Pia Silva - Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit

BADASS YOUR BRAND

The Impatient Entrepreneurs Guide

to Turning Expertise into Profit

Pia Silva

Copyright 2017 by Pia Silva.

Book and Cover design by Worstofall Design

Illustrations by Steve Wasterval

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publishe r and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. The author shall not be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For information contact:

Worstofall Design LLC

37 Greenpoint Ave

Suite E3B

Brooklyn, NY 11222

www.worstofalldesign.com

ISBN: 978-0-9987143-1-8

First Edition: March 2017

Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To all the Badass entrepreneurs

who dream of a life doing what they love,

and to my most inspirational dreamer of all, Steve

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Im freaking out. Am I going to have to call it quits and get a REAL job? My business partner, Steve, and I are sitting at the kitchen table in our little railroad apartment in Brooklyn. Its been three months since weve closed a single client. Correction: Since Ive closed a single client.

After three years of hunting for customers for our branding company, Worstofall Design, I hit a breaking point. I was burned out on 5:45 a.m. wake-ups for networking meetings and marathons of coffee dates that were offering no resultswith no end in sight. For the first time in my life, I was considering giving up.

Wed had many stressful times before, of course, but this was the first time I was actually crying over it. We had $40,000 of credit card debt, and were getting in deeper every month. And now, even if the best-case scenario panned out and some of our pending proposals closed, it wouldnt make much of a dent. I was learning how expensive it is not to have any moneyinterest fees, late fees, and the like were piling up.

Steve, who also happens to be my husband, suggested we let our two employees go. Let the employees go?! NEVER! That was the furthest thing from my mind. We were building something, and letting them go meant admitting defeat. I couldnt accept that I was going to be one of those failed-business statistics at exactly the three-year mark.

Our story isnt one of overcoming immense hardship. Steve and I both grew up with resources and good educations. We knew that even if we failed at this business we would never be hungry or on the street. Our story also isnt about sudden, unfathomable success. We arent millionaires, and our company didnt blow up like Facebook.

Its about our burning desire to create something from nothing. Its about defining success for ourselves, and our motivation to find success by doing things our way. And its about the freedom to create and execute our ideas, and then share those ideas with the world. Its about the thing I believe most entrepreneurs today are looking for.

That little meltdown happened on a Friday in March 2014. The following Monday, we let our two employees go, falling (or pushing ourselves) over the proverbial cliff.

But over the nine months that followed, we grew wings. We ended up having our best and most profitable year, with no signs of it letting up. I also stopped networking completely and started taking weekends off. By June 2015, we had made $500,000 in revenue by selling only our services, without paying for advertising, and working for clients a mere three days a week.

I want to share exactly how we did it, and how we have done the same for many successful clients.

It all comes down to two words: BADASS BRAND.

We knew we were drowning on that fateful night in the winter of 2014. Steve suggested we do the one thing that would obviously help us quickly: downsize. I resisted because I thought downsizing meant failure. But when he clarified what he meant, it was one of the most brilliant things I had ever heard him say. He insisted that this wasnt a move backward, but a move forward. We werent failures. Were good at what we do! We have happy clients who love our work.

But we were clearly failing at something, and thats what we needed to identify and fix. And he said it was time we took our own medicine. He was right.

THE SHOEMAKERS SONWEARS LOUBOUTINS

I hear the phrase the shoemakers son has no shoes far too often. It refers to small business owners who are so busy working with clients that they neglect their own business. The worst is when they dont do for their own business the very service they provide to others.

Its the social media company with a paltry social media presence. A web designer with an outdated website. A content writer without a blog.

And I realized at this critical moment that it frustrated me so much because I was doing the very same thing.

TAKE YOUR OWN MEDICINE

The most valuable asset we had at the timeand the one most entrepreneurs haveis a deep understanding of our own area of expertise. With no money, we had to leverage what we had, and we realized it was pretty valuable! Our clientsalbeit few and far betweenwere paying us $30,000 for our services, so we must have been doing something right.

So we put ourselves through our own process, and we got staggering results. This led to a complete 180 wherein we transformed our business from struggling to Badass. This book shows you exactly how we took our company from being $40,000 in debt to making $500,000 in 12 monthsand how you can successfully apply the very same process to your business.

FROM A ME-TOO BRAND TO BADASS

We narrowed our target audience, our offerings, and our message. We focused on a market we knew and liked best: one- to three-person service businesses. We dusted off one of our small afterthought services and made it our companys focal point. We changed all our messaging and copy to reflect our newfound niche.

As soon as we made the switch, our lives changed in some critical ways:

Old prospects that previously werent going to close turned into excited clients.

We whittled down prospect calls to 15 minutes. No more coffee meetings, follow-ups, proposals, or free strategy sessions. No more proposals = no more free work!

Instead of free proposals, we got paid to pitch.

No more annoying, random client emails and requests sucking up our time.

No more design by committee!

Suddenly we were getting prospects out of the blue. People heard about our process and wanted it NOW. Once we were full of clients, we started raising prices.

I stopped working on weekends and I stopped networking.

We made $500,000 in 12 months without paying for advertising.

One reason we were able to attract so much work is that we implemented these tactics and philosophies for all of our clients too, and they got similar results. The methods apply to any solopreneur or small service business where the goal is to attract hungry, excited clients who are willing to pay a premium to hire you.