The Art of Authority Podcast with Mike Saunders - Ep 20 How to Build Your Branding & Authority Voice with Brand Strategist Pia Silva
25 Nov 2018 · 36 min
Podcast episode (Art of Authority, Ep.20) — Mike Saunders interviews Pia Silva (brand strategist, co-founder of Worst of All Design) about building branding and authority for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Key points: Pia defines “badass branding” as (1) magnetically attracting the right clients (while repelling others) and (2) commanding a premium price; brand cohesion between message, experience, and deliverables is essential; productizing services and packaging them as repeatable processes (e.g., lead products, one-to-three day intensives) helps raise prices and scale; niching can be achieved via combinations of target market, productized service, contrarian brand personality, and sales process; Pia offers a lower-touch paid audit called the “brand shrink” and a full-service intensive called the “Brand Up” (one-to-three day) that delivers logo, website, copy and launch. Closing includes Pia’s book and contact links.
Questions this episode answers
Worst of All Design.
Badass Your Brand — (The Impatient Entrepreneur's Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit).
The "brand shrink" (an interview-style audit that delivers a brand plan).
"Brand Up" — a one-to-three day full-service brand intensive (design, copy, website, launch).
badassyourbrand.com/authority
Chapters
Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.
Hey, guys. Welcome back. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach, and we have with us now Pia Silva, who is brand strategist and co founder of Worst of All Design. Welcome to the summit, Pia.
Thanks, Mike. Great to be here.
Hey, so first of all, Worst of All Design, I want to hear the story behind where is that name coming from? Because if I want designs, I don't want the worst of them all. I want the best of them all.
Well, we are known for building badass brands without the bs so when people normally ask me that, I tell them, well, that's a badass name, isn't it? So we build badass brands. That's a bad name. And I leave it at that. But the real background story is that my partner and husband's last name is Westerval, and this was his nickname in college that just never left. So it started very early. I inherited Worst of All. And it's really. It's grown. We've grown into it in a very authentic way, I think, because it had very authentic roots, actually.
Yeah. Well, in marketing and branding and competitive advantage and standing out and all of those things. I think you hit the nail on the head with how you describe it, but then the story behind that, I think, is really cool. So, I mean, probably in some of the work you do with clients, you talk about what's your brand story. Right. So, I mean, I think that touching on that and then let you go deeper and deeper on even that small backstory is a huge thing. So let's just jump right into what's branding for a small slash. Solopreneur, entrepreneur, business owner, coach, consultant. Because I think when you. A lot of people hear the word branding, they think logo branding, campaign with billboards and the big thing. But for most entrepreneurs, small business owners, it's a whole new animal, right?
Yeah. I mean, most people are trying to define this word branding. It's kind of an elusive idea I find that lots of people define. Why are we all walking around still wondering what this word means? Right. And I think, you know, you can define in a lot of different ways. I think a good definition is it's what people say when you're not in the room. I think Jeff Bezos may have said that. Or, you know, everything about your business. What does it look like? I prefer to stay away from Defining branding because I think everybody has a brand whether you like it or not. If it's not very good, it's probably a boring brand, but still a brand. I prefer to think about badass branding and what a badass brand really is and what it does. So I define badass branding as having two critical characteristics. One, it needs to magnetically attract clients and that means that it's okay with repelling everybody else. Very important to be okay with repelling certain people. And second, it commands a premium price so you can actually charge more than the competition and still win the business. So that is my definition of badass branding because that incorporates all of this stuff. Are you able to charge a premium price and attract clients with your message, your logo, your website, how you communicate, how you price your business, you know, how you come across in the market.
You know, you said a mouthful and I think we could stop right there and go about four and a half days and not unpack all of that. But that being said, I literally yesterday had a conversation with a client and we were talking about attracting the right customer. And I said, I want to say this very nicely, but you should not start looking at these high end affluent clients right now because when they come to your website, it's going to turn them away because it's a Shopify site or it's a wix or whatever the case was, was just plain and whatever. And I said, you've got to get that right before because you do all this work to get the attention of an affluent high end, high ticket prospect and there's some expectations there, right? And you don't want to just go, boo, what, There's a, there's a disconnect. So speak a little bit about what's, what do you see with that? And then what are some of the first steps that you would say to someone when they're trying to level up that brand?
