Honest Representation in Pictures

How do you represent what it is you’re selling? How do you explain it? Every business sells something. Even service professionals sell; they sell services. Here’s a quick list of some of the variety of ‘sales’ from my own experience in life:

• Business management recommendations
• Training workshops
• Speaking engagements
• Campsites (I owned an RV park)
• Retail goods (at that RV park)
• Event tickets (yep, at the park)
• An entire operating business (yes, I sold my RV park!)
• Book sales
• Pet-sitting and house-sitting services
• User interface evaluation services
• Writing services

Of all the media I have used to when promoting my offerings, most allowed for and worked well with incorporating photographs into the campaign. Whether it was a billboard, website, online listing, postcard, brochure, magazine ad, TV ad, pictures were often used.

WHY PICTURES?

We’re a visual society, as if we all were raised in the Show Me state of Missouri. Even Twitter, which found its origins in 140-character text messages, has embraced the world of photographs. We’ve all heard how a picture speak a thousand words. So, naturally, part of how we represent whatever it is we sell can be done through pictures.

But what’s in your pictures? What 1,000 words are you speaking in each one?

In the campground industry, I’ve seen many campsite pictures being used online and in print. I presume it’s mostly without intent (I hope) that some of them speak some mighty powerful negative words!

One showed a large and very pricy RV parked on a beautiful, tree-lined site. OK, some might love the setting while others interpret it to say, “Don’t count on wi fi service!” But what spoke poorly to all RVers was the huge pile of blocks which were needed to level the rig. (If you’re not an RVer, this may not make sense; suffice it to say that driving up on blocks isn’t the most pleasurable task; nor is having it setting lopsided.)

You might wonder if I’m encouraging you to use a photo editor to level the site. Please, NO! Ethics prevent me from altering most pictures. Certainly it’s OK to enhance the clarity or to crop for size or to focus on a specific feature in a picture, but please don’t level a hilly campsite!

Still, my ethics also tell me to not scare away potential customers.

SO, WHAT DO I RECOMMEND?

Position your camera to ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE! Take pictures of that site but from a distance. Take pictures of better campsites. Or, better yet, take action to level the awkward site and then take the picture!

I have another rule that is a bit stringent. KEEP YOUR PHOTOS VERY CURRENT. Don’t use pictures taken more than a few months or a year ago, unless it still fully representative of your product. That may sound like a short shelf-life, but:

• Digital cameras make it easy to take many pictures, letting you grow your own library quite quickly. Social media is teaching us to post frequently and to post pictures. Keep that camera handy. Handier than in a drawer! I keep mine on my desk so I can grab it when opportunity knocks. Once you train yourself, you’ll be amazed at how often opportunity actually knocks. (Also, have copies of your Consent For Photography form handy, as well.)
• What you think you’re showing in a picture may not be all that the customer sees. For example, a picture of a bird in a tree may show a jungle gym or a jumping pillow in the background. If that feature is no longer available, even though your picture is focusing on nature, the picture misrepresents reality.
• If the paint of a building has been allowed to deteriorate, don’t show a picture from when it was freshly painted. (Ditto, if you reverse of that scenario).

I saw a website today for a business proudly showing pictures of features it hasn’t had in more than a year! How disappointing for those setting their expectations based upon that website!

When I was an RV park owner, sometimes I could get by with using one picture for much longer than a year. For example, we remodeled the sink and commode area of the restrooms and then took pictures. They were fine for a bit, but then we remodeled the shower area. All earlier pictures showing any amount of shower area were then switched out for new pictures. Why? They no longer fully represented the current condition!

When a distant shot of a mini-golfer teeing off no longer represented how the course appeared (having performed a major renovation project), I cropped out the course and zoomed in on the action of the person. The picture could continue to be used but not with the same background since the course no longer was in that condition. Of course, I also took new pictures of the finished renovation to add to the collection.

Another example:  When I rearranged the layout of my retail area, I would take new photographs. This way it not only represented the new layout, but these pictures could then highlight the latest retail inventory.

MORE THAN JUST HONESTY

There are other positive side-effects to frequently refreshing your pictures, and it’s not all about the honest representation:

• Search engines love when websites are maintained rather than forgotten. Updating pictures on your website makes those search engines do their marvelous, results-finding Happy Dance.
• Social media readers and subscribers love to see active pages. Having fresh material for your pages can attract more activity on the page.

A client of mine is in real estate. Some homes show much better than others because of proper “staging” (de-personalizing and setting the home to best show the home itself). When selling property, you want the buildings and grounds to be what a prospective buyer sees. Sunflowers & Cypress Home Staging has this example of an unstaged and a staged room:

 

Another client is a campground broker, and he has often sold the same property repeatedly over his nearly 3-decade career. His prospective buyers see:

• Fresh pictures with each listing (or ones which are seller-assured to be honestly representative of how the place looks today if a buyer were to take a tour).
• Honest pictures showing the ‘ugly’ since a buyer will eventually see that ‘ugly’ and you don’t want to negatively surprise the excited buyer!
• Sometimes more than 100 pictures showing all the aspects of the property (buildings, inventory, equipment). The quantity can sometimes be staggering!

