All Forum Posts by: Kevin Kaczmarek

"have found myself at times not trusting someone based on their photo." - Vikram C.

Vikram, I think that statement right there is why a profile picture is worth it. If you can size up someone from a picture to not be upstanding you benefit right away. That very concept was discussed in "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Your initial impression is usually right.

This is a great thread. I appreciate getting all the feedback from both sides.

Marc, I would side with what Brian said. For years ( I wish it still happens) I was told I looked like I was in high school, but you know what. My actions proved that I was experienced, respectful and kind and after that initial glance of hey you look like you are in high school my actions showed people that hey, this guy knows what he's doing.

The founders of Google, Facebook, Napster and quite a few other companies were all young, high school looking types. Age and looks are an initial impression. You engage people by your actions. I am not saying you don't because you have a picture of a jeep, I am saying through caution to the wind if you are concerned you look to you.

And, I happen to like your pic as my buddy is a big off-roading jeep guy in a club called Swamp Stompers so I can appreciate when someone likes to show off their jeep.

Dan you beat me to the post on this one.

We designed the contest as a means of stretching our team to explore the site and make positive contributions to this community.
I found it imperative in a social media world to have our team embrace social media in our own backyard so to speak, on this site.

We did our best to organize the point system so that people only earn points by earning awards and building their network. Your influence score was not included in the scoring system so if you work just to increase your influence from 900 to 2100 you received no points for that.

We emphasize education in our company and we live that belief with this contest and by all the free events we do locally to educate. I am a firm believer in giving first, and ye shall receive later.

In the process of reading "Twitter Power 2.0" and one of the interesting things I read about is your profile picture should be a picture of you, not of your pet, or a landscape scene. This got my attention because it made sense, Make a personal connection via your profile picture. I know on biggerpockets alone I tend to not colleague request people without profile pictures and looking through my colleagues I noticed most had a picture of themselves.

Is there some truth to the psychological aspect of making a connection by a profile picture? Are there success stories on here of building a network faster with a profile picture as opposed to something else?

Karim, try Kelly O'Malley with Bell Title of Livonia, at [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] She does about 300 transactions a year for us in this fashion.

Randal,

Glad you are a note fan. That is my favorite aspect of the business. I read a great book called "Invest in Debt" that dealt with Notes. Matt Mathews and Marc Faulkner on here have some great resources to note articles and posts that are worth reading.

Vic, thanks for posting this. We all think of UK investors and European countries investing in this country, but we forget about China. Any recommendations as to what is the proper way to market to Chinese consumers?

Think of your yellow letter campaign as short twitter posts. Twitter has become so effective because it limits what people have to read to 140 characters. Keeping a short pointed message will be more effective and leaves enough mystery for someone to want to learn more.

please send me a list.

Josh,

I appreciate the quick feedback and can totally understand the challenge of the search alogrithm. I have signed several very experienced investors on this site, and just wanted to share the feedback I received from them on responding to old posts and the search was a frustration of theirs and of course mine. I know if we clear a couple things up, it will make it easier for newbie's to find their way navigating the site.

Nothing is perfect, but this site is darn near perfect, so I say all of this because I am thankful for the community we have here.