The Intensives Model - A Smarter Way To Make More Money and Wow Your Clients
Scope Creep. Endless Revisions. The scourge of branding agency owners everywhere.
And it doesn’t seem like it’s changing anytime soon.
That’s why the No BS Intensives Model I created and mastered in my agency, and now teach to thousands of students, is a GAMECHANGER.
Clients pay in full before you start the work, you wrap it all up in a few days, you present the final project, and the clients walk away over the moon!
Keep reading as I’m going to tell you how you can do it too.
Why the ‘traditional’ way of branding project management sucks
Tell me if this is familiar…
You sign up a new client for a full brand overhaul (new website, logo, socials, the works). You figure out all the raw graphics and content that you’ll need, and map out the timeline - probably a couple of weeks, tops.
You start working methodically through each item, and have check ins with your client, to keep them updated.
All seems to be going well, until…
…they want to change the color and fonts on a couple of the webpages, but they need a couple of days to think about it and come back to you.
And then that couple of days turns into a couple of weeks, and when you hear back from the client, it’s not just the color and fonts - they’ve spoken to their best friend’s wife who’s a designer, and who said they need new content as well, and maybe a completely different website altogether…
Starting to ring a bell?
Even if you haven’t had this EXACT scenario - I’ll bet good money it’s eerily similar.
So, what that actual f…? Why does this bullshit keep happening?
I’ve racked my brains, and the best I can come up with is that ‘it’s the way things have always been done’.
And it’s comfortable, familiar, even though it sucks and means your bank balance stays in the red.
So before I get into the details of how the Intensives Model works (this is what I’ve used in my branding agency and teach my students), I’m going to make the case for why you need to leave this old model behind right now.
No. 1 - it’s obvious - it doesn’t make you any money.
Just do the math. If you look at the next 30 days, and you’ve mapped out 2 weeks to do client work, and the other 2 weeks for prospecting and signing up new clients, then each week that your project drags on eats into your business-building time.
Or try this math. If you use hourly rates, and aren’t strict about how many hours you’re billing, your hourly rate will go down the longer you work, inevitably to zero.
Either way, you’re screwed.
No. 2 - It’s stressful.
Do you really want to live in a state of anxiety and overwhelm, dreading that ping of an email or message from your client at any random time, with yet MORE revisions?
And if you’re someone who takes your work on vacation (aka, almost everyone), then I don’t know how much vacation time, or family time, you’ll actually get, if you’re always a message or call away.
No. 3 - You don’t do your best work.
This one may sting a little.
None of us want to think we’re doing sub-par work for our clients, ever.
But if we’re really straight with ourselves, as creatives, we typically get most excited about a project at the beginning.
You know, when you’re creating that vision, doing mockups, putting together a collage of layouts, wireframes etc. and then getting stuck in the process.
But the longer that drags on, then less and less interested we get - it really takes a lot to recreate that ‘spark’ or excitement of when we first started.
Oftentimes, our projects get reduced to a bunch of things on a checklist, and it’s easy to end up ‘phoning it in’.
No. 4 - Do you need a 4th reason?
Really?
It should be getting pretty obvious by now why the way you’ve been managing your branding projects isn’t working.
I may be preaching to the choir, but until you can see in black and white just how unworkable it is, you probably won’t have the motivation to try another way that might just work out.
And if after reading all this, you’re still happy to stick to what you’ve already done, that’s totally OK!
I have a suspicion, though, that if you’re reading this, you ARE looking for another way to get your agency profitable, and actually enjoy the projects and clients who hire you!
Why the Intensives Model will work (and when it definitely won’t)
OK - enough of the sucky stuff - on to the goods!
I’m going to break down exactly why the Intensives Model will work, and also give you a few special cases why it won’t.
I never have, and never will, say that the Intensives Model is a ‘one-size-fits-all’ panacea for scaling up your agency.
What I WILL say is, if you run your agency like I do (and like a lot of my students, and a lot of branding agencies out there) then it’s likely to work for you.
Here’s an overview of how Intensives work:
You figure out everything you would need to know about the client’s needs in order to deliver a complete branding project (that could be a website, logo, social media graphics, brand guidelines etc.)
