You can earn extra money from staging consultations, even if you only have a weekend afternoon to spare. You may never need your nest egg, but knowing it’s there provides peace of mind.
Whether you still have a paying job, work part-time, or you’re a stay-at-home Mom, having an emergency fund to fall back on is always a good idea.
Earn extra money from home staging consultations
You never know what curve balls life will throw your way, so you have to be prepared. It’s never pleasant to think about, but you can’t predict when your family might face a job loss, significant home repairs, or escalating medical expenses.
One way to build up this nest egg is to start earning money on the side as a home stager while you still have another job.
You can put another $500 in your pocket just doing a home staging consultation on the weekend.
Some weeks you may have nothing coming in. And at other times, especially during the busiest months of the real estate season, you may have 2 or 3.
Even if you only averaged one per month, that’s an additional $6,000 per year.
One of our graduates, Leah Fritz of Perfect Place Home Staging was able to renovate her kitchen with what she earned as a home stager.
Home staging is a very flexible career.
It’s always within your control how many clients you want to see at any given time, because you book your clients around whatever else you have going on in your life.
That’s why we’ve had Staging Diva Grads who built their business while having full time jobs in demanding fields like nursing, and another, Laura Kakoschke who managed to grow a home staging business while home schooling her kids.
For more financial survival tips and tons more information about whether home staging will work in your area, check out my FREE report, “Ask Staging Diva: Will Home Staging Work in My Area?”
It won’t cut into your savings because it’s free!
As a full time stager, even I would love to be able to do consultations every weekend. I announced an April special concerning consultations via a newsletter that went to close to 500 people on my contact list. I got 2 responses – a real estate agent who wants me to do a consult on her own house which is for sale, and another agent who said she would let her clients know. Now I know it’s only 4 days into the month, but I thought I’d get a better response than this. Also, whenever I do sales presentations to real estate agents or when I’m at networking meetings and events, I always promote consultations as a way for “staging” to be done for only a few hundred dollars – an investment of a few hundred dollars that could yield thousands. I don’t know….I throw out the bait and none of the fish bite. Very frustrating.
Keep at it! I love that 4 days after your newsletter went out you were disappointed that you only had two responses. We always want things to happen instantly but often they have their own timetable. Keep in mind that only a small percentage of people open their email and take action within 4 days of it hitting their inbox. Especially if it’s not their most urgent priority at that moment. As you continue to build your list and your potential clients keep seeing your name, you’ll find you get better response rates over time.
Hi Donna,
I agree with you. I spent last weekend hitting open houses, giving brochures to lots of real estate agents. I was told “staging is done”, ” in this economy people can’t afford staging”,one real estate agent said they do their own staging. Another agent said “staging is exactly what people need in this economy”. It’s really frustrating as you say. So many differnet opinions, and my opinion is in this economy everyone needs stagers so that they have the “wow” factor. It feel like you’re pushing a boulder up a mountain!
Agents are not the best source of business for staging consultations, you need to get to home sellers. I discuss how to do that in course 4 of the Staging Diva Training Program. It does take time to get your business known and you have to keep at it.
We are just at the start of the spring real estate market so getting your name out there in as many places as possible is key. Don’t give up, the business will come but you have to keep working it. You can read additional information about why the current economy and slumping house prices make this the perfect time for home sellers to hire home stagers in this free report: “Ask Staging Diva: Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?“
It’s a bit like anything in life, you will have some that think it’s a load of old tosh and some that think it’s brilliant.
You just need to get out there and find the ones who think it’s fantastic!