I love that you said that because a cohesive experience is a big part of the brand. So when people think about cohesion, they usually think, okay, my logo needs to be the same on my website, my business cards, okay, that is level one. That is very true. And it's amazing how often you can go to somebody's website and things are mismatched, but it's really something deeper, as you said, with having a cohesive experience. So I speak to you, I'm very impressed. You're very eloquent. You sound like an expert. And then I go to your website and wah, wah, I'm completely let down. And now I'm having a disconnect. Well, are you an expert or are you. This and that alone can just break that thread of trust that is needed in order to charge premium prices. So that's why it's so important for the brand to match the goods and vice versa. I mean, I work with the business end as well as the brand because they need to go hand in hand. You can have a gorgeous website and then you don't come across very professionally and there's another disconnect. I don't understand why these work.
I love when you look at things from one direction and then you go, yeah, but when you turn it around and look at it from this direction. Because now let's say you hire this really good designer and your website, web presence, social media is just spot on. And then they connect with you in person or on the phone or video, and all of a sudden you're not articulate, you're not confident. And haven't you also seen this? I find that sometimes clients will find that they're a little tentative because they're not sure of themselves and they haven't seen the results even of their own work. And then here comes this great experience from a client and they tell them how wonderful they are. And then now they're like, I guess I really do deliver the goods. And then another good testimonial. And time and time and time again they deliver goods and they get good feedback. And then now they're like, yeah, I thought about that I could deliver. Now I'm getting the feedback and results. And then guess what? Their confidence shifts. So I think a, it's super important to have the congruent look and feel, but then also you need to deliver it. So what is one thing that someone can do now to make sure their mindset and their approach is that confident and authoritative influencer in reality is what it is.
Well, that's a great question because I'm constantly teaching people how to raise their prices. But there's a flip side to that. Sometimes people raise their prices too quickly. You're exactly right. And what I tell them is you can't just, you know, aim high. I wish I got this price and I think I'm really good at this. So that's what I'm going to charge. Really? You want to start by charging something you're super confident in and build up that confidence. So I would never do it for less than this price. So that's what I'm going to start with. And you know what? You can raise your Prices very quickly after that. And that's the strategy that I usually encourage people to do. Raise your prices quickly, but don't raise your price so quickly in the beginning that you're not confident about it. Then when someone says, oh, that's too much, you go, well, okay, okay, I can give you a discount. Oh, you just broke your entire premium branding and positioning. So that really shoots your authority in the foot.
What do you think about people? It's kind of like, you gotta walk your talk. So what would happen if in your business, all you ever buy to educate yourself in your business are $37 ebooks or a $97 course, right? And then you decide, hey, I want to now sell my product or service for $10,000 or above. Isn't there a disconnect in what you have been willing to invest in your business? And that's going to translate into how you sell that to your prospects, because in reality, you don't believe enough in the higher pricing yourself. So how can you be confident in saying your services are worth $10,000?
Absolutely. I mean, I find that the more I spend on my business, the more confident I am in raising my prices. So I've personally had that experience. It's such an interesting concept to give to others because it's not like just spending a lot of money is going to give you the confidence to raise your prices. But I think it's definitely true. If you're a penny pincher and you never invest in yourself, how can you even in your heart of hearts believe that somebody else should invest in themselves in your business and see that value if you've never seen that value in other people? And over the years, I have increased the amount of money that I spend my business, but I have seen direct results because of that. You know what? Sometimes I spend a lot of money on a consultant and it doesn't. Doesn't really go anywhere. And I don't look at that as a loss. I look at that as an educational experience no matter what. So I think when you invest in your business, you can always get golden nuggets, even if it doesn't go exactly the way you plan, which is always.
You know, I mean, that's so true. And I think that so many times we can, you know, pay the cost of admission or recoup the cost of admission of anything if you're just watching for that one thing. And what does that really mean? It means that you need to be present, you need to be watching for something. You need to implement. Don't Just click buy and go scan over the. Whatever course that it is you need to put, put it to use. Because knowledge is power is a true statement, but the actual statement is the true power comes when you implement that knowledge. So I would say that one other takeaway of being to the point of raising your is your clients then are a little bit more engaged because they want to get everything out of your interaction. And you want to make sure that that price point is enough that you believe it. Yes. But then also that they're engaged in it because you want. When you say, hey, I need to do X, Y and Z, you want them to go, okay, good. And you want them to be engaged in that process. Is that something you found as well?
