How to Get Initial Sales for Your Startup

If you are the one who hasn’t made your initial sales or the one who has made a few but still struggling regularly then this article is for you.

I have spent 6 years in the sales industry including jobs and business but never felt stuck, irrespective of the fact that I have leads or not. So in this article, I will tell you some of the effective ways by which you can generate initial sales for your business easily.

Though I cannot guarantee that your startup will be a success after making your initial sales because for that you need to manage many other factors also besides sales which can be the reasons for startup failure. But yeah, I can guarantee one thing, that whether you have a market for your product or not, whether you have validated your product or not, whether your product is good or bad, I can make you sell that. Not in 1000s but enough to generate initial revenue to modify and to understand how things move ahead.

Before moving forward let me make you feel positive by showing a ray of hope which is the ‘Law of diffusion of innovation’.

This diagram shows the market share according to the acceptance of any new idea into the market.

So according to the law of diffusion of innovation, 16% people, including innovators and early majority possess the traits who can give a try to your idea if you have been approached irrespective of how great your product is. These people are the lovers of new things and are the ones who will wait in a queue for days whenever Apple launches its new iPhone, in spite of knowing that the same will be easily available after a month at the same price.

Now let’s move forward to some hardcore factors that you should keep in mind while generating initial sales.

1. Leads Generation

Don’t just generate any lead, you should be very careful about generating them. Always generate targeted leads as I have mentioned in my earlier posts, “need of client filtration” and “how to filter prospects”.

Now you need to understand that ‘a sale is directly proportional to trust’. The more trust is developed, the greater of a chance you get to convert your sale. So if I take this theory to lead generation for initial sales then it will say, “Generate those leads which already trust you.”

The hierarchy of trust chart is like:

In this chart, normal leads include leads generated from advertisements. It can be an AdWords campaign, email marketing, social media campaign, SMS promotions or could be other ways of advertising.

So, you should start looking for the ‘needy ones’ according to two factors, one being the hierarchy and second, as per your product. You should look in the trusted areas and be careful, I said ‘needy ones’ so don’t be a ‘pest’.

2. Wear 5 Underwears

Since you are entering the sales market, let’s face each fu****g truth about the industry. Your Client is going to rip each of your cloth every fu****g day. So to avoid embarrassment wear 5 underwears so that you won’t get nude in front of them so easily.

I know, I know, you are not from sales industry and are not getting what I am saying. If you think that my words are harsh, mind you, the client’s way of dealing with you will be much harsher, so be prepared.

This is not the market of the 1960s where your client is looking at a uniquely featured product for the 1^st time. It is 2018, where the client will call you for a meeting after he has done all the pre-research and chances are he has already had meetings with your competitors.

If you say even 1% of plus or minus, he will start ripping you off and you can’t even be egoistic. And the most pathetic part is, he knows that you are new and you know you will be dead if you won’t crack that sale. So, he can make you wait for hours outside his cabin, can take all of your margins, can use unprofessional language if your competitor is offering him better products etc.

3. Create a Process

No matter which industry you’re in, you cannot convert any lead into a sale unless you follow the right process. Though exceptions are always there but they cannot happen every day.

Let me explain this to you with a small story of a loving dad and a gorgeous daughter.

Once there was a man in California who was the single father (no mother) to his daughter. His wife left them when the child was just 5 days old. He never raised voice at his daughter and loved her more than anything. But one day he slapped her very hard when she was 10 years old.

Do you know why?

She said, “Dad I am going to have s*x with my friend and I’ll give birth to a child, then, I will study hard, I will marry and then I will achieve greatness in my life.”

But did that girl say anything which is not happening in this world?

No!

Everyone does these things one day. But then why did he slap her?

Yeah! That’s the process.

If she had said, “I will study hard, get married one day and will s*x with him to get a child and in the process will become successful too.”Then everything would have been alright.

Similarly, if your sales process is not executed in the right order, you too are going to get a slap from your client. Not a physical one but yeah it will cause immense pain in the same way.

Now, the basic process of any sales industry is:

Now in this complete process, you need to take care of “being a pest” to “being persistent” and the art of asking the questions and getting time from the clients.

As you have entered the sales market, you should know 80% of clients get converted after the 5^th visit and brutal truth is:

• 44% sales representatives never give a 2^nd approach
• 22% salesmen get stopped after the 2^nd approach
• 14% salesmen stop at the 3^rd refusal
• 12% salesmen stop after the 4^th refusal

That is the massive 92% of sales representatives who never try 5^th or more attempts. So as I mentioned earlier wear 5 underwear, 4 for each harsh denial and finally the last one to get your sale.

4. Make Your Sales Pitch Perfect

A single thing can be said in hundreds of ways with hundreds of emotions and to get a sale you need to find the right combination. You need not speak a lot to convert a lead into a sale which is usually a misconception to many people. No one wants their ears to bleed with tons and tons of your words.

So to make a perfect pitch you need to take care of the following things:

1. Ask a series of 6+ YES Questions
2. Always ask close-ended questions to get meeting time
3. Always include a story (fictional/ real)
4. Avoid words, maximize images in the presentation
5. Transfer excitement from you to client
6. Trigger the emotions attached
7. Replace features with usefulness
8. Replace price with value addition
9. Strategically arrange price telling point

These are just the basic points, further points vary as per the industry. Now I am sure you might have doubts regarding some of the above points. You can ask those in the comments below for a better understanding.