A big opportunity has just fallen onto the lap of one of my coaching clients, and it all happened because of the headshot of himself that he has on his brokerage company’s website. The real estate manager for a company that owns a ton of commercial real estate was looking for a new broker to begin working with, and she called my client because she said that he looked like the friendliest broker within his company from his photo on their website.
This company has acquired a lot of property over the years, they’ve decided that now is the time to begin unloading some of it, and the woman in charge of their real estate decided that she didn’t want to work with any of the brokers that they had been acquiring the property through over the years; she now instead wants to work with a broker who is…friendlier.
She’s looking for one broker to be the point person for selling real estate for them all throughout the U.S., and this very first sale that my client is now following-up with her on, could very easily total to more than $100 million.
This has gotten me to now think of the many headshots that I’ve seen of brokers over the years, where they’re looking so serious and so intense, almost to the point where if someone had photoshopped a prisoner outfit on top of them, I could see some people looking at the photo and then saying, “I can really understand how he could have committed that crime.”
So recognize that your business headshot can completely dictate the first impression that people will have of you, and if you’re trying to give people the impression that you’re a tough, serious, take-no-prisoners kind of broker, you could definitely be repelling some people away from doing business with you.
After all, most people will want to enjoy themselves when working with a commercial real estate broker, and if your headshot gives people the feeling that there will be no enjoyment in working with you, you may want to get a new headshot.