Resources in this Episode

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 124. I’m so excited to have branding specialist Pia Silva back on the show today.

Pia Silva [0:10]
Hi, this is Pia Silva, you are listening to Heart Sell! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:17]
I’m so excited to continue the conversation with Pia Silva. We’re going to talk about niching down, which is actually a big challenge for so many entrepreneurs. I definitely know it was for me and I know from the conversation with Pia that she had some challenges around niching down as well. But now she nailed her niche. She is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit. Her mission is to help as many freelancers and consultants achieve freedom in their lives by badassing their business and brand. Pia is a weekly Forbes contributor and has been featured on many other platforms, one of them is Entrepreneur On Fire. I’m so super excited to have her back on the show today, you find all the show notes and the transcript at https://christineschlonski.com/ there, you look for the podcast tab. Once you over there, make sure you sign in for the empowerment notes. This gets you empowerment into your inbox once a week with all the updates on Heart Sells! Podcast, as well as content that I do not share on social media usually. So you have some exclusivity, right there once you sign up at https://christineschlonski.com/ and find the podcast tab. So let’s tune in. And let’s say welcome to the wonderful Pia Silva. Well, I am so excited to have you back on the show. Welcome, Pia.

Pia Silva [1:54]
Thank you. Excited to be back.

Christine Schlonski [1:55]
Yeah, I loved our first episode, especially we finished with your story of selling lemonade, and already badass branding at the age of eight, which I just love how creative you were. And that your best friend is still your best friend is obviously another cool factor. I would love to talk to you about niching down. I see so many people like coaches or healers, creatives, like small businesses or 1-2-3 people businesses. They always have the intention, you know, they want to serve a lot of people, right? They want to heal the world. I think we all come from this place where we want to do something good. So we go with a wide approach. And then pretty soon, there’s a wall, and we hit that wall pretty hard. Because the concept of niching down, just taking a handful of people and serving them in the best possible way. It just feels counterintuitive. Can you give us a little bit more advice or information, where to look at our brands and where to make the decision to niche down?

Pia Silva [3:25]
Well, there’s two pieces. One is, I think when we are the customer, we have a very different perception of businesses, then when we are the business owner. An exercise that I try to quickly take people through is thinking about when you’re shopping for something, you’re looking for, you’re a yoga teacher, and you’re looking for a coach to help your yoga business. There are five coaches in front you and these four are all, I help businesses grow their brands, and one is I help yoga teachers build businesses. It’s a very simple example. But as a yoga teacher, are you not telling me that you are not more attracted to the person who is focusing on yoga teachers. And if they were more expensive, or you’re not telling me that you would at least consider paying more because they clearly are going to have insights into your business, that the other four just couldn’t possibly because they aren’t only yoga teachers. I think as consumers, we’re very attracted to the things that are the best fit for whatever we are buying. And yet, as business owners, we forget that we put on our different hat. And we think, “Oh, no, no, it’s fine. I want to help all these people”, you could almost call it selfish because if you really want to help people, you need to actually be able to work with them. If your decision not to focus means that, that yoga teacher is not going to hire you, then you actually weren’t servicing the very people that you are trying to help. So rather than looking at it as limiting, I would look at it as what is necessary in order to connect with the very people that you want to help. I’m often consulting my clients on this, because they’re always like, “Oh, can we have a homepage that has, you know, three different options”, and it always and it’s comical, like, “I had an idea. Why don’t we offer this to everybody?” I always, I’m trying to impart on them that you have really big goals and really big ideas, and you want to help a lot of people. And if they don’t find you, if they don’t resonate with you, they don’t hire you, you’re never going to help them. So I would start from there, and start with that, why, and that big idea and realize that you need to do whatever it takes to work with those people. I mean, it’s been decided, niching down is the better path to that. I think I can say that unequivocally, as you said, the most successful people, they’re all talking about how important it is to niche down.

Christine Schlonski [6:27]
That doesn’t mean that if somebody else comes into your world that you need to send them away.

Pia Silva [6:34]
Great.

Christine Schlonski [6:34]
Right?

Pia Silva [6:37]
They tell them. Actually, you’d be surprised how many people outside your niche, even though you’re saying, “I’m only talking about this”, will come to you because they’re resonating with your brand. And they see you as an expert and say, “Well, can you help me? I know you help yoga teachers, but you’re so awesome. And I have this up, nutritional company. Can you help me?” Absolutely. It’s your decision at that point.

