Attracting and Retaining Top Talent and Prospects
Top 1% Headshots – the Holy Grail of Marketing
That Overcomes Harsh Reality
There are many different types of Headshots. Only a rare few are commercially viable, positive marketing images like our Top 1% Headshots. All others repel opportunities when viewed.
High Marketing, Top 1% Headshot examples showing approachability, competence, confidence and trustworthiness that you are the answer. These images are rare and commercially viable.
Commercially Viable, Top 1% Headshots
The Age of The Great Resignation
Harsh Reality: We are in the era of the Great Resignation, where:
- People are quitting and relocating in droves,
- Jobs remaining vacant,
- People out of work will not even fill out applications, and
- Customers are defecting, while new prospects have many choices.
The Questions?
- How do you retain your current talent, especially frontline workers?
- How do you attract new talent for replacements and growth?
- How do you show prospects your organization is trustworthy enough to contact/deal with?
- How do you show investors and supporters you are trustworthy enough to work with them?
There is More: Talent is one thing, but to recover and grow, you need more customers/clients for more sales. We live in an extremely visual world. The answer for both staff and sales begins with your marketing and team images.
The Answer: People do business with people. The answer starts with your presentation on your website, especially your “About,” “Leadership,” “Management,” or “Team” pages. These are the most visited pages on any website. This is true for all companies, large or small.
Its About People, not Words: People work and do business with people. Not B2B or B2C, but H2H (Human to Human). The answer lies in the website/marketing headshots or portraits you present. Prospects and potential team members and investors check out these images first, if you have them. Whatever images you have, they create the first impression, good or bad.
Top 1% Headshots: People do business with people they know, like and trust, whether they are a prospect or a fellow team member. Top 1% Headshots show my clients as approachable, competent and trustworthy so those who view these Top 1% Headshots. From a Top 1% Headshot the viewer feels they know, like and trust you enough to work with the viewer in a competent and friendly manner.
- Top 1% Headshots create that all-important, positive first-impression.
- This leads to prospect conversions and highly effective teams.
Current Team and Customers: Actually the same hunt for headshot images is true for your current staff, team and current customers.
- Current team also check out their leaders’ headshots, and their own (if they have any).
- Current customers look for leadership and those who they have contact with.
A headshot is the most powerful marketing tool there is, few understand its power or how to use it.
The Power: Where there is an image of a human, especially those showing the face, each human is drawn to it almost uncontrollably. Everyone looks at a headshot, and makes a decision in 4 milliseconds (0.004 seconds) that is almost instant.
This unconscious, snap decision determines what they do next:
- Turn away and discount, or
- Keep looking and develop positive attitudes and trust, leading to action.
4 Milliseconds: If they look for those first 4 milliseconds (ms), and keep looking for 3-10 seconds, you have won that critical first-impression battle.
The Power of Trust: During those additional 3-10 seconds from a Top 1% Headshot, they build trust from the headshot that you care, and trust that you are their answer, good to work with, and contact you. This is power of trust!
Will any headshot do this? No, only Top 1% Headshots rightly-applied will show you as approachable, competent, confident and trustworthy to be their answer.
In a Top 1% Headshot:
- They see you,
- They like you,
- They trust you are their answer, and
- They want to contact you and work with you.
- This leads to more positive engagements and conversions
- This leads to a higher marketing ROI!
- This leads to mores sales growth!
- This leads to more customer loyalty
- This leads to more team loyalty
- This leads to more partner loyalty
Yes, Top 1% Headshots are indeed awesome!
Why? Top 1% images encourage more positive person-to-person engagement.
Top 1% Images foster positive human-to-human engagement like no other!
Where does this Top 1% Headshot Power Work?
- Sales prospects
- Top Talent
- Among your current Team
- Prospective Partners
- Prospective Investors
- Referrals (Hot or Cold)
- Job/Partner Applicants
- Professionals
- Actors and Models
Brain Power: The human brain can process something like 11 million bits (11 megabytes) of information every second. But our conscious minds can handle only about 40 to 50 bits of information a second. The rest of this vast processing, almost all of it, is in our sub-conscious minds. The territory of “gut reactions,” which are at the “instant” level, i.e., 4 milliseconds.
Hardwired: I am telling you all this so you understand this snap-decision on an image showing the face, is a basic human process that everyone does, in all cultures, and few are aware of it, because it is a subconscious process.
- In dealing with people, if there is no image, even no poor headshots, the reaction is almost always even more negative than the rejection of a poor headshot.
No headshots and you leave yourself as a commodity where price is the key issue. Here you add no value, likability or trust. Just one of many in the pile, like on Amazon or Wal-Mart.
Referrals: Without a Top 1% Headshot your only hope is a hot referral. But now 90% of referrals check-out your site BEFORE they contact you. You again win or lose on your website imagery.
Influencers: If your product is so great, other mavens (who always show their face) will write about it. But the referrals still look for faces on your website to validate. You need an army of influencers, and several layers deep, to get past your untrustworthy website.
