Pia Silva is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur's Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit. She helps entrepreneurs badass their brand and business to scale their freedom with profit. She is a Forbes contributor and has been featured on MSNBC's Your Business, Entrepreneur on Fire, and the UGurus and Million Dollar Women Summits to name a few. Pia is passionate about efficiency and spending time with family. She spends time educating on branding and living freely and will soon launch her own podcast, "Show Your Business Who's Boss". First Phase Pia's first phase was starting a business with her husband Steve, who is a graphic designer. She really had no idea what she was doing so she spent time networking and then tried to follow those who were in the same space. Under the influence of other's and what their business models where she thought they needed and office and employees. She and Steve basically became a small agency until they became so indebt that they had to do a complete rebrand of their company. After three years of having the agency, the went broke. Credit cards were maxed out. They had a lot of overhead. Pia then flipped the business on it's head and created the business they not have that she considers Phase 2. Coaching Writing newsletters and speaking were two pieces of advice that Evan Harowitz gave Pia to grow her business. This advice is what has helped their current business grow to the success it is today. That advice is the foundation of the business model they have in the second phase. As long as you get at least one piece of value out of a coach, hiring one is something that can help you. Even with books. Look for that one piece of information that is the ultimate golden nugget that will help you transform your business or personal life. If you want value it's always there. Getting Started Pia started her writing and speaking career by sending email newsletters out to everyone she had connected with through networking. She suggests making a list of places that might host you as a speaker. Start local. Write the title of your speech and a little blurb. Once you have the speaking engagement booked, you will figure out the talk. It's OK to start small and work your way up to a larger audience. Fine tune your message with a smaller audience. With experience and confidence, you'll grow into larger stages. Being a great speaker takes a lot of practice and hiring a speaking coach helps as well. But practice is going to build the confidence. Use stories as the avenue for writing and speaking. Story is how your content and brand are yours. It's all about how you tell the story and how your story resonates with others who will engage with you. Second Phase Let's talk about niching down! Niching down can mean a lot of things… Target market Personality of the client Type of Projects Size of client Niching down is the intersection of all of these. Keep in mind that your niche may transform. You can be multi-passionate within a niche. Think of it as an hourglass. You narrow down, then open back up. Open up so that when you add value, it's still to the same market or within the same space. Think of clients as giving you types of value Money Value you get for working with yet another ideal client and getting that much better at working with that specific type of client. Referral source from an ideal client. Be your brand unapologetically. Own whatever it is that makes you special! Let people know what you are all about and put all of your energy into being the best most excellent version of that you can be. Anyone who gets a discount is not your ideal referral source. You want people who are willing to pay top dollar for your services because then they truly value you and your services. The Price is Right Raise early and often. But don't necessarily raise that much. It is all relative. One person may think you are inexpensive and someone else may think you are over-priced. Start your pricing where you are confident. Get clients and then raise your price. Move up gradually. Raise prices and build confidence at the same time. The Lead Product The lead product replaces the proposal. Interview the client and get to know all about them to be able to serve them. Instead of risking them taking the information and running without paying, make this part of the program. There is a fee for the consultation and information gathering and then the fee is applied to the final price. It is critical to provide strategy with the lead product. Give it a name so that people know the lead product is providing answers to a problem or question that the prospective client might hand. Efficiency One of Pia's passions is efficiency. She is hyper focused on time and wants freedom of time therefore being efficient is very important for business and life success and happiness. Book Recommendation The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks Favorite Quote If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. – Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln Learn More About and Connect with Pia Website Instagram To learn more about me, your host, Robyn Graham, click HERE. Learn about The Brand Insider by Robyn Graham, click HERE. Connect with me, Robyn Graham: Website | Instagram | LinkedIN | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Pinterest

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