You can hardly blame us.
Here we are getting older everyday, our youthful good looks fading in the mirror until we hardly recognize the oldster in the reflection. Meanwhile, our portrait photo remains ever-young, frozen features glowing with optimism and youthful vibrancy. So unlike that stranger we behold in the mirror, battered by years and stressful transactions.
We do like to have portrait photos in our advertising. Our cards, our ads, our signs, you name it. Working in this business for a while, you come to associate the photo with the name, so apparently it works. Where it becomes interesting, at least for the purposes of this blog entry, is when the agent photos no longer resemble the agents in real life.
It happens. Oh boy does it! Agents hand you their card, and you look at it, and look at them, and look at the photo again, with a baffled look on your face. You wonder if this is an impostor, impersonating the agent whose card you hold in your hand. Nope, just a human being in portrait denial. As I said at the top, you can hardly blame us.
Still, when it gets slow among agents in my office, this topic sometimes comes up, and can get big laughs for false advertising. Page through an issue of Redding Homes, and pick your favorites. Page after page of shining faces, so unlike our actual colleagues. Kinda like whistling past the graveyard though, for all of us. Dark humor, for sure. Salesfolk are terribly insecure, notwithstanding our outward bravado. Clinging to an outdated image of ourselves comes with the territory. We all need our fictions, just to get by sometimes.
Just be prepared, when you meet that agent for the first time in person. You are warned.
Realtor Skip Murphy, in a recent photo.
