Get your personal brand right... a message from the CEO

I recently attended a networking event and the VP of Sales shared the following story. Her boss addressed the audience at their Fortune 500 company all-hands sales meeting. At the top of the presentation he featured photos of many key sales, marketing and leadership on the organization chart. Several of them had "stars" beside their images. Naturally everyone in the audience was curious to know what the "star" designation might mean. Promotion? Bonus? Special award? Nope. This was the CEO's ice breaker (using humor) to point out all of the bad photos. The public display of outdated images, selfies and wedding snapshots was met with a lot of chuckles and then followed by a serious call to action:

Get your personal brand right because you are representing the meticulously curated professional brand of your company.

Your headshot is your digital calling card and introduction almost everywhere so simply put, update your professional image to reflect the best version of who you are today.

I have been a Professional Headshot Photographer for over 12 years. I've photographed 1000's of people of all ages, shapes, and skin shades. I've also heard nearly every reason in the book for why business executives avoid getting their professional photos taken. Most excuses boil down to confidence... or rather lack of feeling confident when faced with the prospect of being photographed. The fear is really unwarranted but if the thought of going to the portrait studio resembles the feeling you get with a pending root canal, I'm here to tell you that you are not alone and it happens at every level of the career ladder.

Here is the truth -- you don't have to be naturally confident in front of the camera, your ideal weight is not a requirement to make you look great in a picture and trust me, the person you are now is way more qualified for the job than the person that you were 7 years ago.

Additionally, if you take one thing from this article, let it be the following: it's not your responsibility to be photogenic... it's MY job as a trained professional photographer to light and pose you beautifully.

The upside of a fantastic headshot is so much better than the downside of a lousy one.

I hope this gives you inspiration and motivation to refresh your own headshot and if you enjoyed this post and would like to learn my best tips & tricks for putting your best face forward click here for more Headshot and Personal Branding related articles that I have written.