The Case for Badassing Your Brand with Pia Silva


November 27, 2017

pia silva on brand

“It’s better to whole-ass one thing than half-ass several.” As the author of the book Badass Your Brand, my conversation with Pia Silva was bound to be both fun and irreverent. In all seriousness, powerful language helps you cut through the clutter. You can’t succeed by being everything to everyone. Pia and I discussed badassery in all of its forms this week on the On Brand podcast. Enjoy!

About Pia Silva

Entrepreneur, speaker, and author Pia Silva is a partner and brand strategist at Worstofall Design where they build “Badass Brands without the BS” for 1-3 person service businesses in 1-3 day intensives. She is also a Forbes contributor and author of Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit.

Episode Highlights

What’s in a name? A lot! And Pia’s branding firm has an interesting name — Worstofall Design. They’re so named because they help their clients — mostly small service businesses — create badassery. There’s another secret story behind the name that you’ll have to listen to discover.

Why is branding so hard today? “There’s a very generic idea of how brands exist but that’s different for corporations, small businesses, fashion brands.”

How is branding for a small service firm different? “The brand comes from the owner — it should really be pulled out of that.” This makes the brand more authentic and personal.

What’s one thing Pia would advise impatient brand builders to do? “Identify your best, favorite customer and start saying no to everyone else.” Again, you can’t standout by being everything to everyone.

What brand has made Pia smile recently? The email signature from The Middle Finger Project. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to learn why.

To learn more, you can get a free chapter of Badass Your Brand online and you can follow Pia on Instagram.

As We Wrap …

Before we go, I want to flip the microphone around to our community …
Kerry O’Shea Gorgone gave us a shoutout on Twitter as a podcast she doesn’t miss. Thanks for listening, Kerry!

Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you’d like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show.

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Until next week, I’ll see you on the Internet!

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is a strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World and Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. He is the Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, an educator at the University of Iowa, and host of the On Brand podcast. More about Nick.