The power of pictures in advertising and networking

This morning I went to the AM Centerville Rainmakers business networking meeting. I had the privilege to invite Dave Herlihy to visit and find out more about this group. Dave is the owner of FLOORCO which is a flooring company in Miamisburg just down the road from Interstate Ford.

It was fun to introduce him around to various key contacts for him. A realtor, a builder, a remodeler and others. He left the meeting excited about the Rainmaker model of business oriented social networking.

Dave is well known in our church, Fairhaven here in the Dayton area and I was meeting with him later to discuss advertising in REACH magazine for his flooring company. As we discussed what his ad might look like, I suggested that it would be important to have his picture in the ad. The person who shared at the Rainmakers meeting talked about how she had lost business because people went with someone else saying, “I didn’t know that you did that, I would have called you if I had known.” She explained that she now has 30-40% of her business coming from networking. So in my discussion with Dave, I told him that we did not know (me and Patty, my wife) that his store was also retail flooring. We thought it was just direct to the trades. I suggested that the first thing he would want to do in his ad was to put his picture in it so that all the people who have the same misunderstanding that Patty and I had, would see his face and think of him when they had a flooring need. Many people at Fairhaven, for example, have the same misunderstanding about his business. By the way, Dave is coming to my home to measure our back porch and recommend flooring options for us. I trust Dave and know that as I do my barn studio build out that I will be calling him again.

In today’s business environment, more and more, people like doing business with people they know. Dave knows boatloads of people, but many don’t know they could go directly to him to purchase flooring. My feeling is that since Dave is such a well know and likable fellow, that as soon as we can “get the word out that he sells direct too” he will begin to gain business.

Leaving the Rainmakers meeting with a half dozen or more very good contacts, Dave decided to join Rainmakers on the spot and take advantage of special savings being offered that day. When I met with him to discuss REACH Magazine, the first half of our meeting was spent discussing the Rainmaker networking model. Then we talked about direct mail with REACH Magazine targeting the south part of the Dayton area market.

What does this all have to do with a photography blog? I have helped people in Rainmakers by improving their PROFILE picture on the business networking web sites like LINKEDIN and RAINOHIO. As I have met and gotten to know fellow Rainmakers, I startled one young lady by telling her that her profile picture did not do her any favors in promoting herself. I suggested that at the next meeting I would take a profile photo of her to use. She was a willing candidate, but seemed very skeptical that it would have any impact for her. I sent her several pictures to choose from and she uploaded one as her new profile portrait. The first thing that happened was that she got complements on her new profile portrait almost daily for several weeks. You will have to ask her yourself if it had direct impact on the number of appointments that she was having, but I suspect that it made a lot of difference. For anyone who is on FACEBOOK or LINKEDIN or RAINOHIO with a blank profile (No picture uploaded), you are severely cutting down your potential impact.

Does your profile portrait show you as relaxed, enjoyable, confident, outgoing, etc……?

This is Melody McCord’s new profile portrait. What do you think? What did her old profile picture look like..it was a picture of her at a resort and it was so far away that you could not make out her face. You can look her up at the Rainmakers web site for OHIO at RainOhio.com. You can also look at the EVENTS tab along the right of the page to see where the Rainmakers meeting will be. You are welcome to come and visit and, if I am there, please introduce yourself to me.

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1. Our good friend Pegge Bellamy and her vision to create a great homemade organic salsa company
2. Casual business portraits – what does your Linked In or facebook profile image say?
3. Taking better Snow pictures
4. Facebook photography for your business page and profile
5. Snow day pictures in Dayton, Ohio: horses, snow and people, how fun!