Her Story
About Sylvia
Sylvia Gholston owns a home staging franchise in Kennesaw, Georgia, where she has served clients for 6 years while also working as a dissertation coach and college professor. An educator since 1999, she earned her undergraduate degree in biology, chemistry, and environmental toxicology from Southern University, an HBCU, and later received her PhD in business administration with a concentration in leadership from Walden University. She is certified in staging and design and draws on her educational background to teach realtors and homeowners the importance of the staging process in selling homes. Gholston has received Best of Cobb, Best of East Cobb, Best of Smyrna, and Best of Woodstock awards for her business. She is a member of honor societies and volunteers her time with Musk Ministry, a nonprofit in Marietta, Georgia, serving Cobb County, while also advocating for cancer causes. Gholston attributes her success to hard work, noting that success without it does not happen, and emphasizes the importance of ethics and empathy in both her professional and personal life.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sylvia
01What do you attribute your success to?
Hard work is what I attribute my success to. Success without hard work doesn't happen. Community and true connections matter too, but it all begins with hard work because you can't make connections if you don't work hard. Stepping out of your comfort zone is hard but you just have to do those things.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Don't give up. You have to show up in order to show what you can do. Just because it's a bad day it's okay and you're not the only one. Nobody's really picking on you. You just have to keep going and don't worry about it. It can be done.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The challenge is price. A lot of people just don't see value. They want value for a little of nothing. People need to understand the importance of staging and how it connects to selling the house, just as important as the paint and exterior.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Being ethical and having empathy are the values most important to me. I value my employees to be ethical, I'm ethical with my family, my children are ethical. If you don't have ethics and empathy you just can't be a good person. Empathy and ethics goes with everything. You gotta think about what's gonna happen when you're gone, who you're leaving this to.
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