You conduct the Lead Product™️ Interview where you go through a comprehensive set of questions with the client, and then produce a client brief of next steps. This would have a summary of what was discussed in the interview, and how that needs to be implemented.
You sell the Intensives Model service, get the contract signed, collect the money, and block out dates in the calendar:
When you will be working exclusively on the project
When you will present the project to the client (could be 1-2 days total) which will allow time for ‘on-the-fly’ revisions, before they sign off.
And here’s how you know your agency can fit into this model:
You do bespoke, stand-alone projects e.g. a 5-10 page website, logo designs, copy and content for the website, a batch of social media content (graphics, captions etc.)
You do your best work when you work intensively on an aspect of the project, to completion. For instance, you complete a logo/several versions of a logo, you get a website up and live etc.
Those 2 things alone describe the way most branding agencies work - it certainly is how we do things in our agency, and I’m betting you do too.
There are some exceptions to this model:
You sell ‘retainer’ based marketing services i.e. ongoing SEO, paid ad management (FB, IG, Google etc.), ongoing copy/content for blogs and social media captions. (This is NOT the same as creating a batch of content in one hit, that can be repurposed indefinitely. It’s when you are creating new stuff month-to-month for a client.)
You do any sort of ‘marketing maintenance’ e.g. maintaining a website with updated content, fixing any tech issues etc.
Email List Management. (Again, NOT where you write a batch of emails to be used in the future.) If you’re an Email List Manager, you need to be constantly on top of deliverability, open rates, anti-promo tab issues, as well as developing new and fresh copy for daily or weekly emails. This isn’t a one-and-done service.
You might read this and think - ‘Pia - I don’t do any of those things…’, but a lot of branding agencies do. They’ve morphed into ‘hybrid’ marketing agencies that deliver these ongoing services, in a way to get that recurring revenue.
It makes sense, but it’s actually one of the least profitable ways of making money. (I’ll tell you more in another article.)
And there’s one other big exception where it really won’t work for you.
Are you ready?
If you’re convinced that it won’t.
In fact, that goes for anything you do in business, or in life.
What was that Henry Ford quote?
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
A play-by-play of the No BS Intensives Model
Just now, I gave you an overview of how the Intensives Model works, and I want to deep dive into it, so you can start putting it into practice straight away.
Step 1 - Figure out EVERYTHING you need to know in order to deliver a client project
And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Don’t leave anything out, even stuff you take for granted.
For example, if you’re building a website, the obvious things would be everything to do with the current website (if the client has one) - all the logins, the URL, raw files etc.
But what isn’t so obvious, is all the set up that you might do e.g. Squarespace account and logins, new domain set up with a hosting company like GoDaddy or Bluehost, Google Workspace set up, a shared space where all your graphics will be stored etc.
Some of this may not be included, or all of it may.
My point is that anything you do ‘with your eyes closed’ needs to be written down somewhere, so it forms part of your project schedule. You may or may not choose to share this with the client, but it needs to be SOMEWHERE. When you don’t do this, you are letting scope creep (and resentment, and cursing) in the door!
Step 2 - Conduct the Lead Product™️ Interview
I’ll top line this for you:
The Lead Product™️ is where you focus on the strategy piece of the work you deliver i.e. initial, exploratory work, where you find out what exactly the client wants and needs, in order to get them where they want to go with their brand.
It’s the foundational piece of work that you also do with your eyes closed, except you're separating this and having the client focus on the vision of their brand, before getting bogged down in color schemes and fonts.
I do a 1.5-2.5h interview with a comprehensive list of questions - everything and anything I need to know before I even fire up Adobe Illustrator.
I’m guessing you have a really good idea of what you need to ask - just get it all down in a doc. You DEFINITELY don’t share this with the client (unless you never want to see them again) but you have to have this ready.
Step 3 - Create the Client Brief
This is where the rubber meets the road.
You’ve done the legwork of getting everything down that the client wants and needs.
You’ve taken notes, or even recorded it, so you don’t miss anything.
Now, you put it into an easily digestible PDF, with clear sections. I like to use something like:
Where you are now
Where you want to be
What’s great about your brand
What’s missing that we need to elevate
How we’re going to do it
No. 5 is where you lay out the scope of the project. You can stick to an outline e.g. ‘you will need a new website, with 5 pages, and each page will have…so that your visitors get…’
Please bear in mind one thing.
