Resources in this Episode

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 123 with the amazing branding strategist Pia Silva.

Pia Silva [0:09]
Hi, this is Pia Silva, you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:18]
Have you ever asked yourself how you can create a better brand? Well, Pia Silva on the show today answering this question, we’re going to go deep. But before we dive in, make sure you hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab and sign up for the empowerment notes. Empowerment weekly to your inbox. With all the updates on Heart Sells! Podcast plus something powerful I share with you that I usually do not share on social. So hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Sign up for the empowerment notes and let’s dive in with the amazing Pia Silva. Pia is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Expertise. Her mission is to help as many freelancers and consultants achieve freedom in their lives by badassing their business and brand. She is a weekly Forbes contributor and has been featured on MSNBC’s Your Business, Entrepreneur On Fire, and on the UGurus and Million Dollar Women Summits. So let’s welcome Pia. Well, I’m so happy to have you on the show today, Pia. Welcome.

Pia Silva [1:53]
Thank you so much, Christine, I’m excited to talk to you.

Christine Schlonski [1:55]
Yes, me too. You’ve done such brilliant work in the world and build a real rock star badass business. I just love to have those conversations with people to inspire others that they too, can build something they truly love. They have the time freedom they’re looking for. Can you fill us a little bit in? When was like maybe the moment where it clicked that you knew, “This is my path”?

Pia Silva [2:32]
That’s a great question. I feel like it has always been my path in some sense. Also, it’s been evolving. I don’t know why. But I’ve always been very set on being my own boss, that was probably the only thing from childhood that I was sure of. I think I tried a lot of things and it led me here. I tried a lot of things before this. Even this business, we build those brands, without the BS for one of your personal service businesses, that’s our company. But even that is an evolution out of trying to be my own boss, running my husband’s graphic design freelance business. So it evolved into this. All of that was inspired by my journey searching for freedom, flexibility. That was the main motivation for me, as I’m sure a lot of people can relate to.

Christine Schlonski [3:28]
Yeah, I’m so sure of that, definitely. That was also my driver, but I was more like, and I never knew that I wanted to be my own boss. Until pretty late, I would guess. But then I, the knowledge was so strong that I had to do everything to make it happen. I really love that you already knew when you were a child that being an employee wasn’t really an option. That’s pretty cool. Can you tell us a little bit about who are your ideal clients work with at the moment?

Pia Silva [4:05]
Well, over the years, it’s really evolved and we’ve niched down into we say 123 person service businesses. What that really means is people who are super, super expert at a skill and space, and they sell their expertise. Usually, they’re doing very well, because they’re very, very good. But they’re overworked because they don’t know how to sell based on value because they don’t know how to brand themselves. Those are my ideal clients because they are so well positioned to really blow it out of the water, you know what I mean? They’re great at what they do. It’s just this disconnect between being able to sell based on value instead of selling their time. You could be completely booked and making lots of money, but you have no free time. We’re all about switching that into this highly profitable model. That requires having a badass sprint.

Christine Schlonski [5:00]
Yeah, totally agree. I know so many people who struggle, who work all day, who might not even be fully booked but don’t really know about pricing or packaging, or how to show up as the expert in a way that other people can relate, that they can understand them. Not with like expert terms all the time, but make it simple. So people can come in and actually work with them. You’re very, very confident has this always been this way?

Pia Silva [5:39]
Well, I built confidence in this particular area and space through lots of failures really. I think you have to try things and be willing to fail in order to find the path that makes sense. I have built this business and learn so many things from going really hard trying things, not dipping a toe trying to get over those fears of, by try something and it doesn’t work. I think a lot of people stop themselves from trying things that are bigger than themselves because they’re so scared of failure. Me too. But I’ve learned over the years by baby-stepping through bigger, into bigger and bigger, trying bigger and bigger things that the more you try it, the more resilient you can be to that kind of failure. I have built a lot of confidence through failing and getting back up and building something bigger every single time. I’ve learned that that is actually the process of success. I think my confidence comes from that because I feel a little more impenetrable than I did probably, obviously 10 years ago when I first started. I was just terrified that I was going to mess it up or it wasn’t gonna work.

Christine Schlonski [6:56]
Yeah. Could you give some advice to people who are listening in now? I think in, “Wow, I mean, that badass brand. That sounds amazing. I would love to get there, but I am afraid.” What could they do to to have, to give it a shot, or to have maybe a better experience and failing because failing is just part of the game. But still, everybody tries to avoid it. What could you tell people what they could do to to get to that level?

