136 Unveiling Business Stories in Pictures with Suzanne Rothmeyer

A summary of this episode.

How I describe, branded photography is it's it's professional imagery that's unique to you and your business versus say stock photography, okay? So it's really very curated to you, your business, your your why and your how of your business. And it's geared to telling that story to your ideal clients. And so that's basically how I would put it in a nutshell I mean, it's looks a little different for every business, but basically that's what you're doing because you're trying to make this connection with your first of all you need to you have to know your who your ideal client is. That's the most important first step. I feel like when you're trying to decide whether you need to do a brand new shoot or not. But once once you know that then you can start sort of crafting this narrative that you are telling to your ideal client to kind of guide them through the process of understanding what it is you do, how it can help them how it can solve a problem for them how it can, you know, bring something into their life that they need or once and and help them and just guide them all the way through to that buying decision so that by the time they're they're excited about it, they want to do business with you. They've made that connection.

And one thing I always say I say to clients is what are the questions that your clients ask you all the time? What kind of questions are you getting from your either potential clients or your current clients and bring those up and talk about those? Social media is a great free place to do market research. So asking you know just asking a question on social media and and see how they respond if there's something you're thinking about your business or you're trying to tweak something or pivot a little bit or anything like that, or you've just put something out maybe you've just launched something and you're looking for you're about to and you're looking for some feedback. It's a great way to do that. And it makes them feel like they're part of the process. That's another connection point. They you know, it's all that sort of behind the scenes stuff and ways of connecting where they're there relate you're you feel relatable to them.

Well, if you go to my services page on my website, you know I have a couple of branding packages and then I've got like a lifestyle headshot. That's a little more you know, it's more scaled down. But on the on the branding packages I'm always including, you know, I go through an extensive process with my clients. First off, they fill out a very extensive questionnaire I they need to make sure that they are very, that they have a lot of clarity around who their client is. That's really important. You don't want to be doing a brand shoot if you don't have clarity on that first. And we talked about you know, we go through a whole thing of mood boards and conversation about wardrobe, hair and makeup locations because we want all of that to align with your business's both message and the aesthetic of your business. You know, you vote you've talked about my website, it's it's very fun, you know, it's fun. You know, absolutely that it's very me and I really want that to come through. I'm not one of those I want everything to be neutral and and all of that there's a time and place for that. And certainly there are businesses where that's what is called for and that's what we do, but I wanted to make mine really reflect me so if you want to if you are thinking about doing a branding shoot or wondering if it's right for you or when you should because those are all really great questions. And I know the answers to those.

Of course, you're going to be very, you know, insecure. Probably a nervous and uncertain if you're if you're just walking into a photoshoot, but by the time they've gone through the whole process, we have we know each other and amount of time discussing all us we have, you know, really, you know, we have a very clear shot list we have a very clear narrative of the story that we're going to be telling and what the needs of say their website and their social media are and all of that by the time we get to the day of the shoot. That means they're excited about it. The nervousness is turned into excitement and they're part of that process. They feel like they are very much part of it. So they really understand what we're doing and why we're doing it. So I think that's it's people really don't realize the effect that that has. When it comes to the day of the shoot and how you feel differently about getting into in front of the camera. You know, we've made sure that you're wearing things that your wardrobe and your hair and makeup that you feel great in it and that is not inauthentic you know I'll when we talk about authenticity, you know, you we curate what we say to people all the time whether out of respect, whether for impact, whether for humor, all kinds of things, that doesn't make it any less authentic, you know, and on the flip side of that, that also doesn't mean that oversharing is authentic, you know, you don't need to overshare to be authentic