How did you get your FIRST customer?

[tdoherty]

How did you get your first customer?

Having had the vision to leave your steady job and start your own company, you now have to get out there and sell your BIG idea.
You have no customers to act as references or case studies. You had a commitment from a client to move from your old employer but that has fallen through as your old employer has just dropped his price (it happens!).

So, How did you get your first customer?
I would love to hear how you got your first customer.
Many start-up companies never get to having a first customer.
Your personal insight could save a life!

You can post your reply on this forum or on my blog

Thanks a bunch

 

[Write My Site]

Through UKBF!

 

[becker]

If its B2C - friends and family network.

If its B2B - business networking referral.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

My phone number on my van!

 

[dave_n]

my friend was a programmer at ocean software in the 80's and he asked me to program some backgrounds for a commodore64 game so that was my first kind of customer.
When small businesses started accepting credit cards one of the main terminal manufacturers was shlumberger....I knew a guy who was an engineer and dropped him a few quid to take my ecomms website business cards with him to hand on to potential customers. I gave him 10% commission and we both had a field day out of it!!!

More a case of who you know .....

 

[elite123]

cold call or mailshot

 

[tdoherty]

Keep the replies coming!
Thanks for all the feedback so far
Tom

 

[Poppy Design]

Mailshot! surprisingly though I have not had a huge response from mailouts (most of my clients are now referrals now) I got my very 1st client from my first mailshot ! What a great feeling it was too!

Joanne

 

[blazing_air]

My first customer was through my website, all my work is B2B.

 

[Dany Boy]

Not my own business though, just got more than 10 customers for a business coaching company in 3 months and just wondered how many refferals they would have got from the 10 I got them. Its just cold calling and appointment fixing and i'm very good at that. This is for one business coach and I worked for 7 of them and average of 70 customers for the company and network of coaches and everything was done in one year, each customer is worth £15,000....

 

[Vending Siting Services]

Blimey, that takes be back a few years!

Cold calling! I can remember the day, absolutely as nervous as hell, within 10 minutes - elation! hehe



Barbara

 

[Dizzydiza]

Family & friends were my first customers

 

[chiggs]

my first retail customer just found my website and bought

My first trade customer- a local shop. I (cold) called in, showed him my cards, and he bought some. And then phoned me a couple of days later to say that he'd already sold a couple

 

[GreatSEO]

Telemarketing for me. Then from there networking on forums like this one and these resulted in recommendations and referrals.

Dave

 

[Deleted member 9840]

I went to the library, compiled a list of all the wedding dress shops in the Manchester Yellow pages, lowered the rear seats in my Ford Capri, put on my best Burtons Suit, filled the Capri up with sample Bridal gowns and went knocking on doors.

I made about £600 in commision that day from my mum's company. I was 18 yrs old and had never sold before in my life.

Still to this day when times are slow i go door knocking. It's the cheapest and most efficient marketing method and it's available to everyone.

Steve

 

[Artisan]

My first customer (before the business) knew that I did design / draughting and asked me to check some very poor drawings and fix everything that was wrong with them. That was years ago, before I ever thought of starting my own company.

 

[MH1]

and went knocking on doors.

Still to this day when times are slow i go door knocking. It's the cheapest and most efficient marketing method and it's available to everyone.

There's a guy after my own heart, totally true. People should go door knocking if they can, they will learn more in a week than a year's sales courses.

I got my first clients door knocking and still use the same sales and closing techniques whether it is telephones sales, working a market,exhibition or retail site.

 

[Stephen Berry]

telemarketing - a small consultancy job in 1998. I scanned in the cheque when they paid and still have it on the desktop (somewhere) - a milestone to be celebrated.

for the training company - a lead passed on from a friend - one of their customers who wanted a training course in strategic thinking.

 

[Croam]

Hi,

I think the best answer will depend on your line of business which I am not sure what it is. Personally, I got my first customer after running free trials. I wanted to test the consultancy service with a mini version. They liked it so much have of them became paying long term customers and excellent references for the future.

Good luck

 

[tlewis]

My first customer came through telephone cold-calling. And boy, how nervous was I before the appointment!

 

[Officebird]

My first customer was the stationery guy that called into my old workplace a week or so before I left to go it alone. I explained what I would be doing, had a meeting the next day and clinched the deal!

 

[shopfitter]

Cant remember how i got my first customer to be honest - sorry!

BUT, i nearly put my car in a ditch when my bluetooth headset buzzed in my ear and a guy said 'i'd like to proceed with that job'!!

 

[JoyDivision]

An old thread, first customer came from leaflet, was a windows 98 machine that kept blue screening so I formated it, looking back it was not what I would do now! I would do tests first then format it.

I like to think my first customer was my the one who was really a second, again from a leaflet. Two young nearly trained female doctors who had very poorly laptops and wanted a wireless network. The job seemed to take me for ever which would prob take me two hours max now! They do call me every now and then.

 

[Veronika]

Through cold calling

 

[CKG]

It was word of mouth for me.

People heard I had fallen out with my boss and gone self employed so they just started punting the work over to me instead of him.

I guess I was lucky to have some helpful people around at the time to get me started.

 

[garyk]

It was all about relationships with me. I was working for Pegasus (accounts software houes) in 93 and worked supporting the dealer channel, I forged strong relationships with a couple of resellers (who also became personal friends) and they were selling systems in to SME businesses and I managed to get work (software development) off the back of their relationships with their client base.

 

[debbidoo]

I inherited my first customer through my former employer - he outsourced part of his contract with the client to me.

My first proper customer though, was through UKBF

 

[cubel]

i think personal contact network could be very important and you also have to let others know what you're doing now. when i started my own business for the first few months, many of my friends were just thinking that i'm FREE at home all day long. it really got me thinking and i realised that, if my friends don't know what i'm doing, how come my potential customers do? therefore, by running through all the contacts on my two mobile phones and 2 address books. i just told everyone i could think of, literally everyone, that i'm a freelance business consultant and English-Chinese translator now! and i also put up some advertisements, too. first on those free websites such as gumtree.com, vivastreet.com etc, then on local newspaper. here come my customers! this forum is also brilliant helping you meet new people, too.

anyhow, there'd be a period of time before having your first customer, and believe me, that waiting time really sucks. but as long as you hold on to what you believe in, you'll get hold of your first customer eventually.


good luck to you.