And what do other people think you look like?

They can’t tell if you don’t have a good photograph. And many people in business still don’t have a decent photograph of themselves.

What do you need?

Why do you need good photos?
It no longer surprises me when someone has taken the effort to write and distribute a press release but hasn’t thought about an accompanying photo or image. They will probably spend hours trying to get in front of an important potential client, forgetting that they could also get noticed by having their photo published alongside an article.

When I do ask, often I receive a photo taken at low resolution with a mobile phone camera or a badly composed picture taken in an office with battered box files and piles of filing in the background.

How do you get a good photo?
I’d recommend a professionally taken photograph, but even a well composed shot at high resolution against an uncluttered background is a step in the right direction.

That means a JPEG file with a resolution of 300 dots per inch at a size of 500K to 1MB or more, depending on the efficiency of the camera and any photo editing software (if you use it).

What can you do with it?
Add it to your web site, online networking profiles, send it with press releases or articles. Before long, people will see your face popping up everywhere and be more aware of who you are.

More importantly, if you get a call out of the blue asking you to comment on a topic in the media, you’ll have a photo ready to send so that not only will you sound professional, you’ll look professional too.

And just to show that we practise what we preach, we’ve included a photo of z2z partners Robert (I’m on the left) and Simon.

z2ztip 1 – look out for further z2ztips.