Gary Barnett Home Matters, Home Stagers, Indianapolis

Over the years Indianapolis has been the host to many great events. Indianapolis has been the home of the Indianapolis 500, the largest single day sporting event in the world since 1911 with an estimated crowd of 400,000 in attendance each year. In the first race the fastest lap was a blazing 56 mph. Today the record lap is held by Arie Luyendyk at 239 mph. No wonder they call him the Flying Dutchman! Then there is the number 2 race held each year at the track, the NASCAR Brickyard 400 which has been won 4 times by Jeff Gordon. Indianapolis is also the home of the 2006 Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts. Led by Payton Manning who holds many NFL records including highest passer rating and most seasons with over 4,000 passing yards, the Colts defeated the Chicago Bears in 2006 to take the coveted NFL title. Indianapolis is also the home of the NBA's Indiana Pacers and while the Pacers have never won an NBA title, it was the career long home for Reggie Miller who as most Hoosiers will tell you still holds the 3 point shot record in the NBA. In 1987 Indianapolis Played host to the Pan American Games which is a multi-sport event held every four years, in the year before each Olympics for the nations of the Americas. And besides all of that, Indianapolis is also known as the Armature sports capitol of the world hosting many NCAA gatherings.

And now, on September 29^th & 30^thIndianapolis will become the host of the Indianapolis Mid-West Stagers EXPO. While the crowd will undoubtedly not reach that of the half million that show up at the Indy 500 each year, we are expecting a capacity crowd of Mid-West Stagers and others in the real estate community to attend. This event is what I call Non-Denominational. Everyone is welcome to attend regardless of your designation or organizational affiliation. The line-up of speakers is an outstanding collection of experts in the staging and real estate world, so if you can get here, you will not want to mis this event. Linda and I look forward to meeting you all. We feel like we have known many of you for a long time now, with-out ever having actually shook your hands.

The event will be held at CORT Furniture on the northwest side of Indianapolis. You will find directions when you click on the link at the bottom of the page.

The event theme is

"don't just survive, thrive!"

Day 1 speakers will include;

For Further details and to register for the EXPO click on this link... http://www.stagerslistexpo.com/expoindianapolis2009.html

Linda and I really wanted to attend the Tri-State Staging Expo in New Jersey a few weeks ago. There were so many people that we had become acquainted with through Active Rain that we would love to meet in person, but we were still very busy and just could not get away. We were very disappointed, but that's just how it goes when you're a business owner. Things to do, Places to go, Homes to Stage!

Then last week we had a window of opportunity and noticed that Melissa Marro's Round Table was being held on a week end, so off to South Carolina we go. We thought the proper thing to do would be to call Melissa and let her know we wanted to come and that's when the Southern Hospitality started.

Linda and I were made to feel so welcome by Melissa, her husband John and her assistant Sue. It all started with breakfast where we were able to meet Bevin Googer... What a delightful young lady she is. Melissa, who had cleared her caleldar for our visit, then spent the day with us touring her staged homes and talking business until we were blue in the face. Then the end to a perfect day we met Melissa's husband John and her assistant Sue for dinner. The next day we participated in Melissa's round table, held at the First Impressions warehouse & Training Center. We meet Marci Toliver, who was the very first AR member to introduce herself when we joined SIF. Besides Marci we meet a whole bunch of wonderful people from all over South Carolina. We even made some new friends from North Carolina and Florida that were in attendance. We were treated so warmly and were made to feel welcome by everyone. After the Round Table, another end to a perfect day where we met Melissa and the North Carolina ladies, Michele Kurelich and Janine Varney for dinner and talking business until we were again blue in the face.

I found a definition that reads, "Southern hospitality is a phrase used to describe the positive stereotype that residents of the Southern States" (Or in our case those of Summerville, North Carolina) are particularly warm and welcoming to visitors.

