How to get your first customers

In this practical and straight-to-the-point webinar, Alexander Pemberton teaches you the five ways to attract customers and how to choose the right approach for your stage of business.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a creative or an early-stage founder, this session helps you stop guessing and start focusing on what can work for the business you run.

Topics covered in this session

• A simple formula you can put in play to begin attracting and converting customers

• Five proven ways to bring customers to your business

• A straightforward strategy for understanding your customers before marketing or selling to them

About the speaker

Alexander is the founder of Launch 7 and Tecric. Launch 7 is a unique and exciting programme for pre-start-ups and start-ups that focuses on developing entrepreneurs, launching businesses and acquiring customers as early on as possible.

Watch more expert webinars

Access a growing collection of expert-led webinars covering marketing, sales, finance, growth and more – ready whenever you are.

Transcript

Lightly edited for clarity. 

Caitriona: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's Lunch and Learn. My name is Caitriona, and I'll be your host today.

For those of you attending a Lunch and Learn for the first time, Enterprise Nation is a vibrant community platform for start-ups and small businesses.

I'm pleased to introduce Alexander Pemberton, who is a start-up consultant.

In this session, Alexander will teach you five ways to attract customers and how to choose the right approach for your stage of business.

If you have any questions throughout the webinar, please post them in the chat, and we'll do our best to answer them at the end of the session.

Today's webinar will be recorded, and we will send a follow-up email with the recording and further resources later today.

Over to you, Alexander.

Alexander: Fantastic. Thank you, Caitriona.

Welcome, everyone. It's really good to have you on today. I'm assuming, hopefully safely, that you're on this call because you've started a business, you're thinking of starting one, or you've already started a business and you want to get some customers.

The aim of today is to help you do exactly that.

Caitriona mentioned a little about my background and what I do. I help people to start businesses and get their first customers, and that's always really exciting for me.

My own journey started as a web designer after I graduated from university. I worked in market research, did lots of video production, lots of photography, and lots of creative work. That meant I got to work with a lot of small businesses, and I noticed a few things that could be improved in how people start businesses. That's what took me on the journey of helping people start and grow businesses.

Now, we've only got 30 minutes, and I'm going to make sure I give you as much value as possible in the time we spend together.

If you can, just let me know in the chat who's in the room. Drop in the chat and tell me whether you already have customers. Just say yes, no, or a few. It's useful to know who's here so I can tailor this a little more towards you.

Of course, we'll have some time for Q&A at the end as well.

While you're doing that, here's our agenda for today. We're looking at why most people struggle to get customers, the five ways you can attract customers, and what you should focus on first.

Okay, let's jump straight in. There are some common mistakes people make when they're starting businesses.

A lot of it comes down to tactics. Sometimes people don't have a good strategy. They've seen someone do something on TikTok, heard of influencer marketing, or seen social media marketing on different channels, so they try loads of different things and end up all over the place.

But what we really need is a fixed strategy that works for you and your business.

There are two schools of thought here. One is that all businesses are different, which is true. But business, in the sense of marketing, still fulfils the same purpose. We need to find a problem to solve, and we need to find the people who have that problem.

To do that, we need to go through some discovery. Often, that can simply mean speaking to people.

Some of the common mistakes are copying others and not doing the work to understand your market yourselves.

Sometimes there's no clarity on who the customers are, what they want, what they fear, and why they would buy from you. We also often see people trying to appeal to everyone.

One of the things I hear quite often is, "Who is your target audience?" and the answer is, "Anyone and everyone." That makes it really difficult to create marketing that actually attracts the right people.

How we speak to an 18-year-old is different from how we speak to a 45-year-old mum. Different people have different desires, fears, beliefs and values.

Another common issue is waiting for the perfect idea, the perfect marketing strategy, or the perfect piece of content before taking action.

In reality, we get closer to perfection through action. We improve by doing.

Another big mistake is building before selling.

It's very easy to say, "I've created something. I spent four months, or a year, building it." But if no one has seen it yet, and then you introduce it to the world and hear nothing back, that's a problem.

