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Name: Dana Smithers.
Business: Professional Real Estate Stagers (PRES), North Vancouver.
Contact: www.presstaging.com; 1-888-296-3148.
Number of employees: One, plus eight contractors.
Time in business: One year.
What is your business? I offer home-staging and redesign training for entrepreneurial women who want to start their own business in this field. I also provide resources for homeowners and realtors on my website, and have recently launched an e-book called Do-It-Yourself Homestaging.
How did you get into this business? I started out as an elementary-school teacher and then spent more than 20 years in corporate staffing. This was a total shift, but I had always done interior decorating on the side and about eight years ago, I decided I wanted to do something more fun and creative as a career. I went to school to get a diploma in interior decorating, then taught interior decorating for a few years while working on my own business. About a year ago, I saw a need in the market for a place where people could go to learn about home-staging and that led my new company. I have definitely found my passion.
What do you like about staging? It’s amazing sometimes how little it takes to turn an ordinary home into one with a real market advantage. Home staging is fairly new in Canada, but a lot of people have done it without realizing they could get paid for it. It is really rewarding. A lot of people have lived in their homes too long, and can’t see what could be done.
What’s the best part of your business? I love what I’m doing. I like teaching, and the creative part of writing the course and continually improving it. I love educating and empowering women to help them start a business, and then mentoring them as they move forward.
Future plans? My vision is to be able to provide a network of professional home stagers across Canada. I also want to write more books and do more talks.
I want to teach people how to live better in their own homes — that’s what the next book will be about. People have too much stuff and after a staging, they feel so much better. The more clutter, the more stress.
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