If you are getting ready to start your own consulting business, one of the most important steps to building a successful business will be finding clients that will hire you for services. To do this, you will need to advertise your services; and for effective advertising, you will need to visit a professional photographer for headshots. Here are several important things to understand about headshot photographs.

What Are They And How Do You Use Them?

Headshots are pictures that typically contain a person's head and shoulders only. In some cases, they may also contain a person's chest, and there are also times they are taken from the waist up. Headshots are designed to make a person look professional, confident, nice, and friendly. There are many types of professions that require headshots, like acting, and many lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, and chiropractors also use headshots for marketing.

Here are some of the many ways you can use headshots to help you get your new business going:

• Place your photo on your business cards
• Use the headshots on billboards
• Add your photo to ads in newspapers, brochures, and flyers
• Include your photo on your website and for your social media marketing efforts

When you select a photographer for this, you should expect to spend between $500 to $1,000 for the shots, and you should make sure that this includes digital images you can access from your computer. These are usually sent to you as .jpeg files, and you are given the rights to use the pictures you had taken for any purposes you may have.

How Should You Prepare For Them?

If you feel that having professional headshots will help you market your new business, you will need to make an appointment with a photographer that specializes in these types of photos. You will also need to take the right steps to make sure your pictures depict you in a way that is very professional. Here are some tips to help you prepare for these photos so that they turn out to be ideal for helping you market your new business:

• Wear business attire – Suits are perfect for men or women, but you should try to keep your color scheme very simple.
• Avoid jewelry – Jewelry may seem like a great accent for your outfit, but it tends to clutter these types of pictures. If possible, avoid wearing any type of necklace. Earrings are fine to wear, though, but make sure they are not large and gaudy.
• Do not wear a lot of makeup – Wearing a lot of makeup may seem like it would make you more attractive, but too much makeup in headshots is not a good thing. If you are a woman, wear just enough makeup to feel confident. The photographer can retouch your photos to help hide imperfections you would normally try to hide with makeup.
• Keep a neat facial appearance – For men, it is very important to groom your face well before your pictures. This may mean shaving right before you go, or it might involve trimming your mustache or beard to make sure it looks very neat and tidy.
• Schedule the pictures at the time of day you feel the best – The timing of your photos can also make a difference with how they turn out. If you have the most energy in the morning and feel happiest then, try to visit the photographer in the morning to get the pictures taken.

If you need good headshots for your business advertising, contact a professional photographer, such as those at NYC Headshot Photography, today to line up an appointment to have these pictures taken.