You didn’t leave your 9-5 job with a dream of working 24/7.

Think about that. Read it again. Can you relate?

Running a business is a ton of work, and there’s a reason big businesses have different departments to handle different areas. You should be able to focus on your strengths and have peace of mind that the rest is handled.

No matter what your business is, or what your brand represents, chances are you are immersed in the world of social media and the constant need to churn out content.

And it’s kind of exhausting, right?

Every day, thinking of something new to say that will be interesting to your audience. Taking or finding the perfect (or hey, just good enough) photo that pairs with your message and will make someone slow their scroll. You have mere seconds to catch someone’s attention, and then a few more seconds to draw them in with your words.

Some days, the pressure to do that can make you want to bury your head in the sand. You should be spending your time focusing on the work you love, and instead you spend hours trying to figure out this huuuuge piece of the marketing puzzle.

Confession time: I have these days, more often than I’d care to admit!

So, how can you make this piece of your business easier? How can you take the guesswork out of social media and get hours back in your day and week?

The answer is Personal Branding Photography.

Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you haven’t.

Blog post: What is Personal Branding Photography?

I’d like to share from a photographer, small business owner and maker’s perspective how adding personal branding to your business will not only make your life easier, but will also grow your business.

10 reasons to invest in small business or personal branding photography today:

10. SAVE A BUTTLOAD OF TIME

Spend more time doing the work you love/with your family/traveling/etc - the reason you started your own business to begin with.

Content creation and social media planning can suck up your time and take you away from your work…and sometimes friends and family, if we’re being honest. It takes time to plan your visual content strategy and then write your captions or website copy. And if you don’t already have visual content to work with, that’s another task that will take time to plan and execute. And what if you don’t have great photo skills? Or equipment? Or know how to edit? You might not feel as confident to post your content, which is a real bummer when you have amazing products and services to share!

When you have person al branded photos ready top use at your fingertips, you immediately get hours of your life back. You can spend an hour a week planning and scheduling your content and spend the rest of the week on your business, your art, your product development, with your family, sitting on a beach or at a cafe in Paris enjoying your coffee.

Tip: It’s far easier to get work like this done in batches. Instead of deciding, writing and posting each day, sit down and do it all in an hour or two. The more you do this, the easier it becomes and the less time it takes. Read more about the Productivity Power Hour here.

9. TAKE THE GUESSWORK OUT OF “WHAT SHOULD I POST?”

So picture this:

When you sit down to schedule your week of posts, or write your email newsletters, or make updates to your website, you have a full, cohesive collection of branded photos to choose from. No pulling ideas out of thin air that you must then plan, create and edit. No wracking your brain trying to strategize all the pieces to the puzzle.

You’ll have variety of interesting and storydriven images that have been planned out to tell your story. This will inspire your captions, blog, or email content to correspond easily with your photos.

Depending on the nature of your business, a branding photography session could provide you with anywhere from one to three to six months to a year’s worth of content, depending on how you plan, schedule and reuse evergreen content over time.

Tip: Remember, every person in your online audience won’t see every single post you make. This allows you to cycle through and reuse your best images and captions, saving you even more time in the future.

8. SIMPLIFY YOUR SCHEDULE

Chances are, social media isn’t your specialty. There are many facets to running a business. And in order to grow and make money, you need to be working on what you sell.

Did you know it can take 3-6 hours a day to work on marketing and grow an engaged audience if you don’t have a plan? Nobody has time for that!

And even if you hire someone and outsource your marketing, you’ll need to provide visual content for them to use.

So, whether you do it yourself or outsource, having a library of images to choose from saves hours of time each week trying to think up what to photograph, taking the photographs, choosing which ones to use, editing, and finally writing and posting.

Tip: Once you have your images to work with, schedule time to build out your posts for the week. Create a simple template for a social media calendar and keep track of which hashtags you’ll use, and your call to action. Want a free template? Boom. I just saved you a couple hours. :)

7. BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE

Do you have a clear picture of who you are speaking to and what you want to say when you post or send an email?

Do you have a strategy, or do you tend to post on a whim?

Having a branding session with a photographer will help you take a good look at your business, your story, and the message you want to convey. Working with a photographer who cares about and knows what they’re doing, they will take the time to get to know you and your business, and help you figure out your visual story.

And when you have images that truly and beautifully represent your business or brand, you will feel excited and empowered to share about your business, why you love what you do, how your business can serve your audience well, and create real engagement.

Tip: Never post “same day” without strategy. Giving yourself time to plan and strategize your images and captions, you can post with more confidence and certainty that your message and intent is clear.

6. GROW YOUR BUSINESS COMMUNITY AND EXTEND YOUR REACH

Collaborative sessions with other small business owners and service providers can extend your reach, and create lasting connections, support, and community. Recognize areas where you can work together with other businesses on sessions (maybe a seasonal styled shoot or event).

The people you choose to surround yourself with as a small business owner, entrepreneur, artist, maker, or brand matters. No one knows better than the self-employed how impactful one person can be on your business. Now imagine you form a network of people you can work with, recommend, support and lift up.

By lifting others around you, you build a valuable community.

Tip: Make a point of direct messaging at least one fellow local business per week. Introduce yourself, give them some encouragement and love. You never know whose day you might make with a simple act of kindness and community!

5. STAND OUT AND RISE UP

We’ve seen it happening in many types of markets - you seem to be one of thousands of photographers, coaches, makers, bloggers. How can you compete?

You must elevate your brand to stand out among the crowd. You do this in a few ways: using your authentic voice, providing excellent stand-out service, and putting forth a brand that looks and (more importantly) feels next level.

