Brianna Sylver With Sylver Consulting, LLC

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio. Brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm space.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ve got a great show for you today. But before we get started, as always, I want to thank today’s sponsor. Today’s show is sponsored by Firm Space. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Like I said, we have a great show today. Today we have the president of Silver Consulting LLC. So please welcome to the show, Brianna Sylver. Welcome, Brianna.

Brianna Sylver: [00:00:46] Thanks so much, Max. I’m really excited to be here. Thanks for having.

Max Kantor: [00:00:49] Me. Of course. Yeah, I’m happy to have you here. Talk about your business a little bit. So let’s jump right in. Tell me, what is Silver Consulting?

Brianna Sylver: [00:00:56] Yeah, I’m happy to share. So Silver Consulting, we’re an innovation research and strategy consulting firm. And so we support mainly Fortune 1000 organizations to future proof their offerings. So we sit at the intersection of market research, user experience and design and really support organizations in three areas. One is around enhancing their brands. So why do they deserve to be in the marketplace today compared to others? For instance, fill their innovation pipelines, either looking at next generation products or services or development of whole new and new offerings, and then largely around aligning stakeholders around new visions for growth.

Max Kantor: [00:01:38] And what industries do you work in?

Brianna Sylver: [00:01:41] We work across a lot of different industries, but the three industries that we largely support, at least right now over the past few years, is health care, education and government.

Max Kantor: [00:01:53] So what’s a common mistake that businesses make that you can help alleviate?

Brianna Sylver: [00:02:00] Well, I would say that a lot of times organizations come to us when they’re seeing shifts in their business that they’re not quite sure what to do about it. So I would say, if you think about it from a problem standpoint, maybe not super concrete, maybe not what you’re expecting hearing, but it’s like when somebody has a wicked problem and they’re like, we don’t know what to do. That’s usually when people reach out to us because there’s been enough shifts in their marketplace or they’re seeing some signals around. Things are changing, but we’re not sure how we need to change to stay relevant. That’s when they come to us. So just to kind of put this into like into like hard concrete a story here. So like we had a client a couple of years ago come to us. They were an insurance agency and they said, you know, we are spending more money than sort of what would make sense by the book of business on mental mental health fees, if you will, or mental health services for individuals who are between 18 and 25 years old. And so, you know, the reason why they were doing that is because basically the emergency room fees were incredibly high. And so what you would do is like all these things that may be offered service wise to prevent that emergency room admittance won’t be taking advantage of. But they didn’t know why and they didn’t know what they should have instead to prevent that. And so that’s where they would come to us. And they said, you know, help us to understand what’s really happening and more to develop new services and offerings that can better support these individuals to prevent them from getting into an emergency room type of situation, and then consequently helping us from a revenue perspective to not having have as many fees going towards emergency rooms.

Max Kantor: [00:04:00] Right. I was on your website and I was reading about how kind of the when a company comes to you all they receive the what the so what and the now what so can you explain that those three steps you kind of were touching on a little bit with your story, but I would love to just hear more about that.

Brianna Sylver: [00:04:19] Yeah, I’m happy to. So if you remember at the start of the conversation, I said, you know, we sit at the at the intersection of market research, user experience and strategy, or maybe I said that, maybe I didn’t, but we do. And so that that kind of correlates to what you’re just talking about that. So I would say our market research is really around. So what is actually happening in the market? What are what trends are going on? What does customer behavior look like? What are the needs? Both those that are spoken and unspoken. So it’s just kind of like charting, charting the the sort of the landscape of what’s happening. The so what piece of it is where design training kind of comes into play. So it says, okay, if this is what is happening, happening, what are the possibilities of what we could do to to change a scenario or circumstance? What’s the what’s the range of possibilities, if you will? And then when it comes to saying, okay, now this is what we’re actually going to do then, now what of it? This is where the strategy element comes into play, because this is now when they’re saying, all right, if this is what we could do, this is what we’re actually willing to do. And this is why taking this step makes sense for our business at this time. And so there’s a lot that goes into that type of decision making around the now what it’s what’s happening in the market. It’s what your core competencies are your resources, your timelines, your talent. All of those things factor into ultimately defining the now what? But from working with us, basically customers go through that whole continuum where they really get to diagnose what is actually happening, what are the root causes to the challenges that they’re facing, what’s the range of things that they could do to respond and then ultimately committing to we are going to do these things to have a different outcome?

Max Kantor: [00:06:15] Yeah, it seems, you know, it’s really valuable that you guys, like you mentioned, sit at that intersection of market research, user experience, strategy, because you can address so many problems with so many different types of companies.

Brianna Sylver: [00:06:28] Absolutely. Yeah. It’s the process that we specialize in. We don’t have to have the industry expertize. I mean, I don’t know the number off the top of my head in terms of how many different industries we’ve worked with over the years. We’re we’re coming up on our 19th year of business. And it’s been it’s been extensive. I mean, anything from, as I mentioned, like health care, government education, industrial products, technology, banking, I mean, we started in banking. Those were our first clients. Power tools, consumer packaged goods, I mean, you name it, we’ve worked in it.

Max Kantor: [00:07:05] So the world, you know, is ever changing that. We just went through a global pandemic. We’re still going through that global pandemic. So you see a ton of trends come and go. For a business that comes to you, how do you bring a sense of comfort and predictability to new innovation happening every single day?

