Pia Silva: How to Make 30K a Month Without Employees — Selling Outcomes, Simplifying Delivery & Scale Solo | Be Yourself Podcast
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PiaSilva

TEDx Speaker & Founder of No BS Mastery — on How Experts Can Earn 30K a Month Without Employees, Why Selling Outcomes Beats Hourly Rates, and What a Simple, Profitable Solo Service Business Actually Looks Like

40 minutes
Outcome-Based Pricing · Solo Business · Creative Entrepreneurs · Life-Work Integration
Watch on YouTube Pia's Website

About This Episode

What Does It Really Take to Make 30K a Month Without Employees, Without Burning Out, and Without Building a Team You Never Wanted?

Pia Silva spent years running a two-person branding agency with her husband — just the two of them — and took it from $40,000 in debt to $500,000 in a single year. The secret was not hiring more people, not launching courses, not chasing speaking gigs. It was a simple math equation: the right price point, the right delivery length, and the right number of projects per month. Once she knew those numbers, everything else became obvious.

In this episode of Be Yourself Podcast, Pia sits down with Sergey to unpack the exact thinking behind her new book Scale Solo — a guide for experts and creatives who want to charge more, deliver faster, and cut the noise. They talk about why pricing by the hour is a beginner's trap that punishes expertise, how the lead product method replaces proposals and shortens the entire sales cycle, and why shrinking delivery timelines — not expanding them — actually makes projects more profitable.

They also get honest about content marketing: why posting to 100 followers is probably a waste of energy, what to do instead when you need clients now, and how to cross the chasm that most people give up on. Plus Pia shares her take on the current coaching market, what makes a great coach versus a dangerous one, and what you actually need before it makes sense to leave your job and go out on your own.

01
The simple math behind a profitable solo service business — and why most experts ignore it
Your business model is only a couple of numbers. Price per project, delivery time, number of projects per month. Once those numbers are right, everything else follows. Most experts never stop to calculate them and end up overwhelmed and underpaid.
02
Selling outcomes instead of hours — why getting faster at your work should make you more money, not less
When Pia's husband could design a logo faster than ever, hourly billing would have paid him less. Outcome-based pricing flips the logic entirely. The better and faster you get, the more valuable the result — and the higher the rate that makes sense.
03
The lead product method — how to skip proposals, get paid on the first call, and close bigger projects
Instead of writing free proposals that prospects compare with five others, Pia teaches experts to offer a small, paid first engagement on the call. It builds trust, gets them paid for their time, and makes upselling to a larger package far easier than any traditional pitch.
04
Shrinking your process — how to deliver more profitably by doing less of the wrong kind of work
Pia used to run six-month projects. The time was not spent on the work itself — it was spent on emails, meetings, follow-ups, and back-and-forth revisions. Compressing the timeline cuts all of that and makes the same project more profitable without cutting corners on quality.
05
The ugly truth about content marketing — and what to do instead when you need clients now
Cold traffic from content requires a substantial audience to work. If you have 100 followers, the better investment is relationships — deepening existing ones and building new ones. That is where clients for the next six to twelve months actually come from.
06
When to leave your job, when to stay, and what you need before it makes financial sense to go out on your own
Pia is clear: get some grit first. Close a few clients on your own. Take someone through a full engagement from start to finish. Only then does investing in branding and infrastructure make sense. Skipping this step is just a way to avoid the inevitable.

About the Guest

Pia Silva — TEDx Speaker, Founder of No BS Mastery & Author of Scale Solo

Pia Silva is a TEDx speaker, former Forbes contributor, and founder of No BS Mastery. She built her reputation running a two-person branding agency with her husband Steve — just the two of them — and transformed it from $40,000 in debt to over $500,000 in revenue in one year by developing a model of outcome-based pricing, simplified delivery, and what she calls the lead product method.

Her first book, Badass Your Brand, became a bestseller and established her as a go-to voice for small service businesses that want to charge more and work less. Her new book, Scale Solo, goes deeper into the framework she has refined over years: a practical system for experts who want financial stability and lifestyle freedom without building a team, managing employees, or turning their business into something they never wanted.

Pia's approach attracts a specific kind of person — someone who is excellent at their craft, values time and lifestyle over pure income maximization, and wants to hit a number that gives them freedom rather than a number that simply sounds impressive. Her clients tend to stop taking on more work once they hit what they need — and that, she says, is the point.