The quality of your images will speak volumes, and consistency is key. When you have plenty of gorgeous, professional photos to choose from, you will stand out and first impressions can be the difference between growth and riding the struggle bus.

Tip: Create a visual branding board on Pinterest or in a program like Illustrator or Photoshop. Include images, graphics, typeface, your logo and 10 words or phrases that describe your brand. Use this as a guide and for inspiration for everything you post, share and send. Just starting out with branding your busienss? I’ve got you covered with a free personal branding worksheet.

4. TAKE YOUR BUSINESS SERIOUSLY

Do you get that random comment from friends or family that your job “must be so fun” and you don’t have to work hard, or that “it’s nice you can make money on one of your hobbies.” These comments sting, but the hard truth is, to be seen as a business, you need to conduct yourself as a business. This includes (but is not limited to) having a clear brand voice and image. This will differentiate you from “just another mom with a camera and a Facebook page” or someone making some extra cash on Etsy.

Having a clear story to tell through your images and posts will set you apart from sharing whatever random pictures you take on your phone on any given day.

Tip: Use an app like Planoly, Plann or Mosaico to plan and schedule your Instagram posts. You can move your images around to whatever arrangement you like best, write your captions (or copy and paste them from your social media calendar), add your hashtags of choice and post each day according to your schedule.

3. REACH THE RIGHT CLIENTS AND CUSTOMERS

It’s the law of attraction, friend!

We’ve all done the Instagram scroll, right? What makes you stop and double tap a post, or take a minute to read the caption? First and foremost, it’s interesting images that appeal to you. The content, the quality, maybe you recognize the brand quickly and easily for the person, the color story and style.

No one wants to be standing in the middle of crowded Times Square shouting to the masses “LOOK AT ME!” It’s exhausting and pointless. Maybe you’ll get a little extra attention. But before you know it, those people have moved on with the crowd.

You don’t want to be the shiny object of the moment.

But what if you set up shop on a specific corner and show up every day where you know your audience is hanging out, be there consistently, speaking directly to your target audience. They want to stay and chat and hear what you have to say. They come back again and again, bringing friends who they think will like what you have to say.

By knowing who you want to reach, your message is clear, and you establish trust through consistency. Your images reflect your specific business and brand, and your words amplify your message.

Tip: Get to know your “Target Audience” avatar. Give them a name. Specify as much as you can about them so that when you are speaking to them through captions, emails or blog posts, your are speaking to them like you would your friend. You know them that well.

2. GROWTH TAKES TIME AND WORK

I’m just going to say this. You’re probably not going to go viral. And you’re not going to get rich overnight. Growth takes hard work and consistency. For many it takes years. But you can take upward steps each day, and a year from now, look back at how far you’ve come.

Maybe professional photography seems out of reach, or you keep thinking “I’ll do it in a few months, maybe when I’m a little bit bigger and more established.”

What if you invest in your business now and start growing tomorrow, with a professional “starter pack” of images to work with?

You can keep dreaming and planning, or you can decide and act.

Tip: No matter where you are in your business, write down three actionable steps you can take today, this week, or this month, to propel your business forward. Then do them.

1. YOU ARE WORTHY OF SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS

That last one is important. We get caught up in being busy and “the hustle”, and many days forget why we started in the first place. For me, it was to be able to provide for my family and be there for them when they need me. But that doesn’t work if I’m working around the clock, tied to my phone or laptop.

Great photography is not just for big established businesses. It’s not a privilege or luxury. It’s not for the businesses and brands that we admire and maybe aspire to. It is a business tool that will help you grow, just like the right software, apps, skills and equipment. It’s easy to look at someone else’s photography and think “I’m just not there yet, maybe I will be someday. Probably not, but maybe.”

That’s so not true! Let me tell you a little story.

For a long time, I got caught in the mindset that running a small business is just a long, hard journey and maybe I’ll always be poor. I would tell my friends and I started believing that I was just always going to be on the struggle bus. Someone would always have a nicer camera, better lighting equipment, a gorgeous studio and all the right things to say. I didn’t believe that I could be that person. I accepted that I’d be a permanent passenger on the struggle bus.

That’s not a great mindset to have.

You have to start believing that you deserve and will achieve great things in life.

You deserve to be happy, to have a successful business, to make changes in the world, have that family life, travel wherever you want and eat amazing food.

You. Can. Have. It.

But it does take work.

And confession time? I am still working on getting there. That’s the beauty of life. We’re all in different places and want different things. There are still many who have nicer equipment and gorgeous studios and all the right words. But I no longer think that I’ll stay stuck where I am. I’m working towards more and better.

What has your mindset been like lately? Do you believe you can have the life you want? How can you get off the struggle bus and grow your business, reduce your stress and feel happier and fulfilled?

Tip: Write down a set of affirmations for yourself, no matter where you are in business. Revisit it monthly and write new ones to help work through whatever bumps, snags or turns you are facing at the moment.

With 13 years of experience working as a photographer and graphics specialist, it has been my goal to grow a business that I can be proud of, support my family, and work with other small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to do the same - but don’t have the time, knowledge or tools to make these vital connections.

I want to hear from you. Where are you at in your business journey? What are you stuck on? What do you love about your work, and what do you think is just the worst?

Whether it’s one thing or ALL THE THINGS, let’s help each other on our path to success. We all have so much to offer!

For a weekly dose of creative juice and inspiration, listen in on the Creative Happy Life podcast!

Shannon Sorensen is a Connecticut-based small business and branding photographer. Personal branding photography for small business and entrepreneurs focuses on showing the heart behind the business, compelling stories to help your audience get to know you and your business better, and turn fans into paying clients! Learn more about personal and business branding photography.

Book your branding session with Shannon!