1229: No BS Agency Mastery: Why Less Is More in Branding and Business with Founder Pia Silva

Robert Plank 0:01 Hey and welcome back. Pia Silva is here, and we're going to talk about avoiding those usual headaches that come with building a business, creating an agency. And she has a book out there called badass your brand, which we can claim at no BS agencies.com/robert, plank. Pia Silva is the founder of no BS agency mastery, and she teaches one to two person branding agencies to scale to 30k months without employees. She's a TEDx speaker, host of the no BS agency podcast, author of badass your brand. We're here to solve some problems, to get out of our own way, to do things properly, strategically, so that way, we can build a business that is fun and exciting and grows and give us all that fulfillment. So Pia is here to help us. And Pia, how are you today? Happy to have you. And so we introduced you a little bit. Plugged your bio. What did I leave out? What's What are you all about? What's your focus and passion?

Pia Silva 1:05 Like helping creative people figure out the business side, I work with so many people who are really passionate about the work that they do, the clients that they work with, but it's all the stuff around doing the work, the actual getting of the clients, closing them, the managing of the projects, the managing of the money that takes up a lot of their time and energy, and because they're not doing it effectively, efficiently, don't have a process for it, it just sucks their soul. So I love helping them with that part, so they can get back to the thing that they love. And you know, if you're watching like, my husband's an artist, I'm all about helping the creatives do their do their art, and I love to do the the all the things around it that make that art possible.

Robert Plank 1:46 Well, very cool. So it's, it seems like, if we don't have your help, and we're creative and we're passionate, then we'll go about it the wrong way, and we'll grow to dread it, and we'll say, why the heck did I even get into this? And like, when I was growing up in my little, small town, there was some guy, and he built like these, like miniature cities. He built, like the little streets and buildings, and they're really impressive. It took him, like, a year and a half to make this one monstrosity, and then when he'd sell it, he'd make like, $1,000 and I thought, like, man, that's, it's, it's sad, right? Why isn't it selling for like, 100,000 and so, but then you think, if you're kind of young and naive, that like, Well, I'm just a sellout, and I'm a I'm being McDonald's, right? I'm I'm not being like a wild card. So what would you say to someone who maybe is not tapped into this problem or doesn't think it needs fixing?

Pia Silva 2:40 Yeah? I mean, it is a common situation for creatives to undervalue their work or not feel like they can charge what it's actually worth. And you know, there's some validity to that, because when people are like, we'll use design and branding, right? These are the people that I generally help it. It has a inherent worth for a business when you build a brand that's going to effectively help them attract clients and make sales, right? There's a monetary value to that, but in terms of your value to the client, it's not just the thing that you deliver. It's how you deliver it, and how well you communicate the value of what you deliver by connecting what you make to what they are ultimately trying to achieve. So let me give you an example, like I just did a client recently. I actually rebranded a business that I branded 10 years ago, and when I am presenting the work, the redesign of their whole brand, you know it, it looked like a different version of what they had, but the meaning behind it and the strategy behind it, how we were changing, the way that we were speaking to them, had to be communicated to the client, when I showed her the entire brand, and as soon as I showed it to her, she got it, and there were no revisions. And I think that a problem that creatives have is that they struggle for clients to accept their work, and clients often are asking them for revisions. And let me see a different version of this and all of that, it's because they're not communicating why they made the decisions that they made, and why those are going to help that business owner. And that just creates so many problems on both sides, but the value is often wrapped up in that communication, because a client can't present their brand and market it if they don't understand how it actually is strategically getting them to their goals. So I think it's so much more about the process and the communication than just the work. And I think creatives don't see that because they're just absorbed in the thing that they're creating. Like this neighbor of yours, he's just thinking about the city that he's building. He's not thinking about the value that it has to the other person and why they would want to pay a lot more for it, and what kind of value it's giving them.

Robert Plank 4:57 I like that reframe it changes it in. To it's not about you, it's about them. If you're that engrossed in the work, it's almost selfish in a way, right? Because you're not showing empathy towards that client on their receiving end. Maybe they have certain expectations, and they need, we just, we need these better communication skills, and that way there can be less chaos, right? There can be less stress, and everyone can be on the same page, but it seems like it's all order, right? When people talk about these things like branding and clients and timelines and scope creep and all that, I'm just like, I don't even know where to start. I'm overwhelmed. So is there like a method to the madness? Is there like a checklist or low hanging fruit, like, how do we begin to tackle this idea of better communication with clients?

