5 Reasons Why You Need a Professional Headshot
Stop using outdated or cropped out photos of yourself, please STOP. Those photos are easy to spot from miles away, and not in a good way. Cropped photos turned into headshots are not genuine, degrade your brand, and may actually hurt your business.
We photographed 6,293 (still growing) people this year and here are our top 5 reasons why you need a professional headshot.
Why are professional headshots important? This is your big opportunity to make that first strong impression. Forbes.com says it best, “Smiling pictures are an easy way to make clients comfortable with your business in seconds.”
With little time to make the right connection needed to grow your business, don’t let something like the wrong headshot have that opportunity slip through your hands.
The 5 reasons why you need a professional headshot are:
First impressions can make it or break it
Visual reminder of who you are
Put a face to your name
People connect more with images
First Impressions
According to mindtools.com, “It takes just a quick glance, maybe three seconds, for someone to evaluate you when you meet for the first time. In this short time, the other person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, your body language, your demeanor, your mannerisms, and how you are dressed.”
In other words, whether a person meets you in person or comes across an image of you, the first opinion is being formed within three seconds. Think about it, three seconds is like taking one quick breath.
Professional headshots are an ideal tool to get you to a good start on making a strong first impression. Don’t let something like a bad headshot get in the way of that opportunity.
Visual Reminder
Having a professional headshot is a good visual reminder of who you are. Headshots are good tools to use on company websites, in email signatures, for marketing materials and social media platforms.
If you are using LinkedIn, which hopefully by now you do, you know from your own experience that you are more likely to connect with someone that has a headshot. If you are looking to make connections through LinkedIn, you will stand out with a professional business headshot. That is a powerful tool at the tip of your fingers. Make the impression you want from the start.
Keep in mind that a headshot connected to your name is the best way to connect the dots between who you are and what you do.
Puts a Face to Your Name
Professional business headshots add the human touch to the overall experience. It’s important for people to know there is a human working with them alongside the process.
Vanessa Van Edwards is a Lead Investigator at Science of People and the author of Captivate the science of succeeding with others did an analysis on what your face says about you. In this diagram below she breaks it down for us.
Even though we do not have the power to know what people think of us, we do have the power to help sway them into the direction we want about us through our facial and body language in our headshots.
WASIO faces offers facial expression coaching to get different expressions through the headshot experience. During the process, the photos are reviewed together with the photographer and guidance is provided for which photos your message is best conveyed.
Show you are serious about your career
Whether you don’t have your most current headshot or you don’t have a headshot at all, what does that communicate about your relationship with your career?
Professional business headshots that are updated communicate to the world that you take your career seriously.
Having employees with consistent and updated headshots shows to the world that the company cares about its people. Most importantly though it proved to the employees that they are valued and appreciated. That’s why consistent corporate headshots are so important for the outside as well as the internal branding. Click the link to find out more about personal branding.
People connect more with images
Still wondering why a professional headshot is so important?
An article from the Institute For Public Relations titled A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Using Behavioral Insight in Visual Communication By Terrence Flynn explains that “Cognitive psychology research shows us that images can strengthen communications in several different ways-they can capture attention, evoke emotions, and easily convey large amounts of information in a relatively short amount of time.”
Are you ready to communicate your message through your professional headshot? Click the button below to schedule your headshot. If you have any questions contact us directly.
Top 6 questions answered on what to wear for professional headshots.