Absolutely. And I've spent money on courses that were too inexpensive for me to care about them, and I never opened them. So I personally experienced. And that number will go up as you become more and more successful too. So you always need to be upping your game if you want to push the gas on your own business.
So let's talk about competitive advantage, standing out, unique selling proposition, whatever we want to call it. But when you're thinking about retooling your brand, because let's say that most people are watching this right now, they are not getting ready to start the business. So I need to start it off on the right foot. The trains left the station and they're moving on down the road. But maybe I need to rebrand and it doesn't mean a full pivot. Maybe it just means I want to spruce up my brand. What are some things that you need to keep in mind to make sure that your brand then stands out in the right way? Because you could stand out for the wrong way. Right. And you were talking about repelling. You want to repel the right people and you want to attract the right people. So let's talk about standing out in the right way.
Absolutely. Well, actually, we only work with existing businesses, so we actually don't brand startups. And there's a really good reason for this. I think branding needs to come from an authentic place, and that authentic place comes from some level of experience. So a lot of the strategy that I implement is based on asking about previous clients, previous projects, where do you excel? We're looking for the value that you already have. We're not hypothesizing on what you could make in the future. And so the way to think about rebranding or pivoting or getting better would be to look at these previous clients, best projects. Finding that value and see if you can narrow a little bit into a better and better space where you really are the authority, where you're giving your best value. And then when it comes to the visual brand, which is what everybody thinks branding is, right, Logo, website, that should come out of the strategy that you built off of that value first, not the other way around. Biggest mistake I see, everybody goes, okay, time to rebrand. I need a logo. Or it's time to start a business. I need a logo. How are you going to make any decisions on what this logo looks like, what this website looks like? You can't until you understand what you're trying to communicate first.
You know, I think that is so important because have you ever heard of, what do you call it, but a style guide you like when, you know, you get the rebrand, everything from there, you better use this font and here's the hex code for the colors and all of that. Well, I would say that you need the message to market guide, style guide, or the, you know, brand messaging, you know, everything on like a two sheet, three sheet document that you have created, your unique selling proposition, your, you know, tagline, your headlines, your, you know, two, three paragraphs where you spend a little bit longer. Because I find, because I created that for myself as well when I rebranded to authority positioning coach a few years ago. And now all of a sudden I find that I know it because it's me. But you do want to make sure you go back to that from time to time and go, ooh, how did I free? Okay, good, there it is. And you, and you also build off of it, right? Because in your own training you're going to go, yeah, my unique selling proposition is this. But if I were to build a story off of that, here's how I want that to flow. So do you find that you guide your clients to have type of a core foundational document that is always being built and then they can use that like, oh, I need a landing page for webinar. Here's where I'm starting from.
Right. Well, all of the work that we do in terms of copy and messaging is the foundation for everything else. So when we do all of the messaging and copy on the website, we then take that and write that into their elevator pitch. We write that into a long form email that's going to tell people that they rebranded. You're right, it should all come from the same place. So it's actually the work of the core messaging and then that influences everything else. Yes, I completely agree and that is something that most people also don't put work into up front, mostly. Especially if you're a solopreneur, if you're working for yourself, it should be kind of inherently the way that you speak. But I think that there is a lot of value in saying we even. We use these words, not those words. I'm developing a new online training right now, and we were just talking yesterday, well, is it a webinar or is it a training or is it a master class or is it a crash course? Because these really, it's all the same thing, but they have very different vibes. And so then we go back to our brand and we go, well, we're the badass business. So it's a crash course that makes the most sense for us. And that's an example of how the answers will fall out of coming up with a strategy in the beginning.
