“Sorry mate, I have to ask, are you related to Dean Smith, the ex Aston Villa manager by any chance? You just look so much like him…”  He laughed.  “No” he replied. “But funnily enough he is my best friend, and we actually grew up together as next door neighbours”  What a crazy world we live in. I mean, what are the odds? 

We chatted a little more about doppelgangers, and how he could use it to his advantage, before the conversation moved on to an interesting experiment that I’d come across. Apparently, researchers at Lingnan University (LU) in Hong Kong have conducted a study to find out whether people buy more from good-looking people. And the results were quite fascinating. 

Unsurprisingly, yes, people with a pretty face would sell more than those with plain faces but the bit that I found really interesting was that ugly faces sold almost just as much as the pretty ones! So it seems if you want to use your face to sell more, it pays to be beautiful – or ugly! Perhaps having a face for radio could be a good thing! 

As a business owner in today’s digital world, I think that adding the human touch to your marketing communications is really important. People buy from people. Relationships are built through human interaction. And I think that adding a visual to those communications is really important – no matter how pretty, plain or ugly you are. I don’t plaster my face on everything we do, but you will find my mugshot on LinkedIn, the Millennium website and at the bottom of all of my emails. 

How about you? What do you think? Do you make your face known to your prospects or do you hide behind the digital wall of the internet? I’d love to hear your views…