Christine Schlonski [7:01]
Yeah, and I have seen that, like, for example, people that say, “Well, you know, I focused on women in a certain field”, and then all of a sudden they have, they are starting working with men because they resonate to and it doesn’t mean just because you claim your branding, how you show up on the internet, for example, say women, that doesn’t mean you can’t serve men. And I think that’s it’s, maybe do you think it’s like the fear of missing out for the entrepreneur? The fear of not making enough money? The fear of not helping enough people that this feels so counterintuitive?

Pia Silva [7:43]
Yeah, I think it is. That fear paired with never having experienced, how powerful and that you down can be, so you have nothing to go on. But also, I also try to remind people that this is not forever. What works in your business right now, it will evolve. Actually, I find a lot of people and a lot of businesses. They build their power and their credibility and their brand in a niche. And then when they get really big, they are able to branch their brand out. I wrote an article years ago that people love called, Don’t be Ralph Lauren be Ralph Lifshitz. Because Ralph Lifshitz, in the 60s started his company selling wide ties. And that’s how he became famous. And yes, now Ralph Lauren has all this stuff that he sells, and he’s just a brand. And it’s not anything that specific. But he had to evolve to that and use marketing dollars. I think when you’re generic, you need marketing dollars and power. That’s how corporate companies are able to not be specific because they’re playing a different marketing game. They’re blanketing their market with advertising and creating that familiarity. And that’s why people buy and that’s not what we as small service businesses are doing, we need to cut through all that we don’t have the money to advertise to people 10 times before they are even interested in looking at us. So we need to cut through that and connect with them quickly and niching down is one way to do that, one piece of the puzzle.

Christine Schlonski [9:23]
Yeah, yeah. I love that. Because I know that people have such a difficult time with it. And because if you are so clear of what you do, then your sales game becomes so much easier. It is when, like your example of a yoga teacher, there are so many yoga teachers, so why not just talk to them?

Pia Silva [9:42]
There’s so many of everyone.

Christine Schlonski [9:44]
Yeah, exactly.

Pia Silva [9:45]
When you’re online, there are 7 billion people in this world. I mean, there’s plenty of people for you. And if you really do the numbers and say, “Wait for a second, based on what I’m charging, and how much I want to make I need 10 clients, 20 clients. You’re not telling me there aren’t 20 yoga teachers in this world? You could service very well. Why do your 20 clients need to consist of 4 accountants and 4 yoga teachers?” I mean, it doesn’t make sense. But again, it’s just without having experienced that power. It’s hard to believe, I think, because it’s like, how am I going to find those yoga teachers, but as you said, your marketing becomes so much easier, because, “Oh, well, now that I’m for yoga teachers, I can go to a conference for yoga teachers or whatever.” Do yoga teachers have conferences? I don’t know.

Christine Schlonski [10:33]
Probably.

Pia Silva [10:36]
That would be where you would go.

Christine Schlonski [10:38]
Yeah, exactly. It’s easier to do your research because you know what you’re researching for, right? So yeah, I love that. And it’s so so important. So can we talk a little about, a bit about the pricing that comes with it, or the packaging, that once you get really, really specific on your niche, you have already these other opportunities so that you don’t need to be that struggling entrepreneur, who wants to serve everybody, you can really be like a premium kind of brand, that can ask for premium prices, because people get so much more value of what you’re asking anyway.

Pia Silva [11:20]
Yeah, I mean, I am all about the premium prices, because premium prices lead to profitability. When you’re really, you are still selling your time in many ways. But profitability to me comes from the ratio of your price, and how much time you’re spending. And that’s how you get freedom. So remember, the last episode, I mean, that, to me, that is the driving force, I think that’s the driving force. For a lot of people, you want to be doing something you love, you want to be working with people you enjoy, but you also don’t want to work all the time. Premium pricing is critical for that. I use a combination of where I view the formula for premium pricing is being a combination of being able to laser focus on your niche, because you can talk to those people so much more quickly, as we just spoke about creating content in a voice so that you’re not even just the business coach for yoga teachers, you have your personality, and it’s out there so that when people interact with your brand, they know if they resonate with you or not. And when they do resonate with you, you go to the top of the list even faster, because they really connect with you and Heart Sells! I mean, you couldn’t say it better yourself. That connection is really when you’re selling expertise and services, that connection is critical. And then the last piece that you mentioned earlier that I’m a huge proponent of is the productization. The packaging your services, creating a process or a methodology, something that is yours that you take people through, it doesn’t mean that you are treating people in a cookie-cutter manner, what it means is that you are driving the ship, you are bringing your breath of experience in this space and your process that you know works. And you’re putting each person through it. And accommodating the custom pieces that are specific to them. But they’re still going through a process but they have confidence that they’re going to come out the other side with results. And that to me is a huge piece of the premium pricing model because it gets you away from calculating the price as it relates to the hours and gets you much more into the price for value. And it doesn’t matter if it took me 10 minutes or 20 hours, it matters that you got what you are paying for and that’s the value.