Psychology: Modern sales and marketing psychology spends much effort here. Our Top 1% Headshots use what they have learned, combined with years of marketing experience, to create Top 1% Headshots that win this first-impression battle for you to prospect engagement, and not against you.
Results: This instant or snap-decision process by the viewer of a headshot determines whether the person in the headshot is:
- For or against them (the viewer);
- Whether the person in the image is safe, or a predator;
- Are they out for themselves, or do they delight in helping me?
- Are they self-pleasing, or others-pleasing?
- Is it all about them, or all about me?
- Are they my problem, or my answer?
- Can I trust them to help me in a nice way?
All this analysis occurs in those 4 milliseconds.
First Impression: Notice this snap-decision determines their next action. We call this the famous “first impression.” Win this battle and they like and trust you. Lose it and they avoid you like the plague!
Typical "All About Me" Headshot
- Perfect for satisfied customers or team members having a good time amongst themselves.
- Perfect for Models and actors showing how they sell lifestyle benefits.
- Terrible for service providers, management, job hunters and attracting prospects/new team members/partners/investors
- Terrible for job hunters (See https://www.donmannphotography.com/if-you-are-looking-for-a-new-job)
Typical "Me First" Headshot
This image is perfect for a model selling something, or a satisfied customer, or a bride at a wedding.
"But she looks so happy." She is, and does not care about you. Your mother probably loved this in your high school portrait, but not prospective bosses or clients or team members. They want you to be about them (trust), not you (un-caring and selfish).
"But I love my big smile." Fine, use it appropriately. Use it on Facebook, on LinkedIn Featured section of your profile, or as a model, on a gig. But do not try to convince people you care about them with it. They are not fooled. Prospects looking for help are repelled by this 24x7.
See those white teeth? Psychology says those are a warning message, "Stay away, I will bite you. Do not take away what is making me happy. Get your own!" (See https://www.donmannphotography.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-good-real-estate-headshots), and (https://www.donmannphotography.com/what-is-the-best-picture-for-your-business-website)
Website Conversion Rates: Now you know why website conversion rates are so low. Most are full of "Its About Me" images.
Many lose this prospect/team member engagement with "Its all About Me" Images; you repel them in 4 milliseconds. They are repelled 24x7! And they look for other alternatives as quickly.
The Power: Win in that same 4 milliseconds with a Top 1% Headshot, and you get prospect engagement, usually enough to favorably respond to your included call to action (CTA).
WARNING: If you are not using this technology for you and your company, then it will work against you and your company. If that positive first-impression does not get built, then distrust and avoidance does.
- Do it right and you will get more sales conversions, stronger team work in your company/department, attract better new hires, and investors.
- Do it wrong and you get poor engagement, low conversions, more customer service complaints, wasted marketing dollars, lower income and lower profits.
Return on Investment: What would a higher marketing ROI look like? More sales and top quality job applicants/team members. This is what Top 1% Headshots can do for you.
H2H: I major on human to human (H2H) connections, created and inspired by awesome, positive first-impressions. These can springboard to immediate engagement, sales and cooperative team attitudes.
What do you want? So do you want more good clients and customers? Do you want more powerful and effective teams delivering powerful results; do you need awesome team members? Do you want partners and investors?
It can all start with the positive first-impression of a Top 1% Headshot.
What I do: I can bring them in with Top 1% Headshots and Images by trust. Whether you can convert and retain them is up to you and your team.
People see my 1% Headshots with that extremely rare confidence and approachability from my coaching YOU, and they want to meet YOU, work with YOU, and call YOU. This is the power of a Top 1% Headshot for YOU. This is total brand acceleration.
What is a High Marketing, Top 1% Headshot good for?
Perfect for Leadership, management, customer contact people, job applicants, and models and actors.
Perfect for those seeking investors and partners.
Perfect for those starting a new business
Perfect for those growing a business
Perfect for those looking for more sales
Perfect for those looking for quality talent
Perfect for building internal teamwork
Perfect for sales people, professionals, lawyers, real estate agents, etc.
Perfect for Rainmakers
Perfect for drawing new clients/prospects
Perfect for competitive bids where your images show you are the reliable answer over your competition
Terrible for those trying to go out of business
Top 1% Headshots – the Holy Grail of Marketing
That Overcomes Harsh Reality
I can save you from wasting money, or losing any more prospects.
I live and breathe images that accelerate your business, and I do not rest until all your images are high octane.
Websites are based on visual appeal. Visual appeal is assessed by viewers within 50 ms, suggesting that you have about 50 ms to make a good first impression with your website.
I will be happy to do a consultation with you on your marketing imagery and give you my honest opinion.
Just use my contact page and shoot me a request. Contact Page
Wishing you all the Best,
Don
QUESTIONS?
Phone: 302 - 561 - 5555 | Email: Info@DonMannPhotography.com | Rates & Booking