Pia Silva [7:31]
Yeah, I mean, even just recognizing that that is such a critical piece of success in business is actually working on your mental state when it and your relationship with failure, and success and what motivates you. Even just recognizing that is so important, I think is a really big step. Because I think some people, they live their whole entrepreneurial life and thinking it’s all about the tasks and working harder. But if you take a step back and realize that actually your emotional state is influencing everything that you do, and maybe I need to take some time to spend on that, I think that goes a long way. Then, of course, there are many great things you can do reading books, working on it through with one other person. Years ago I took up 16 days intensive that could be summed up as working on this thing. But really giving me exercises and tools to work through it myself. One of the things we did in that, that I still implement to this day, is even pushing yourself in other ways unrelated to your business to fail all the time to get comfortable with it. We did this task, where we had to do something every day for 30 days, and you could come up with whatever it was, but you have absolutely had to do it. And you had to restart your account if you failed. But the point of it wasn’t just to succeed, and surprisingly hard to do that actually, like just not mess up at all for 30 days. But the point of it wasn’t to just succeed, it was to fail and be okay with it, and do it again. And it was a very small task, but it was kind of building that muscle. And I think you can do that in lots of areas of your life. Just go for something that might feel a little uncomfortable, and try to see how you feel about it when it doesn’t work and get comfortable with that and do something a little bigger.

Christine Schlonski [9:32]
Yeah, wow. Do you have an example of where you failed in those 30 days and where you succeeded? And maybe you even were you surprised at some of the things that you succeeded in? Did you go in with a different expectation, maybe?

Pia Silva [9:47]
Oh, absolutely. I actually was very resistant to the exercise in general, because I don’t like being told what to do. An entrepreneur who likes to run things and as somebody, years ago, I read this book called, ‘Miracle Morning’. I did Miracle Morning, I did it for I mean, at least six months, and I did it at five in the morning. I mean, it wasn’t like, “I’m just going to do this”, it was like, “I’m gonna, I’m going to do the full hour, at five in the morning by candlelight, because I’m really going for it.” When this exercise came, and the suggestion was something very small, like a five-minute task, like just say you’re going to do, some sort of yoga for five minutes or something that. I was very resistant to it. I had a coach, I had to text the coach every day. I was really resistant to that too. I made my task only to text my coach because I still didn’t want to do it and I failed pretty quickly because I didn’t, I had this resistance and there was so much to learn, even in that experience. I will fail at something that I am not 100% committed to why I’m doing it. So I was able to wake up for probably six months without that many days off and do this hour-long Miracle Morning. But I had a very hard time just texting my coach every day for 30 days. There’s so many things to learn when you do exercises like this if you’re willing to look at them.

Christine Schlonski [11:21]
Yeah, and I love that because you know, I feel the same, I don’t really like to be told things I want to choose. So Miracle Morning was a choice. I don’t know how many months or weeks I did it, but I loved the book. It is really powerful to install good habits that help you to set your mind up for the day. So I’m a big fan of journaling. And that book probably helped to see that, that it can be super successful once you. Do you still journal?

Pia Silva [11:55]
Yeah, no, actually, that’s the only piece of it, that and the water are the two pieces that continued and the journaling shrunk. I just try to make sure I write for at least five minutes of a couple of specific things that I want to keep track of, the big ideas, the why, the vision. I find that the priming of your brain for the day is very powerful. But it doesn’t have to be a 20-minute exercise every day. That’s too much that I couldn’t commit to.

Christine Schlonski [12:25]
Yeah, I totally get that. Because then, if you don’t really want to commit, because it takes too much time, then you don’t do it at all. So it’s better to just have five minutes.

Pia Silva [12:37]
Exactly.

Christine Schlonski [12:38]
You know, prep yourself.

Pia Silva [12:39]
And write more on Sundays. So it’s not that I don’t write more, it’s just that I commit to doing that. And I have found and the exercise of this 30 day thing, it was actually pitched to us. And I really believe this as a way to build self-confidence and self-esteem. So the act of committing to something and always doing it is very powerful. And the more you can basically keep your word to yourself, the stronger and more resilient you can be. So that’s why even saying I can commit to five minutes, I’m not going to commit to 20 or 30, and then fail, and then know that my word isn’t my you know, as strong as I want it to be, I think is important.

Christine Schlonski [13:23]
Yeah, I love that. And especially when we have a look at sales at serving clients with your business, you have to have these conversations, and so many people are so afraid of rejection of hearing no. Which they put together in one basket, this failure, and they don’t want to fail or they feel rejected as a person. What is your experience when you already knew working for somebody isn’t for you, and you went out on your own? How did you deal with rejection?

