Let’s be real, starting a business is not a hard job in today’s world. Depending on the country you live in, you can register a new business within 24 hours. Getting clients, on the other hand, is a different matter. Apart from managing company’s finances, getting your first few clients is a nightmare. Especially if you have no prior industry experience.
Yes, there are several good business books that will teach to run a successful business, manage finance and hire the best people out there, but they often miss an important factor: getting a regular flow of new clients. While getting a regular flow of clients is normal after few month or years, getting the first few clients might make your eyes sweat.
Hence, in this post I’ll try to make it easier for your new small business to acquire new clients, that too without spending a dime from your company’s coffers. The even harder part about running a successful small business is retaining clients. Well, if you follow these 10 steps, I’m pretty sure you will figure it out by yourself.
(1) Who Is Your Audience?
I suppose you know your audience, of course not personally, but as a whole. I heard somewhere that “Data is the New Oil.” Damn right it is! With a perfect collection of data, you can create the best products in the market and something that customers really want to spend their money on. If you have data about the industry and market as a whole, you won’t have to spend unnecessary money on releasing products that don’t sell. Unsurprisingly, this works great and almost every company use it nowadays.
This is something only you can answer! Do you know your audience? Because if you do, trust me, you have already won half the war. You can create a service/product laser focused on your audience needs. That way you can be pretty much be sure that your service/product will sell like hotcakes.
How do you think all these multi-billion dollar companies release the perfect product for their customers? They have large teams of people who have access to consumer data. Rather than spending millions, or even billions on marketing, they spend most of the money mining for user data. Yeah, maybe your small business won’t have such firepower, but there are several free software you can use for industry research. Google Trends, Semrush and Ahrefs are the three best software in this category.
(2) How Well Do You Know People?
Networking is essential if you want to expand your business for free. Word of mouth is still one of the best marketing businesses use. We humans have a strong tendency to share and experience with our closed ones. Well, coming back to Networking, it might be problem if you keep everything to yourself. Of course, you should not reveal everything to everyone, but you can meet and establish good business relation with a lot of people. This might not help you immediately, but in the long run, people in the industry will know your face and your company.
Yeah, this might sound like I’m manipulating you to “use people,“ but this is not uncommon. Businesspeople are always searching for ways to expand their company. Networking is only one aspect of it. But, always remember that not all businesspeople are helpful. A LOT of them will try to fleece you. Harsh reality, but it’s true.
So, be aware while you network with new people. I will suggest you to read Power by Robert Greene. this book will make you ready for the harsh world outside your home sweet home. Honestly, the more you read, the better you’ll become at handling life situations.
(3) Social Media FTW
How many times have you heard this: Facebook is dead. I have heard this countless times, yet Facebook’s parent company Meta registers record profits every year. How is it possible? Yeah, Facebook might be dead, but it’s still very much alive for genuine user and businesses. And, I’m not talking about Whatsapp and Instagram. Those come under the Meta umbrella, just like Facebook.
As I mentioned before, Data is the New Oil, and Facebook has it all. So, if you expose your business on Facebook, your product/service might catch some eyes. Sure, you’ll get faster results if you pay for ads, but we don’t want to spend money here. You can use TikTok to promote your company, or just the products/services.
Top Dropshipping companies make millions from social media traffic. So, if they can do it, you can too. The simplest secret to selling on TikTok is to sell a viral product at lesser price than your competitor. I have seen TikTokers selling empty eBooks for $5 a piece. Their TikTok market has more than 10k reviews, and since the product is just a piece of software there’s no delivery charges.
Learn to use Social Media for your advantage. If you can do it the right way, it’ll make your small business more money than you can handle.
(4) Design An Engaging Website
In this age, if your business has no website, you are heading for a big trouble. Unlike before, people have become more cautious of their spending and want to know everything about a company before they invest their hard-earned money.
Designing a beautiful and engaging website can turn the tables for you. A professionally created website glows an impression of “genuineness.” And, that’s what people look out for. If your website is friendly and well designed, people will automatically trust your company subconsciously. These are some signals that most business books don’t talk about. An impressionable website is like a goodwill. It can cast a permanent impression on a new and curious visitor.
Search for any well-known profitmaking company, you’ll find a dedicated website. Yeah, they might not sell anything, but they are very much present on the internet. Why? To keep the pesky scammers away. The use their website to showcase their business history and to subtle tell people that yeah, we are those guys.
An another technique is to keep a “Blog” section in your website. Many business use the blog section to generate traffic, which in turn they can use it to funnel potential buyers. This method works great, that’s why almost every software service site has an active blog section.