Christine Schlonski [13:52]
Yeah, I love this approach. And I think it’s so important to stop exchanging your hours for dollars. Because that’s just creating another job, but not not the freedom. What does freedom mean for you?

Pia Silva [14:10]
Freedom means that yesterday was Thursday, and I hung out all day with my husband and my son. And we didn’t do anything, we went to the park and we made a delicious breakfast and had a great time. And that was and that was totally okay and acceptable. That’s freedom to me, being able to plug in the work that I do, and also have more time than I think you would even have. I mean, you have a 40-hour workweek with a boss having more time than that because I invest a lot of that time back into things that I love to do. So whether it’s spending time with my family, or strategizing and writing my next book, you know, doing things like that, being on this podcast, like I love talking to other excited entrepreneurs who are doing big things and helping other people that really excites me. I like to be able to do that. I was at Whole Foods right before this. I’m going to go make some meals for my family that’s coming to visit this afternoon. So there’s just like being able to come in and out of these things, and have a more fluid lifestyle with business work, work and play and kind of making them the same thing.

Christine Schlonski [15:32]
Yeah, yeah. I love that. Yeah. And I’ve yet to talk about your badass book. You’re just mentioning you, you’re writing a new one. That’s great. That’s exciting. Yeah, where can people get hands on your book and why is it important to read?

Pia Silva [15:50]
You can grab the first chapter on my website, https://www.piasilva.com where I’ll give you a high-level version of how we went from, think that trading dollars for hours and struggling and $40,000 in debt to $500,000 in sales the next 12 months, by doing all these things I’m talking about. So by packaging our services, by owning our brand, by owning our voice, by owning our niche, all these different things. But I really use the book to, I feel like it was my Manifesto, to outline, actually how we did that. So what were the steps we took and like I use different examples of clients, to show how we use this in a financial services firm in a photography, divorce coach, SAT tutor, like all these different industries, but it doesn’t matter. Because the philosophy is the same. Somebody is hiring you for your expertise, they need to see credibility, they need to trust you, and how are you going to make that happen quickly and what steps can you take. So I kind of outline different ways how you can do that. And I even include a workbook where you can kind of work through the questions to figure out how you would use down like, what you would focus on, how you find your voice and all of that.

Christine Schlonski [17:13]
Yeah, I love that. This is so needed because what I see a lot in the market is, people are ready to invest in themselves. But then they start doing something and then the next shiny object. The next course, the next book, the next mentor, and obviously everybody has their own way of doing things that are successful. So figuring out what works for you, is just a lot of inner work, you cannot just take somebody else’s recipe and not putting your ingredients in it. Because that worked for them because they are whatever the successful name is. And now it needs to work for you. So I love that your book comes with a workbook so that you can be really sure that you are putting yourself out and not just copy, copy-paste kind of thing like, “Oh, I like that”, because we all have different personalities, different experiences. Different people resonate with us. Somebody, I always thought that in sales and my team, when I had, was still in corporate, I had like all these different personalities on my team. And somebody who bought from one person, let’s say, John, was maybe, the same person, they love to invest in the product, but for married, they wouldn’t have bought it. Even if she would have had like more or less the same pitch. So just really making sure you put your ingredients in it, it is so important.

Pia Silva [18:57]
In this process, over time too.

Christine Schlonski [19:00]
Yes.

Pia Silva [19:01]
Yeah, not like one and done.

Christine Schlonski [19:03]
Yeah, but I love that you made that shift quickly, like within 12 months, from 40,000 minus to 500,000 plus, I mean, that’s a pretty big jump. Was there maybe one ingredient that made it super fast?