Yeah, that's huge. And, you know, I think that a lot of solopreneurs get locked into. Well, it's just me. I don't need to have that because I know me and I know what I need to say. But part of that congruence is you need to know what you need to say all the time, but also across all of your channels. In fact, I teach marketing strategy for a few universities, and one of the phrases that is common in teaching marketing is called imc, Integrated Marketing Communications. And it's keeping all of your messaging consistent across all of your channels. You can't use certain phrases on Twitter and then have a whole different messaging strategy on Facebook. It's the same content, but you need to make sure that that congruency is there or else you're going to have people going, really? You know, and I think that, that, that confidence needs to come through. But if you, if you, if you're on Facebook going, hey, I've got this big problem. What do you guys think? And you do that too much. Now, once in a while, maybe in a closed group, you can do that, but once in a while they go, do you really know what you're talking about? So I think it needs to come full circle around to that brand. Needs to personify your expert influence, authority, whatever you want to call it. But really it's just your confidence in what you do for your. Your client base. Right?
Yeah. And I would add on to that, that the messaging that's congruent across all these platforms, it should be really simple. You should actually feel like you're saying your few main lines way too often, because the world we're not paying close attention, we're busy, we're distracted. And seeing that consistency in different places is how we remember, oh, that's Pia again. That's Pia again. And I have found that I am looking at somebody's profile and going, is this that person? Especially if they have a name that isn' that unique. I don't remember. I can't quite tell. And that is a horrible position to be in as a business owner because somebody is trying to find your stuff and they're confused, and that doesn't build authority. Yeah. And they move on. And they don't even really think about it. They just continue on with whatever distraction has come their way. So you should, I mean, I, you know, I'm a badass, but I should be sick of saying badass. It's really become, I mean, over the years, it's a really foundational part of our business. But I should be saying it more than I'm even comfortable with, because that's why people text me photos, you know, all the time. They see something that has the word badass in it and they send it to me. Thought of you. It's amazing. That's really what you want to get to.
Well, and then think about what you mean. You just, you just gave an example of something that is a huge teaching, which is how do you make sure your brand messaging matches your brand when you then go forward in making products for your business? And you just mentioned this one that you're getting ready to make, and you're like, okay, is it a this or this or this? Well, wait a minute. It's a crash course. Because a webinar, you know, a CPA can do that. Nothing wrong with the webinars. But because our brand is, you know, edgy, we want to call it a crash course. Crash course is an edgy, but it's unique and different. You don't hear it all the time. So now let's think about what are some ways that entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, they need to be thinking about making products that, number one, are congruent to the brand. But, you know, you've said that productizing your business is really a great way to move forward. What does that look like?
So, especially when you're a very small business, I find that productizing your services is a great way to increase and get to a premium price and get away from the hourly pricing model. So when you productize a service, you're essentially taking a process that, you know, works really, really well, that the majority of your clients need and this is also helping you niche into a certain kind of client. And you're doing that process over and over again. And what that allows you to do is it allows you to become better and better at it every time you work with a client. So sometimes those increases in value happen in big leaps, sometimes are very nuanced, but either way, over time you are increasing the value of this thing that you're already really good at and that allows you to increase your price. And even. And I also, you know, really encourage this decrease the amount of time you spend in the process so that your time is mostly leveraged in the very high value stuff. Everything else, any sort of administrative stuff, should be templated, automated, etc. So that you're really getting paid the highest top dollar for the value you provide instead of menial tasks that are sucking up your time.
Have you ever read that book called Built to Sell?
I have not.
That's a good one. In fact, I'm interviewing the author on my podcast in a few weeks. But oh yeah, you need to get it. It's a really quick read. It's kind of like these, many of these books that you see, like the Go Giver and you know, Referral of a Lifetime that are story based, but basically it's this graphic designer. So you would enjoy that. But a graphic designer that is getting tired of working for all of these clients that are like, I need this business card, Send it to me and it's this price. And then they just beat him up one side, down the other because I don't like this and that the other. And he's like, I want out of this card. So this consultant teaches him, let's get your business, let's sell it. And he's like, good. And he goes, well, today it's worth X, but now let's make sure that we can get the value. And he teaches this guy and this whole book is the process of what you just said. He goes, I know that you do posters to letterhead to whatever, let's pick one thing. He goes, logos, I want to do logos. And he taught him how to pivot his entire business into only doing logos. High price, high end logos. And then he had a whole system like a cookie cutter. When the order comes in, this happens, then this, then this person gets it. And he found that the business just, you know, exploded. And I think that by the end of the book it was like, oh, I'm not going to sell it because I love it so much and I have the time I want. But you said niche, and that might be for a industry vertical, but it also might be niche where you're like, you know what? I do these nine things in my business. I'm really only doing three consistently and two of them really good. So speak a little bit about now how you can fine tune that branding and that brand. Focus on really finding those one or two things you do good and then that becomes solidifying and fortifying your brand.
