Real Estate Merchandiser & Home Staging Pro™
  Training and Certification Course's

A - We have have actually answered this question in great detail.  Please go here to read the discussion and discover the long answer. 

But here is the short answer...

Home Stagers nationwide are charging $75 - $150/ hr.

Here is an example of how easy it is to earn $3000 in just one week:

1 vacant home staging, average profit ............  $ 1,800.00
2, two hour consultations at $100/hr...............  $    400.00
1 lived-in home staging, average $800/ea........  $    800.00
Income for less than 40 hours of work.............  $ 3,000.00

Many Home Stagers average $50 - $100k + per year !

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A - Yes, your official title will be "Certified RMHSP" / Certified Real Estate Merchandiser and Home Staging Professional..    Click To Hide.

 

A - Because this is an online course, the amount of time is mostly up to you.  Depending on how much time you have to study, how quickly you learn, and what your exact goals are, you can complete this course in as little as 30 days or so.  Our recommended time frame is 60 to 120 days, but it's really up to you. You may take more, or less time, as you desire.   Click To Hide.

 

A - Actually, if you compare the cost of this course to the others out there, and if you compare what this course offers to all the others, you are likely to come to the conclusion that this is the least expensive course of them all.

No other course gives you everything that you will find here.  This is the only place where you will learn the actual "merchandising" side of the business - which, in these days and times, is absolutely critical to your future success as a Home Stager / Real Estate Merchandiser.

Also, we dive deep into design, and we actually teach you "how" to stage a home - not just about how to start up a business.  In fact, our focus is not at all on starting or operating a business - that's what everyone else out there gives you. 

We are different, because we strongly believe that it is the actual nuts and bolts, or "science" behind the staging that you really need to learn.  After all, it does no good what-so-ever to start a staging business if you don't know the first thing about how to do the actual staging, right?  You can easily learn the business side at any local college or university.  In fact, there are many trade schools that can teach you what you need to know to get your new business up and running - if that's your goal.  But what we teach you is how to properly "merchandise, and stage" homes.  You'll learn about color, space planning, lighting, materials, and most important of all, merchandising for Real Estate - based on lifestyle, target markets, psychological strategies, and much, much more!

Here is the bottom line.  It takes a lot of time to put together a course like this one.  Also, we are continuously updating, improving and expanding our training materials.  Our goal is to offer you the very best and most up to date, pertinent course possible, and available - a course that will transform you into one of the top, most effective and sought after Home Staging and Real Estate Merchandising Professionals in your market. 

We even include all of your text books - they are completely free. 

Many of the other courses out there offer you half the material and charge twice as much (or more)!  And they don't even touch on the merchandising aspect of our industry.  This, to us, seems absolutely insane!  How can you possibly stage a home in today's economy, in today's Real Estate Market, without taking into consideration the merchandising aspect?  Honestly - that just doesn't even make sense!

After we subtract out the costs of development, and of providing this course to you, we are only making a small percentage of what the others out there are putting into their own pockets and walking away with. Yes, we do need to make a profit, but this isn't our primary goal. A large percent of what you pay for this course, goes to cover it's cost.

We want our students to succeed, and we want to contribute and help our industry to grow and thrive.  We're putting out a lot of new ideas for our students to grab onto and run with.  And, we're teaching a lot of the very well proven, time tested, merchandising techniques that have worked in the retail world for decades now, and showing you how to apply these to the world of Real Estate.  You can tap into this power too!  There is no reason why this knowledge, or the implementation of these merchandising techniques, should be restricted and held back, in secret, from the world of Real Estate and Home Staging.

You will most likely remember having heard a variation on this theme, once upon a time someplace else.  This will most likely seem a bit familiar to you, but this is our version  ...

A dozen roses - $12.98

A night out on the town - $250.00

Car Repair - $1,400.00

A Real Estate Merchandiser & Home Stager that can transform a home in such a way that it literally sells in a single day - PRICELESS!

Let us show you how to take take the traditional, old school home staging of the past, to the "Next Level", and beyond!

