Think back to the last time you had your brand photos done.
What was going on in your life? In your business?
Were you bogged down in imposter syndrome with a bad case of hunting for shiny objects? Were you celebrating your first 5-figure month, trying to fight off early signs of burnout?
Maybe your prices were half what you charge now. Or your goals were microscopic compared to what you’re gunning for today. Or perhaps you’ve actually shifted your focus because you finally figured out your niche.
Wherever you were, I will bet My Cat Named Weenie (that’s my cat’s actual name) that you’re not in the same place.
Businesses are ever-evolving
Are you the exact same person as when you last had your headshots or brand photos done? (Which was probably a year or more ago.) Of course not. While you’re still much the same at your core, you’ve grown and changed as a person. (Go you!)
You’ve set new goals, pursued new passions, developed new relationships, reflected on past actions, created new habits, and so on. You’ve had ups and downs and days in between.
Your business is the same. As you shift your priorities, identify new goals, and grow your company, your business changes. It’s a natural evolution.
Symptoms of your business evolution
Often, this kind of business evolution is conscious. It’s the result of a strategic, thoughtful change you’ve planned and implemented in your business.
A few examples of conscious evolution:
Increasing your prices
Updating your offerings
Narrowing or changing your niche
Changing your target audience
When you make these calculated choices, you set a plan in motion to follow. You announce your new prices to your clients, create a sales funnel for your updated offerings, or change your marketing to reflect your new niche or audience.
But not all evolution is conscious. In fact, the most common form of business evolution comes from the small micro-shifts that we make in our work each day.
These tiny adjustments and adaptations add up unconsciously until you look up and realize you’ve deviated from your original path, only to create a better passage.
A few examples of unconscious evolution:
Setting a new weekly goal
Enrolling in a course or program
Creating new business relationships
Rewriting your brand messaging
In the course of a year or more, most businesses experience both conscious and unconscious evolution. The question is… what are you doing about it?
Has your business eclipsed your brand?
As your business evolves, so too, does your brand.
Your brand is an expression of your business, which is often an extension of ourselves. So, it makes sense that we may start to feel uneasy or out of sorts when our branding no longer aligns with our businesses.
It’s why big corporations will rebrand to stay modern and relevant. As they change internally (thanks to technology and new best practices), they want the outside to match.
When was the last time you considered whether your brand and your business matched up?
And I’m talking specifically about your brand’s visual personality.
Your brand’s visual personality comes across in headshots, brand photos, team shots, product portraits, and editorial images. It comes across in the images you use as banner photos on your website pages, in your social media, and in your marketing materials. Brand photography provides you with lifestyle images that show you, your team, or your products at work.
More than that, it tells your audience’s story. It shows your customer what their life will look like with your product. It shows your client what their business could look like with your service.
Brand photography tells the story of how you envision your business, how your customers value what you do, and why your work matters. At the end of the day, your customers are half of your brand; they express what your business looks like on the outside as an invitation to join in.
Do your images express your brand’s personality and values visually? Or do they feel a smidgen off?
Are you excited to use your brand images in your marketing? Or are they collecting virtual dust in an archived folder on your computer?
Does the way you’re portraying yourself in your head shot, team images, and brand photos convey your business as it currently stands? Or is it stuck in the past?
If any of these ring a bell, it may be time to reassess your brand and bring it up to speed. You may need new photos if:
You haven’t been using your brand images in your marketing lately
You’ve started using stock photos even though they don’t quite fit what you need
Your business has changed — significantly or subtly — since your last photoshoot
You look completely different than the last time you took brand photos
How to align your business and your brand
You might be surprised to hear that the answer isn’t to run out and get new headshots or brand photos done.
More times than not, this quick move leads to images that still aren’t quite right.
That’s why I recommend doing a brand review first. You can do this one your own or with an experienced brand photographer.
What I do with my clients is a deep dive into their business. We discuss their business vision, goals, products, and more to craft the story we’ll tell visually. Through this process, we uncover what best visually represents their business, so we can shape a brand photography session around the story we’re going to tell.
The result is brand images that represent the business and its owner authentically and powerfully.
Are you ready to update your marketing images with brand photos that tell the story of your business? Contact me to book a brand storytelling session.