[jason_pomerleau]

1) Businesses in my markets like to deal with humans. They’re not hiring a company (well, they are - I have a numbered company that is generally only of concern to the financial and legal departments) - they want to work with me. There’s no need for me to be memorable in any other way. Plus I really suck at naming things. :)

2) See 1). By the time a prospect reaches me, there’s already been a warm introduction of some kind. The big photo is the human you’re going to end up working with. I’m not super handsome but nevertheless i think it communicates that human component rather well. I do get teased occasionally about my “Steve Jobs” headshot but it doesn’t seem to have impacted sales.

If I was trying to grow and build out a team I would have taken a very different approach.

My growth strategy is oriented around productivity and workflow improvements, not adding heads. I’ve managed to become very fast and quite efficient, such that I usually blow my competitors completely out of the water. I’m only one semi-ugly dude, and thus every component of what I do has to be ruthlessly focused on what matters most.

[tastroder]

Love that approach but fyi: first time visitors using Chrome on Android get to know your left ear exclusively, the rest of your face is cut off on mobile.

[gist]

> There’s no need for me to be memorable in any other way.

I know a great deal about this topic. It always pays to make it easy for people to find or remember you. Even if you get primarily word of mouth.

> Plus I really suck at naming things. :)

Well then you should do what people who use you are doing. Find someone who does and pay them for the advice (per what I say about 'it always pays to make it easy for people to find or remember you).

Even if you already have more customers than you can service having more potential customers allows you to charge a higher price for what you do. There is no reason to have friction in marketing. It's not the same as HN trying to use a hard to find name to keep people out and have only higher quality comments (reason it's still probably news.ycombinator.com instead of something easier to find for newbies)