I had three back-to-back nights of networking events this week — it felt like awards season, minus the red carpet.

I'll be honest, as a high-functioning introvert, I don’t look forward to them, especially when they’re stacked like that, but each was with a different crowd I wanted to re-connect with, so sometimes you just have to barrel through.

And I'm glad I did.

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A packed room is a great sandbox to test out a bunch of answers to ‘what do you do?’, and see in real-time what resonates and with whom.

• “I’m a marketing consultant” — worked with folks far outside my domain
• “I help independent consultants find their footing” — too vague
• “I pull expertise out of people’s heads” — caught some intrigue
• “I make intellectual headshots” — needed a bunch of explaining
• “I help people find their way post-corporate” — prompted decent curiosity

But what really elevated each of those starts was one simple visual — my own signature ‘intellectual headshot’.

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In a true test of practicing what I preach, I printed some simple business cards (oh yes - old school), slapped my signature visual on the back, and they’re the only reason I’m not reaching for the throat lozenges this morning.

Especially in a loud, frenzied, eyes-wandering venue, I’d pull out the card - visual side first - and you could just see the lightbulb go off…

The other person sped past “wait, what?”

...and straight into “oh, wow - that’s super interesting.”

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From there, we could fast-forward into a much more interesting conversation rather than another minute or two of me trying to verbally explain what I do while their eyes glaze over.

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That is precisely what Intellectual Headshots are designed to do.

Introduce how you think and how you help, in an instant.

And set the stage for the real conversation to begin.

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💡

-Wes

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P.S. Curious what your Headshots could look like? Let's chat.