So it's really important at the early stage to understand your ideal customers and have conversations with them.

That's market research. But not market research in the sense of just asking 10 random questions. It needs to be purposeful.

Another mistake is posting randomly on social media. I've been guilty of this too, just posting all sorts of random things. But we need to be intentional.

And the last one is thinking, "If I build it, they will come."

There is some truth to that if you've done the work first, if you've explored the problems people have and built something they genuinely want. But they still need to find you.

So I've got a quote here:

Customers don't come because your idea is great. They come because you intentionally attract them to you.

We need to be intentional in how we attract people. So let's look at a simple funnel. You may have seen this before. It's a marketing funnel.

At the top, we've got awareness. This is really important because if people aren't aware that you exist, or aware that you can solve a problem they have, are they going to buy from you? The answer is no.

So at the top of the funnel, we've got awareness. Let's say we have 100 people who are aware that your solution exists, whether that's your product, your service or your experience.

Typically, we might get around 30 to 50 percent of those people considering working with you or buying from you.

So we need to think about what we say to people, what we show them, and whether we need to educate them. What do they need to know when they're considering working with us?

Then there's conversion. That's a smaller percentage. I don't know the exact percentage, but it might be somewhere around three to five percent.

Some people may buy as soon as they see your product or your service because they're ready to act.

Others will need nurturing. That's where email sequences, SMS, follow-ups, calls and checking in with people become important.

And then, of course, what we really want is loyalty and advocacy.

Loyalty means they come back. That can be encouraged through things like subscription models.

Advocacy is even more powerful. That's when people are talking about your brand, your business and the experience they've had with you. They're bringing other people into your community, to your shop, or to your website.

But going back to the top, we really need to make sure that we are loud and proud and creating awareness as early as possible.

Clarity is a must. We hear people talk about clarity all the time, but I really believe businesses fail because of a lack of clarity.

People aren't clear on who their customers are. They're not clear on what problem they're solving, who has that problem, and how they are going to find them.

They may also not be clear on things like finances, where they spend money, how they spend it, and how they make it.

They may not be clear on the right partners they need, or the right kind of employees they might need to bring in.

So clarity really matters. It's really important to be clear on who we are, what the business does, the purpose of it, our goals, and who we're solving a problem for.

There are two things we need to think about before we start trying to attract customers.

We need to think about the demographic and the psychographic of our audience.

Demographics are quite familiar. We're looking at things like gender, age, where they live, their occupation, and maybe their education level.

That information is important because it helps us recognise who the person is on the surface.

But if we want to understand them on a more intimate level, we need to think about the psychology of the buyer. That's where psychographic profiling comes in.

We're focusing on understanding people based on their psychological attributes, their lifestyle, their behaviours, and also their values.

We're looking at their fears, their desires, who influences them, their beliefs, their values, their personality types, interests and hobbies.

The last time I did a Lunch and Learn, I mentioned understanding the love language of your ideal client. That may sound unusual, but it can actually be really helpful.

If we can understand what resonates with them emotionally, how they like to receive value, how they like to be spoken to, then we know how to communicate with them more effectively.

For some people, that might be words of affirmation. For others, it might be quality time. For some, it might be receiving gifts. If someone values gifts, then a free e-book, webinar or sample might really appeal to them.

If they value quality time, then spending time with them on a call might make a real difference.

The big brands understand this. That's why they give away gifts, invite people into communities, and build experiences around their offers.

So again, going back to strategy versus tactics, it can be easy to copy what someone else is doing.

But when we have a strategy and we understand our customers deeply, we can engage with them in a much more powerful way.

The number one activity when you're starting your business and trying to get customers is understanding the needs of your potential customers.

Now let's get into the five methods of attracting customers.

These are simple, and sometimes they seem so simple that people ignore them. But there are really only five broad ways of doing this.

Number one is cold outreach.

That means speaking directly to people who don't know you and you don't know them. They don't know about your brand, they don't know you, and you introduce yourself to them.

