Who is using your product?

Could you refer me to an existing customer?

The dreadful questions when you have no customers.

The point in the sales process where you think it’s over.

If I had a case study I could grow.

Currently, I am on my fourth round of getting the first customer to a new product. It does not seem to get easier.

The only difference this time is I have no brand recognition to get my foot in the door.

I want to present a few thoughts about winning your first customer.

Find The Cowboy

A cowboy is rogue. Excited about the unknown. Searching for the frontier.

This is the profile that’s perfect for using a new product. Research your industry to find those notorious for trying new products.

It is easy in tech because you can use a service like Product Hunt. Those wanting to be Product Hunters are perfect targets. They are all cowboys.

In other industries, you will want to find those on the fringes. The crazy ones. The Hipsters.

Move On

When you have no customers, one customer is 100% growth. Thus, the faster you get a customer, the faster you grow.

This is why you should move on from a slow moving prospect as soon as possible.

During the discovery stage, determine if the customer is comfortable being first.

This does not mean asking them, but finding out if they are going to need a referral. Will they be comfortable sitting in the front row?

If they ask who else is using your product, this is a cue they are uncomfortable being first.

Find those willing to sit in the front row.

Who Has The Problem

Find the niche where the problem you are solving hurts the most. This will generate the highest interest.

I sold a medical device that benefited smokers and diabetes patients. It made sense for me to target a market with a high level of smokers and diabetes patients. These were the individuals to benefit most from my solution.

This goes for any product.

What customers will benefit the most?

How Will Their Life Change

Change is risky. It is asking someone to go from something comfortable to something uncomfortable.

This is why it is your job to mitigate risk. Some customers want this in the form of a referral, but cowboys just need you to tell them a story. Understand their current situation and how it will change with the use of your product.

Change is difficult and uncertain. Mitigate risk.

Be Strategic

Find those who are well respected in the community. The key opinion leaders.

These individuals tend to be on the speaker circuit. They are industry writers. They are thought leaders.

Get the key opinion leader to try your product and delight them. They are then more likely to talk about you. Chances are to a large audience.

Focus on strategic individuals.

Over Deliver

Once you have the cowboy, the key opinion leader, and the individual who will benefit most from your solution, the next step is to over deliver. Delight them.

Get them to feel compelled to share your product. Share their experience.

This is the most difficult step. The step we fear most.

After all, this is the most powerful form of sales and marketing.

The referral.

A referral only works if your product is worth sharing.

Make your product worth sharing.

See it from the perspective of the prospect. Their current process may be working, and you are new and untrusted.

Why should they use you?

Sales or marketing, finding the initial target is not easy. Easy would be to present your product to existing customers. But remember, you don’t have any.

Whether entering a new city, new market, or new industry, people talk. Target the talkers with the most respect.

Then delight them.

Good luck and good selling!

It is not about you.

Your product, your story, your solution.

It is about how, those interested enough to listen, identify with you.

Therefore, a self-serving message is undesirable. Self-serving does not establish trust.

Self-serving is going for the hard close to early in the sales process. It is the easy road. It is wearing a customer down. They say yes just so you go away.

Self-serving is providing information only to talk about your product. Showing you do not understand your product is one tool in a larger tool bag.

A non self-serving sales professional provides solutions to a customers business, that may not be directly associated with their product.

For example: when a clients main concern is growing their business, you need to discuss how to grow their business. Inserting your product along the way is how you are successful. Trust is built through helping them build their business. After all, you listened to their biggest problem.

A non self-serving marketer understands their customers world. Makes a point to become an expert resource in areas related to their problems. When they have a question, they ask you first.

For example: marketers may turn to Hubspot or Kissmetrics. Sales might turn to Selling Power.

In both examples, the use of your product is the result of understanding the customer and building trust. Trust is built over time, through value provided. It is the long game.

In a world sensitive to sales and marketing messages, it is not enough to be self-serving. Do not sell yourself short by taking the easy road.

Good luck and good selling!

Imagery is powerful. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Thus, we need to paint a picture when selling.

And, it is no wonder that image posts on Social Media outperform non-image posts more than 2 to 1. An image has the ability to cause us to imagine ourselves performing what the image represents.

Companies are good at creating marketing campaigns to get us to picture ourselves using their products. They paint a picture. Utilizing beautiful people, scenarios we all experience, and images that can cause us to think of a time or situation where we need to use the product. This is common practice.

Most of the time we do not even realize this is occurring. The power of imagery has the ability to move us closer to making a purchase decision.

In sales, we do not have the luxury of sitting in a board room thinking of great marketing campaigns. We are out having normal conversations with people.

So how do we create that same effect? The effect where our customer can picture themselves using our products.

Sales people need to be great conversationalists. To be more specific, painters. Painters that use words as their paint, and the person on the other end of the conversation as the canvas.

Here are few ways to paint a picture.

Start with questions

Questions help to better understand the problems your customer may face. Thus, give you insight into possible solutions you can create. With this understanding, you now have the ability to create the solution.

The solution is your image.

Be descriptive

Use descriptive language to talk about your product, as well as the uses of your product. This means being specific, so the customer can follow what you are saying.

There is no room for misinterpretation.

Create a situation

Create a scenario in which the customer could use your product. Be a storyteller that can put the customer at the center of the situation, which the use of your product is necessary to come to a resolution.

Ask if there is a situation

If you have recently given a great pitch about all the great things your product will do, ask the customer if they can think of a use for your product. Bring the customer so far as to describe the scenario in which they would use the product.

Visualizing a situation and working through the use of something new can make a change or transition easier.

Do you picture yourself using products before purchasing?

Good luck and good selling!