"I believe each house has a soul, an essence that one connects with. I have a passion for decorating and designing which began when I was a child. I would drive my parents …
“The Staging Diva Training Program is a great ‘from the ground up’ program for those wishing to start and grow their home staging businesses. No detail was left out.”
“As an established home stager and RN, I was looking for the marketing piece of the puzzle. I found that Debra’s practical examples were just what I had been missing. I have already instituted many of the recommendations. Debra, thanks so much for your guidance!”
~ Holly Battaglia, Holly’s Home Matters, LLC (Maryland)
You Can Keep Your “Day Job” While Building a Home Staging Business
Judging by the dramatic transformations shown in her before and after photos, you would never guess that the owner of Holly’s Home Matters, a home staging company located in Bel Air Maryland, has actually spent the past 20 years working as a registered nurse.
In fact, Staging Diva Graduate Holly Battaglia is the mother of four children aged 7–14, and she still works part-time as a nurse while operating her creatively fulfilling home staging business on a full-time basis. It’s remarkable that Holly can make positive changes in people’s lives through home staging while working part-time as a nurse to help people in the most literal sense.
Holly recently wrote to share her most memorable home staging experience where she left quite a lasting impression on her client.
After a home had sat on the market for 10 months, the owners switched real estate agents and the new agent called Holly on Labor Day. That evening, Holly met with the exasperated homeowners and their new agent to discuss what needed to happen to get the home sold. Four days later, the home was completely transformed.
The property sold that weekend after its first showing post-staging. The price had been increased to cover the costs of staging and updates, but the sellers actually received over and above their asking price.
Holly writes, “This was a couple that spoke minimal English but they were very trusting of everything I did. Four difficult days of rearranging, bringing in updated furniture and hauling unwanted clutter to the dump all paid off. It was a great feeling. This past New Year’s, the homeowner emailed me from his home in Korea to thank me once again. He wanted to know if I remembered him because he would never forget me. It was the most rewarding project I’ve ever been a part of.”
Since that project, Holly has written about another home that she staged, which resulted in seven showings in as many days, with one of those showings resulting in a firm offer. Holly reports that her staging fee on that project more than covered the cost of the entire Staging Diva Program plus her listing in the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.
The fact that Holly is able to manage a large family, continue working as a registered nurse part-time, and operate a successful home staging business should inspire many people wondering if they could manage to stage homes around their “day job.”
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