Cold outreach could be cold calling, DMing on social media, cold emailing, or even knocking on doors.

So for example, one of the things my company does is make websites, provide domain and hosting services, and maintain websites.

Something we've done in the past is look at businesses that fit our ideal customer profile, look at their websites, and then contact them.

First, we send an email saying, "Your website looks like it has some challenges. We may be able to help. Here's some work we've done for others before."

Then, if we have their number, we call them and say, "We just sent you an email to highlight some issues with your website. If you're open to a conversation, we may be able to solve those problems and help you get more customers."

So that combines cold email and cold calling.

In some cases, I've even turned up at businesses in person and said, "We can help you do X, Y and Z."

They didn't know us, and they got to know us because we introduced ourselves.

There's also door knocking. That's an older method, but older methods still work. I'll give you a quick example.

I was doing a talk at BPP University a few years ago, and one of the people in the room said his mum made fantastic samosas. He asked how he could help his mum get more customers.

He said they were on social media, on Facebook and Instagram, but it didn't seem to be working.

So I asked some questions, like a good consultant should. Where do you live? Where does your mum live?

It turned out she lived in an area with lots of people from the same cultural background. I asked how many houses were on the street. He said around 100, plus several nearby streets.

I asked whether his mum had lived there for a long time. He said yes, and that she was really well known and very friendly. So I said, why don't you do something called Samosa Saturdays?

Have some samples ready, knock on doors, and say, "We're doing Samosa Saturdays. If you place your order by Thursday or Friday, we'll deliver fresh, warm samosas to you on Saturday."

The next time I went back to BPP, he told me Samosa Saturdays had taken off, and they'd stopped relying on social media. Their target audience was right there in front of them.

And on top of that, someone loved the samosas so much that they recommended his mum for a corporate catering event.

So they got a bigger contract out of that simple local outreach. That was just by knocking on doors. Some people knew her, some didn't. That's cold outreach.

I stayed on this point a little longer because I want to encourage you to explore some of the older methods. They still work, especially now that human connection matters so much.

Number two is content creation. This is really popular at the moment.

We see people writing posts on LinkedIn, doing things on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and X.

This is about creating content that attracts people to you. A great example of this is events and experiences, like webinars.

In fact, if we're being honest, Enterprise Nation is doing that right now. You are the target audience, and there are solutions here that can help you. So we put on webinars and Lunch and Learns to help you grow your business. That is content creation.

If you have more budget, you could do more elaborate things like shows, video series or larger campaigns. But the principle is the same: attract people through useful content.

Number three is paid ads.

You've all seen paid advertising, whether on radio, TV or social media. Paid ads mean using money to get attention quickly.

They can work really well, especially if you already have some kind of organic traffic source. Examples include Meta ads, Google ads, billboards, TV, radio and print.

These traditional methods still work depending on who your target audience is and how much trust they place in the channel you're using.

Number four is partnerships and collaborations.

This is about leveraging other people's audiences. That's really powerful because the trust is already there.

Remember when we talked about advocacy? If a business recommends someone to you, you are more likely to trust them even if you don't know them yet.

Examples include collaborations, joint webinars, referrals from partner businesses, and affiliate programmes.

It's really powerful to work with people who already have your target audience.

Imagine you have a dog walking business and you partner with a dog grooming business. When someone brings their dog in for grooming, you can offer a walk as part of the experience.

That's a simple example of partnership in action.

And the fifth method is referrals and word of mouth.

You can have a referral programme, and you can also use reviews and testimonials to strengthen your credibility.

Those are the five methods. Now, the sweet spot is using a combination of these.

For example, let's say you've worked with one shop on a high street. You ask that person whether there's anyone else nearby who could benefit from your services. They say yes, and point you to a few other shop owners.

So you go and speak to those people directly, saying, "David, who I worked with, suggested I speak to you." That's almost like a forced referral.

At the same time, you might run some paid ads in that area so people are seeing your name as well. You might also do a webinar or some free content.

