Your Business Starts with Your First Paying Customer | Here’s How to Get There

The bottom line is that you don’t have a business until you gain your first paying customer.

One of the most common conundrums faced by newly minted entrepreneurs is simply understanding the steps one should take to effectively launch their business.

 “Do I need a CRM from day 1?”

“What website hosting platform should I use?”

“Should I hire a virtual assistant?”

New business owners are inundated and preoccupied with things like: 

1. CRMs

2. Virtual Assistants & Social Media Managers

3. Virtual Presence & Social Media Posting

4. Networking Events to Attend

5. Gaining Popularity in the Community

6. Self-Promotion & Getting People to Pay Attention to My Business

These are all important topics. But none of them matter if you don’t address first things first. 

Lesson 1: The Harsh Truth

The bottom line is that you don’t have a business until you gain your first paying customer. 

You can look phenomenal on paper. You can tell your friends, “I own an LLC.” You can have a smacking website and average 100,000 likes on each post. None of the aforementioned matter until you’ve successfully acquired your first paying customer. 

Here are three topics you need to address first: 

1. Problem: What problem does my business solve?

2. Purpose: Why does my business exist beyond making a profit?

3. Target Customer: Who are the people I want to serve?

Check out this article for additional perspective: A Simple Way to Supercharge Your Business in 2024. Building a Purpose Driven Enterprise (substack.com)

Lesson 2: Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

After answering these questions for your business, begin the process of creating a minimum viable product. 

Example: If you are a graphic designer or social media content creator, you probably have numerous skill sets in your toolkit whether it be website design, creating attractive short videos, advertising products, creating thumbnails, or writing marketing copy. 

A great MVP could be offering to teach small business owners how to record content of their work process as they do it. Then offer to help them create content using the aforementioned recordings or photos, and manage the posting of said content across three social media platforms that align most with their client base. 

Example: Let’s say you’re an event planner who wants the lion’s share of their business to come from serving clients who have 5 and 6 figure budgets. Perhaps you’re brand new to promoting your services and you need to generate revenues right away. Start with something manageable to create proof of concept. Try offering a brief video tutorial and accompanying exhaustive checklist of all the steps a new event host would need to take before, during, and after an event. Supplement it with 2-3 coaching calls to assist your clients. Charge $4.99 for the checklist and $59 per coaching call. 

Example: Or maybe you’re like me. I field an innumerable amount of calls from entrepreneurs who desire to build business credit and or acquire funding but lack the resources to pay for an effective business plan or business consulting services. For entrepreneurs in this situation who are willing to do the legwork, I offer an “Understanding Business Credit” workbook that provides information and action steps for building business credit, becoming more attractive to private investors, and positioning competitively for grants. Check it out here: JSB Business Solutions | Workbooks

The message is that your minimum viable product (MVP) is a scaled-down version of the new product or services you aim to provide. It contains jus enough core features to be usable by early customers. It contains the essential features that solve the main problem for your target audience. The purpose of the MVP is to quickly get your business into the marketplace and begin collecting feedback from customers. And depending on your circumstances, satisfy the need to start generating revenues right away.

Lesson 3: Start a Project 100

The next step is to ask at least 100 people to buy your service offering. Doing this will let you know whether you have a real value proposition that can generate revenues. You need to lean in at least 100 times in order to acquire invaluable customer feedback quickly. 

Here is why a Project 100 is so important: 

1. The questions people ask about your product or service offering are invaluable

2. Practicing, failing, succeeding gives you useful feedback about how to present your value proposition. It helps you create and improve your messaging.

3. It gives you real-world data, allowing you to iterate and improve the product, rather than relying on untested assumptions or how you feel. 

Here is how to do a Project 100: 

1. Pick up the phone and call 100 people. Tell them about your product or service. Ask them if they are interested in it. (So often I’ll converse with new entrepreneurs who have only engaged 10 or 20 people. They base their assumptions about the viability of their business on this tiny sample size and draw incorrect conclusions.)

Don’t take shortcuts. Reaching out to 100 people via social media is a false equivalency. You would need to confirm at least 10,000 people viewed and engaged your content, to secure the number of responses or data points for this approach to be useful. Remember, more often than not your success is found in the work you’re avoiding.

Most people believe that success looks like this: 

1. “I have a good product or service.” 

2. “I’ll present it to people, and they’ll buy it.”

3. I avoided failure. “I win!”

Success actually looks like this: 

1. “I have a product or service.”

2. “I present it to people numerous times.” 

3. “I fail numerous times, but I learn from the feedback given to me.” 

4. “My presentation and/or my product offering improves.” 

5. “More and more people gradually say yes to me.” 

Revenue is your applause for a job well done. The Project 100 process is the fastest and least expensive way to beta test your business idea. It is just an idea until you generate your first sale and turn your idea into a real business.

---

Take the first step towards elevated performance by scheduling your consultation with JSB Business Solutions. Click this link and schedule a day and time that works best for you.

The world around us wasn’t built by the exceptional. It was built by everyday people who were willing to do exceptional things. Go build something.

We help entrepreneurs launch, grow, and scale from a Team of Me to a Team of We. We believe entrepreneurship is empowerment, and our goal is to help over 100,000 people become the future employers of tomorrow. Tell us about yourself here, and schedule a virtual coffee.

Thanks for reading The Grow Givers Project! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. And remember, sharing is caring.