Can you put a price tag on your image? What's it worth?

We live in a very superficial time when people are constantly trying to portray themselves as smarter, fitter, wealthier, more attractive and more successful than they truly are. The "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality is just people trying to convince the rest of society that they are higher up the social ladder than they truly are. It's an illusion, but it's effective.

When you see a well dressed person getting into a new Range Rover, your first thought is that they are educated, successful and make a lot of money. Nowadays I usually second guess my first impression. I'm well aware that flashy often means people are over leveraged and up to their eyebrows in debt. In many circumstances people with nice things owe more than they own in assets, which actually puts them in a worse net worth situation than a homeless person without a dollar to their name.

I worked in the back of a shop in the automotive repair industry for fifteen years. My image wasn't a concern. I wasn't in charge of meeting with customers, booking jobs or dealing with vendors. There was no advantage to me or the company to be well dressed, clean shaven or presentable in any way.

For the most part I focused my money on assets. I drove cheap cars and even the thought of buying a collared shirt made me cringe. I didn't see the value of buying fancy things to impress people I didn't know. My friends and family knew who I was and I could care less about anyone else...until I became a Realtor and investor.

After buying three or four investment properties I decided to leave the automotive world and become a Realtor in order to create a synergy between my work and my investing. Not only was I now meeting with clients but I was responsible for my own success. It's one thing looking presentable at your job to help your company do well, but as a Realtor I'm my own company. Yes, I work for a brokerage, but I'm 100% commission based and I need to sell to get paid, as we all do as investors. 

We are all in sales. We sell our rental units to tenants, we sell deals to the bank in order to get financing, we sell our services to joint venture partners, we sell our ability to pay to contractors to get rehabs done. Sometimes we have worked with people for years, and our reputation does the talking, but if you are growing your investment portfolio, you're meeting new people all the time. How do they see you?

A good friend of mine owns a substantial real estate portfolio, but drives a $500 Caravan. He hates the thought of spending thousands of dollars on a vehicle instead of reinvesting the money. Up until this point he has used mostly his own money to buy his properties, but is now is getting to the point where he is going to need to attract joint venture partners or hard money lenders. If he is going to inspire people to invest with him, he needs them to believe he has been successful on his deals and that real estate investing is profitable. What will people think if they see someone with ten houses that can't afford a decent car? People want their investments to buy them a lifestyle. They dream of the perfect home, nice cars and exotic holidays. A $500 Caravan doesn't help sell that.

Success is easy to fake, but on the surface it's hard to detect if someone is faking. If you see a well dressed person getting into a nice car, they might be the owner of 400 rental units, or they might work a menial office job and are in crippling debt. We shouldn't judge a book by the cover, but if you were approached by the well dressed person and they explained they had an investment opportunity would you be more willing to listen to them than if they looked homeless and were getting into a $500 car? 

Every minute of every day, you are a real estate investor. Whether you are meeting with a lender, contractor, insurance agent, Realtor or shopping for groceries, eating at a restaurant or pick your kids up from school. What does a real estate investor look like? We all know real estate is the best way to build income and net worth. How do we portray that? We don't know who our next business partner will be. It might be a parent of your kids friend. If you want people to believe you when you say real estate is profitable, look the part. You're going to have a hard time convincing people how high your ROI is when they think you can't afford a decent car, or a collared shirt.

I can't stand rubbing money in peoples faces, but if you want to portray real estate as very profitable, which it is, you need to look the part. Real estate isn't a one man show. We need people in order to succeed. We need property managers, contractors, lenders and joint venture partners. You need them to believe you are succeeding. Why make that an uphill battle by looking broke? 

There are times where downplaying wealth is a good idea, like when dealing with tenants and maybe even contractors to some degree, but for the most part, we are all in sales. Like it or not, 99% of people judge people on first impressions. People don't have a big sign above their heads showing their net worth, and you can show every person you meet your bank statements to prove you are succeeding. Society perceives success by our image. You might not care what people think of you, but you should. 

I understand that many people reading this hate the idea that society thinks they should spend money just to make it look like they have money. That's why I love investors. They have a different mindset than the average consumer working a 9-5. But society is what it is, and if you want to grow into something big, you need to play the game. It might be fine on a small scale to not put effort into your image, but you don't see people putting multi million dollar multifamily deals together wearing sweat pants, just as you don't see top Realtors showing million dollar waterfront properties in a $500 car. And even if you did, how much harder do you have to work to convince people you are who they should do business with, when you're in sweat pants and a $500 car?

A nice shirt and slacks might land you a deal that nets you hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a better ROI than any property I've bought.