Pia Silva 5:45 Well, I mean, the way that I teach doing any branding project is you always start with actually a paid engagement. I call it a lead product. Instead of writing a free proposal, which sets you and the client up in the wrong relationship, where you are pitching them for free, trying to convince them to hire you instead, I suggest you actually sell that first step, and you make it so much more than a proposal. You actually interview them, understand everything about their business, and then give them a plan that's going to get them to their goals. I find when you do this process and the client pays something for it, they value it more, and it gives you the opportunity to really uncover what's actually going on and what's actually going to help solve their problem. Instead of, you know, most times, creatives just write a proposal for whatever the client asked for, which is usually not what they need. So this already kind of sets the whole relationship up, where you are an authority and an expert, you're advising them, and then they're going to follow your lead, and that will make it much easier down the line. When you're actually creating this brand, you're really showing them and guiding them as the leader, what this needs to be to get them to their goals, as opposed to what so many creatives get stuck in, which is this relationship where they're just trying to do whatever the client will say yes to so they can finish the project and get

Robert Plank 7:00 I like this idea that that you're, you're kind of leading the process. Because if you're just doing this free proposal and saying, hey, please pick me. I'll do whatever you want, you're kind of letting that client lead, and that client, they don't really know where to lead, right? That's why they need you. So then really, like, no one's in charge, and it just and it goes nowhere. And then we wonder why we spend all this time with the free meetings and with the proposals, and we put so much time on it, just to then get ghosted and so, like, what's this? This sort of paid consultation? Like, because I imagine that, you know, there's always, there's always objections of why I can't do something right? There's like, well, will someone really want to pay me money for this? And how do I how do I set it up? How do I find the right people? Because it can be scary to say, Well, I'm charging money for like, a half an hour or an hour, so how do we do it?

Pia Silva 7:53 Yeah, so you know, there's a very specific way that I recommend setting this up and often, and I've implemented this process into all kinds of service businesses. So even though I coach small branding agencies, this can be done in any service business. It's usually I like to do about an hour and a half interview, and then there is a written brief after. So there's a concrete thing that the client is going to get at the end. And it's some it's something akin to a plank. It's really a strategy document, but that plan is going to be something they can take away. How do we sell this thing to people? Well, we say, Listen, first. We use a fit call, where we interview them, we ask them, we try to understand what their actual problem is. And usually it's not always the problem they say that they have. We try to uncover who they are and what challenges that we're trying to help solve, and then when we figure out if we actually can solve that problem, we tell them, Okay, great. The next step is this, and it's a paid engagement. I usually say, make it a no brainer price. Make it something that is easy enough to say yes to and tell them there's going to be an outcome at the end, there's going to be a plan. It's going to show you, it's going to move you forward in this problem solution. And at that point, I'll give you a list of you know how I can execute this, and we can apply the price to that execution. Or you can just take the plan. I tell people, plenty of people just buy this plan for me, because it's so valuable on its own. So these are kind of important ingredients to a really effective lead product. Is that got to be a no brainer price. You've got to say that you apply it to the main engagement. If they end up hiring you, you got to tell them, You got to make it valuable all on its own. But this gets people from, you know, just eliminates pitching for free proposals. It eliminates that back and forth. You have one conversation, you figure out if they're a good fit, you offer this, they buy it, or they don't, and then you move on to the next person.

Robert Plank 9:50 Well, I love it, and I can imagine that it kind of it filters out the Riff Raff, so to speak. But that's not a bad thing, right? It's easy to say like, oh, well, I'm being pretty. Attention, sir, I'm gatekeeping, but I think about the times when I received free advice and I definitely didn't pay as close attention or take it as seriously as advice that I actually paid for. And then that kind of leads to the scariness of pricing. I know you're big on that right of charging what you're worth and and so did you ever struggle with that? Did you ever have this problem of like, saying, Well, I just want to make money now. I want to make the quick sale, and then you end up, like, optimizing for the lower ticket. Like, what was your journey like, as far as charging what you're worth?

Pia Silva 10:34 Oh my gosh, such a good point. Everyone is so scared to overcharge, but then they under charge and end up not making any money and working all the time. I mean, I did that for years, and even when I was selling $30,000 projects, I was still under charging because my process was so long. So there was, at one point, before I figured this out, and like, shrunk my systems, I had two employees. $30,000 projects would take us six months. I mean, it was just so much time and effort. It was actually unprofitable. We actually ended up in debt, selling $30,000 projects. And I went back, I went backwards, I let my employees go, and I went to selling $3,000 one day intensives, which ended up being so much more profitable. I could do a couple of those a week, make so much more money and so much less time. How did I get back up to now? We sell 35 to $60,000 projects in these one to three day intensives. I did it by building my confidence in my pricing, selling it at 3000 a bunch of times, and then raising it to 4000 and then selling it a few times and raising it to 5000 that's really what I recommend. When people want to raise their prices, I say, raise it early and often. You know, sell, sell, raise. Sell, sell, raise. It doesn't have to be a huge jump. You have to build your own confidence in your pricing, because when you jump, when you increase your prices, let's say you're selling something for 5000 and you increase it to 10, and the next person, you tell it's $10,000 and they say, No, it's too much. What are you gonna do? You're immediately gonna go, it's too much. That's too much for me. I'm not worth that. But if you've been selling something for $5,000 and you've sold it many times, and then you'd sell it for 5500 and that person says it's too much, well, there's not much of a difference between 50 505,000 so we know it's that person. It's not our price. And so I find just building that confidence by selling lots of stuff is kind of like the easiest way to build that pricing confidence. And I've done that. I mean, I did that from literally $3,000 one days to now $35,000 one days.