Don’t overwhelm the client!
It could be tempting to put EVERY LAST THING, mock ups, graphics etc. into this brief, and I know this too well. We want to deliver value, and show that we can.
However, less is more. Your Creative Brief only needs to be a few pages to paint an exciting, inspiring picture.
Step 4 - Do the Intensive!
Now you get to roll up your sleeves and do the work! Isn’t that fun?
There’s a process to this too (catching a theme here, right?)
You need to do 2 things:
Block out the time you need to work intensively on the project. It could be 2 days, 5 days - whatever you know will work, based on your experience.
Schedule the client ‘reveal’ or ‘presentation’ - in the No BS Agency Mastery Program, we call it the Magic Hour™️. I’ll get into that in another article, but it’s where you show the client what you’ve done, based on what the client has told you, and as you walk them through, you get their sign off, and it’s done!
But wait?? Doesn’t the client have to give feedback? Surely they would have SOME revisions, even if it’s not endless?
It’s OK, I got you. Keep reading.
During your client presentation, you build in time for the client to give you ‘on-the-fly’ revisions.
So you’re presenting them with a 95% complete project, and the remaining 5% will be confirmed with them, and then they sign off.
You need to schedule out your presentation - it could be a half-day, full day etc., so you have time for this. You can share this with the client, so they know what to expect.
Hang on Pia. Clients always say they want to go away and take a look at the stuff and come back to me - I can’t stop them from doing that, can I?
Yes, my friend, you can. You just need to be clear about this upfront.
When you move from the Lead Product™️ to the Intensive process, or even before they hire you for anything, you can lay out how you do things. Be straight - what they may sacrifice in back and forth revisions, they gain in a done-and-dusted project that they can launch in a matter of days, not months.
And that’s your Intensive process from start to finish.
Go do it!
What a streamlined, Intensives agency looks like
I can still sense that you have a lot of questions about Intensives. (Isn’t it wild that I can do that?)
Because I did, until I started doing it.
Was it easy the first time? Hell no!
Did I get better each time? Heck yeah!
And you will too. Trust the process.
Look, I’m not expecting you to shift ALL your projects to this model right away. Maybe start with the next one you sell.
And if you’re a ‘hybrid’ agency i.e. you do marketing AND branding, and you still want to keep your retainer services, that’s fine! You can sell a bunch of these Intensives and then, if you want, have an add-on for any clients who need ongoing support.
But what if you wanted to do something radical, and focus 100% on Intensives, and nothing else?
You can do it - I did!
And if you still don’t believe me, or don’t think your clients will go for it, look at what some of my students have said about how easy it has been to deliver Intensives:
“Presented a magic hour today and it was AMAZING!!!!! My client was gushing about how much she loved the website…Followed [Pia’s] script pretty much to the letter. Minimal revisions. I’m so proud of it! 😂” - Amalia Rivera Larrain
“[WIN] Ya’ll, intensives are ✨magical! 100% APPROVED! Pia - this is a game changer.” - Erika Stanley
“My client LOVED her website and we made three changes to her entire site. That’s NEVER happened before. The ‘Magic Hour’ WORKS! I can’t wait for my next intensive!!!” - Jennifer Anastasi
“[win] delivered my “version” of the 1-day intensive and the client loved everything…Thank you Pia for giving me the push I needed to do what I knew was right for me. You the best!!!” - Melissa Connolly
“You’ve changed my life, Pia Silva. Just ran my first intensive website review. 1hour. Client LOVED it. Tiny tweaks. Best process ever.” - Jason Knight
“#win I had my first intensive that included branding today and she loved everything about it. Showing the logos at the end on website is so genius!” - Tanya Goodall Smith
Here’s what you need to get…
It’s a total myth that a branding project has to take months, suffer from scope creep or that you have to deal with multiple revisions.
It’s a total myth that clients won’t want to work with you if you start using the Intensives model.
And it’s a total myth that shorter timelines mean sub-par work delivered to the client.
Clients want projects to end quickly. They want the leadership and direction that the Intensives model provides.
So all that’s left for you now is to go do it!
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to fast-track your way to using Intensives and all my other tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!