What She Does
TEDx speaker, former Forbes contributor, and founder of No BS Mastery. Runs a two-person branding agency with her husband. Author of Badass Your Brand and Scale Solo — a framework for experts who want to charge more, deliver faster, and build a profitable solo business without employees.
The Turning Point
Went from $40K in debt to $500K in one year by shifting to outcome-based pricing and tightening delivery. Figured out that two $10K projects a month equaled $20K — exactly what they needed — and spent six months systematically increasing value until the price matched. The math was always simple. It just took discipline to follow it.
The Philosophy
Scale does not have to mean more clients, more overhead, or a team you never wanted. Your business model is only a couple of numbers. Know them like the back of your hand. Sell based on outcome and value, not hours. Shrink your process. Invest in relationships. The rest is noise.
Her New Book
Scale Solo — for experts who want to charge more, deliver fast, and cut the BS. Available at nobsmastery.com/book. Her first book, Badass Your Brand, is available as a free copy at badassyourbrand.com.

Key Quotes

"

Scale tends to feel like hire a team, like do all this overhead, like become a manager. That's a great plan for some people, but not for my people. My people don't want to manage other people. They like their work. They just kind of want to like get paid better for it and not have it kill themselves doing it and then enjoy their life.

Pia Silva
"

Your business model is actually very simple when you're selling services. It's only a couple of numbers and you should know them like the back of your hand.

Pia Silva
"

I want people to start thinking about selling based on outcome and value, not hours.

Pia Silva

Episode Chapters

0:00 Episode Teaser & Intro 1:45 The Problem Experts Have 5:00 Selling Outcomes, not Hours 6:40 Why Creatives Don't Make More 8:54 Why 30k/Month? 14:00 Work-Life Integration 15:10 How Pia's Business Started 16:28 How to Sell Better 21:52 Shrinking Your Process 23:00 Investing in Relationships 24:41 Ugly Truth of Content Marketing 27:55 Does Coaching Career Still Make Sense? 32:43 Taking a Leap or Not? 36:37 Find People Like You 37:50 Connect with Pia

