Issue 6: How to Sell, and Get 100 New Customers In 5 Easy Steps
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash
The least sale I ever made was $10 and the most was just over $25k. All my experiences taught me to value every customer and every sale.
These days a lot more people are starting new businesses or ‘side hustles’. From speaking to them I have learnt that one of the biggest challenge is getting new customers and sales for their business.
Today I would be sharing 5 ways I believe you can get 100 new customers.
1.Know your Customer (KYC)
As a first step, I believe it is very important to know who your customers are.
What are their specific needs?
How does your product solve the need?
B2C vs B2B — Are your customers individuals or businesses?
This is important as both require a different approach
Who is the customer and/or the user of your solution?
Sometimes the user and the customer (the person who pays for the product) are the same person, sometimes they are different.
Identifying this difference is key.
For example, if your product are books for children, the user is the child reading the book, while the customer is their parent who pays for the book.
Say you have a real estate agency business serving corporate clients. The user may be the staff who would live in the accommodation, but the customer may be the company’s purchasing or procurement officer.
Clearly knowing who your customer is would help you filter out inquiries — who is and who is not your customer- by asking clarifying questions.
This would save time and maximize your efforts.
After Who, then Where
Once you have a clearer picture of who your customers are, find out where they are and go to where they are.
Are they on Instagram, at a wedding or on a golf course, go to where they are?
I did all three.
2.Know your Product
Armed with a knowledge of the customer’s need, next step is to know everything about your product and offering.
What are its benefits?
How much does it cost? — Pricing
How is it better than other competing products in the market? — Unique Selling Point
Where can customers access your product? — at a shop or office, on your website, on the app store — Distribution
3. Always be ready to talk about your product: Marketing
Now you know who your costumer is, where to find them, and your product offering, the next step is to talk about your product.
Tell people what your business does, the value it brings, and SHOW YOUR WORK!
This could be a flyer, a video, a presentation, a brochure, or a sample of your product.
For this I have a personal example.
In 2017 I was promoting a new product my team had built: a mobile app for booking seats on a private jet in Nigeria. At the time I was in Delta State for a wedding, staying at my uncle’s place.
During the course of breakfast, he inquired what I was working on. I immediately left my breakfast, retrieved our startup brochure and did a full presentation of our offering.
I installed the app on his two phones and showed him how it worked.
He was impressed and referred me to 2 friends of his in Lagos who not only had successful businesses but were part of a thriving golf group in Lagos.
I finished my breakfast, then reached out to them and scheduled a meeting.
The following Saturday morning, back in Lagos, I was at the famous Ikoyi Golf Club for the meeting. I met up with one of the contacts, and there in the open restaurant area of the golf club he pointed out who I should be talking to.
With my business card at the ready I began to ‘work the room’.
The result of these were several new leads to follow up on, and an invitation to their annual golf tournament in another state. I paid the membership fee, hired a car and a driver and took the 3hr trip to attend this tournament. I was dressed up with full golf gear with my company’s branded T-shirt.
During the break period of the tournament, I introduced myself to more people, and talked about my business, collecting their details.
On the return trip back to Lagos I was exhausted. But I now had 19 new leads and one of those leads gave me a chance and did my 1st booking.
He would go on to do 32 more bookings and counting and introduce me to several more clients who booked and paid for my services, again and again.
Tell people what your business does, the value it brings, and SHOW YOUR WORK!
4.Always be Closing/Selling: ABC
So, you have told a prospective customer about your product, next comes selling.
To explain sales, I would use the video below (contains strong language). It’s from the 1992 movie “Glengarry Glen Ross”. A high-profile sales guy comes down to an underperforming real estate branch. He ‘motivates’ the staff to keep selling, the right way. He delivers a famous sales speech based on the AIDA method.
AIDA: Attention Interest Decision Action
AIDA method is a simple sequential method to follow in any sales situation.
The first part of the sales process is getting the prospect’s ATTENTION. The next part is sparking their INTEREST. You can do this by asking clarifying question and (really) listening to their response. Questions like what solution they currently use and how much they spend. This would help you provide the right solution to their needs.
The next part is the DECISION phase, which is simply encouraging them to make a purchasing decision. This is the famous ‘Closing’ phase.
The final part is ACTION, getting them to sign on the dotted line. This is the part where you most likely hear a lot of rejections such as they need more time, or need to speak to someone etc. You have to manage these objections and close.
ABC: Always Be Closing
5.Be Persistent
The truth is that running a business and making sales is hard. But the more you do it, take feedback, improve and continue, the more it gets easier.
There will be prospects who would reject you, who would say no. You just have to be persistent and keep going.
Conclusion
Don’t feel shy, ashamed or let imposter syndrome get you.
By finding and selling to a customer you are solving a problem and offering a customer value they would otherwise not have received at the price and service you are offering. You are taking away his worry.
Business is Noble.
Business is Diligent.
You are completely unique. There is no one like you.
No one can do it the way you do it.
There is someone out there who needs what you have to offer.
I hope these 5 steps are useful to you and as you take action with them, I look forward to hearing your success stories and remember:
Always be Closing and Attention Interest Decision and Action.
Goodluck!
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You can also email me at notesbynero@gmail.com.
Wow! Awesome write up, I love the conclusion "business is noble-business is diligent-...". Thank you.