Karen Schaefer's (kschaefer1) Blog

“How do you get your first home staging job?” “How do I find clients?” “How do I get referrals?” At most of my APSD home staging training courses, I teach at least 30% of the course on home staging systems and creativity,30% of the course on the business of home staging and 40% of the course on e...

Are you a “BIG” Home Staging Thinker In this economy, now more than ever, it is important to think BIG.  There are APSD Certified Home Stagers all over the country, all over the world as a matter of fact, and the ones that are thinking ‘Big’ in terms of building their home staging businesses are ...

I just read a fax from one of my mentor’s and he told an old salesman’s joke…”A salesman approaches the front door and there is a little boy and dog sitting on the stoop. So as not to scare the little boy, the salesman bends down to pet the dog to show that he is a ‘good guy’ and the dog bites hi...

In home staging, one of the most important things you can do is start by defining your customer, which happens to be the first step in the APSD 6 step home staging pyramid, so you know the most effective way to stage the home. Today, our world is all about personalization and good customer servic...

People ask me all the time, “Karen, what do you keep in your Home Staging Warehouse?” It is a great question and actually one of our APSD training systems has a 144 Basic items that I keep in my warehouse and nearly all of our APSD Certified Home Stagers and Home Staging Professionals now warehou...

One of the things I am going to be introducing at ‘STAGE’, our 3 Day Home Staging Training Event in June (the hotel rooms, by the way are nearly sold out- www.apsdmembers.com/STAGE) is mindset secrets of successful home stagers. As a matter of fact, you will get to meet 8 of the best home stagers...

Why don’t I post ‘pretty’ home staging pictures?I always laugh when people ask me about this.  They come to my website and don’t see pretty pictures of homes I have staged, like they do on all the other home staging training sites.  I admit, I took a risk when I decided to be different.This immed...

Can you ‘Feel It?’ One of the things that I always teach when it comes to really effective home staging is to try to evoke a feeling from your potential buyer.Some people think that they can do this by baking cookies or bread, but the truth is that is an old trick and everyone knows it. Today, yo...

Many of you know that I am a professional actor by trade.  Even today, I am still in the actors union, SAG, and vote on the seasons awards.  They even send us advance copies of the movies so we can review them before voting.  I love the movies!Several years ago when I was acting full time in movi...

And the winners of the one on one consultations with the APSD Home Stager Trainers are...Catherine Baird of FloridaMelissa McKinney of TennesseeGrace Ann Simoni of IllinoisAmy Powers of GeorgiaCarolyn Huggins of North CarolinaLInda Leyble of New YorkJodi Wood of New JerseyKim Dumbrowski of Virgin...