Portraits and self-esteem

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It’s long been known that portraits boost the self-esteem of children. Family portraits are the most effective but sports and school portraits also help. These portraits have to be on display in the home and not left on computer hard drives or hidden away in drawers.

If you have young children, including adolescents, be sure to get many portraits done throughout their early years. Formal family portraits, sports portraits, school portraits and casual portraits. It’s important.

And it’s not just for children. I’ve seen the positive effects that good portraits have had on girls in their late teens and early twenties. I’ve also seen what can happen with older women.
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Average Looks Good

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Do you think these two people are attractive?

 

The woman’s face is a mathematical average of 55 female business portraits I did last year. The man’s face is an average of 50 male portraits. The headshots used included a wide variety of people ranging in age from early 20s to early 70s.
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The Science of Business Portraits

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If you’re reluctant to get a new business portrait because you think you don’t have the looks of a movie star, then science is on your side.

A 2013 Princeton University study (link to PDF) found that a person with average facial appearance is perceived to be more trustworthy than someone with above-average looks. In fact, the perceived trustworthiness of a less than average-looking person was found to be about the same as for a very attractive person.

. . . we found consistent evidence for the notion that face typicality is an important determinant of perceived trustworthiness . . .

We’re also more attracted to average-looking faces. Many thousands of years of evolution have hardwired us to prefer average looks. Remember that most actors and models are only average looking (link to PDF) and they just have better stylists than the rest of us :-)
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Pushing and pulling

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If finding new customers was easy, a lot of ad agencies, marketing companies and public relations agencies would be out of business.

For corporate photographers, there’s only one true way to get customers and it’s simple: be trustworthy.

Of course, people won’t trust a business they’ve never seen or heard about. So you must be visible before you can build trust.

To be visible to your potential customers, you can either push yourself in front of them or you can try to pull them to you.

“Push marketing” means you send information to your potential customers. For example, you might send postcards, newsletters or portfolio pieces to photo editors and creative directors. This is a targeted approach since you choose who gets your marketing. Other types of push marketing such as newspaper, magazine and website ads can be less targeted.
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Don’t phone it in

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Why not give a customer a price over the phone?

If a photographer simply tells a potential customer, “The price for your photography project will be $4,000,” then the customer may be left wondering about things like:

Does that include expenses and sales tax?

Does that price include post-processing?

When and how do we have to pay?

Exactly what are we getting for our money?

After we pay, we own the pictures, right?

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Discard Discounts

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A photographer can’t discount their way to success. If it was possible, don’t you think every photographer would be doing it?

When you discount, you penalize customers who pay your normal price. For example, after buying a $400 winter coat, do you feel cheated the following week when the same coat is discounted 50%?

When you discount, it means you have no other value to offer the customer.

Discounting attracts price shoppers. Is that what you want? If you offer a discounted price of, say, $99 for a business headshot, then you’ll attract $99 customers. If they like your work, they’ll tell all their $99 friends and you’ll get more $99 customers.
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