The right time?

When is it the right time to invest in professional photos to promote your business and brand?

This is a question that I often receive from speakers and other experts, and for good reason. 

Your image content is the front door to your entire online presence, and people form opinions as to whether or not they want to learn more about you.

So they play a big role in generating potential client work. 

The best time to invest in new photos is when:

• You’re in the process of a major rebrand

• You’re launching a new product or service

• You no longer recognize the person in those pictures, whether it’s a change in appearance or mindset or both.

OK, got that…

…But, what if you don’t have a huge budget for photography? 

Do you go out and ask your cousin who has a fancy camera to snap some photos of you?

No, please don’t do that. Experts hire experts for a reason, wouldn’t you agree :)

Ultimately, you want to work with a specialist who has experience working with folks just like you who understands what you need most from your images.

Fortunately, there are photographers who do have this type of experience at many different price points. 

Step 1 is to then identify a handful of these types of specialist photographers who fall within your budget, and can create photos with an aesthetic that you appreciate.

Step 2 is to set up an exploratory call with each of them. During those conversations, drill deeper into their relevant experience, and make sure that they will not only provide what you’re looking for, but will also clue you in to what else you need from the session.

While on that call, determine whether or not there is a natural rapport between you two since you’ll be spending the better part of a day in front of their camera. 

If you’re uncomfortable with them, that’ll be written all over your face, in every single picture…

…and that would be a big waste of time and money!

Step 3 is to make the final call and choose the one you want to hire. 

Ultimately, go with your intuition and choose the photographer that you think will over deliver on their promise to create valuable and compelling image content based on their work and conversation you had with them.

At the end of the day, investing in yourself is a part of the deal when you become a business owner. 

But, even though you might not have a big budget to spend on photos, there’s always options out there to help solve your image content challenge. 

You just need to be willing to look and put in the work to identify the right one for you. 

What has your experience been working with professional photographers? Did you feel like the work they delivered was worth the investment? If not, what was missing?

Please share your experience in the comment section below.