Pia Silva [14:01]
Well, I mean, when we started this business, originally, as this graphic design business, I was starting from scratch in terms of finding clients and pitching so I had no idea what — I was just trying things, really. I don’t think I, when we lost pitches or proposals, I don’t think I was even connected to the failure part of it because I was so concerned with the money part of it , at that time. I’m just looking at trying to make this work and pay bills every month. I was so concerned with that, that I don’t even know if that played in, it was more of an overall feeling of failure. Am I going to be able to live off of this business where we don’t have a boss or not? Now, I have such a different approach to it. This is something you kind of you have to grow into. But I really don’t ever see myself as pitching people at all anymore. I have re-focus. I think that this is a really powerful way to operate any expert business where you’re bringing your expertise. I’ve really re-focus on being the best, highest skilled person in my field, and being able to give the most value I possibly can and always looking to grow that. If I’m focused on that and I continue to get laser-focused on who that’s the best serving, then conversations with people, I’m never trying to pitch them, it’s like, “I’m just trying to figure out if you really are the person that I can really knock it out of the park for and if you’re not, you shouldn’t hire me, I don’t want you to hire me, I wouldn’t expect you to hire me. And if you are one critical piece of that is that you want to hire me.” So if you end up, if I end up saying, “Well, you’re a perfect fit for this”, and then you don’t resonate with me enough to hire me, then you really weren’t a perfect fit. Because what I’m saying is, so extreme and a lot of money. In a lot of my philosophies that if it’s not exciting you then you’re not a good fit for us. We only want people who are really excited by our approach and philosophies and ideas. That’s kind of a critical piece of the puzzle. I don’t know if that’s like a backhanded self-protection mode. But that’s kind of how I built my business now and it’s, it’s very freeing.

Christine Schlonski [16:28]
Yeah, it totally is. I also teach my clients to look for their soulmate clients. People want to spend time with you, people you would potentially go out to dinner with, or have over for dinner at your house. Because you resonate at you really enjoy spending the time you love, the appointments coming up in your calendar, and you look forward to working with them. Because you know you can change the world for them or with them. I think that’s such an important piece. If somebody doesn’t really resonate with you, then it’s not your soulmate client, or ideal client or dream client or whatever, however, you want to call them. I think that’s so important because that makes the business fun and exciting. I think it also frees you in the packages, in the offers you’re making. Because if they know exactly, you are the perfect fit, then it’s not a question about the price.

Pia Silva [17:36]
Absolutely. Part of the perfect fit is somebody who is hiring you because they see and appreciate the value you’re bringing. That also takes them away from price. If someone is just focused on the price, they’re not a good client for me, because that means I’m really not getting what I’m putting out there.

Christine Schlonski [17:58]
Yeah, totally, and I would even go so far, that’s probably true for everybody. If it wasn’t just about the price, and you are not a pack of gum, then you know, you’re you really need people that see the value, that received the value so that your work can be spread in the world as well. And you have raving fans.

Pia Silva [18:28]
I completely agree. But I see a lot of people monetize themselves, by not, you can have the knowledge and skills, but you don’t necessarily, you certainly don’t necessarily communicate them. I think a lot of people struggle to actually communicate them. But you don’t even necessarily deliver them sometimes, because you’ve created a commodities relationship, a service provider relationship, where you are doing what the client says and are not empowered enough to bring that knowledge that you have. So you might not even be showing up as a valued expert, because you are in a disempowered place, or because you’re scared to communicate those ideas that you know. I mean, I coach a lot of people in that exact mental space where I’m trying to convince them of the value they have but they really don’t think that they have. They’re not even delivering it necessarily.

Christine Schlonski [19:28]
Yeah, that’s why you have coaches and mentors because they see more in you than you, right? We all have those people in our lives because that helps us grow. So that’s brilliant. What could a person do who is in the situation right now that they always do what the client wants, and they feel like they have to deliver it and exactly the way so they are holding back? How can they get out of it?

Pia Silva [20:00]
I mean, I think it’s a whole mindset shift. Some more tactical things that I usually recommend have to do with niching down the focus of who you’re working with, I think people tend to get in that sticky client relationship where they’re doing whatever the client says. When from the beginning, they are spreading themselves really thin. So they’re pitching to everyone. So then every person that comes to them, they’re kind of doing this song and dance to try to show why they’re the perfect person for them. When really, they would do that, even if this prospect looked completely different. So there’s, it’s almost a little disingenuous, because it’s like, “Oh, I’m perfect for you. But I’m also perfect for this person over here and then perfect for this person over here.” And I think that that even begins the relationship on a bit of a rocky start. And then and that whole pitching I mean, I’m really anti pitching really am, I’m all about just from the beginning selling value. But I think that initial interaction sets the whole relationship up to potentially go into what that scope creep place where clients are just they want more, they want more, they’re not being managed, they’re not, their expectations aren’t being set, and then met constantly. I think that’s another place that these projects go off the rails is when a client’s expectations are not being managed the entire time. They don’t know what to expect. And when people don’t know what to expect, they fill in the gaps. And whatever they fill in the gaps with is probably not what you are filling in the gaps with and that disconnect and communication is a big source of anxiety for most client-service relationships.

