"Be yourself" is lovely advice if someone asks how they should behave at a dinner party. As a strategy for marketing your business, however, it's pretty dreadful.
The biggest problem with it is that it just doesn't give you anything to do. I mean, you already ARE yourself! You've been yourself the entire time you've been alive! (Though if you haven't, that's a story in itself that I absolutely want to hear, please and thank you.)
A big flaw in the “be yourself” argument is that all too often we don't actually know which parts of ourselves are relevant to the people we want to hire us or book us.
And even if we do know that, it's even less common to know how to make those parts visible in a way that actually says something meaningful - something that will make people think ah yes, I need to work with you.
"Showing up as yourself" sounds like freedom, I guess, but it tends to produce a kind of analysis paralysis. Without a clearer brief, most people default to either talking and acting how they think they should, or saying nothing at all because nothing feels quite right.
A question I find much more useful
I find it easier to start with this question:
What does someone need to understand about how I think and work?
Now, doesn't that feel easier?
It asks you to consider what someone is trying to make sense of when they land on your website, read your LinkedIn profile, or look at your photos, and what you'd need to show them for that to make sense quickly.
It shoves the problem away from self-expression into communication, which is where it should have been all along.
Take a few minutes to write down four things that someone would need to understand about how you work before they'd feel comfortable working with you. Not who you are in broad strokes, but specifically:
Those things are so much more useful as a starting point for marketing your business than any amount of “being yourself”.
The images, the words, and the overall impression your business creates online - all of that becomes easier to plan once you know what it needs to communicate. And that's true whether you're preparing for a photography session, updating your website, or writing a newsletter.
Start with what someone needs to understand, and the rest follows a lot more easily.
Most people spend their days solving problems, spotting patterns, and making decisions.. Those things don't always translate naturally into just a simple headshot.
My own answers
As it happens, these are the same questions I ask myself when thinking about my own business:
How I think
With a professional background in communications and IT, I use a camera primarily as a marketing tool rather than an artistic exercise. Before I photograph anything, I want to understand what your business needs people to grasp quickly, what builds trust in your particular industry, and what isn't coming across online yet. The photography is simply how we communicate those things.
How I approach a problem
I think in systems. I'm not interested in creating a lovely gallery that then sits untouched in a folder. I'm thinking about your website, LinkedIn, emails, proposals, and future content and what images will make all of those easier for you.
What I pay attention to
I notice the gap between the standard of someone's work and the impression their business gives online. Most of my clients are already very good at what they do. Their photos just haven't caught up with them yet. I focus on bridging that gap.
What I do differently
Many people don't feel represented very well online, but they don't always know what's missing. I'm good at untangling that. I ask a lot of questions, notice patterns, and listen for the gaps in what people tell me, because what isn't being said is often just as important as what is. By the end of the planning process, clients usually have a much clearer idea of what their business actually needs to communicate. Only then do I start thinking about cameras, locations, and what to wear.
Those four things shape every conversation I have, every shoot I plan, and every gallery I deliver.
After all, it's surprisingly difficult to communicate what you need to with a blurry selfie and a stock photo of someone pointing at a laptop.
A final thought
If you've read this and realised that your own photos, website, or online presence aren't really communicating the standard of work you deliver, that's completely normal. Most people don't arrive knowing exactly what's missing.
Working that out is often the bit I help with.
If you'd like someone to ask awkwardly perceptive questions, spot the things you've forgotten to mention because they seem obvious to you, and turn all of that into photographs that actually have a job to do, I'd love to hear from you.
