and fast. And that’s where a stager comes in. The need for a home staging training is needed in for sale by owner homes as well as professionally listed homes and if you have a flair for decorating, or just a creative bone that needs to be tapped you are the perfect person to take advantage of this opportunity. Setting up a home staging business is quite simple because you do not require a great deal of overhead, or start up costs. In fact, you can run the business out of your own home and during the hours you choose. Most people require the services of a home stager in the evenings or on weekends which means that you can even work part time while you’re getting started and you don’t have to give up the security of your full time pay cheque for now. Marketing is a piece of cake right now because with the abundance of design shows, house flipping shows and even shows dedicated to property staging on television right now, your potential customers are already aware that they need your services. And they do. In order to sell a property fast and for the highest profit in a slow real estate market, their property needs to stand out to potential buyers which it can if you use your talents and skills to stage it properly. Take advantage of this hot time to get your home staging business up and running. You don’t want to miss a great opportunity to be your own boss, work from home and do something that you will love and that will excited you every day! By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about staging, marketing and selling houses quickly go to http://apsdmembers.com/homestager/directoffer.html for a free 30 day trial. About the author: By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. Through Karen, with her best home staging training strategies, you can learn more about staging, marketing, selling houses quickly and make property buyers swoon over your home staging career.

How Baking Chocolate Chip Cookies Actually Kills the Sale Of Your Home

Millions of homes are for sale right now and owners are desperate to sell, yet are continually given advice leading them to excessively longer days on market and ultimately lower prices. “In a buyers market, sellers have to utilize every powerful tool they can to sell their home as fast as possible and for the best price,” says Karen Schaefer, national real estate sales expert. “Unfortunately, sellers are subject to antiquated direction that immediately tips off the potential buyers that they are being “sold” which often stops the sale on the spot.” Karen Schaefer will tell your audience: 1) The 3 worst things you can do when trying to sell your home-that nearly every realtor recommends doing! 2) How to get everyone that looks at your house to fall in love with it on the spot and forget about the other 25 they looked at that day. 3) Making a room by room checklist to guarantee your home shows perfectly every time. 4) Give it a name! Giving your buyer a reason to name your house so they start to remember it immediately 5) Letting your buyer laugh until they cry with delight as they pull back a shower curtain, open a vanity drawer and peek into the linen closet—with a surprise that makes your home unforgettable. Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. the Premier Nationwide Staging and Design Company and author of The 5 Proven Steps to Selling Your Houses in any Real Estate Market (even a lousy one) has helped thousands of investors, builders, sellers and agents sell their houses immediately. Karen speaks nationwide, consults in multiple markets and instructs other investors and designers on the key concepts to selling properties fast. Karen Schaefer is an entertaining and informative interviewee. To interview her call 719-244-3420 About the author: By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about home staging, marketing houses and selling houses quickly go to www.OnLineStagingTraining.com for a free 30 day trial.

Beyond the Gleam

Everyone who has ever walked through an open house knows that having a clean house is extremely important if you want to make the sale. But is it everything? The simple answer is no. There is much more involved in getting your home ready for a successful sale, than simply cleaning it. The unfortunate fact is that far too many home sellers fail to realize this right away. I don’t want to understate the importance of a clean and shiny house, because obviously a dirty house with cob webs in the corners and toothpaste residue in the sinks is not going to appeal to buyers. However, cleaning your house should be the bare minimum that you do to get it ready for sale. Once you are finished scrubbing and polishing, it’s time to go beyond the gleam. A shiny clean space – while it looks nice – is not enough to sell your property. That’s where home staging comes in. At Simple Appeal (www.simpleappeal.com) we take your house from nice to sensational by using simple staging techniques that appeal to a buyer on an emotional level. A clean and shiny house will appeal to a buyer on a logical level. They may think, “Wow this is a really nicely kept house.” But you want more than that. With a little strategic home staging, you will have buyers envisioning their child’s next birthday party in the kitchen, Christmas dinner in the dining room and a family barbeque in the back yard. Appealing to a buyer on an emotional level, so that they can picture themselves in your home, living their life – is what will sell your home. At Simple Appeal, we help you go beyond the surface by creating Pockets of Emotion that keep a buyer thinking of your home long after they leave it. Instead of thinking of your home as one of the dozens of clean homes they saw that day, they will remember it as the house that they could picture themselves living in. About the author: By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. To learn more about staging houses, marketing and selling houses quickly go to www.5stepselling.com for more info on Karen Schaefer’s “5 Proven Steps to Selling Your Real Estate in 1/2 the Time at Full Market Value"

A Woman’s Touch

Starting a home based business can be full of challenges and setbacks, but the rewards are immeasurable. In today’s economy, more and more women go everyday to jobs that they aren’t passionate about just to pay the bills, and pay for the daycare that they would rather do without. Life should be about more than just making ends meet. You should love what you do every day and have the opportunity to spend quality time with your family, instead of endless hours slaving away. What if I told you that you could have it all? You might not believe me! Because as women, we are taught that we must sacrifice something. Well don’t believe it! By setting up your own property design business, you can have a career that you are passionate about, putting you in the driver’s seat of your career, and giving yourself the opportunity to spend more time with your family. Home staging is an industry that is on the verge of exploding because of the slowing real estate industry. And there has never been a better time for women to get involved with it. In order to make a home stand out and sell it in this tough market, it has to appeal to a buyer’s emotions. And this is where a professional stager comes in. At APSD (www.APSDMembers.com) our program for Property Designers teaches you how to create Pockets of Emotion™ that will sell your clients homes. Naturally women have an eye for what looks good and what will appeal to buyers on an emotional level. As a Property Designer, you will have the opportunity to help other people sell their homes and reach their goals while realizing your own dreams by finally living the life that you deserve. About the author: By Karen Schaefer, Founder of Simple Appeal, Inc. and APSD – The Association of Property Scene Designers. With Karen, you can learn more about home staging, home marketing and selling houses quickly. www.OnLineStagingTraining.com shows you just how to do home selling to people buying properties.