Robert Plank 12:34 I love that. And you know, you're reminding me that anytime I'm worried about the completeness, then I can use kind of the updating as an excuse to get the word out more right. And like, if you're incrementing the price, you're like, Well, I don't even like. People always say, like, I don't even know what to charge, right. And so you're saying, Well, what's more are important is kind of the the lead flow in the momentum, and to be making some kind of sales regularly, and then you increase the price, and it's always an excuse to follow up, right? If you have those people that are on the fence about to buy, time's not right now? Well, the time better be right now, because if you wait, the price will increase. And so it can be a lot of fun, and it's more of an adventure, the way that you're describing it, where we're trying stuff out. We're doing new things, as opposed to it's just, it's, it's so sad when people get stuck in, like, that perfectionist mindset, and like all someday I'll raise my prices. Someday I'll make that better offer. And so I want to make sure that we have the spotlight on you and talk about what, what excites you, what you want to talk about. And so in our conversation here is there, like a missing, hidden, invisible question that I should be asking you. I just don't know if you ask you.

Pia Silva 13:48 I mean, there's all kinds of elements that make a process worth more, and some of the things that I think, one of the big things that I teach, that most people think is very counterintuitive, is that I think you can actually charge more for a project that takes less time, and I think most people feel like when they raise their prices, they need to make the project bigger and take longer. I've literally watched students make a timeline longer because they're charging more and they want the person to feel like it's worth it, but I have found that actually it's more valuable to deliver things in less time, less time on the clients part, less time in general, because we all want things right now. So if you can deliver at a high value in a very short amount of time, that's actually worth more, not less, and if you can make that mindset shift, you're going to make a lot more money as well, and you're going to have a much easier time running your business, because these projects that last forever are really unprofitable.

Robert Plank 14:45 undefined an important distinction, that the maybe not maybe maybe rush delivery is a bad way to describe it. But you don't have to increase the time it takes if you're increasing the price. And so, you know, we all have problems right as. Is business owners, entrepreneurs and, you know, Pia, you have so much figured out. You have a Facebook group of 1000s. You have your book, your TED EDS TALK, a TED X TALK. I should say you have you're talking about, like, putting out, you know, 30,000 $60,000 packages. I'm curious like, what is your current struggle? What are you working on? What's happening for you in the coming months and years.

Pia Silva 15:21 Yeah, well, everything that I teach and I talk about is based on our two person agency where we had no employees. And, you know, I still deliver projects like that. I just did a $60,000 project Steve and I did a couple months ago. So I still do them a few times a year, but now I teach small agencies how to do this in their business, and that's a completely different business model. So I have a decent sized team that I am responsible for and leading. And so what am I working on this year? I'm looking I'm working on leveling up my own leadership skills, my own management skills, coaching up my team to be able to handle things on their own. It's just, I mean, it's a completely new world to me, because until four years ago, I was succeeding without really anybody else working for me, just contractors here and there. So I mean, I'm in a completely different world now, and that's exciting, and that's kind of why I did it, because kind of it was time for me to expand my skill set, but it's definitely been challenging.

Robert Plank 16:27 It is. It's challenging, but it's worth it, isn't it? And I can relate to some of that, of just sticking with the freelancers and not really wanting to commit, but man, what you do once you do commit, you kind of have more of a stability, and you have more of a rock solid business. And you know, you mentioned here about like, you provide the services and you also have the course. And I know that, like, when I was like, coming up a bunch of years ago, I mostly did the training and less of the done for you. And I noticed in the last few years I've kind of flipped. I've done like, the done for you, and I miss putting out the training courses. So do you ever think about, like, finding the time to do those courses. Because, like, for some reason, like me, personally, I'm I'm kind of telling myself the, the bad self talk of like, oh, I don't have time to like, make the the training courses and things like that. So do you psych yourself out as well? Do you struggle with that? Like, finding the time to like, update, make the new courses to, like, lead into the services. Silva

Pia Silva 17:24 Oh, well, no. I mean, my, my core business is, is this program. So it's a training course, there's lots of content inside, and there's coaching and support. So it's a that is the majority of my time. I mean, actually, this model that I teach is it's so tight in its delivery. That's why I like do a couple a year. Because basically I just take myself out of my business for a couple of days, do this project, and then go back to my business. Um, but the majority of my time is spent running, my running, my team, coaching our students and updating our curriculum, because there's always opportunities to upgrade it. Yeah.

