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How to get your first 10 customers

danshipper.com

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Re: How to get your first 10 customers

#41

Post by gxespino »

hayksaakian wrote: post #35
anandkulkarni wrote: post #20

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, there's a gap between what many lean approaches advocate (Adwords), what startups think they need (features/press) and what actually works. The most effective way to learn is to go out and find the people who should be using the product, and talk to them.

I'd disagree. AdWords is great for validating B2C products because you NEED the opinion of MANY people to judge the viability of your product/idea. In B2B your customer typically has money on the line, and it's quite straightforward for them to evaluate your value proposition: "Does this make me money, or lead to making me money, how much?". In B2C the question becomes: "Do I like/enjoy/have fun with X product?" typi…

"Do I like/enjoy/have fun with X product?"

This doesn't directly translate to people opening up their wallets and paying for said product.

Re: How to get your first 10 customers

#42

Post by pkorzeniewski »

hayksaakian wrote: post #35
anandkulkarni wrote: post #20

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, there's a gap between what many lean approaches advocate (Adwords), what startups think they need (features/press) and what actually works. The most effective way to learn is to go out and find the people who should be using the product, and talk to them.

I'd disagree. AdWords is great for validating B2C products because you NEED the opinion of MANY people to judge the viability of your product/idea. In B2B your customer typically has money on the line, and it's quite straightforward for them to evaluate your value proposition: "Does this make me money, or lead to making me money, how much?". In B2C the question becomes: "Do I like/enjoy/have fun with X product?" typi…

I never understood why everyone suggest that a B2B software MUST generate (or lead to) money for the client to reason the purchase. For example, what about security software? It won't generate any money and in most cases won't even prevent losing money due to security issues (as it doesn't happen SO often), yet almost every company values security so much they will happily pay a lot of money for a bulletproof security software.

Re: How to get your first 10 customers

#43

Post by rgbrgb »

pkorzeniewski wrote: post #42
hayksaakian wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd disagree. AdWords is great for validating B2C products because you NEED the opinion of MANY people to judge the viability of your product/idea. In B2B your customer typically has money on the line, and it's quite straightforward for them to evaluate your value proposition: "Does this make me money, or lead to making me money, how much?". In B2C the question becomes: "Do I like/enjoy/have fun with X product?" typi…

I never understood why everyone suggest that a B2B software MUST generate (or lead to) money for the client to reason the purchase. For example, what about security software? It won't generate any money and in most cases won't even prevent losing money due to security issues (as it doesn't happen SO often), yet almost every company values security so much they will happily pay a lot of money for a bulletproof securit…

The expected value of security software is how much money it saves via actually securing stuff and earning customer trust.

Re: How to get your first 10 customers

#44

Post by joshdance »

alecsmart1 wrote: post #33
dshipper wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes definitely. In general as long as you're not mass emailing 1000s of potential prospects, you target specific people that you think would be interested, you tailor each email individually to them, and you're respectful and up-front about what you're doing things work out fine.

Suppose I customize and email 1000s of potential clients. Is that considered as spam? Would you recommend any nice template/examples to use? Should I send these emails from a generic email box or from my personal email? If I include an "unsubscribe" option, won't the receiver think "hey, I never subscribed to this, let me mark it as spam". On a side note, I used to contact potential clients years ago and then GoDaddy…

You can't customize 1000s of emails. Sure you can mail merge in their name, but putting their name in the first line is not customizing.

Customizing would be looking up information about their company, researching their competitors, talking to people who know them, figuring out what kind of food they like, and then crafting an email to them. That is not spam. That is hustle and marketing.

Re: How to get your first 10 customers

#45

Post by larrys »

mindcrime wrote: post #37
larrys wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But real business seems to happen more quickly in person, even today." Cost and time tradeoff and also what you get for closing and how often you have to close a sale. You can send out more emails than you can postal letters. You can do more postal letters than you can phone calls. You can do more phone calls than you can in person cold calls. All depends of course on the product you are selling and the situation. I…

Lastly, negotiating in person also has it's drawbacks. Personally I prefer to negotiate by email in most cases. Depending on the other party and your own skills an in person does't always work out the way you would like. I think it totally depends on what you're selling, who you're selling it to, and many other factors. For example, a guy emailed me one day about a domain I owned, and wanted to know if I'd part with…

"None of the domain appraisal tools rated it as having any significant value"

Well first let me tell you that means practically nothing.

Especially on the end of "no significant value". Although I've seen more errors with domains with value being said to have "no value" than I've seen with domains with clear value "having no value". (Can't off the top see if I mean "false negative or false positive" but you get the point.)

"He made an offer, I accepted"

In general, in any deal to sell there always needs to be some "kickback". Otherwise someone might feel they have left money on the table. General rule. Kickback doesn't have to be "more" or "less" money. It can be as simple as "ok but only if you..." (some non monetary item that makes the other party feel you are borderline on their offer).

"trusting each other over $100.00 and a domain"

Easy because the total amount at risk is $100. (Would you do the same if you had a domain and someone offered $20,000 for it and that was the value?).

"We are not going to get anywhere without some serious face time when it comes to selling this stuff."

Agree.

Let me know if anyone ever approaches you to sell any other domains.

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