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Why Your Photo Matters More than You Think
Posted by on 2017-09-27 at 9:51 AM
Hello Wonderful Forum Family,
People like good photos. Just take a gander at how popular Pinterest and Instagram are. Good photos reach people. We want your practice to reach out and connect with people, and your photo is one of the ways to help you do just that.
I am going to tell you a story to help illustrate why the quality and style of your profile photo is VERY important.
When I was 14 my bedroom was filled with animals; several pet mice and a few friendly pet rats (in addition to the 5 cats and 2 dogs in the house). I LOVE animals, and I wanted to add a pair of rabbits to the menagerie. So, I checked out the local rabbit rescue and soon brought Cisco and Giselle home.
Turns out, I’m not a rabbit person.
I needed to find them a better forever home with someone who could give them more affection.
I called the rabbit rescue and they said I was welcome to bring the bunnies to their adoption events at local pet shelters. They cautioned that it would likely take a few months to find my sweet bunnies a new home. They invited me to put a photo of them on their adoption page so prospective families could see them.
Most of the photos on their adoption page were small, out of focus, poorly lit, and were not posed well, so it was hard to see anything about any of the rabbits except that they were, well, rabbits.
Mom ( @Candace_CrawGoldman ) was working as a photographer at the time, and said what we really needed was a great photo of my bunnies. It took maybe 5-10 minutes of work. We turned on all the lights in the room, set the bunnies on a blanket to give them a nice clear backdrop and took one well focused photo of the pair.
We uploaded it to the adoption page and crossed our fingers. The next adoption event was only 3 days away.
That weekend, we packed up the bunnies and drove to the adoption event at a local pet store. The room was FILLED with bunnies, maybe 20 or so other ladies with rescue rabbits hoping to find them forever homes.
We got the bunnies settled and within 15 minutes a family walks in and says:
“We saw those adorable bunnies on the adopt page! We’ve already talked to the rescue service, and we’re here to adopt them!”.
Whoa.
That was a big lesson for me about people and how we connect.
I asked them “Why’d you pick my rabbits in particular? There are so many on the adoption page!”
they said, “Your photo really let us get a feel for these rabbits, and we felt like we connected with them.”
That’s why it took only a few MINUTES for my rabbits to be adopted out of the dozens of other similarly cute and wonderful rabbits that were hoping to find a home that day. Some of these rabbits had been to multiple adoption events-and had been waiting a long time, and we barely had time to set our rabbits down and wait when that family came in and asked for Cisco and Giselle specifically by name.
Because the PHOTO was CLEAR and WELL LIT and let that family CONNECT with the bunnies.
That’s why your photo matters so much, it’s about the connection.
You DO NOT need a professionally done or studio photo. Phone and computer camera photos can be excellent! Your clients want to connect with you as much as possible BEFORE they contact you.
A good photo says you know that and you want to give them as clear a ‘visual’ about you and your practice as possible.
I know many of you shy away from anything close to “business promotion” because you have a healing and spiritual practice and it’s not about you, it’s about the client.
But a good photo of you IS for the client. It doesn’t matter what you LOOK like, it’s the quality that says something to the client:
Hmm, this practitioner’s image is so dark I can barely see her…does she have something to hide?
vs.
Look at how bright that photo is, she sure looks confident, I’d bet she’s confident in her sessions too!
or
This practitioners image is out of focus and doesn’t even show his whole face…if he doesn’t care about the photo of him that represents his practice, why would he care about me and my session?
vs.
What a clear photo! I like that I can see him well, and now I feel the start of a connection!
Cheesy examples, I’ll grant you, but entirely true.
It’s not about promotion, it’s not about how you look, it’s about connection and letting your client really get a chance to “SEE” you
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