Now, I called our experience Southern Hospitality, but I suspect if you were to let's say travel from your home in San Francisco to a Chicago Round Table, your experience may be called Windy City Hospitality, but I suspect the experience would feel very similar. For the most part, Stagers I have met everywhere are warm and welcoming people with varying degrees of passion for what they do. As for me, I got to spend two days, with two ladies that define the phrase Passion for what they do! Watching and listening to Melissa Marro and Linda Barnett discuss every aspect of "Where Home Staging has been", "Where Home Staging is going", "and "every other aspects of the journey of running a successful Home Staging business" was at times dizzying, but an absolute treat for me. And as an added bonus, I got to experience Southern Hospitality!

Thank you Melissa and John Marro for the Southern Hospitality! We are looking forward to showing you, John and anyone else that comes our way some of our Mid West Hospitality! Soon I hope!

The dust has settled, the food has been eaten, all of the table and chairs have been hauled away and the real estate stagers from all across Indiana have made their way back home. Even though our accessory warehouse is just a room with racks, shelves and things; it sure came to life the day of the 13^th when it was filled with people with the same dream. There was a time not long ago that I could not have imagined there being 25 stagers in all of Indiana, let alone there being that many all gathering in one place for a group discussion about topics surrounding our industry.

Needless to say the event was a HIT. Many of the Real Estate Stagers had felt fairly isolated until this Round Table event and many were excited just to be in the company of others that have a passion for staging homes to sell. One tell-tale sign was the exuberance that everyone put into simply exchanging business cards with each other. Everyone walked away from this event feeling that they now had 24 new friends in the business. Small groups of stagers gathered afterward to learn and share and the smiles on their faces told me that indeed this is was a great day.

Our group had quite diverse backgrounds and affiliations; there were RESA's, ASP's, IRIS's, HSR's, ASHSR's and a few naked stagers as well as some fresh out of training... But for those few hours of sharing and learning and discussing our industry, there were only interesting conversations, great questions and a sense of belonging.

As you can tell by reading this that there were enough warm fuzzes to keep even an Eskimo warm all winter...and if I didn't know better, I would swear that it made my heart grow 3 times bigger.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our event.... A Big, Big THANKS to all of our sponsors, RESA, SIF, IRIS, ASHSR and a HUGE, HUGE, THANK YOU TO OUR LOCAL LUNCH SPONSOR.......PACK-RAT OF THE GREATER INDIANAPOLIS AREA...

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Linda and I are very pleased to announce that we will be hosting a SIF~RESA Home Staging Round Table event on November 13^th, starting at 10:30 am. The location of the event will be at the Home Matters offices and accessory warehouse, located at 1206 Indy Place, Indianapolis, In. 46214.

We would like to invite all professional stagers in the vicinity to attend. In fact, if Indianapolis is the closest round table that is taking place to your home location, we would love to have you in our attendance. Come join us as we learn and share with each other regarding our industry.

SIF, in many ways is the collective voice of the Home Staging Industry. Craig Schiller, the founder of SIF and its members have always been committed to grass roots involvement to form that collective voice. The driving principals were to provide a venue where Stagers could gather to discuss issues and concepts, share ideas for one and all; a place to listen and be heard, all in a non-biased, non-judgmental way. In that spirit, the Indianapolis Round Table group will be discussing Home Staging topics ranging from National level issues to those more local in nature.

A big Thanks to our sponsors, Shell Brodnax (RESA), Sandy Dixon (IRIS) and Audra Slinkey (ASHSR) for making this event possible.

To register for the event, go to the RESA web site at www.RealEstateStagingAssociation.com and click on the event calendar and go to Nov. Find the Indianapolis event shown on the 13^th, click on it to register. For questions about the Indianapolis event call Gary Barnett at (317) 797-1947.

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Linda Barnett-an Accredited Staging Professional, interior decorator and former realtor-founded Home Matters in 2004 and has since worked with more than 600 homeowners throughout the Indianapolis metropolitan area. Her extensive body of successful work earned her a nomination for the 2007 Professional Stager of the Year award from RESA. She and Home Matters have been featured in numerous media, including The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis House & Home Magazine, Indianapolis Business Journal, REAL ESTATE Lifestyle Magazine, FOX 59 News and, most recently, in a WISH-TV/Angie's List segment.