I envy every person out there who is photogenic, because I certainly don't take a good photo and never have done. I squirm when I think of every horrific school photograph of me that my mum owns and still proudly displays in her dining room. Why, oh why, do our parents do this to us?

When I chat to other people about this phenomena, they too complain of hating the way they look in snappy pictures. Yet, it amazes me that so many of us use photographs on our website, business cards and for other important promotional purposes, without putting any thought into just how bad some of these pictures actually look.

A colleague of mine wanted to promote a business idea she had about coaching for men and women on paternity/maternity leave. It's a brilliant product and she managed to persuade a business journalist to publish a story about it. He wanted to include her photo with the piece and needed her to send one to them within the hour. So it was panic stations! As the weather was really warm that day and she was just doing paperwork in the office, she was wearing really casual clothes – hardly the look she wanted to portray to business readers. She quickly borrowed a male colleague's jacket and asked him to take her picture with his digital camera. The results were not good. The photo affected the prominence of the story and was not used.

I had some professional photographs taken when I first set up my business, but I've used them to death. So I invested recently in having some fresh, professional publicity shots by a local photographer. To get the handful of images we were both happy with, he took hundreds of shots, knew just how to get me to pose so that I didn't have ten chins and a weird grimace on my face and used some very sophisticated lighting. The results are magnificent and for once, I'm proud of these photos of myself.

I've lost count of the number of times people have said they visited my website and felt as though they could work with me because I looked friendly and efficient. A simple photograph speaks far more powerfully than any marketing blurb. People's impressions of the way you look far outweighs logic and reason. We just look at someone and intuitively know what we know. Research has shown this time and time again. It's annoying but it's a fact that we all have to come to terms with and use to our advantage.

So when was the last time you had a professional photo taken? What's stopping you from spending a fun couple of hours, feeling like a star for the day and having a set of pictures that portrays the right message about who you are?

• Natalia Colman is an image consultant who works with people to help them find the right clothes, accessories and overall look to express who they are and help them achieve their goals. Natalia has worked as a stylist with Nicky Hambleton-Jones of Channel 4's Ten Years Younger programme, bmi airlines and Jaeger. She is also the style expert for a national magazine. She runs her own company from home, Style Specialists, Salterhebble, Halifax. She can be contacted on 01422 241115 or natalia@stylespecialists.co.uk