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Also on the show:
Justin Kramm — How a Parody LinkedIn Post Became Shit Show Creative, a Global Creative Collective & a Movement to Break the System →
0:00 Episode Teaser & Intro
Pia Scale tends to feel like hire a team, like do all this overhead, like become a manager. That's a great plan for some people, but not for my people. My people don't want to manage other people. They like their work. They just kind of want to like get paid better for it and not have it kill themselves doing it and then enjoy their life.
Pia Your business model is actually very simple when you're selling services. It's only a couple of numbers and you should know them like the back of your hand.
Pia Your model of making more money is pretty simple. It boils down to increasing the hourly rate. Yes, it comes down to increasing the hourly rate, but I would never think about it as an hourly rate. I want people to start thinking about selling based on outcome and value, not hours.
Sergey You're going to teach experts how to make 30K per month without employees. This is a bold statement. Why 30,000 in particular?
Pia Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question.
Sergey Hello everyone. Welcome to the Be Yourself podcast, the podcast on expressing our true selves. Today I'm joined by Pia Silva, who is a TEDex speaker, former Forbes contributor. She's an owner and founder of No BS Mastery and author of one best-selling book that called Badass Your Brand. And the new book I hope that will also be a bestseller called Scale Solo for experts who want to charge more, deliver fast, and cut the BS. Pia, welcome to the show.
Pia Thank you, Sergey. So nice to be here.
Sergey I want to start with the name of the book and let's start with the book — this is going to be the upcoming release just in next month, right? Or so.
Pia So it's coming out March 2nd.
Sergey March 2nd. Okay. So tell me a little bit about the book and what was the problem that you tried to address in the book? In the new book.
1:45 The Problem Experts Have
Pia Yeah. Um, yeah so the I think the big problem I'm seeing — and there's more and more of these people out there I think every day, this is a growing market — is that people who are selling their expertise, so they are selling their services, so by definition their business is dependent on them showing up right, but showing up at a high level. Those people tend to be people who strive for excellence, people who are perfectionists or have — or recovering perfectionists — they have very high expectations for their work. That's how they became so expert in their business and their skills. And what that does is that leads them to build a business where they are working all the time with clients, neglecting themselves, neglecting their businesses, and they end up in this very overwhelmed situation where they're not quite sure what to do to make their business better. And they put all of their energy into just, well, I'm just going to focus on doing good work for my clients, which is wonderful but when you are selling your services, when your hours are determining how much money you're making — if you want to also have a life, if you want to also be able to have nights and weekends to spend with your family — if you want to do that, then you have to charge a certain amount of money because you have to make a certain amount of money in a boundary number of hours.
Pia And if you want to do that, you have to put time and energy into building your own business, doing business development. And if you want to do that, you have to actually put that time aside and not do it as an afterthought. And all of that is kind of the mess of things that I see in the world every single day from almost every service business owner that I see. And what I developed over years running my own two-person branding agency is that it's actually a simple math equation. We have to hit certain price points at certain delivery lengths for projects in order to have a business that is both profitable, supports our financial goals and supports our lifestyle goals. And once we know those numbers, then there are only a couple of things we can do to hit those numbers. And so this book is really meant to simplify — your business model is actually very simple when you're selling services. It's only a couple of numbers and you should know them like the back of your hand. Like you should have your whole business plan in your head because it's only a couple of numbers and your marketing strategy should only be a couple of things so that you don't wake up every day thinking, oh my god, the list of things I could and should be doing is so long and I'm never going to do it and I'm always overwhelmed and I never feel in control of my business. So my mission with this book is to show people, hey, the business model can actually be really simple and if you stop, if you get rid of the noise and just focus on a couple of things, this is what your business can look like and you can really have both the financial and the freedom lifestyle goals.
5:00 Selling Outcomes, not Hours
Sergey So do I understand this correctly that unlike so many people who branch out and start selling courses or start trying to get speaking gigs or starting their own YouTube — your model is pretty simple, your model of making more money is pretty simple, it boils down to increasing the hourly rate. Is that fair to say?
Pia Uh, yes. It comes down to increasing the hourly rate, but I would never think about it as an hourly rate. I really want — I think actually people get pigeonholed when they think I'm trying to increase my hourly rate. I want people to start thinking about selling based on outcome and value, not hours. But we must keep our delivery time within a certain number of hours for that to be profitable. So, it does come out to an hourly rate, but I actually really shy away from having people calculate that hourly rate because I just think it messes with people's heads and also they kind of sometimes use that to try to charge people and I do not think you should charge people by the hour at all.
6:40 Why Creatives Don't Make More
Sergey Yeah. I vibe with you on this one and I come from a creative world. Well, after my transformation, my first part of my business experience was pretty daunting, boring operational business. Then I realized that I'm more of a creative person. Now I run a creative agency where we produce videos and different media assets. And this is the big problem for creative people because we for some reason tend to price ourselves hourly while the result that can be achieved with a piece that we create is enormous. So, pricing yourself based on the outcome and just totally flipping this mentality — is that the way to go for all of us to start making more, right?