Robert Plank 18:04 Well, fair enough. And so along those lines, do you have, like, a time management secret? Some people say I like to use such and such software, or like to wake up early in the morning. What's your secret, as far as getting it all done?

Pia Silva 18:18 Yeah. I mean, when I was doing it all myself, it was really I chunk everything. So even my projects and the concept behind the way that we deliver in a short amount of time, it's not that we're rushing through it, it's just that we're only working with one client at a time. So I will start a project and I will do it till it's done, and we won't book The next project to start until a week or two later. So there's these gaps of time in between clients to work on our business. So I chunk everything I'll have a day just to do, you know, this kind of social media post or like, this kind of writing that works really well for me, because I like to just stay in a concentrated state on whatever I'm doing. But of course, life gets in the way. You can't always, can't always stick to those chunks. So then it's always a work in progress. To be fair well,

Robert Plank 19:06 fair enough. And I think that's underrated, and it's something to aspire to. I have a friend where every now and then he'll say, like, don't talk to me. This week, I'm up in the cabin getting my writing done, and it's with all the, you know, cell phones always popping up every two seconds. It's really important. I think you hear about the content creators have their content days, days just for that. And that's definitely something to chew on, think about and learn from what you're doing. And so speaking of you and all the amazing things you've accomplished and how you can help us, what are some next steps here? If someone says, Man, Pia Silva has so much figured out. I want to learn from her. I want to get away from under charging, writing, free proposals, etc. I want to see the light. Where can they go and do that?

Pia Silva 19:49 Yeah. I mean, if you're a small branding agency, and you want to learn more about this, I think the best thing you can do is go to NoBS agencies.com, backslash, game plan, the. Book a game plan with our team, and actually, immediately after you book it, you'll be asked to do a 14 minute scan of your business, and this is going to help you identify all the opportunities in your business that you may or may not even know exist. So you'll answer a few questions, and you'll kind of get a report on where you should really focus right now to start scaling up, and then you can get on the call and see if this is a good fit for you,

Robert Plank 20:26 a fit call, just like you said earlier. And I love the specificity. Yeah, the it's a copywriting thing, right? You say, Well, if it's 15 minutes, if it's 10 minutes, it sounds like you're making it up, but like, here's how exact it is, that it's just, is it worth the 14 minutes just to kind of see where you're at, see where you're stuck, identify some problems, get some ideas moving forward? Of course, it is so that is no BS, agencies.com/game, plan. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, just to see about a new way of thinking and acting. Because we've all heard that cliche, if you keep thinking the same way, acting the same way, you'll get the same results. And if you don't like the if the results maybe served you back then, but it's time to make a change. Then pay attention to Pia Sylvia. Pia Silva, I should say I'm having one of those blah pronunciation days. That's okay, though. You don't have to be perfect. Just have to get it out there. No. Bs, agencies.com/game, plan, and we'll see you there. And before I let you go, Pia, it's time to put you on the spot, stump you a little bit and ask you for a fun quarter lesson that has served you in life and business that you can pass on to us. So what comes to mind in that department, as far as a fun quarter lesson?

Pia Silva 21:38 Yeah, my my favorite quote is, I believe it's Mark Twain, and it's, I didn't have right time to write a short letter, so I wrote a longer one instead. And I love that quote because it kind of summarizes the whole concept behind what I'm teaching, and this mindset shift, which is that value is not communicated through more and giving people lot fire, hosing people with information is not inherently valuable. It's actually harder to to cut something down, call something down, and give people just the value that they need. And it's something I'm always striving for, and I think it's a really great skill to aspire to.

Robert Plank 22:22 I strive for that too, and we all should the simplicity, the conciseness, and you should be pursuing that as well, especially when you go to NoBSagencies.com/gamePiaplan. If po was looking to add confusion, it would be a 14 hour call, but instead, it's just 14 minutes. So go there and look at how you can bad ass, your brands, NoBSagencies.com/gameplan. We'll see you there. And thank you, Pia, for being a lot of fun, teaching us some stuff, giving us some support, encouragement. Really appreciate it.

Pia Silva 22:54 Appreciate you. Robert, thanks for having me. Bye.