A start-up that teaches you to win the first customers.

Many startups have reliable people, reliable technology or reliable products, but have no sales experience and suffer from the inability to get the first batch of customers. On Quora, Oliver Emberton, founder of the Web design optimization company Silktide, shared his experience.

When I first started the company, I was 21 years old, bald and timid.

Luckily, I had a confident sales director who had been with me from scratch, and unfortunately, later on, I found him rotten and nervous, and he punched me in the face the second time we opened a board meeting.

The first time we had a meeting with a potential client, he was there to brag that he was "not very technical" and didn't know how to use email. "Come on, you're the name of the frontier Web design company."

So, I had to self-reliance, I quickly learned a lot of sales skills. In the first year I won some government contracts and Fortune 500 clients. I had no money at the moment, and the office was about the same size as a fridge. So how did I get these lists?

Accumulate credibility ahead of time

How does a new company with no name in its name stand? At first you are counting on how credible your founder can be and how much credibility the company has.

In my case, I was building a website when I was a student. One of them is my university social networking site, which has accumulated thousands of active users and has been noisy on campus for a while.

I do this because I like it, and the love for work will be reflected in the job. If you can't find a paid job, do something for free. Free work helps you pave the road, builds credibility for yourself, and doesn't require anyone else's permission.

Passion + Knowledge

I'm not the kind of traditional salesman who wears a pretty scrape suit and combs a big tou. But I am quite enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The results show that passion and knowledge are more important than your wardrobe.

In the end, people pay for people. You may be upset about it, but it's not easy to get your brochures or product features. They value you more, so this person better be persuasive. If you're so excited about what you can do to help them do something great, your passion will infect them. Then your credibility (see article One) will help you get the rest of the job done.

Confidence accumulates over time. But the best way to accumulate confidence is to have a skill and then show it to someone who appreciates it.

No acquaintance, no less.

My first list was still a website for my apartment when I was a student, 3000 pounds.

I know these people. I helped myself get a chance to have a meeting, explaining what I could do and persuading them to let me do it. I knew them and knew what they wanted, and they gave it to me because the social networking site I had done for free was good and they knew me.

That's the point. People are used to buying things from people they know. You may not like to hear it, but it's true. Basically, as long as your target customers have acquaintances who seem to have heard of you, it's enough for them to listen to your story.

I did a single business for my college, and I tried it at my friend's. Everyone I know, no matter how low they look, can be a potential window into a single business. With this understanding, I got a list of the top 500 companies in the first year of 3M.

I later learned that there were "communication activities". I haven't been in the business for the first six years. The best sales opportunities always come from people you already know, and the biggest misconception is that people don't know anyone.

Hitch ride with the giant name

My first small business was for some department in the school, which gave me the capital to say, "I did a website for this university." Don't mind how small the project is, it doesn't matter if it's free. People see how much credibility you have in fact, the first is not to see your work, but to see you to help those who are famous to live.

There is also a collateral benefit for a famous person: they usually have a lot of employees, and these employees may also think of recommending you if they move to another organization. An employee of my school went to the local council and soon I had a government client. There was someone leaving the house to go elsewhere, and I had another deal. Celebrity cards are a passport.

There's one good thing I missed: You can go after it. After doing that college department website, 5 years inside, we contacted their superior department, on the Superior, finally did the entire university website--more than 20,000 pages, the reward is many. We have been holding the contract for ten years.

Critical advice: Service in place. If you can't make customers happy, then it's all novices.

Can say to write

Of course, you want to make yourself bright, but don't put your hopes on this. Your grooming won't help you get a lot of lists, but if you're sloppy, you'll lose the list. Don't think you are smart and invincible do not need to cut hair, wash clean, spray a deodorant.

To improve the level of speech and writing. Your ability to communicate is one of the most important points when people evaluate you, clumsy, smart kids also appear to stay, glib, fool can also sound smart three. If you don't know how to use quotes and capital letters, you're ready to do it. People who know how to write the rules won't look at you. And they won't tell you if they make a bad comment.

Don't think of professional communication as a stack of flowery rhetoric and long sentences. If you can be concise, your words are more likely to be heard.

Something useful (but useless to you)

If your sales strategy relies on SEO or social marketing, think again. Ask people who use these things, these are good for big companies, and it takes a long time to get the icing on the cake. You are not Coca-Cola. Capability。

The advertisement burned up a bottomless pit. Refer to the same industry as you do with startups how to deal with advertising marketing this matter, they become unsuccessful. If you really want to advertise, don't spend too much.

Don't spend money on ostentatious things. Spending nothing in return for a watch, a car, a nice office, can only make you feel better about yourself, with little impact on your sales success rate. I haven't had a car in the first five years of my business, and I've been able to win 100,000 pounds a year.

Summary

1, if you are unknown junior, please do not pay

2, everyone is looking at people to buy food, so warm point learned dot

3, to contact every nodding acquaintance

4, for the giant to do a small business, you have a life of the pillars of the state

5, deal with the big company Word-of-mouth will pass faster

6, pay attention to the image, more importantly, the writing profession, the speech profession

7, do not fantasy SEO, advertising and famous car name table can help you to deal with sales contracts