Pia Absolutely. And I think that creatives especially — they get into that habit because when you first start out, that's how you're paid, right? You're paid as a freelancer or everything is in hours. So you tie your worth to the hours that you're spending. What's insane about that is that the better you get at your work, especially in the creative space — I mean, my husband is our creative director, right? He's the designer. He's also an artist. He used to take so much longer to make logos, for example, than he does now. And I would say they're better now — not because his handiwork is better, but because he has gotten so much more strategic. And the idea that because he's faster and better now that he would get paid less because it took him less time is insane. When you get better at something, you can do it faster and get a better outcome. Why would you get paid less for that?
Pia I mean, you could argue, well, you increase your hourly rate, right? But I'm not talking about moving it from 100 to $125 an hour. I'm talking about when we're charging based on value, that number can be closer to 500 to a thousand or more. And most creatives would never get away with charging that much by the hour. So that's why I want to get away from that hourly rate. That logic doesn't make any sense. And we need to help creatives realize that that's really a beginner mindset. And when we move into that outcome-based, value-based pricing, you should be able to do it sooner, quicker.
8:54 Why 30k/Month?
Sergey Well, you have a very specific amount of money that you've announced on your website. You're going to teach experts how to make 30K per month without employees. This is a bold statement. Why 30,000 in particular?
Pia That's a great question. Um, I had to pick a number. First of all, there's a backstory to this. I did a whole podcast episode about this because in November I kind of hate that I have to say that number. And I'll tell you how I came to it in a second, but I will tell you that when I first started sharing this, philosophically, the number depends on what your goals are, right? Like a lot of people come into my program and I'm not going to say they don't not want to make 30K, but 20K is like what they want and need and gives them everything that they want. And when they hit that number, for example, they don't try to get more clients, they work less because the people that are attracted to me are very similar to me. We value lifestyle and time and people more than money. So once we hit the numbers that we need, we don't work more for extra. We reinvest that time into things that matter to us and we value.
Pia So I tried everything to say "more profitable business" — like I tried to keep it vague and, you know, you won't be surprised — you're marketing — it's like straight up, you put the 30k number on and now it is getting leads. It's concrete. I don't know, people want a number. So um as frustrating as it is to me — and I'm very open about it in all of my wherever I go because I want people to know like I don't like saying this number cuz this number really doesn't mean anything to you guys cuz it's different for everybody. Some people are more, some people are less.
Pia However, I'll tell you where I came up with that number. So when we changed to this model, we went from 40k in debt to $500,000 in one year. So that's about a little more than $40,000 a month. And but we were working a lot then. We weren't working less than 50% of our time. We were working whenever we could — we took every single fitting — someone wants to do this and we have a free day on Saturday and I would like make us do it cuz I was like, let's bank as much money as we can. And after we did that for a little while, I realized this is not sustainable. I don't want to do this. How much money do we actually need and want? At the time, it was 240 a year. It was 20K a month.
Pia So we figured out it was 20K a month. And so that's how I that's the first time I figured out this formula of you've got to make this money in 50% of your working hours or less. So that's how I figured out this specific package needs to cost $10,000. Right now it costs three. And for the next six months I just strategically did everything I could to increase the value, systematize the processes so that I got it to 10k by the summer. So that was the first time I was like, okay, this is very simple. Two projects a month on average, 10K each, 20K months. That's what we need and we're happy and we have this other time.
Pia And then a few years later, I got to a place where we were making 30K for a one-week project and that was using 25% of our time. And that felt like, okay, I'm giving you something that was very comfortable for me and it's actually half of what I'm telling you you can do, right? Cuz if we had done two 30k projects in a month, we would have done 60k a month. So I kind of found this average place that felt comfortable, like I've done twice as good as this, I think I can show you how to do this. It felt like a number a lot of people could kind of aspire to. Yeah, that's where the number came from.
Sergey This is because, well, first of all, this is a free marketing lesson — what I'm hearing here is that you have to deeply understand the market to do that. You didn't just come up with some number. You knew the number that satisfies you and would satisfy people alike. So even me when I saw that I was like — hmm, I like this — because right now I'm growing my video production agency and my other passion, well my main passion, is growing my podcast on YouTube.
14:00 Work-Life Integration
Sergey I just need some baseline earning income that would just let me do what I enjoy. So, yeah, this is really cool and seeing that you have customers who are like that makes me really smile and feel good about that. There are more people now these days who actually want this. I don't like life-work balance, it's been a bit — but I mean, you know what I'm saying? I just had Chris Doe on my show recently and he uses the term like life-work integration. This sounds much better — life-work integration, not balance, because your life and your work kind of intertwine.