Yeah, absolutely. I've actually developed kind of a blueprint for this to make it simpler to think about. It's four different quadrants if you think about a chart, and you need at least two of these. So I say that they are target market. That's an obvious one. Right. Who's my target market? We always ask about that. But I think that you can get away with not having as narrow a target market if you, for example, have a very productized service. You know, this is how we operate. And this is for a very. A certain size company or a certain level of income, whatever it is, you can play with these different pieces and together they match up to be a very niche, nice special niche. A third one is the personality of your brand. So not always an opportunity. Of course, every brand has personality, but I consider personality as counting as one of your brand attributes is if it's contrarian to the prevailing personality in your industry. So you can have your personality, but if it's similar to a lot of other personalities, you know you're a cupcake company. If you're like a nice, happy cupcake company, well, that's not very different from other cupcake companies, you know. But if you're the angry cupcake company, well, now that's something that stands for the soup Nazi. Exactly. And the fourth one I call your sales process and coming up with a lead product. So do you have a very clear and easy way to people start hiring you from the beginning, that cuts through all of the relationship development. You pay me a small fee, we get to know each other on that. And then, you know, if you want to hire me for the larger one. So those are the four elements I say of a badass brand. And as long as you have two of those, you can have this intersection. That's a very nice niche. If you have three or four, even better. But that's how I help people narrow into a niche. And it doesn't have to be any specific one of them because I know that a lot of branding experts say you have to pick a very specific target. And I don't think that's always the case.
I am so happy you said that because over the years I hear I found that and I struggled myself going, I don't need to be the whatever for chiropractors or the whatever for dentists or the whatever for attorneys. And so many times your counsel, you know, pick that vertical attorneys and be everything. And I'm like, yeah, but this, this construction company called me and I can do this. But to your point, what I found was exactly what you said, which is when you have this one certain product or service that you are really good at, that becomes your, your really targeted niche and, and now you can do that. It's the same thing for an attorney as it is for a doctor. It's the same service. You're just using their words. Well, I think that that frees you up to go, okay, now I don't need to do 19 things for dentists. I can do two things for anybody. But they're coming to me because I am the whatever coach or the whatever company. So I think that is so huge and I think that's a writer downer for people to go, okay, now when I'm looking at my business to polish up my brand, what is that core product or service that actually If I got 10 orders today in, I wouldn't. Because isn't it true that sometimes people like, yeah, I got to do another whatever package and that means you should cut it, Right?
Right, absolutely, yeah. And I think there's also a lot of different ways to position these things. It can be just logos, but I'm a perfect example of we actually do quite a bit in our brand up process. We actually tackle the business and the brand and do all the details, but we packaged it in a process that is a one to three day intensive. So I do things in this intensive sometimes I would never even talk about on my website. I've set up people's schedule once account, you know, schedule once appointment account because they need it. My process is in this amount of time, I'm going to take care of everything for you. So I get around that whole, okay, we're going to focus on this specific thing because instead I'm focusing on my process.
The process so many ways you would never sell. If you need to have your schedule once account set up, call us.
I never talk about.
Right, you would never do that. But that's a nice added touch. And people come away from that experience going, man, that was all inclusive. And secondly, there are products and services out there that I'm sure we could both Name that are, that are so huge. Like I have literally decided not to go into a certain mastermind or a certain, you know, consultants program because it's like. And you'll get all these and all. And I'm like, I won't have time to even read through, much less do it. And for you to say a one to three day intensive all in, boom, boom, boom. And done for you. And you walk out with like, you know, you see the person that kind of walks in to the phone booth and they walk out, they're gleaming now all of a sudden it's like, that is what I want. Right? So I think that that feeling is so amazing. And if you didn't list three, four or five things that they get and those are the extra value added and they come out of that go. That tends to be what they're talking about. And they go, and she even did our. Whatever.