When you combine two or more of these methods, they can work really powerfully together. For example, I do a monthly webinar called How to Start a Business. Every month, I do two sessions. That's content creation.

We put it on Eventbrite. Sometimes we advertise it, sometimes we don't.

If we don't advertise, we might get around 20 people signing up. If we do use paid ads, we can attract more people to that free content.

So you can absolutely mix and match these methods.

Now, before we go into Q&A, I want to leave you with a really simple strategy to get your first customer.

If you don't have any customers, any testimonials or any evidence that you do what you say you can do, be willing to do it for free.

But it's not really free, because there is a trade-off. You do it in exchange for a testimonial, a review, feedback, and potentially a referral.

So you deliver the service, maybe an hour of work, and in return someone says, "Yes, this was fantastic. This product is amazing. This service really helped."

You might also ask them to refer a few friends, and you could even reward them for doing that.

Then you publish their testimonial or review and use it as part of your marketing collateral.

And after that, you start speaking to prospects about the results those early customers had.

That's all about being visibly ready.

We want to be out there, making some noise, making sure people can see us, hear us and engage with us.

And don't be ashamed of that. You're not an empty tin. Make as much noise as you like.

I'm also happy to offer you the chance to have a conversation with me. I'll do a free business idea review and marketing review within 30 minutes if you'd like that.

Caitriona: Thank you so much, Alexander.

We've had a few questions in the chat. Let's start with this one here from Mahesh.

What's the best way to approach larger companies? Do we find someone lower in the ranks or reach out on LinkedIn to someone higher up who's a decision-maker?

Alexander: Both of those can work really well.

I'd say reach out to as many people in the lower ranks as possible, as well as someone higher up.

You could also put on a webinar specifically for the type of corporate clients you want to attract.

If you've identified a problem you can solve, you can create a webinar around that issue, invite them to attend, and use that as a way to educate them and start the relationship.

Then, once they've signed up, you've got their email address, their name, and probably their role as well. That gives you more information to work with.

Caitriona: Another question from Naomi. In cold emails and cold calling, how do you explain where you found their details without scaring them off?

Alexander: That's a really good question.

Be honest. If you found them through a directory, say that. If you found them through Google, say that. If you bought a list, be honest about that too.

You can simply say, "I was searching online for businesses like yours because I'm looking for people I can help."

If you bought the data, say, "We got your details from a list. If you'd like me to tell you where we got it from or remove your details, I'm happy to do that."

Honesty is really important. Don't try to hide it, especially if you didn't get it illegally.

Caitriona: We've had a few questions around paid ads. Here's one: how do you grow your traffic when you don't have any budget for paid ads?

Alexander: Paid ads can actually be quite cheap. You can do one pound a day or one dollar a day. But if you genuinely have no budget at all, then I would say use the older methods.

Cold calling, cold email, DMing people, going out, meeting people and having conversations.

That's still one of the best ways to get attention when budget is limited.

Caitriona: Thank you. We're just coming towards the end of the session now, so please do book in a call with Alexander if there's more you want to discuss with him.

Let's finish with this question here. SMS has an open rate of 98% and it's underused. Do you have any tips for using this channel?

Alexander: My number one tip is: use it. But be careful not to send too many messages, because that can get annoying very quickly.

For me, when we use SMS, it's often for reminders around events.

For example, if we're running a free event or webinar, we'll send an SMS five minutes before saying, "We're starting in five minutes. If you still want to come, here's the link."

Then we'll send another one five minutes after it starts saying, "Latecomers are welcome, feel free to join."

That works really well.

But as with anything, the question is: what is the purpose of the SMS? Are you trying to get them to click a link? Are you trying to remind them about something? It depends on what you're selling and what you want them to do.

Caitriona: Thank you so much, and thank you for joining us on today's webinar.

Thank you, Alexander, for your presentation. We will be sharing the recording and further resources in a follow-up email this afternoon.

Explore our webinar library

Unlock more on-demand sessions designed to help you sharpen your skills, grow your business and stay one step ahead. Find more Lunch and Learn webinars