Pia Absolutely. And you want to enjoy both parts of it. You don't want to just be balancing the work, but it does fund the life. And like you, you have your passions and you want to have time to spend on that.
15:10 How Pia's Business Started
Pia I mean, that's what me and Steve, my husband, are too, right? Like, this whole business started partially just to support him being an artist. And we tried to live off of his art back in the day when I first met him. We tried to sell his art on the street in New York. And we did that for a little while. And it was brutal. And then after the summer, I was like, well, I'm definitely not doing this in the winter. I'm cold when it hits 60. So we had to figure out a different way to support ourselves. And that's actually how our business started — was just we want to fund all the things that we care about and want to spend time on.
Pia And I feel like everyone I encounter is like that too. That's why I don't say — and there's plenty of people out there for this — but I'm not like "make a million-dollar business" like how to scale tends to feel like hire a team, like do all this overhead, like become a manager. That's a great plan for some people but not for my people. My people don't want to manage other people. They like their work. They just kind of want to like get paid better for it and not have it like kill themselves doing it and then enjoy their life. That's not too much to ask.
16:28 How to Sell Better
Sergey Let's get a bit practical here. If you can reveal some steps for experts to drastically increase their livelihood or how much they earn. What would that be? Top three.
Pia Yeah. Top three. Okay. The first thing is this strategy, this method that I developed over years called the lead product method. So that is the first thing. Especially if you're already somebody who is selling expert-level services. Instead of writing proposals, lengthening the sales process, making prospects wait to get your proposal and then what are they going to do with it? They're going to compare it to three others, right? Or five others or whatever. And that's where we get into this negotiation thing. Like that's when they forget all of that. On the first call, if they're interested, get really clear on what their problems are and then offer them an easy-to-buy, no-brainer price first step towards that solution.
Pia So my lead product is called a brand shrink. I recommend people give it a name and then it's basically like, oh, okay, are these your challenges? Like this is what I'm hearing you say. Is that right? Yes. Okay, great. Well, I can absolutely help you with that. The first step, the next step is we're going to do this. I'm going to understand a lot more about you. I'm going to give you the plan and tell you exactly how you're going to get to those goals. And then after that, I'll tell you how I can do it for you or you can do it yourself. And it cuts the line in the whole pitching process. It gets you paid to get deeper with the client, build trust. It gets you paid for your time and your expertise. Clients value what you suggest more when it's paid for. And I find that not only does that often get someone to just say yes on the call, just bypassing all this BS back and forth trying to get them to hire you, but it also because the experience that you put them through builds so much trust, it makes the upsell to a bigger package possible and actually much easier.
Pia So, what we find a lot, my students find, is that a client might come to them — I'm thinking of Jake — somebody came to him and said, I just need a logo. And she's imagining like a $300 logo. And he talks to her and he figures out her real problems are she's having a hard time getting clients. And he goes, you know what? The next step towards this logo that you need is doing — let's figure this whole thing out. So, he sold her a small engagement. I'm going to interview, I'm going to understand everything about your business. And then he gave her a plan for a $12,500 full branding and website package. Because that is what she needed to hit her goals and she bought it. Now, you don't get a prospect coming to you saying I need a logo and then you write them a free proposal that they should pay you $12,500 for a brand and website. That's never going to happen. But this is a way to increase the value of your projects and do it in a way that has a lot of integrity. And is actually going to help the client solve their problem because that woman wasn't going to get any closer to her goals with a new logo — that was not going to solve her problem. She didn't know that because she's not an expert in this field.
Sergey To basically become their business assistant, just share their pain, understand what they want strategically and offer a solution on a much higher scale.
Pia Well, you offer a solution in this paid engagement that they actually need. So, sometimes it's much bigger. Sometimes it's the same but maybe a little tweaked. Sometimes it's smaller. You know, I've had clients come to me and say I need all these things including, I'll give you an example, including like I need a lead magnet for my website and an email list and all of that. And then in the interview, I get to know them more and I get to understand what their capabilities are, what they're actually going to be able to invest — time, energy, money, whatever — into writing emails, bringing traffic. And I'll tell them, I don't think you need that right now. You're not doing anything to — I recommend you — that's a later thing for you, right? Let's actually create stuff that's going to help you right now. Cut the BS. I'm not going to make you a lead magnet and create this whole email campaign for you if you're not going to do anything when we're done to bring traffic in to put on that email list. It's just going to sit there. It's a waste of your time and money. It's a waste of my time, right? So that is kind of the crux of why it is so valuable to do this first engagement for both people.
21:52 Shrinking Your Process
Pia A second one is I talk about intensifying your process and that's also cutting the BS. So how can you shrink how you deliver your process so that you spend less time doing it? And it's not about cutting out any of the work. It's not about rushing. It's about cutting out all the stuff that actually doesn't add to the value of the project. So, if you do a — I used to do these projects for 6 months. I spent so much time just emailing with them, you know, having meetings, having follow-up meetings, getting feedback, tweaking, tweaking back and forth, back and forth. All of that is such BS. We cut all of that out by shrinking the timeline and doing the whole project in a more concentrated timeline. And it really does get rid of so much of that wasted time and it makes your projects more profitable. So even if you don't increase the price, if you decrease the time because you tighten your process, your projects will be more profitable.