(5) Affiliate Offering Might Skyrocket Your Business
Whoever invented Affiliate Marketing is an absolute genius. It’s one of the most balanced marketing technique I’ve ever seen. Affiliate Marketing takes “mutually beneficial” word to a whole new level, and it can create wonders for your small business if you do it correctly.
There’s nothing much to write about affiliate marketing, only that if you can afford to list your products at a lower (but profitable) price, then people will buy them, and affiliate marketers will do everything under their control to promote your company’s products. Bloggers use affiliate marketing to market their courses. It has proved great for themselves too.
(6) Offer Free Sample/Service
This one is entirely optional, but offering a sample of your product can generate great results for your small business. People love testing free product/software. Of course not everyone will buy it, but among a hundred people if one person buys, you’ve made a sale with a 1% conversion rate. Also, this works even better if your product quality if great.
Almost every software company has a “free trial” option for their product. They know that most of trial downloads will not convert to a sale, but still they are hopeful. I have tried many commercial software as a trial and ended up buying it because of how good they were. So, if I can take out my credit card and tap the buy button, I’m sure your business will too get such customers.
But as I said, this is completely optional. The free sample feature might work well for software companies, but not so well for hardware-based companies. So, I’ll suggest you to only offer free sample if you have a software based company.
(7) Cold Outreach Still Works
As the name suggests, Cold Outreach is an method of sending emails, or messages on LinkedIn to potential buyers. The harsh thing about cold outreach is that there’s no guarantee it’ll work. You might send 1000 emails everyday, but get no response. Or you might send 10 email and get 2 replies. It’s completely random.
But cold outreach is still used by many dedicated people who want to make it big in the industry, and are adamant. At the end of the day, it’s a number game. The more emails you send, the higher chance you’ll receive an interested client. Still, there more to it. Only getting a reply from you client isn’t enough. You’ll have to prove yourself that you’re good.
(8) Prove Yourself
People love expertise. Take two companies for an example: Company A and Company B. Both the companies operate in the same industry, let’s say the Food Industry. The founder of Company A is a PhD in Nutrition, and the founder of Company B is an MBA in Human Resource. Subconsciously, which company’s product will you think will be better and more “healthy?” Chances are, if you’re aware enough, you’ll go with Company A. Because the founder is PhD in Nutrition, so he/she will know better about health than an MBA.
So, when you reach out to your clients through cold emails or through any other sources, your past experiences will matter a lot. They might not ask you upfront, but if you mention that you’re a PhD in Nutrition and want to start a healthy protein shake company, they’ll subconscious feel the natural connection.
Now, let’s say you have no prior expertise, and also have no industry experience, then the entry barrier suddenly shoots up. You’ll have to prove yourself more than anyone else. It complete depends upon your enthusiasm and self-gained knowledge. Everything boils down to how much you know and how eager you are to provide an exceptional service.
(9) Keep Prices Below Industry Standards
This is hard bullet to bite, but in a cut-throat competition, you’ll have to push yourself through the crowd to reach your destination. Every small businessperson wants to make the highest profits as fast as possible. Not that it’s not possible, but it’s too risky and leaves the business vulnerable to competitors with fat pockets.
Unless your business is already established (which is not the case) don’t sell your products at sky-high prices. Your company still hasn’t proven its worth. When people look for a product, their first desire is to find a company they already know. They won’t mind paying a premium for a known company. Your company, on the other hand, doesn’t have that edge yet! Hence, to take a lead, you should price your products lower than the industry average.
So, if the industry average of a product is $10, sell it for a 20% less, at $8. Affordable products attract attention quicker. You can keep the prices lower until you feel your company has made it big. Then, slowly, you can increase the prices and make profits. For some reason this business technique works great at every situation. No matter the industry.
(10) Reach Out To The Community
Humans are emotional beings. That’s why they point towards they heart when they mention or talk about themselves, not their brain. Reaching out to the community is a humble move to call upon the like-minded people. If you just humbly ask people to test your products, they’ll do it, no questions asked.
One best example is Photopea. Photopea is a Photoshop copy that made a great name for itself about a decade ago. the Photoshop clone was developed by an Ukrainian software developer named Ivan Kutskir. He didn’t spend a dime on marketing Photopea, but only used social media community like Reddit to promote his service.
Of course, he got banned from several forums, because he was too aggressive, but eventually Photopea was picked by people who were looking for a free Photoshop alternative. Photopea was release in 2013, and a decade later the free software makes more than $1 Million from ads. Astonishing!
Guess how many software developers work to maintain Photopea? ONE! Ivan works alone and handles the software alone. And the dude makes $1 Million from Google Ads (the worst in the market). That’s the power of a good product and a good community.