Right, right, right. There's this, aha. This surprise. I think that also, and this is very much to what you do, the authority positioning means that I'm really selling simplicity and that you're hiring me to tell you what these things are. So now I've switched the script. You're not looking at a list and going, hmm, do I need this on the list or that on the list, which is details, you know. And also, I'm not a service provider, I'm an expert. So you're coming to me so I can tell you what you need, but you also trust that I'm gonna give you what you need and that I know what is best for your business. That's why you're paying me a premium price. That's really the flip that we're trying to give all of both of our clients well.
And I want to end with this thought and kind of talk through this a little bit because I think that is so huge. Because.
If we sat down and wrote down like, you know, your business, my business, someone else's business, and wrote down every single deliverable, would any of those bullet point items that they get in these packages be so revolutionary disrupting that they couldn't figure out on their own? Nope. But guess what? We bring industry experience and our clients that we teach how to do the same thing. They need to explain to their target audience that, yeah, there's a lot of things that I'm going to do for you with you alongside of you, but you're not going to need to worry that it's getting done the right way. And how do I do X, Y and Z? I Am telling you what the lessons I've learned. And now all of a sudden you're getting this thing, cookie cutter handed to you on a silver platter done for you. And they go, okay, good. Now it's kind of like riding the bike with the training wheels. You take them off and you run alongside them and it's like, okay, you got it, you got it, you got it. And then I let go. Hey, you ride your bike. But yet they couldn't have figured out, do I put the right leg first and then do I start with. You are doing it with them. And I think that's the biggest thing. And I remember years ago hearing someone say that you professionally confuse someone, not maliciously, but you tell them so much that's involved in this thing, this package. And you're like, and we're going to provide this and you'll need to keep this in mind. And they go, oh my word. Yeah, the do it yourself package is less money. And I could do that, but man, I would get so confused at step six of 29 and you're going to just do it all for me. And in a, you know, one to three day period, boom, I'm in and out and done. I think that says a mouthful. So I think that.
Expertise that we and you and the clients we work with, we train them how to do that is so much easier than a checklist, check, check, check, and you're done. And then the output is so different. You think about a world class guitarist and you know, you can have a beginner that plays a beginner guitar and you could have the world class guitarist make it sound like a trillion dollar guitar compared to the beginner, like making it sound like a beginner guitar. But it's all what you bring to the process. So, so let's speak about that a little bit. What do you see when you are doing that and then also with you are training your clients how to do that for their business?
Well, our process was really organically birthed out of wanting to solve their problem. And over time I found that as I did piecemeal this and this, I said, but that's not really what they're coming to us for. And I also built in this whole process with the strategy because I said, well, I'm trying to show them logos, but how are they making the decision? Okay, quickly I need to do this strategy over here so I can explain what the logos are. And then I realized how much more valuable the strategy was and that's how our business actually developed just out Of a sheer need to help the clients. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity out there for a lot more people to move into this authority positioning. Because.
You just take responsibility for your clients. I think that's a big part of it. I'm going to take responsibility for making sure that this goes well for you. And I think a lot of people have a different mindset. They're scared about getting, having to do more work than they're paid for. They're scared about getting stuck in a position where the client is expecting more and they're not able to deliver. To me, these are all very short lived lessons that can be learned and you can build on them and just charge more later. So it's a process to build that authority. But if you have the mindset of building that authority, you can do it very quickly. And you know what, sometimes I tell clients, they say, well, I don't know what price to start at. I say, look, take responsibility for the client. Make sure you do above and beyond for them. Charge whatever you think you can at this moment. And then at the end you'll see what you need to charge next time and you'll be so confident that it's worth that you won't have any trouble saying it and you won't feel bad or like you want a waiver if somebody says, oh, I can't afford that. People tell me they can't afford my stuff all the time. I don't think, oh, I'm too expensive. I think they're not a good client for me. And that mindset shift is also something that can only be learned and experienced. So it's a process. But if you are, if your mindset is there, I think you can go through that process pretty quickly.