Yet another client owns a furniture store. At the store, would you like to see a dresser stuffed with clothing? NO! Shoppers want to see the piece they’re buying! Most stores display a few trinkets to make the unit appealing, while leaving you the opportunity to study its construction and to imagine your own contents.

If your pictures show flower pots and you removed them, get a new picture. My park had a swimming pool. When it was removed, all pictures which showed even its fence were swapped out for new pictures.

WORTHINESS

You say, “But if I show them what it’s really like, they’ll never buy from me!” Sell to your clientele; not to someone else’s!  It may be time to invest in some serious upgrading, but in the meantime you need to attract those who will enjoy your current offerings.

I created a sign and posted it on my desk as a self-reminder:  “So long as the client is pleased with their product, then its marketed image must reflect itself. Offer product advice only when the client seeks to enhance their overall product!”

I bought an eye-sore of a business once and began pouring my sweat, money, and time into improvements. I couldn’t market it as “top notch” until I first transformed it, but I could adjust my marketing as I gradually adjusted my product. Market what it is you will have in place when the person walks in your door.

Don’t market to the wrong group. Find your niche! Or, if you aren’t pleased with your niche, renovate to meet the needs of the niche you want to attract. The property we bought as an RV park didn’t cater to our niche but we put together a renovation plan to attract our niche, and we inched along until we achieved our plan.

SEASONAL PICTURES

It’s OK to not always look like the current season! Don’t retake pictures for the exact season. I marketed my RV park all year. I aimed to show what you would see if you arrived in the primary summer camping season, yet I included some pictures of winter camping. This highlighted the fact that the business was open all year. I don’t expect to see the beautiful Fall Foliage of New England if I travel there in May, and winter RVers don’t expect the mini-golf to be open while winter storms piled high the white stuff.

IT MUST BE HONEST!

Sometimes I see images for places which I know have changed, and I cringe when I think of the disappointment others will feel when they arrive there. Why do I cringe? I cringe for them because I’ve had the disappointment happen to me:

• When looking to buy an RV park or a house,
• Sometimes when I arrive at a vacation destination,
• Occasionally when I arrive at a client’s business
• Too many other times … yes, it’s happened too often.

PLEASE! Look closely at all pictures you are using to represent what it is you’re selling. Use current photographs. You are currently in business to satisfy the needs of your current customers so if you disappoint them over what you say you’re selling vs what it is you really offer, you won’t be terribly successful. I actually strive to go to the other extent:  under-represent and then floor them with what they actually get.

IN CLOSING, let me return to my original list of products and services I’ve sold and outline some tips on how to photograph them (far from exhaustive; just enough to get your own creative juices flowing):

• Business management recommendations – Have someone take a photo while working in a meeting with a client. Take a picture of a process or product being recommended to a client.
• Training workshops – Have someone take pictures while you’re teaching a workshop.
• Speaking engagements – Have someone take pictures while you’re at the podium.
• Campsites (I owned an RV park) – Take pictures of the occupied RV sites, preferably with life in the picture. Find a way to get an aerial shot of the place.
• Retail goods (at that RV park) – Take pictures of the inside of the store; maybe some close-ups of the specialty items.
• Event tickets (yep, at the park) – Take pictures of the tickets, the staffed ticket booth, the line-up of people waiting for a ticket, and the crowd enjoying the event.
• An entire operating business (yes, I sold my RV park!) – Take current interior and exterior pictures of the buildings, the current equipment, and the grounds. Stage the pictures as described earlier in this blog, making everything fresh, uncluttered, and in as close to condition as it will be in when it’s sold.
• Book sales – Take pictures of the book(s), and maybe the filled cases ready to ship. If it’s author’s tour, take pictures of the book readings, book signings, and the audience waiting for their meeting with the author. For retail, take a picture of the book being slid into a shopping bag or several copies of the book on the retail shelf.
• Pet-sitting and house-sitting services – Take pictures of oneself with pets, walking them, caring for them, etc. For the house-sitting, perhaps show yourself waving farewell as a car leaves the driveway, while you’re visibly holding the house keys.
• User interface evaluation services – Computer programming, documentation, installation, and training services can be photographed staged to fit your job description.
• Writing services – Have someone take a picture of you at your computer or in your workstation. Take a picture of a nice pen set out on a fresh stack of white papers. Take a picture of your finished document. Turn your cover sheet or title page into a photograph.

Now, go get your camera and start taking fresh pictures! Stage where necessary. And show everybody what it is you really have for sale!

*****

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