How I Got My 1st, 50th, and 500th Customer

Like most I got my first customer from cold outreach. More specifically the first customer sold came from me knocking on doors.

I had bought some cheap equipment from Canadian tire and then I hired my one friend to fulfill the service for me. And then I went out the next day around noon time and just started knocking doors around my neighbourhood. And maybe the 10th person I talked to bought from me.

And I get excited chills kinda just thinking back to this moment. Essentially I knocked on this door and this guy came and he was super quick and straight to the point.

Essentially I pitched him “hey I’m Issa, we just helped a few of the neighbours to clean their windows(total lie) I can quickly go around give you a quick price” and he said—

“how much,” I said I can go around— and he cut me off.

“how much”

And I just threw out “uh um $200” and he says to me “wait.”

He comes back after getting the green light from his wife and said “when.”

I told him we were just finishing up with one customer (total lie) we’ll be here in like an hour”

He said that worked and then after an hour I got like 4 more customers that day and then we did the job and the sir was happy and paid.

That first day of business for me was nuts. Because we got some quick cash as well it taught me a lot.

I still do cold outreach and always will. Mainly because it’s free. You don’t need to pay to knock on someones door, call them or email them and it’s scalable with a team. As well as that, if you’re starting your business, or wanna get into sales, do a form of cold outreach as this will also teach you a lot about people, and overcoming objections.

Tip— It’s never what they say it is. Find the real reason behind their objection and solve it, they then will buy.

And the essence of cold outreach and more specifically d2d, you wanna introduce yourself and come off as non sales-ee, your just someone who helped a few of their neighbours, friends or people in their industry, then you present your offer and give a simple close. “If that sounds fair all I need is your email?” Don’t over complicate it for yourself.

The way I got my 50th or somewhere around there customer, was through a referral. So essentially one of the people I sold too prior to this point told their friend about us and our service and recommended us to them.

And the beauty about referrals is that they’re also free, you don’t need to pay someone to tell someone else about how good of a company you are. Now there are loads of businesses, especially online ones that pay you when you refer but I never did that with mine, maybe I might in future but that’s off topic.

And the way to boost the amount of referrals you get is by simply asking. Every time we finish our service we ask the customer what they think, after they say they’re happy we ask for a referral.

What we say is “and if you could let a friend know about us it’d mean a lot because this is the main way we grow.” And then we leave them with our business card. And a universal thing for most I’d say is that we wanna work with those that we already trust. And if your friend recommends to you someone that they already tried and liked, you’re 100x more likely to use their guy over some ad or big company.

So we always make sure to do a good job, make sure they’re happy and also converse with them. Because when you can be personable and likeable that increases your referral chance by minimum 10x.

So start asking for referrals if you aren’t already and try building more of a relationship with your customers because that’s what will take your business and sales to the next level if you haven’t started.

And the way I closed our (around) 500th customer was through ads, more specifically facebook ads. We tried a few things before landing on the first thing that converted, but this was the copy that made that first sale (feel free to screen shot.)

And I had this video playing: https://youtube.com/shorts/WFgPzy_8FCA?si=Uiz-ldrIx_CNAkS1 as the creative.

And the first customer I booked through ads believe it or not was actually one of the richest people in my city.

And quick story: their home was right by my high school which was on a hill overlooking the city. And all throughout high school in outdoor classes or even just when I’d go on walks I’d go past this home and it was literally huge. It had gates, multiple garages, and everything you’d expect a mega mansion to have. And every time I’d walk by it I’d just think to myself, I wonder who they are, how they think, what they did and how they did it.

And one morning on my day off I got a call and it was this miss and she asked if we could clean mirrors and I was like “bro this is gonna be like $100 job I don’t wanna do it.” But I wanted to be a good person and have more customers so I said “sure we can do it, could you send a picture of all the mirrors and I’ll give you a quote” and she was like “it’d be better for you to come” and I did some back and forth because I did not wanna go and price “mirrors” but I said—

“ok what’s your address” she gave it, I put it into maps and saw the street view, and it was that mansion. And I kept my cool and said I can come in like 1 hour, she said great and I came through, got a tour and there was literally so many mirrors, you wouldn’t believe it. I priced it and we got it done the next week.

I also asked what their best advice was and the miss said “cash is king.” Essentially get as much cash as possible because the biggest scam and personal expense is taxes and the more money you have for yourself and your business, the more you can do.

And this ad went to sell another mansion, an acreage and a bit more.

Now the thing that sucks is that you need to pay for ads, but you directly get to target the people you want to buy your stuff and you don’t need to spend anytime on it besides the initial amount in creating it.

And if you look at the copy, the main things to get from it is that, you wanna create a story in their head or make them think about the end result. Next give them the expectations of the service/product and the benefits they get from buying and give some guarantees + add some urgency.

And with the video I used, you essentially want them to not even see it as an ad. Because whenever you see an ad, you probably just scroll, it’s the same for everyone else too. The video I used was literally just me talking about cleaning windows. No sell, no anything.

This is universal for everything, essentially disrupt what people are use to seeing. Everyone is use to being sold too, so I did the opposite. I also do this when asking for referrals and selling cold leads.

And when I sell my 1000th customer I’ll show you how as well, I’m pretty sure I know how it’s gonna happen but I wanna make sure it happens first.

And if you’d like any extra help with doing this to your business book some time with me, first link in the description, I’d say I’m best with sales but teaching workers changing mindset is a close 2nd

Thank you for reading and enjoy your day:)

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