Yeah, I agree. And let's talk briefly about your products, your one to three day event and then also your brand shrink. Is your brand shrink kind of like your, almost like an audit? Like it's a, it's a paid for service, but it kind of indoctrinates someone to your services and your packages and that might be a good place for someone to start.
Yeah, so our process is really just two steps. It's the brand shrink, which is an interview with my partner and I and the clients and we dig deep into the business and I provide a very valuable deliverable at the end. So it is both a chance for the client to get to know us, but it's also, it's a product in and of itself. A lot of people, too many people have Started hiring me just for that. I actually tried to back off a little bit because the purpose of it is, you know, for the right people, we move into the Brand up, which is the full service. But I do deliver a plan and tell people, this is what your badass brand is. This is what you need to start doing, stop doing. Sometimes I get really nitty gritty about pricing. You should charge this, you could package this way, this is what your message should focus on, et cetera. And then at the end I say, and based on this plan, you need a logo, a website, the design and build, the copy, the materials, identity, etc. And we can do that in a one day or a two day brand out and then we execute the entire thing. We do most of it ahead of time. Obviously we built an entire brand that day. But we do take the client on this intensive day through a process very well choreographed at this point, where we show them work, we get their feedback, we make revisions in real time such that at the end of the Brand up, your website is completely design built and launched, all of your materials are done, you hand them over and you are ready to start selling the next day. It's a very unique process. Obviously it took us over years to get where it's gotten today. And over those years, as we've gotten better, we've increased the price substantially. And that model is what I really also implement in most of my clients businesses.
But I would say that there is an asterisk there. As your prices have gone up, the value has also gone up accordingly because you have discovered, ooh, when I do these packages, I need to add this in and do this. And now all of a sudden, sure, you look back, whatever timeframe and the price has risen, but your deliverables and your value has also risen. So people coming through your program are going, man, this was worth everything.
Oh, absolutely. And you know what, when we first started, when we first started, our one day was $3,000. It wasn't worth $15,000 then. We weren't as good then, but it was a good start. And there was a while there where every month I was raising it $1,000. Yeah, I just kept raising it. Demand is still here. Okay, let's see how much they'll go for. And as we were increasing the value, we're also increasing the value knowing that we could increase the price as well.
Because as you increase the price, you feel an obligation. Kind of like what you said, you care for your client and a fiduciary responsibility to go, you know, What I need to deliver on X number of dollar price. And so I'm going to bring this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to polish this up over here and provide this little extra and people come away going, yes. So I think that is so spectacular.
Yeah. And I like the premium price model also because it gives me a lot of space to do that. Something comes up, I go, you know what, they need this thing too. We're just doing it. We're doing everything. I don't feel any sort of pinch. Ooh, they didn't pay for that. That's gonna be a little bit longer. I don't care. I want to make sure that you leave just wide eyed and excited because that helps my business and I couldn't sleep if I didn't do that anyway. So yeah, everybody wins. And, and even at our prices, the value is exponentially greater because we're changing your business for you. You can't really put a price on that. But only people who, like you said before, are able to see those golden nuggets, can really understand the magnitude of the value when you're rebranding a business and what it can do for somebody in the long term.
So, hey, listen, I know you've written a book. And so I want to end with what are the best ways that people can reach out, connect with you, pick, pick up a copy of your book, communicate, see what you offer and see how you could help their business.
Sure. So I wrote a book, Badass yous Brand, the Impatient Entrepreneur. That's me. Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, PialovesYourBiz, B I Z and you can go there. I also put up a page on my site for this audience, badassyourbrand.com authority and I'm actually going to give the most valuable questions of my brand training to everybody that's listening. So if you go to baddest orbrand.com authority you can download that branch rank, answer those questions, see what you come up with. It'll definitely open your eyes to what your business, your badass business is all about.
Awesome. Well Pia, thanks so much for being on and really appreciate your time.
Thanks so much Mike. Great.
You've been listening to the Art of Authority podcast. Are you interested in building your authority positioning as the the number one strategy to grow your business brand and influence? Book your authority audit today. The seven point audit of your current authority position will uncover opportunities and show you how to be seen as a leading expert and authority your industry looks to. For advice, visit www.awarenesspositioningcoach.com.
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