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A - Up until just recently, on average, nationally, we have been looking at close to half of the entire Real Estate market in the boat of doom.  In other words, nearly half of the entire residential housing market has been in distress - meaning REO's (foreclosures) and short sales (owners upside down on their mortgages and owing more than their homes market value).  When a property is distressed, when it's in the boat of doom, the seller is in all likelihood in a lot of financial trouble.  A financially distressed home seller has no budget for staging, no matter how badly he or she might want the service, and no matter how much value they see in it.  But as conditions improve, and fewer of the homes on the market are in the distressed category, this means more potential work for stagers and Real Estate Merchandisers. 

Now, finally, there is some good news.  The latest HDI (Home Data Index) report, just released, indicates that the number of distressed homes on the market is now down, substantially.  In fact, there are now 15.6% fewer distressed homes on the market, as compared to the first quarter of 2009.  On the other side of that coin, the number of homes on the market (properties for sale) has increased.  For the Home Staging / Real Estate Merchandising industry, this is good news.  It means that there are now more potential staging projects out there, along with budgets to cover the costs (because fewer of these homes are in distress).

Because inventory is up (more homes on the market these days), there is a lot more competition.  The greater the competition, the more there is a need to distinguish and set each home uniquely apart from all the others. The best way to do this is to stage and "merchandise" the home! 

It's really not that difficult to go out and pull in staging work.  If you are a good networking person, if you have good social and people skills, you have the potential to do exceptionally well in this current market.  There is a tremendous amount of opportunity out there, just waiting, and even begging to be tapped into.

As you have probably heard before, nothing sells unless there is a strong and compelling need for a particular product or service. And the more pressure there is, from the driving factor that is creating the need, the more valuable and the more in demand the service or product will become. The stresses on home sellers are very high right now. Sellers are facing more and more competition to sell their homes with each passing day. Also, home sellers are taking huge risks of ongoing losses, the longer their homes remain, unsold, on the market. Home Staging, and especially when upgraded to embrace and include the principles of full-on Real Estate Merchandising, is a service that can enhance and maximize home values, that can offer home sellers much shorter waiting times to get their homes sold, and that can exponentially reduce stress for both the seller and the buyer (not to mention the Realtor, and everyone else on the selling team). Home Staging & Real Estate Merchandising is, hands down, an incredibly valuable service, when it's done correctly. It’s a win/win for everyone!   

So - can you really and truly earn an income, and make a good living in this business, during this economy?  The answer is a resounding - ABSOLUTELY YES!  There are probably more opportunities right now, in this current market, than there have ever been before.  All you need to do is to jump in, participate, and cease the moment...      

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A - We have really great news!  Gone are the days when we had to manually grade exams and then manually print and mail out certificates.  Now, with this online course, you are able to take all of your Quizzes, and your Certification Exam completely online, in real time.  As you move along in your Quizzes, and in your  Final Exam, you will now know exactly how you are doing.  And when you are finished, you will see your score and know immediately if you passed.  Not only that, but when you pass your Certification Exam, we give you the ability to actually print your Certification Certificate, on your own printer, right than and there - instantly. 

We can also print a Certificate for you on high quality glossy stock paper, complete with a beautiful frame and mail it off to you.  However, this is an option and there is an additional charge for this service; if this is your desire. 

But keep in mind - our online, user printable certificates, are very nice, and they will print in high quality and look great. You can save your money, and a lot of time too, if you opt to print your own certificate and put it in your own frame. 

And don't worry about issues of authenticity.  In order to be truly certified by NHSPC, you have to be listed in our database records, as having been a student in good standing in our program, and as having successfully passed your exam.  Anyone who seeks to counterfeit our certificates will be unable to also gain official NHSPC verification of certification.  No one can forge or certifications.  We keep permanent records of all students, including Quiz Scores, Quiz Answers, Certification Exam Scores & Answers, and dates that all quizzes and exams were taken.  If ever your certificate is held in question, we can and will verify and back up it's validity.   Click To Hide.

 

A - After you register and pay your course fees, your personal tutor will set up your account and activate your access to our student website.   You will than be sent a welcome email with instructions on how and where to gain access.  This email will include a link to our student website, as well as your username and password, plus other information.

Note:  Quizzes, and your certification exam, each have their own separate passwords.   Access to your quizzes and exams is independent of your training module access.

Your username / password that allows you access to the training modules will not change, but you are only authorized on a per module basis as you progress through the course.

