In my last video, I mentioned an exercise I was doing to analyze my favorite past clients. The inspiration for the exercise came from an awesome book I read last month, and I decided I should share a review about it.
The book is called Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit. The author, Pia Silva, is a design and branding strategist who has helped hundreds of service-based businesses differentiate themselves and build memorable brands.
With her partner at Worstofall Design, Pia works exclusively for 1-3 person service businesses in 1-3 day intensives. They command nearly $15,000 for a one-day branding project.
I first heard Pia tell her story on a podcast, and I was pretty intrigued to hear how they could find clients who would pay that much for one day of service. The book had the answers, and the main answer is focus. Focusing on who you can best serve, who you shouldn’t serve, and how you can create a repeatable process that helps you get great results in less time.
As someone who’s obsessed with specializing and focus, I loved every bit of it.
Key Takeaways from Badass Your Brand
- We all need to stop giving away consulting for free. Even preparing a proposal in many cases is giving away free ideas. Instead, create a “lead product” that provides a ton of value and also helps you scope out the work.
- You really, really don’t have to take on work you don’t like. Focus and become an expert in the type of clients you like to serve, doing services you love doing.
- As a service provider, you should identify your favorite and most profitable service you offer. Then, it’s time to figure out how you can make that into a repeatable productized service.
- Once you determine who you love to serve and what repeatable service you can offer, only offer that. This will involve hard work to say NO to shiny objects and random opportunities that come your way.
Branding vs. Specializing
I tend to use the word “specializing” a lot when talking about finding who I want to serve, but I really think resources like Pia’s on “branding” are hitting the same points.
How do you create a memorable brand? Narrow your focus (specialize) and become known as an expert in something specific.
Even though this book doesn’t use the word “specializing” at all, it goes well with everything I’m working on right now.
Translating the Advice to Web Design
Pia inspired me to think about how I could translate the idea of an intensive into web design. I have a process mapped out that I’m testing with a new client, and it’s going great. I look forward to sharing in the future!
In the meantime, pick up this book and be inspired. It’s an easy read and only took me a couple days. If you are a service provider who is at all interested in specializing, I promise you you’ll leave it with a lot to think about.
Hi Sarah,
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I feel the same way as you do! Hopefully your process turned out to be okay, I would love to hear more about that.
Mia