Do You Include Your Photo As A Business Owner? Reasons Why You Should.
Promotional Images I Have Used.
If You Don’t Use An Image Of You As The Business Owner, You Distance Yourself From Your Potential Clients.
Not so long ago, if you were a business owner (no matter even if you were the one and only employee) the goal was to look big. Logos were the way to establish yourself and it was a representation of your brand. When I mention John Deere, Coke, Nike… the focus is on the product. I have no idea who owns these companies or where their headquarters are located. Today I still have logos but they are secondary to introducing potential clients to ME. Logos were a symbol of being very corporate and safe. If you had a “virtual office” instead of “brick and mortar” where clients could stop by and visit, they would think you were untrustworthy, a fraud, or a con artist. You could wait all day and the phone typically wouldn’t ring at all, unless someone just wanted to call you up and grill you. The typical end result was that no matter what you had to offer, they weren’t spending any money with you because a virtual office “wasn’t real.”
So, I became an entity creation expert. I would set up companies for clients, file all the proper documents, and even sell the entities. I worked with several attorneys who had lots of clients that were clueless but wanted to start a business. There was a large demand and I filled it. Consulting small business owners was my bread and butter! To be successful, every business owner needs the marketplace to know them and trust them. Then, and only then, if you have the solution to some challenge they’re experiencing, will they buy from YOU. Anything less and you may have income trickle in (if so, you’re very fortunate) but you’ll have nothing where you can quit your day job! The goal is consistent steadily increasing income. Right? Tricking people to click, buy, or join you in your business is a short road to ultimate failure. People are intelligent and will “catch on” to what you are doing. Keep your integrity, learn, do the work, and provide REAL value long term. Then you will have steady business and income.
Personally, when I look for a new product or service, I quickly look the information over to see if it fits my needs, and then I go to the “About” tab. If a website or blog doesn’t tell me who is behind the site or who’s running the show… I typically pass! If they don’t want to tell me who they are or how they got into their business, give me a bit of history, then I don’t want to do business with them.
This is also a great way to spot spam commenters. These people waste our time by using software tools to post spammy comments (with their links included of course) on our blogs. They will leave comments that are very broad and general in nature, sometimes including misspellings to try to look “real” and try to trick us into allowing them to post their links so they can gain higher rankings on Google. If a comment looks like it might be trash, I always check out the commenter’s email address and link to their site. Nine times out of ten, they have a fake site that has no real content and no trace of a real person blogging or running the site. Sometimes their site is just rows and rows of keywords (search terms that you or I would look for). Well, my new WordPress plugin, “Spam Free WordPress” takes care of each and every one for me now. Since I installed it I have not had ONE spam comment! I absolutely love it!
Unfortunately, in order for people to get to know us so that they will see if we have what they’re looking for, you, the business owner have to put yourself out there. Part of people getting to know you will be by getting used to seeing your profile photo (which now is predominately used in place of your logo; it’s a symbol of your brand “you”), seeing how you conduct yourself online (blogging, commenting, article writing, participating in industry appropriate forums, videos, etc.), and your social media marketing.
Don’t get so excited about your products or services that people never see or get to know YOU. I can give you one reality check — people buy from people they like. It’s really hard in today’s world to sell a product or service that isn’t already in existence. There may be literally tens of thousands of people already doing what it is you want to do. So, you have to ask yourself, “Why should they buy from or hire me?” You have to tell them why! You are unique, your perspective is unique, the way you handle customer service is unique. Why? Because no one else has YOU.
So get to a professional photographer or get someone you trust and get a photo already! Here are some very useful tips so you can prepare properly and have a great result. I’ll see you online soon!
To your prosperity and online success,
