Have you ever heard someone talk about someone you have never met?  Good or bad doesn’t really matter.    You finally get to meet them and you have already judged them based on what you were told? 

I was judged....

I can remember meeting a male customer once and he told me based on your picture, "I thought you would be uppity in your business suit and drive a BMW."  "I thought you would not want to work with me."  I laughed and found it strange, I had a sundress on, drove a Ford Contour and I live in the same neighborhood where his future home would be.  After the closing we stood outside talking he said these words to me,”You should change your picture in your ads, they do not suit your personality, you might be loosing business because of it.”  “ My response, “That is a lot of marketing that I am going to have to change, it’s going to be expensive.”     He said, “Just my opinion, you did a great job for me, take it for what it’s worth.”  I picked up on what he was saying and took time out to review. He had pre-judged me based on my photo!  I thought to myself, you got to be kidding. Those words meant plenty.  Public perception.   Does my marketing appeal to everyone or am I limiting myself?   Needless to say I changed my picture.  I really took those words to heart. 

He was judged... 

                                                                        
 I was in the office one day and the receptionist walked back to me and told me there was this guy waiting for me in the lobby, he looked rough, shorts and tee shirt, it looked like he had been painting all day in 90 degree weather, he had sandals on and she thought he had arrived by foot.  She asked, "Should I tell him you are here?"  I told her that I would be up in a minute and to go ahead and put him in the conference room .  She questioned and asked, “Are you sure?”  I told her,  "YES I will be right up."  I had already prejudged based on what she had said and her reaction to the customer, I thought to myself I hope this isn’t going to be a waste of time.  YIPEE, I was wrong!

We did the introductions and he had one of my postcards in his hand.  He told me about his house that he needed to sell, and the trouble that he was having with the county, a $20,000 fine that was accumulating daily.  He had just bought the property a few months prior.   The work was incomplete because he could not get the permits to complete what needed to be done.  Major Code Violations.    I told him I would take a look at the property and see him the next day.  I walked him through the lobby and watched as he pulled out in a Mercedes. 

The receptionist asked, What did he want?  Very judgemental….I told her I had an appointment at his house in the morning.  I was going to market the property. 

He listed it, we got a buyer, we negotiated the fines and closed.  I gave you the short version, it took 6 months to close but it happened.  I earned my commission and he knew it!  Right after that closing, he asked me to look at another house of his that he wanted to sell.  Yes he was an investor!   To make a long story short I sold that property as well, again it wasn’t easy, the washer and dryer were stolen, vagrants living in the house next door.  Believe me transactions like this are imbended in your mind forever.   We became very good friends.   I could always count on him for words of wisdom, a good laugh and a friendship that I would have never experienced if I had judged a book by it’s cover. 

Here is the best part.  My friend has historical roots, not celebrity roots but historical roots.  Remember the term “Go West Young Man!”

 His great-grandfather was Horace Greeley Feb. 1811 – Nov 1872 was an American editor of a leading newspaper, a founder of the Republican party, reformer and politician. His New York Tribune was America's most influential newspaper from the 1840s to the 1870s and "established Greeley's reputation as the greatest editor of his day. Greeley used it to promote the Whig and Republican parties, as well as antislavery and a host of reforms. Crusading against the corruption of Ulysses S. Grant's Republican administration, he was the presidential candidate in 1872 of the new Liberal Republican Party. Despite having the additional support of the Democratic Party he lost in a landslide.  Source Wikipedia.com

My friend, I call him Three, all of his friends and family do. It did not hit me right away who his great-grandfather was.  His name is Horace Greeley, III.  Remember it’s not the cover of the book that makes it valuable and attractive its what is inside!