*Results Not Typical

Reading this blog post is guaranteed to make you twice as effective within your profession and will also make you up to ten times more attractive to the opposite sex. And, by bookmarking this blog now, you will be able to triple your income and quadruple your tax write-offs!

Just ask DotLoop Blog reader Donnie Ewing.

"Since I began reading the DotLoop Blog, I have been making $5,000 a day in extra income. Plus, I lost ten pounds in three minutes!"*

*Results not typical. Side effects may include nausea, dry-mouth, and headaches. Always consult your doctor before reading the DotLoop Blog.

If you've watched any TV within the last decade, you've seen the small type. As a real estate agent, you know all about small type and the importance of reading it.

And it's not just the "results not typical" variety, either. The infamous "up to" and "as low as" are just as misleading. I especially like car commercials, where they show the most posh, leather-clad car winding through the freshly-paved blacktop of some scenic mountain road. The announcer then comes on and proclaims that you too can get this car starting at $15999. The small type, of course, always says "Price as Shown, $38999."

Car companies are not the only ones over-promising and under-delivering, though. As reported yesterday, broadband "up to" speeds are as bogus as men with sprayed-on hair getting bikini models for a girlfriends.

As it turns out, what's being advertised is not at all what's being delivered.

This of course lends itself to an interesting discussion. In an attempt to stay afloat through this difficult housing market, are you over-inflating your numbers and abilities? Are you only advertising atypical results? Most likely, you're not, but it's something to think about next time a seller is demanding their house be listed at a 2006 price point and you guarantee that you can deliver such results.

As we all know, the devil is in the details and the deception is in the small type.