Top 10 Worst Realtor Headshots Blog

Jan 08, 2008

I recently published a piece on my website titled "Top 10 Worst Realtor Headshots." As a Realtor, I constantly think about real estate marketing, and the headshot issue is something that I have a pretty hot debate with my business partner about - he thinks that headshots are great, and I think they're cheeeeesy. Kinan (my business partner) did talk me into putting my mug on the front page of my site for a bit, but it was only there for a couple of months before I received negative feedback from friends, and I decided to take it down. Here's the old site:

Super cheese - right?

So...I was thinking about it a little before the new year, and I started running searches for Realtor headshots using the Google image search tool. There are tons of them everywhere! I began bookmarking some of the headshots/marketing pieces that I found particularly absurd, and before I knew it, I had ~20 in my bookmarks folder.

I started writing a blog post rating & commenting on what I thought were the most absurd of the bunch. I'm a younger guy (28) and I write pretty freely - I read quite a bit of contemporary literature, and am a bit of a standup comedy aficionado. Before I knew it, I had a full-blown commentary that read like something out of a lad mag.

I posted the blog, and got a ton of response. For the most part, I received emails commending me on highlighting the absurd marketing in our profession. Some people felt that it was extremely harsh, and asked why I would personally attack people that I don't know. These people missed the point entirely.

I don't know the people on the post, and I've never spoken with any of them. I wasn't commenting on them or their personal lives - I'm sure they're all great people. The title of the post was "Top 10 Worst Realtor Headshots." The post was about their marketing choices. Some people chose to steal the "Got Milk" campaign, one chose to market his dog, one wore a pretty provocative outfit, and more. My post was merely my opinion that the marketing pieces I highlighted are pretty absurd.

Some people were also upset about the general public's response (blog comments.) I ask, "Doesn't that indicate that we need to think about how we market ourselves?"

Realtors used to be key holders - you weren't getting any information unless you came through us. Before, an absurd marketing campaign might have resulted in name recognition, and more phone calls.

Now, market information is in the public domain – market inventory is publicly displayed on IDX feeds, and sold data is public information in many states. This means that we, as Realtors, are moving away from the "key holder" position, and we must move towards the role of professional advisor. Predominantly, Realtors are extremely professional, and do excellent jobs helping people buy & sell homes. Now, more than ever, we need to brand & market ourselves as exactly that.