For example:  You will first be given access to module number one, which includes your first 5 lessons.  Your username / password will not be authorized for access to any of the other modules yet - not until after you have completed module number one, and successfully taken and passed the module number one quiz.  To take your quiz, you will need to email your personal tutor to let him or her know that you have completed all of the lessons in the module you are working within, and that you are ready to take your quiz.  At this point, your personal tutor will email you a password that will give you access to the quiz.  Don't worry, this isn't a long and drawn out, complicated process.  It just keeps the channels of communications open with your personal tutor and helps us to give you a better level of training. 

After you pass your module number one quiz, your username / password will be authorized for module number 2, and so on.  You will never loose access to a module.  In other words, even though you have already completed module one, and moved on to module two, your username / password will still let you into module one as well.  Username / passwords are backward compatible.  If you are working on module 4, you will still have access to the previous 3 modules, even though you have already completed them.

This allows you continued access to all of the materials that you have previously accessed, but this system also allows your tutor to monitor your progress and to guide you through the course in the proper order. If we gave our students access to the entire course all at once, we would wind up with chaos.  Some students would decide to skip ahead and start out in the middle of the course, while others would end up starting out someplace else.  We would have students bouncing around in all sorts of unpredictable ways; which is not good.  This is not the best way to learn this material, and it prevents your tutor from being able to help you in the best and most efficient way possible.  Even though you are taking an online course, and we allow you to move along at your own pace, we still need  to maintain structure, focus and integrity.

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A - Interior Design is not the same as Home Staging.  Although there are similarities, these are different professions.

If you already have an Interior Design education, and, or, Interior Design experience, this can be very helpful, but you are still missing the merchandising element.  Not only that, but merchandising has many flavors. For example, even though we can draw from experiences and practices in Retail Merchandising, Real Estate Merchandising is different, because the product, or, in this case, our service, is different.  We are not merchandising sweaters, or shoes, or groceries - we're merchandising Real Estate. 

So you need training that focus on, and that is specific to, the type of merchandising that we need to do within our particular industry.  You can simply "stage" a home, and go with the "old school" way of doing things.  But by taking this route, you are not doing everything that you really could be doing to create the most affective results.  In today's Real Estate Market, and in today's economy, maximizing results is the name of the game.  Anything short of this and you, and your clients, lose.

Home Staging & Real Estate Merchandising is not about just design - it's about defining a specific target market, and then, after that, strategizing ways to appeal to that exact market in a way that will get the home sold - quickly, and at the highest return on investment for the seller.  As Real Estate Merchandisers and Home Stagers, we are a part of the selling team.  Our job is to contribute a level of expertise, talent and skill, that will, in the end, greatly contribute toward getting the home sold.

We are not working to please the seller, per say.  Of course we want to make them happy with our work, but the way we do this is by providing outstanding results.  We are working to attract an unrelenting interest on the behalf of perspective buyers.  The way we do this is to create an atmosphere and a total experience for the potential buyer - one which is so alluring, exciting, and emotionally affective, that our prospective buyers absolutely fall in love with, and become attached to, the home. 

But there is no way that you can really do this, other than with a lot of luck, or as the result of a total accident, unless you actually know your target, and unless you plan and strategize based upon a knowledge of what works, and what doesn't, for that specific target market. As an Interior Designer, did they teach you how to do this in Design school?  Of course not - because Interior Design isn't about selling a home, it's about decorating a home for its current occupants.

If you REALLY want to get into Home Staging - do yourself and your future clients a favor, and get the additional education that you need, so you can do the job "right".  

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A - Actually, without naming the specific courses (which is honestly a no brainer because it's really just about all of them anyway), this is exactly what the others out there teach you to do.  In fact, this is what traditional, old school Home Staging has been all about in the past.  But, yesteryear is yesteryear, and today is today.  We are living in a fast moving and greatly changed world right now.  What worked yesterday, either does not work at all today, or it's effectiveness is marginal, at best. 

To simply get rid of the clutter and clean up, and then to do nothing more, or very little else, is like starting the job but than walking away and quitting.  If it were that simple, there really wouldn't be much more to Home Staging then placing an ad on Craigslist and advertising for laborers, and then pay them minimum wage and be done with it.  Or, the homeowner could just do it themselves and saves ALL of their money.  Sure, there's design; but that design isn't worth much if it is not focused, and  focused in the right way. 

