As Good As They Look

It’s a super book written by a gentleman who overcomes a painful time in his life with the help of a unique and huge Newfoundland rescue dog that he adopts.  It’s the journey about healing, understanding and trust for both man and dog.  It promotes the amazing beasties that another misguided or ill-advised human has thoughtlessly discarded, that are to be found at your local animal rescue shelter.

It’s a brilliant book (and no I am not being paid for this), it truly is.  Of course I am biased as we’ve adopted rescues, currently one foxhound, one hound mix puppy and a wee fluffy cat.  And could extol the virtues of rescuing a cat, dog, horse, chicken, hamster etc etc.  But I won’t because that’s not the point of today’s missive.

So as luck would have it, I got to meet the author Colin and George, his very large dog, at a do the other day and it brought back a talk I went to a few years ago.  It was by a well know radio personality.  She was very high octane, go getter and very successful serial entrepreneur.  I thought it would definitely be worth attending and duly went.  For about fifteen or so minutes we sat in our chairs looking at publicity photos of her on the screens and around the venue.

Then this lady walked onto the stage and I idly wondered, is she a warm up perhaps or her publicist?  No she was the radio personality, I did a double take!  It was like looking at another person, maybe if I was generous I could say her hair was more or less the same(ish) but her face just wasn’t.  For her publicity shots she’d clearly been airbrushed and photo-shopped within an inch of her life and the result was just odd.  Don’t get me wrong she looked lovely in both real life and on the posters and screens – just not the same person!

I think some of you may recall I had a photographer ask me if I wanted him to tidy up my face a bit for my portrait photo, and when I responded no, absolutely not, he rather ungallantly asked “are you sure?”  A bit much I thought, given you’re not exactly a Rembrandt yourself. 

So what does this have to do with Colin and George, you may ask?  Well I am very happy to report everything, because they were both exactly what they said they were, they were as good as they looked in the book and exactly as the description said on the packaging!  And it was lovely.

The thing about the radio personality was that it gave me more than a smidgeon of distrust about her, are you trying to prove something, pull the wool over my eyes?  Especially given she was there for a talk, and she was also in business to sell her consulting services.  Colin and George were of course also selling, their book and the remarkable love of a rescue animal and it was their connection, trust and love for each other that exuded from both the book and in person/dog.

How could I put a photo of an airbrushed me on our website, because if any customer saw me and had the experience I had, how could they trust our pictures of our robes and us as a company?

Today, I think more than ever within our digital world, it is authenticity that counts, that touches people, that enables people to trust, whether an author, radio personality, business or in our personal one on one dealings.  Being authentic is often hard for an online business, but it’s something that keeps customers returning, relationships strengthening and referrals being offered.

Look Gorgeous, Feel Fabulous - Sophie

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