So the other week I went and had new branding photos taken. It had been 4 years since my last ones were done, I was still happy with them, they matched my colours, I was still using them, but I had the redone all the same. Why?
I went to a coffee meet up and a number of the women there, who I had never met before in person, said they didn’t recognise me from my photos. That’s odd, I hadn’t changed, my hair was only a slightly different cut but not colour. Why didn’t they recognise me?
So I stopped and asked my friends, had I changed or did I look any different? They all said I looked the same and these other women didn’t know what they were talking about. Now I could have taken my friend’s advice but I stopped for a second.
In business, whose opinion matters most? My friends who know me, trust me, and recommend me regardless. Or someone I don’t know, who I am starting to build a relationship with, who I need to develop that trust with. If they don’t recognise me from my picture, is there a problem.
You bet there is!
I could have stuck with the feedback which confirmed my belief, that I wasn’t that different from my photos, or I could look at it from my audience’s perspective and have new photos which reflected what I look like now, regardless of how small the change is.
Here’s the thing, we are all built with a perception bias. We will all seek to reaffirm our beliefs. However it’s when we want to do something different or move somewhere new or become someone bigger than who we are that we need to change what we do.
We can not expect different results from doing the same things.
When it comes to business, we need someone who will challenge us and not always tell us what we want to hear, rather they tell us what we need to hear. They hold a mirror to ourselves and make us see things differently. They challenge us and guide us through new things so we can have different results. Even when we want to stay doing the same things and those closest to us are reaffirming that.