Pia Silva [19:19]
Yes. We were in debt, not because we weren’t good at what we did. And not even because we didn’t have a brand wasn’t as tight as it is today. But not even because we didn’t have like a personality and brand. We did it because we were still doing that pitching thing, custom proposals for everybody. So when we niche down both our target market and our process and started selling and product guys services, I already had lots of people around me who knew who I was, I had been networking, like crazy. So I didn’t have to do any, like official advertising, I just had to go back to those people and say, “Oh, you know how you really like me and want to send me business, but really have no idea how because I’m just a graphic designer. And you don’t even know what that means.” Now I have this very clear and specific thing to offer this very clear and specific niche at these prices. It was like the floodgates. It was like the river reversed. Reverse direction, because it made it really easy for them to share us with others. And to tell other people, it made it easy for them to think of people. All of a sudden, they thought of all the like all these people that knew me thought of all these people that needed my service. And they didn’t think of it before. At the core of it, we were offering the same thing. So why before they wouldn’t send us any business, and after we were getting tons of organic referrals, because it was clear who it was for, what it was and it cost all of that. So that was I mean, to me, that’s what I credited with.

Christine Schlonski [20:57]
Yeah, wonderful, can you give us like three steps for somebody to take action today.

Pia Silva [21:07]
I think one step is to look at your previous clients and really analyze who give the most value to, who you love working most with. That’s where I usually start with experience. It’s hard to nice, you shouldn’t niche on a hypothetical and I think that’s what a lot of people do, “Oh, I want to work with those people. Have you ever worked with them? No, but I want to”, that’s tough. If you have an idea of a niche that you want to work with, go work with them. Before you do anything, go get a client and see. I had a client last year who didn’t take my advice, built a whole brand around one specific target. And then after that got her first client, and was like, “Oh, I don’t want to work with accountants to rebrand this entire thing”, because I thought I was going to work with an accountant, that’s what I was going to do. So just get, just work with them. That would be number one. Number two, I guess read my book. So you get to understand what products and services are because I highly recommend that. But just in general, think about how you can prioritize your services. And three would be, start to put something in motion to work on the inner part of how you feel about failure and success. Because no matter how great you are, in what you do your business, even how great you are in marketing, all of that, if you don’t keep working on your own inner relationship with failure and success, it’s going to guide everything you do and not in a good way.

Christine Schlonski [22:51]
Yeah.

Pia Silva [22:52]
Those are big things.

Christine Schlonski [22:53]
Yeah, that’s definitely not like comes out. But yeah, I just love it. Because it really allows you to sit down, right? If you really want to build a business that helps you to live the lifestyle that you desire by serving others. This is just something you have to do. There’s no way around. Nobody can just hand you the recipe and you just go with it. You have to find your ingredients. And I think that’s very important. So thank you so much for sharing that. Just to finish off, do you use mantras or quotes to, I don’t know, motivate you or inspire you?

Pia Silva [23:43]
Um, I don’t use them specifically, like on a daily basis. But I think the one that comes to mind when you say that is it’s really just this idea. I think Michael Jordan, I don’t watch sports at all. So it’s funny that Michael Jordan comes to mind but he said, no, it was, Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, and Michael Jordan said that he credits his success for the fact that he was willing to take the game-winning shot and lose it more than anyone. So as much as he, I don’t know. He’s apparently the best, right? He’s made lots of shots. He also made the most losing shots.

Christine Schlonski [24:29]
Yes, but he has tried.

Pia Silva [24:31]
Because he’s willing to be the one that lost the game. And he credits his success with that. And I think, I mean, it gives me chills even think about that. Again, not a sports person, but that like, really, that opens up a lot of stuff for me every time I think about it, because it just means like, you want to be Michael Jordan, you gotta be willing to be the person that everyone’s yelling at, because you missed the shot at the end of the game. Yeah, I think that’s pretty powerful.

Christine Schlonski [24:56]
Yeah, that’s very powerful. Thank you so much. Well, I’m so excited that you spend time with Heart Sells! Podcast, and we had this wonderful conversation. So thank you so much.

Pia Silva [25:07]
Thank you so much, you are a pleasure to chat with.

Christine Schlonski [25:10]
What I so enjoyed the episodes was Pia. I just loved how openly she shared about the failures and about what made her business succeed at the end. I hope you are inspired and motivated and you are not afraid to niche down and you are ready to create your own badass brand. Enjoy. Have fun, hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ Make sure you sign up for the empowerment notes to get your weekly dose of empowerment right into your inbox. With all the updates on Heart Sells! Podcast, make sure you rate and subscribe and share with your friends. And yeah, go out there and make it happen. Enjoy, have fun, and I’m saying bye for now.