23:00 Investing in Relationships
Pia And I guess the third, if I have to pick a third, I would say it's investing in your relationships. It's understanding that a — like there's a reason most of your clients come from referrals, even when you do some content online. You have to have a pretty big content presence online to be bringing in cold traffic from your content that's turning into clients. And I have that, so I know what that takes. It's worth building, but it's a long-term strategy. If you don't have that right now and you're spending a lot of energy posting to your 100 followers, I would say you should reallocate that time to relationships and deepening existing relationships and building new ones because that's where your clients for the next 6 to 12 months are coming from. And once you get more profitable and you free up more time by doing the first two things I said, then you can take that extra time and start investing it into content creation. Understanding that you're doing that for the long-term sustainability of your business, not because it might get you a client here and there, but it's not a sustainable way to get a client in the short term.
24:41 Ugly Truth of Content Marketing
Sergey Yeah. Because there's nothing more depressing than to know that you have a really really good solution and you even have a track record of happy customers but to not get any new ones and just spinning the wheels of doing this content marketing for like you said I don't know 500 followers.
Pia Yeah, I mean, this is a really painful subject, but I've been there. And right now I'm recalibrating. I do more of my podcast and I'm connecting with people, getting to know people. And you know what? If I need sales quicker, I think I'd rather go and do outreach — not cold outreach — connecting with people, sending them notes.
Sergey Soft outreach. Cold outreach is rough. Rough. I know. But what are you going to do if you need money now? If you don't have the buffer to wait until your website or LinkedIn brings you leads.
Pia It's all about that. It's all about those relationships. It really is. And listen, even if you have no followers, right — I'll put it this way. My husband had a mentor as a plein air painter when he was young in college who said, throw out your first hundred paintings. And I think that's a really good representation of what content creation is, but it's more than 100. It's like the first stuff that you're posting is for you to develop your voice, to figure out, to learn how to do all of this stuff. The first time I pressed record on a video, I was so awkward. I was so uncomfortable. I definitely had that red light syndrome for a long time. And you know, those videos are embarrassing, but they're not embarrassing because they're what you have to do to get to a place where you can turn on the camera and be able to talk and have something worth saying that is yours. That doesn't just happen in the beginning.
Pia So you got to go through that part and you have to be willing to stick with it long enough till you get to the other side of the — I call it the chasm. There's like this — you start content creation, it's really exciting, and then there's this huge chasm and you got to get through it where nothing's happening but you're doing a lot of work until you get to the other side and then it's like the bamboo shoots shoot up on the other side and most people can't cross that chasm. Most people give up in that chasm. And I think one of the most important things when it comes to sticking with it is being in community of other people who can relate to you, who feel your pain and also being around people who have crossed the chasm and are like — you can do it. I promise if you keep going, it will happen. This is the hardest part.
Pia So I think it's totally worth doing. It's also, you know, I created content for years that nobody — it felt like nobody looked at — but all those relationships, those real relationships, those people would go read my content, right? They'd go to my website to check me out because I met them in person and then they'd read all these articles I wrote and they'd get to know me. So there's a lot of value in that content in the early days, but it's not cold traffic, it's warm traffic.
27:55 Does Coaching Career Still Make Sense?
Sergey Tell me about the current landscape of the coaching business for someone listening or watching this — because it's a video game nowadays, not an audio game, right? For someone watching who — because I know there's a recession or the economy is in a weak state in the United States and white collar workers who have enormous experience think that maybe they can tap into coaching or become experts and sell their time for money. So is there still a demand? Is this the heyday right now for coaching business in your opinion? And what would be the first step for someone who wants to create this additional income opportunity if they have all the experience, all the knowledge and they want to convert their knowledge into money?
Pia Um, okay. I think is it the heyday for coaching? I don't know if it's the heyday. I feel like the heyday has come and gone. Simply because the market got really saturated over the last 10 years. Doesn't it feel like everyone's a coach now?
Sergey Yeah. I thought you would say differently. I know.
Pia Well, that doesn't mean there's not — listen, everything is saturated now, right? And even if it wasn't, you still have to do all the same things. And just because it's saturated doesn't mean you can't succeed. You have to be the cream that rises to the top. Maybe you have to be even creamier when it's saturated, but you still have to do all of those things. So, to me, it's neither here nor there. I would never go into a business just because, oh, I see that opportunity. It's like, no, you go into a business because there's clarity around why you are the best person to be doing that.
