Most small business owners spend time and money designing a brand, and building a nice website. Then they stop. And wonder why their their leads never convert. Don’t fall into the same trap!
(Names, times, locations have of course been changed to protect those whom have chosen poorly.)
A while ago, I was in the market for a new mortgage. I had received a message from my bank that my rates were going up (yet again), and I wasn’t happy. I meant to go look around at rates, but with so many other fun things to do in life who wants to spend time reading confusing small print?
The Perfect Pitch
Around that time, in one of my groups a mortgage broker pitched his services for the Eastern Suburbs. He talked about how he could find the perfect loan, how it’d fit his client’s needs, and save them both time and money. I’d never used a mortgage broker before. Didn’t even know what it was. His pitch sounded good, so I went to his website to find out more.
The Perfect Website
It was a slick, well designed website. It dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, it explained how it all worked, it had client testimonials. It offered a complementary no obligation appointment. Sure, why not? I was ready to call. One last thing, I decided to have a look at the mortgage broker on his about page. Might as well see whom I was dealing with, right?
The Flawed About Page
The About Page was fine. It had the usual biography. Then I scrolled further and saw the actual person.
I was shocked. What I saw was I presume a photo taken a camera on a notebook computer. He was in a dark bedroom, seated like he was at a notebook computer and looking just enough off screen to feel weird. The picture was grainy and yellow. There were shadows where eye sockets should be. The photo above is not the person in question, it is from wikimedia commons. The real photo was many times worse, and he wasn’t even smiling.
Was this the professional who was going to handle my million dollar loan that I’d be paying off the next 30 years? No way. I closed the website and never looked back.
In a split second, they lost a client who was ready to buy. Of course, they wouldn’t even know. How many clients did they lose over the course of a week? A month? A year?
What’s the cost of a headshot?
This is the age of information. Clients no longer hire you because you’re the only professional they could find. They have access to everyone in Sydney. Your brand must build trust and confidence in your clients if you hope to even hear from them.
A headshot costs less than the commission on a single client. Even if he would only use the headshot for 2 years, it comes to a cost of 20 cents a day. By saving 20 cents a day, he was losing thousands a week in commissions and an incalculable amount on reputation.
Build trust in your clients
Your website is your shopfront. It needs to be clean, professional, and inviting to your target market. That’s where we come in as Sydney business lifestyle photographers. We work with you to see what your clients are looking for, and craft imagery for your website that builds trust and confidence.
So how do you get clients to pick up the phone to call you? It’s not enough to have a nice website with stock photos, a Facebook/LinkedIn page, and a phone number. Every part of your brand must reflect professionalism. Your about page is the second most visited page after your home page. Visitors go there when they’re almost ready to buy. It cannot be empty. It must be perfect, including your photograph.
How would you like an about page which makes people contact you right away? How would you like to be trusted even before speaking your first word?
Valent Lau Photography provides Professional Branding Photography in our Coogee studio or at your business location. Contact us now and let us help you make your best first impression.
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