Step up your expectation level
“I just need 3-5 good photos, and I’m happy with this session…”
Here’s why you need to set your expectation levels much higher.
During many consultation calls with speakers, authors, consultants and other expert business owners, I hear the above statement.
I’ve heard this from dozens of folks at all stages of business, from an emerging speaker to someone that’s been speaking for decades.
Regardless of where they are with their business, I begin to ask them a series of questions:
You’re an expert who wants to grow your audience?
Create consistent and valuable social content?
Update your profile and cover photos across your social channels?
Leverage image content for your blogs?
Create a new pool of promotional posts for speaking engagements and media interviews?
Update your website?
Promote your podcast?
Incorporate photos into your slide decks?
If the answer is YES to any of these questions, that’s when I politely inform them that they need to recalibrate their expectation levels to a much higher standard.
They’re asking WAY too much of 3-5 photos to cover all of their image content needs.
They need more. And so do you.
Your online presence is vast with many moving parts. Your business has multiple tentacles attached to it. And you’re looking to scale.
If your goal is to present yourself as the authority in your space of expertise, then repeating the same handful of photos everywhere is, quite simply, a bad look.
It doesn’t resemble the brand of a go-to authority.
For that, you would need a comprehensive image portfolio that illustrates who you are, who you serve, how you solve their problems and why you do what you do.
The visual variety in these images not only offers your audience an entry point into your life by revealing your day-to-day lifestyle, but the consistency and premium quality of the photos creates a powerful first impression in the eyes of those who need your help most.
If you want to scale your business, then this is the goal.
As a result, the next time you book a lifestyle portrait session, set your expectations to a level that will help create an entire portfolio of diverse, revealing, relatable and compelling photos that draw your people in and inspire them to stick around until they’re ready to pay you to help them solve their problems.
In the end, the juice is worth the squeeze :)
PS - If you’re curious to learn how I ensure that every client walks away overwhelmed with the amount of valuable photos we capture during their session, let’s hop on a call, talk about it and see if we’re a fit to work together.