And this takes us to the next point here; which is the primary focus of "Old School" Home Staging toward using whatever the home seller already has, as opposed to bringing in other things.  One very popular and well known home stager, who, by the way, also teaches a staging course, puts it this way... "it's not about the money, People have wonderful things"  Okay, yes, people do have wonderful things.  But not everything that people have is wonderful.  And, specifically, not everything that you will find in a home is necessarily appropriate for the purposes of merchandising it to the public.  You need to first go into a home and assess its needs.  What does the home actually "need", in order to "properly" and "affectively" merchandise it and increase its desirability and salability? 

You may, in the end, need to make adjustments due to budget considerations, but, if you don't first start by finding out exactly what the homes real needs are, in order to reach your goals and objectives, then how can you possibly stage the home correctly?  It's really about obtaining successful, and the maximum possible affective results.  Most of the time, to do the job right, you are going to find a need to bring in things from the outside world and supplement what is already in the home with these items, while at the same time getting rid of some of the more undesirable and inappropriate items.   When you limit yourself to working only with existing furnishings, you effectively tie your hands behind your back and become crippled in your efforts to do the best job you can do.  Why on Earth would you really want to do take this approach?

Staging a home on a dime, is almost always going to turn out to be a bad idea.  Sure, you can be super creative, and you can make things and improvise here and there.  But quality and affective results does take money, and there is no substitute for this.  That old saying, "you get what you pay for" isn't just an idol statement that has no relevance.  Hey, if you're about to place a $500,000 home on the market, is a few thousand dollars invested into the property really all that much - especially if that investment is going to end up saving the homeowner several times that amount in stress, time on the market, ongoing mortgage payments, price reductions, Etc.?  Remember, making your clients home "look fabulous" isn't your only goal - it goes much deeper then that...

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A -  The NHSPC Certification is verification that you have taken, and successfully completed a course of study in Real Estate Merchandising and Home Staging.  Your Certification and Certificate is good no matter where you are.

To give this course validity, there is not only a structure to this course, and substantial training materials, but testing is also built into the course at every step along the way.  And not only this, but to obtain your Certification Certificate, you must successfully pass, with a score of at least 80%, the NHSPC Certification final exam. 

Our Certification Exam is now  given online, and there is no ambiguity about this exam.  You either pass the exam, or you do not.  You can take it more then once, but you must pass in order to become Certified. 

This exam is graded in real time, by our server side software - which is in contrast to a number of the other Home Staging schools and training programs out there, that actually give out Certification Certificates to every student, no matter what, regardless of whether they pass an exam or not.   Yes, there really are courses out there that do this - several in fact.  We actually know of one course where you can get your certificate without even reading as much as one single word in their training materials - if that's what you want to do.  These courses, for all intents and purposes, along with their Certificates of Certification, really stand for nothing. 

This is why we keep records of our students quiz results, and we keep records of their answers.  We do this for the final exams as well, and we keep records of the dates that all of our quizzes and exams are taken.  There is actual verification available that a student took the course, and actually learned the materials taught in the course.  We have worked very, very hard, and invested many long hours (tons, in fact) to not only make our courses among the best offerings out there, but also to make our Certifications really and truly stand for something tangible. 

It does not matter where you are located.  The education that you receive from your NHSPC course (or courses), transfers to you valuable knowledge and skills that are valid anyplace and at anytime. 

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A - This is a question that we get all the time.  North America is a large place, and it would be impossible to give our students leads and to point them to every potential furniture source out there.  But sure, we'll help you to get started.  In fact, you'll even learn a little about furniture, and accessories too.  We don't have it ready for launch yet, but we are also working on a stagers store, where you will be able to purchase staging kits - based upon our very own "PsyOp Staging®" system.  This will take away a lot of the hard work and make your life in Staging and Real Estate Merchandising a lot easier for you.   This store will, in all probability, only be available to NHSPC students and graduates, so it will be accessible from within our member / student area only.  More information will be available about this later on, once we are ready to go.