Brianna Sylver: [00:07:24] Yeah, it’s a really good question and something we we were constantly asking this question. So we have a process. So so first and foremost, I would say the process helps to bring some level of comfort. And it’s kind of like we’re we’re charged with making people comfortably uncomfortable, I guess is probably the first thing to state. Usually when they’re coming to us, they know that something has to change. So you’re not going to be 100% comfortable through that change. Otherwise, we’re probably not doing our job appropriately. However, you want to give people a sense of ground as they go through the change that that is being demanded of them by the market. And so a big part of how we do that is just in the way in which we work. So we, we engage workshops a lot through our process anywheres from like initial we call them setting the stage for success workshops at the beginning of a project to really get clear around what is the innovation and vision that we have, what are we trying to accomplish? Get hypotheses out both in terms of what has gotten the organization to the situation that they’re in, as well as potentially kind of what the outcomes may be. And then as we move through the process, there’s lots of moments of iterative collaboration where we come together, we share bits of what we’re hearing from the market and what we’re learning. We get their interpretation of that and then start to iterate and probe and continue to sort of press on different things that are coming out of sort of that that what market context.

Brianna Sylver: [00:09:09] And then once we have that, what market context, then there’s a lot of different types of workshops that we do that are around interpreting that data for their business. And the goal of those types of workshop sessions are to support them to really take action. So we have found that many times organizations are not for lack of data, they are lack of they basically don’t know how to take action on the data that they have. And a big piece of that is there’s an interpretation or translation step that needs to occur. And so, like I said, we have lots of different types of workshops that we will run to support those different translation steps depending upon what the desired outcome is. And then if organizations wish to take it further, which some do and some don’t, we will even get into helping them to shape the new offerings. So doing a lot of prototyping and testing and iterative building of different solutions, ultimately to get it to a point where it’s ready for pilot or implementation. And so those iterative touch points along that process keeps people engaged. They’re bought into not only the fact that change needs to happen, but the vision for what the change needs to be. And they become champions for it. And so even though it may be stretching the organization into new territory that can feel uncomfortable, there’s a there’s a level of investment and engagement and excitement that really leaves them energized to want to advocate for that change as well.

Max Kantor: [00:10:43] And now, are you working with companies just in the United States or do you work with companies all over the world?

Brianna Sylver: [00:10:49] We work with companies all over the world at this moment in time. I think we’ve done work in 39 different nations across the world, in many of those nations multiple times. You know, like if you think about like some of the BRIC countries, we’ve worked with them numerous times. I would say that a lot of the work that we do internationally, we are a good fit internationally typically when there’s multiple countries engaged. So we have a physical presence in the United States and in Brazil. And so to kind of do work in either of those two countries independently, it kind of makes fiscal sense, if you will. But like if we were to go do a project in China, for instance, in just China usually doesn’t make good sense for folks, but we do a lot of projects where we will do we will do research in five, ten, 15 countries at one time. So for instance, like we’re just finishing up our project right now where it was in five different countries. We have another project in field at the moment that’s in three different countries. And so when there’s multiple countries engaged and there’s that need to get a broader sense of what are the global trends that are impacting their business? And again, going through that, so what and now what equation across the whole global portfolio where we’re a great partner for that type of work.

Max Kantor: [00:12:22] So, Brianna, you mentioned that you’ve been doing this now almost two decades, tons of different businesses, tons of different experiences all over the world. But for you, what is the most rewarding part of your job?

Brianna Sylver: [00:12:35] So my the most rewarding part of my job. Well, there’s sort of two pieces of it. So on a practical, I guess, level, if you will, I have found over the past almost two decades, as you put it, that I really love the process of running the business and sort of like the reinvention of the business over these nearly two decades. You know, I guess putting my own my own method into practice, if you will, and needing to kind of constantly reinvent yourself. But when it comes to serving our customers, what I have found that I really love is the ability to to to be a catalyst of change in that process. So recognizing that when it comes to any type of big engagement, like the ones that we get involved with, there’s sort of like the project management associated with it. And then there’s the anxiety management around that project that also needs to be managed and that the two of those two things together when executed well, support change in occurring. And when they’re not executed well, it results in a lot of friction and frustration and all of that. And so what I have valued over particularly, I would say probably over the past ten years, is really getting to lean in at that level. And then when you do it right, the learning that occurs happens not only at a project level, whatever they’ve brought us in to do, but actually at a whole organizational level. So like I’ve had many clients kind of endearingly refer to us as covert cultural change artists. And, and I think a big piece of that is because they’re discovering things about themselves in the different ways of working. And so supporting that that level of enlightenment, if you will, and sort of like acknowledgment is something that I personally really value.

Max Kantor: [00:14:43] So if any of our listeners want to get in contact or learn more about server consulting, what you guys is website any social media for Silver Consulting?

Brianna Sylver: [00:14:54] Yeah. So we have lots of different social channels. From our website perspective, it’s Silver Consulting. Now that is why we are consulting. You can find us on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. I would also encourage you to reach out to me personally on LinkedIn. I’m very active on that platform and love to connect with people that way. And so you can look me up at Briana Silver. And again, that’s why we are.

Max Kantor: [00:15:26] Well, Brianna, thank you so much for being on the show today. You’re doing a lot of great work for a lot of great companies, and we definitely appreciate all that you do. So thank you for being on the show.

Brianna Sylver: [00:15:35] Oh, my pleasure. And thank you, Max. I mean, what a fantastic way to to highlight the great businesses operating in the Chicagoland area. So thank you.

Max Kantor: [00:15:45] Thank you so much. That’s what we love to do here on Chicago Business Radio. So thank you all for listening to another episode. I’m your host, Max Kanter, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:15:55] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm SpaceX, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.