32+ Years
Business Development
Over $525 Million
Generated for Clients
36 Industries
Experience
Contact
Photographing business owners

The Temptation of Being Too Commercial

Diluting your business, product, website, marketing materials, etc., to make them appear more “commercial” will just make people dislike them more.

It seems to be the “default” mode of doing things for businesses trying to climb to the top. The thought is that “bigger is better”, so tremendous efforts are made to look big by copying the methods and styles of the big guys.

Website designers choose stock photos of professional, unrealistic-looking people in a boardroom happily smiling and pointing to a graph on the whiteboard that has nothing to do with the business. They choose a stock photo of a high-rise building to represent their facilities when, in reality, they’re located somewhere in the suburbs. It goes on and on.

They are confused about the difference between looking professional and looking commercial, contrived, or institutional…

A photo of your employees can look professional without looking like a contrived photo purchased from a stock photo website. The photo of your building or office space can be professional without looking like a sanitized version of an office, which you know couldn’t possibly exist anywhere but in a corporate advertisement.

Professional doesn’t mean corporate looking or institutionalized; it just means a quality job of the photo, website, video, or other marketing material.

Remember, everything communicates – so you have to be extremely careful not to introduce thoughts, feelings, questions, or even suspicions through the elements you use.

Every photo, video, image, icon, or other creative derived from an outside source brings with it its own agenda—the original intent of its author. Each piece is designed to communicate something, some message, to the viewer. That’s why stock photos are generally very sanitized—even the chart on the whiteboard has no numbers, visible data, etc., so as not to disqualify it from “fitting” in the purchaser’s creative.

It may seem like a shortcut to take the “copy and paste” commercial route, but it won’t take you very far. The reality of your business is always better. It’s human nature to place low value on our own stuff, so we look to imitate others. Avoid this at all costs.

A professional can see the magic in your business, the uniqueness of your people, facilities, and products, and help you showcase them in a way that really engages your audience, builds trust, and creates emotional bonds.

We all have noses only an inch above the hole in our faces, yet we’re the last ones to know we have bad breath. The fresh eyes of a professional can really help you see what you’ve probably overlooked, forgotten, or don’t appreciate in your business.

Don’t I use stock photos here? Yes, but in an entirely different way. On my website, I use them much like a newspaper would – to illustrate a concept with a story. Even then, be careful to match the image and the message it communicates to the story being told.

About the author

Dane Shakespear helps Residential Treatment Centers, Boarding Schools, and Troubled Teen Programs attract more qualified leads, convert them into paying clients and deliver a better product by doing more of what works and less of chasing shiny objects. Dane works with owners and executives who are tired of relegating the lifeblood of their business - their marketing and sales flow to 3rd party geeks and charlatans.

About Me

Dane Shakespear

I am a former owner and founder of a Counter-Terrorist, Tracking Software company for airlines.

I have spent my career leveraging marketing, technology & psychology to promote high-end services.

For the last 13 years I have focused my work on Business Development for Residential Treatment Centers, and Global Product Development.

Essential Books

80/20 Sales and Marketing Book Cover
80/20 Sales and Marketing
August 3, 2019
Trust Me I'm Lying Book Cover
Trust Me I’m Lying – Confessions of a Media Manipulator
July 30, 2019
Blue Ocean Strategy Book Cover
Blue Ocean Strategy
June 6, 2019

What They Say

“He rebranded our company, fixed our marketing, and got us noticed and absorbed by an Italian manufacturer. He knows his stuff.”
– Ray Lopez, Blackhawk Armory


“As a direct result of Dane’s insights and intuition we are generating an additional $350,000 per year that we would have never seen.” – Joel Bauer


“I’ve worked Dane on several of my projects over the past 15 years and can confidently say he knows how to compete in tough markets.” – Martin Howey


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