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A - As a Real Estate agent, you have a lot of responsibility that rests on your shoulders, and plenty to do in order to not only close a sale, but also to get your clients property to and through escrow and closing.  It's usually best to hire a Staging / Real Estate Merchandising professional from the outside, but if you do decide that this is a service that you would like to provide yourself, to your clients, then we can definitely help you.

If you would like to truly offer your clients the best possible service, then you need to know about the Merchandising side of this business.  Also, a little design knowledge, as it specifically applies to getting homes sold, can be very helpful.  As a Realtor, you undoubtedly already know a lot about your potential buyers, and about your markets, but we can show you how to implement the right strategies, so you can more successfully motivate your target market and increase your effectiveness.

The bottom line is; the more sales that you make, in any given amount of time, the better your cash flow will be.  Also, the more sales that you successfully close on, the more in demand you will be.  Sellers seek out top Realtors because they have demonstrated successful results for their clients time and time again.  When properly implemented, Staging, and Real Estate Merchandising can help this process along - tremendously!

A couple of years ago, a Realtor once said to me, "my client says that people want to see the home, not furniture".  And, at that point, as far as she was concerned, that was the end of the story.  This Realtor did not understand what Staging is really about.  She was not able to properly relate and share the right information with her client, about a powerful service that could have helped her client significantly.  And even more so, this Realtor did not even realize that there is such a thing as "Real Estate Merchandising".  No, it's not the furniture that prospective buyers want to see - not at all.  What we are striving for, is to create a situation where the potential buyer literally falls into a zone where they basically lust over the property.  Strong wording, yes, but, it's applicable and descriptive of what we really do want to achieve.  We want buyers to fall in love with what they see and feel.  There are special ways of going about this, and this is a part of what we teach.  When it's done properly, it's not the furniture that people see, it's the overall perception and feeling that they get when they tour the home.  It's also the thoughts that we are able to induce into their minds, that helps things along the way.  There are many different strategies - and, again, this is all stuff that we cover in our courses. 

Whether you are a Realtor, who is already in the Real Estate business, or a person who just wants to get started in the world of Staging and Real Estate Merchandising, we offer and bring to the table a lot of extremely useful information that can help you tremendously in your future staging and merchandising efforts! 

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A - Yes, absolutely.  In fact, on this level, we would be willing to give you a group discount on our fees, plus a few other extras too!  Contact us for specific information and lets create a win/win for both of us - your company and ours.

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A - It is possible to complete our course in less time then what we recommend on our curriculum page - you can move at your own pace.   But be honest with yourself - do you REALLY BELIEVE that you will truly learn how to become a great staging professional in just 5 days?   Even 28 days is REALLY Rushing and Pushing the Envelope!   How "realistic" do you think those advertisements really are?   Enough said!

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A - At this time, there is only one organization that offers accreditation of Home Staging training programs.  That organization is R.E.S.A., the Real Estate Staging Association.  R.E.S.A. only recently began providing this accreditation service for the Home Staging industry, and, currently, as of this writing, there are only two R.E.S.A. accredited Home Stager training programs in existence.  There are no industry, or legal requirements that Home Staging trainers need to be accredited; which is good, given that the vast majority of Home Staging training courses right now are not accredited (including ours).  Again, there are a LOT of stager training courses out there, several of which have been in operation for years now, and which have successfully trained thousands of students, and only TWO, so far, are R.E.S.A. accredited.  This will likely change, over time, but that's the way it is right now. 

Additionally, NHSPC teaches something that is a little (okay, a lot) different than the traditional, what we call "old school" Home Staging.  We promote, totally believe in, support, and teach Home Staging from the perspective of Real Estate Merchandising, which brings an entirely new element into the picture, and takes the old school home staging of yesterday, into today's world and elevates it to the next level.  As one of our fellow stagers here in Hawaii puts it, and he is SO right... "All Real Estate Merchandisers are Home Stagers, but not all Home Stagers are Real Estate Merchandisers".  As Real Estate Merchandisers, we really do not fit within the criteria and scope of the R.E.S.A. accreditation program.  There are a number of important differences in the way in which we approach staging, and distinctions that categorize us differently, which, honestly, do not make the exact brand of our approach compatible with R.E.S.A.'s objectives.