Pia I think when it comes to leaving corporate and becoming a coach or consultant — you got to make sure if I was looking to hire someone like that, I always want to make sure that the person I am listening to has done the thing that they are coaching on and I think that is very important and very specifically. So for example, one thing that I often talk to people who come out of corporate and are starting a new business — there's this thing that a lot of them do that is risky where they think, well, I worked on these huge accounts at my corporate job, so now I'm going to leave and I'm going to be a one-person consultant and I'm going to go after those clients because those clients should hire me because I have all the experience and I'll charge them a quarter of the price. And what they don't remember or understand is that they weren't hired by that big client — their company was hired — a company that has a lot of clout, a lot of staying power, that has a relationship. All those things. That company was hired and you delivered.
Pia So I think I bristle when I watch people leave a big company and then go coach small businesses because they so don't know what they don't know about running a small business and building a small business. And they think it applies — and it's not that, philosophically some of it applies for sure, but there is I don't think there's anything the same about running a big corporate company and running a small business and building a small business from the ground up. And those are dangerous coaches and I don't fault them — I don't think they understand that cuz they've never run a small business — and they figure it out when they're trying to find clients and now they're running a small business and hopefully they figure it out sooner rather than later. So this is advice for people looking for coaches: what has the coach done that is exactly what you want to do? Those are the coaches you want to look for.
32:43 Taking a Leap or Not?
Sergey I was thinking as you were saying this that maybe the advice would be to not leave your job until you get — I don't know — first five, 10 clients as a side gig, as your coaching business. But you know, sometimes people just never leave their job at all. So I would say if you have this dream, you know, you can wait for a perfect moment all your life and it's never going to happen. Sometimes you just need to take a leap.
Pia I think it depends on the person's personality. I think there's a benefit to — okay, save up some cushion, quit, go all the way — and understand that those first clients, even no matter what you were getting paid before, you're going to take some free or low-paid clients in the beginning as quickly as possible to get some experience working directly with a client as a business owner under your belt. You need that experience. And when people would come to me asking us to brand them because they came out of corporate — they would say, I don't want to, you know, I just want to do it the right way. So I want to hire this expensive professional branding agency to do this the right way. I would say, uh-uh, you've never sold a client yourself. Go get some grit. Like, go close a couple of clients. Come back to me once you've closed a couple of clients. I need you to have proven to yourself that you can close a client on your own and take them through a process by yourself before it makes sense for you to pay someone like me. Otherwise, you're just trying to avoid the hard part, which is closing those first clients and working with them when you don't exactly know what you're doing.
Pia Even if you're so senior and expert in what you do, it is not the same as doing the job versus being the business owner that sells the client and takes them through the whole thing from beginning to end. And you just need to cut your teeth on that first. And I think a lot of people use — like, oh no, I got to get my LLC set up and I got to get my logo, I got to get everything perfect — they use that as a way to avoid the inevitable, which is that you got to go get some clients and you got to do it. So I just say do it as quickly as possible.
Pia A friend of mine just posted on Instagram yesterday — I thought she said this brilliantly. She's like, you want to know how I got to $20,000 in my third month of business? I offered to coach everybody, anybody, for free. And I just started coaching all these different people. I got a couple of low-paid clients. I worked with them so hard. I made sure that they got amazing results as quickly as possible. She was like, I worked my tail off for the first couple of months just generating buzz, working with people, getting results, and then I had a 20k month because I had so many people who wanted to work with me because I did that on-the-ground work. And I just thought that was a beautiful representation. I'm so anti-free work, as you know, and I don't want people to get low paid, but as a way to start a business as quickly as possible — hustle to get those first group of clients.
36:37 Find People Like You
Sergey It's been a blast. And I just noticed something — I realized something. There's another free marketing lesson. You said on my questionnaire that I sent you that you work with enthusiastic, high-energy people. And this is actually how you qualify your audience, right? So it seems like your clients, they mirror you in a way, because you're this enthusiastic, high-energy — and in order to do what your friend just did, the person has to be self-motivated and they have to be — you know — this full cup wise, it's not going to work. You're not going to motivate them. Either they want it badly or they just endure with what's going on in their life.
Pia I think that's a great observation and not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. I think we can both agree on that.
37:50 Connect with Pia
Sergey Well, this was a blast. Thank you so much. Let the audience know what you got in store, what's coming or where they can find you and what partnerships or customer relationships you're open to.
Pia Well, my new book is coming out or just came out depending on when this goes live. Scale Solo. You can go to nobsmastery.com/book and I think that would be like the best way to connect, especially if you like anything that I'm talking about here, because that is — you know, I break all of this down in great detail with stories that bring it to life in my new book. You can also go check out Badass Your Brand at badassyourbrand.com and you can grab a free copy of that right now. So I think those are the two best ways to hang out with me and I would love to see you there. I'm also pretty active on Instagram at Pia Lovesyourbiz and on LinkedIn, Pia Silva.