I’m in the process of selling an old sofa. It’s left over from our recent office space transition.

I went on Craigslist to get a feel for how much one should ask for a used sofa. I’m worried about the price impact of the weird stain on the seat.

As I scanned the listings, I kept coming across ads without photos. The sellers would describe the sofa’s color, style, condition, and price, but they didn’t provide a photo.

Why no photo? I assumed the sofa was so ugly that a photo would kill the sale, so the sellers didn’t bother.

Is that what your prospective clients are thinking about you? That you must be so ugly that a photo would kill the sale?

I keep stumbling across lawyer websites without a photo of the lawyer.

You’ve got to have a photo. You’re the sofa, whether you like it or not. Site visitors want to know what you look like. They’re curious.

You don’t need to be especially attractive for clients to call you. You just need to be human. Without a photo, clients are left to wonder. They want to know.

A prospective client comparing you to another lawyer is always going to choose the lawyer with a photo.

You can always have a photo taken that makes you look nice. Look at my photo here on the page. I look good enough to hire, and I’m really not especially attractive. Photographers can do amazing things.

If you’ve got a photo on the site, then we’re good to go. If you don’t, then have one taken and put it up. Make your prospective clients comfortable. Give them a sense of who you are. Without a photo of you, they’re going to move on to the next site and hire someone else.