If your purpose, in looking for an accredited Home Staging course, is to gain credits that you can transfer to another college or a university, and if you want or need to apply those credits toward a degree, then our program will not serve your purpose - nor will any of the other 95+ % of the rest of the courses out there.

However, If your reason for looking for a course on Home Staging is to actually learn, and if this is your most important objective, then you have a much wider choice among available courses right now, and, our training program is definitely one of them.  If you would like to learn the Merchandising side, along with the more basic old school staging, and if you would like to merge the two into a very nice, seamless whole and take your staging offerings to an entirely new level - then our courses may well be a wonderful opportunity for you.  With the NHSPC training program, you will be uniquely positioned to provide your clients with a greatly enhanced and advanced form of Home Staging experience - one that can be far, far more affective then the traditional staging of the past.  For this, the NHSPC courses are your only real choice.  We are the only ones offering this type of training, at least at this time, and we have a very nice, and very comprehensive program. 

Take a look at our course outline and you will see that our training program covers a huge number of topics - areas that the others don't even touch on.  We give you so much more then the other courses out there.  We really should be charging a lot more money for this training program, be we aren't.  Take a look at the curriculum's of the other courses.  Do they include lessons on lighting?  Do you see lessons that teach you about how to strategize and affect potential buyers on an emotional and psychological level?  Do you see lessons on merchandising, or any mention about targeting?  The answer is "no".  But the NHSPC training program includes all of this, and much more!

We are also the only Home Stager training program that actually gives you a trial period.  We give you access to our student site for a full 72 hours, three days, after you sign-up - during which time you are free to change your mind, cancel, and ask for a full refund.  We will do this for you, no questions asked.  If anything doesn't look right to you during the trial period, we will refund every penny that you paid and you can even keep the downloadable materials that we gave you access to.  The others don't do this.  During the trial period, you are not given access to everything, but you will be able to see how the course is laid out and how everything works.  You can start to get a good taste and feel for what is to come.  The first module is where we get into the really basic, beginning material, and it is not until you reach your second module when you will actually begin digging deep into the subject matter.  In Module 2, this is where we dive into merchandising in a big way, and then design is after that. But again, the trial gives you a good look into the course, and it gives you an opportunity to see a little more, and to evaluate what you find.  We give you this opportunity before finalizing your commitment to our training program.

The bottom line - we've done everything we possibly can to minimize the risk for you.

Even though we, and the other 95+ percent of all the other training programs out there are not at this time accredited, this does NOT mean that our, and all of the other training programs have no value.  You should select the course that provides you with the kind of learning experience and education that you need, in order to advance your ability to work and provide services in this profession.  I mean, truthfully, isn't that why you are here?  Isn't this the reason you are looking into training in the first place?

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A - Yes.  Although these options have not yet been added to our site, we do have an option for a pay-as-you go plan. 

You will save a good chunk of money if you are able to simply pay the complete course tuition up front, as this plan is the more expensive way to go in the end, but there is an alternative to a 100% up front payment, if you absolutely need it. 

We will be adding this alternative to our site soon, but in the meantime, please contact us for specific information if you need this option. 

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A - Nope.  If you already have decorating or design experience, that's wonderful, but it's not required, or needed.  Even if you are a complete newbie, everything that you need is included in your course.   What would be good though, is an especially keen interest in this line of work.  Also, a little talent is helpful too.

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A - Yes, basically you can indeed do this.  You do need to pay for the course up front first, but we give you up to 3 days to decide if you want to commit to the course.  During this time, you'll have access to a portion of the first module, including your first two lessons, our multimedia pages, a trial quiz, several full eTextBooks, plus a few other pieces of sample materials to give you a preview of some of what you'll find in future lessons.  You'll have a chance to look at everything and see what you think.  If you like what you see, you will automatically be given full access to your first module after 72 hours.  During the first 3 days, if for any reason you do not like what you see, simply cancel and we will return all of your money back, no questions asked.  More here.

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A - You may pay us by Credit or Debit Card, or Electronic Check via PayPal. PayPal is our preferred method for payment. You do not need a PayPal account to use their service to pay us, unless you are paying by Electronic Check. PayPal is the worlds most secure online payment processor.  For more information about PayPal, visit their website at: http://www.paypal.com

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