Christine Schlonski [21:51]
Yeah, I totally can see that. I’d love to talk to you a little bit more about niching down because the more you spend time to figure out branding and marketing, the more you will hear super successful people talking about niching down. I’m so happy that we do have another interview where we can actually talk about this. So one more thing for this one, before we hop off. What was the very first thing that you have ever sold in your life?

Pia Silva [22:27]
Lemonade. The classic lemonade stand that eight years old on Broadway in Soho in New York City, we made a killing.

Christine Schlonski [22:41]
Awesome. How did you feel like, were you a little bit afraid to talk to people and take money or was it just something that everybody kind of did and you thought it was a good idea? How was the feeling when you actually set up your lemonade stand?

Pia Silva [23:01]
It was actually pretty out of the ordinary, where we were. I mean, Broadway, in Manhattan, so very, very busy. There are not a lemonade stand there. My best friend happened to live right there. I don’t even think it’s legal. But we were, but we, this is the funny thing. Like even at eight years old, we knew we’re too cute little girls, like no one’s gonna mess with us. We can charge a lot because we’re on Broadway. I just remember kind of feeling almost a little mischievous at the time, because I was like, “This is so cool that we can like go to the store, get the ingredients to make this and then make some money.” Yeah, I just remember being really excited by it.

Christine Schlonski [23:48]
What a great memory. I do think that these experiences kind of set us up for that entrepreneurial journey. How do you deal with you know, as asking for money, knowing you deliver value and even this eight years old, you knew from the location, you can ask for more?

Pia Silva [24:09]
I mean, this was you know how many, 30 years ago. I think we were charging, I remember like I can remember this, I remember numbers. So clearly numbers are things that I remember that we were charging $1. I remember that being at least twice what any, what you would sell lemonade for 30 years ago. I was like, they’ll pay and people were buying it because they just thought we were so cute, you know, and we even set it up kind of cute. Like, I remember us making drawings and stuff. Because we were like,

Christine Schlonski [24:41]
So you started running —

Pia Silva [24:42]
I was marketing. Well, we were marketing hardcore, we were. And she’s still my best friend today. So you know, we have these good memories.

Christine Schlonski [24:51]
Awesome. Well, I want to send people I mean, everything is going to be in the show notes. And there’s a transcript. So I want to send people to your awesome website https://www.piasilva.com/ You deliver so much value on there. And it’s beautifully done. So people will have a lot of fun. Looking at it as well. Thank you so so much. Is there any last thing you would like to request with us for this episode?

Pia Silva [25:21]
Yeah, just look fear in the face and do it anyway. I mean, that is one of the big definitions of badass. When we use the term badass branding, it’s not about being scared. It’s about being scared and doing it anyway, it’s perfectly fine to be scared, we’re all scared. But chip away at it, because you can really build that muscle and it can be very powerful.

Christine Schlonski [25:45]
Wonderful. Well, thank you so so much. Looking forward to our next interview.

Pia Silva [25:49]
Me too. Thank you so much.

Christine Schlonski [25:51]
I just love the badass branding input that we got from Pia and all the things she shared that she had to goes through on her journey to success. I hope it’s a wonderful reminder that success does not start with success but it starts with failure. It starts with learning. It starts with figuring things out. And it starts with getting up each time before down. So whatever you see as success, whatever you define success, just find also ways to get back up if you are thrown down. I hope you really enjoyed this episode, make sure you are tuning in for the next where we talk about a super, super important topic about niching down. To hold you over hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Make sure you find the podcast tab with all the podcasts, the show notes, the transcripts, all the links to Pia to connect with her. And also make sure that you sign up for the empowerment notes. These are my notes for you. They come once a week to your inbox where I share amazing content as well as all the latest news of Heart Sells! Podcast. All you need to do is hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab and there you will find the empowerment notes. All you need to do is sign up and have fun. So enjoy wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I hope you are tuning in for the next episode with the amazing Pia Silva. Have a wonderful day and I’m saying bye for now.