The opening eBook of the Starting category. It assumes you're starting from scratch with limited time and a small budget, and it walks you through the seven decisions that decide whether year one becomes year two.
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Chapter 6
Finding Your First Ten Customers
The unglamorous channels that work in week one when nobody knows you exist - people you know, local presence, direct outreach and one search-friendly page.
There's a fantasy version of finding your first customers and a real one. The fantasy involves a launch announcement, a viral post and a flood of enquiries. The real version is much smaller and quieter. A conversation with someone you used to work with. A post in a local Facebook group. A walk into a neighbouring business with a flyer. A phone call to a former colleague who asked about your work last year. The first ten customers almost always come from the real version, not the fantasy one.
The good news is that the real version is much cheaper and much more reliable. You don't need an ad budget. You don't need ten thousand followers. You don't need to be the top result in search. You need a clear offer, a list of warm or warm-ish contacts and a willingness to ask. The bad news is that asking is the bit most new owners flinch at.
By the end of this chapter you'll have a list of fifty plausible first customers, a script for the first conversation with each kind of contact and a calendar of what to do in week one, week two and week three of looking. None of it is glamorous. All of it works.
The full chapter walks through the four channels that actually find the first ten customers, with scripts you can copy and a three-week calendar you can run from Monday.
Why "I'll get traffic from social media" usually fails in month one
Social media works as a marketing channel once you've got something to show and an audience that's started paying attention. In month one you have neither. You have no portfolio, no reviews, no following and no track record. Pouring time into Instagram or TikTok in week one is the marketing equivalent of throwing seeds onto unprepared ground. It feels productive and produces almost nothing.
The channels that actually find the first ten customers are the boring ones. They're boring because they involve direct human contact and slow follow-up. They work because they don't depend on an audience you haven't built yet.
The four channels for the first ten
Channel one: people you already know
Make a list of fifty people. Friends, family, former colleagues, ex-clients from a previous job, people you know from clubs, sports, a school run, a church, a trade body. Not people who would buy from you - people who would know someone who might. Send each one a short, direct message. Not a launch announcement. A conversation.
Useful script: "I've started up something new - X for Y kind of people. Not chasing a sale from you, but if you happen to know anyone who fits, I'd love to be introduced. Either way, would love to hear how you've been." Most people will reply. Some will introduce. A few will think of someone over the next month and come back. Three of your first ten customers usually come from this list alone.
Channel two: a small local presence
If your business serves a local area, get visible in the area. A flyer through letterboxes in the right streets. A card on the noticeboard at the local hairdresser, gym or café. A short paragraph in the local Facebook group's monthly recommendations thread. A conversation with two or three neighbouring businesses about whether they'd refer customers to each other.
None of this is sexy. All of it works. The companion eBook Local Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses gives you twenty more ideas for local channels once you've outgrown the basics. For week one, the basics are enough. The window cleaner who knocks on the doors of a hundred houses on a Saturday afternoon will pick up two or three regular customers from that one afternoon. The personal trainer who introduces themselves to two local physiotherapy clinics will get a referral within a month.
Channel three: direct outreach to a small list
If your business serves other businesses, build a list of fifty named potential customers - not five hundred - and reach out to each one personally. Email or LinkedIn message, three short paragraphs, no sales jargon, asking for a fifteen-minute conversation about whether you can be useful.
Useful script: "I run X for businesses like yours. I've helped Y kind of company with Z kind of problem. I'd love a fifteen-minute call in the next fortnight to find out whether anything I do is relevant. If not, no follow-up." Two to five per cent of a well-targeted list will say yes to the call. From those calls, one or two will convert in the first month.
It's slow. It's repetitive. It's how most consultancies, agencies and professional firms get their first ten clients. The eBook Sales Conversations and Lead Handling goes deeper into how to run those calls well once they start happening.
Channel four: one search-friendly page on Google
While you're doing the human work above, give the search engines something to find. Build one page on a free or cheap platform. The headline names the customer and the outcome. The body explains the offer in plain language. The page is built around the search phrase a real customer would type - "bookkeeper for tradespeople" plus your town, "personal trainer over fifty" plus your area, "emergency plumber" plus your postcode.
Add the page to a free Google Business Profile if your business has any local element at all. Ask the first three customers you delight to leave a Google review. Within three months a tiny number of qualified strangers will start finding you this way. By month six, in many local industries, this becomes the steadiest source of new enquiries you've got. The companion eBook Local Search and Google Business Profile is where to go for the detail when the time comes.
The first-ten priority order
Week one: list of fifty people you know, send a personal message to all of them.
Week one: a one-page website live, with the offer and a clear way to get in touch.
Week two: visible in your local area through three small actions (flyers, noticeboards, local Facebook group).
Week two: Google Business Profile created and verified.
Week three: direct outreach to a list of fifty named potential business customers (if relevant).
Week three: ask the first one or two delighted customers for a Google review and an introduction.
How to ask without being pushy
Most new owners overestimate how pushy a polite ask actually is. The world is full of people who'd happily refer you, introduce you or buy from you and never get round to it because nobody asked. A small, direct, low-pressure ask almost always lands well. The only ones that don't land are the ones that pretend not to be asks.
Two rules. Be honest about what you're asking for. "I'm looking for two more clients like you, do you know anyone who fits?" beats "just keeping in touch." And make it easy to say no. "No worries if not" or "happy to leave it there if it's not relevant" lowers the social cost of a polite no, which paradoxically makes a yes more likely.
Following up without being annoying
Most first sales need two or three touches, not one. The first message lands when the person is busy. They mean to reply and forget. The second message, sent politely a week or two later, lands when they've got a moment. The third, another fortnight later, catches the third or fourth person out of ten who genuinely meant to come back to it. Stopping at message one leaves seventy per cent of the opportunity on the table.
What success looks like at the end of week three
Realistic, honest numbers for a one-person service business with a clear offer and three weeks of focused effort. Two or three paying customers. Three or four warm conversations that haven't yet converted but probably will. A small number of polite nos. One or two referrals from existing contacts to people you haven't met yet. A handful of enquiries from the website, Google Business Profile or local channels that are starting to land without your direct push.
If the numbers are well below that, it's almost always one of three things. The offer wasn't clear enough (back to chapter five). The list of contacts wasn't long enough (most owners stop at fifteen). Or the asks weren't direct enough (vague "keeping in touch" messages get vague responses).
A recurring principle: use low-cost channels intelligently
Every channel in this chapter is cheap or free. None of them are zero work. The principle isn't "use channels that cost nothing" - it's "use the cheapest channel that gets to the right customer with the right level of trust." In the first ten sales, that's almost always direct human outreach combined with one or two visible signals (a website, a Google Business Profile) that strangers can find when they're ready.
The companion eBooks Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses and Low-Cost Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses become more useful once you've got a track record to point at. Until then, this chapter is most of what you need.
What to do this week
Open a spreadsheet. Make a list of fifty people you could plausibly send a message to this week. Draft the script above. Send the first ten messages on Monday morning, the next ten on Tuesday, and so on. By Friday you'll have sent fifty. The replies will come in over the following two weeks. Don't try to do anything else marketing-related until those messages have gone out. Everything else can wait.
In the next chapter we'll close the eBook by looking at the six most common mistakes that take first-year businesses out, and the early signals that catch each one in time.
The rest of this chapter walks through the practical steps, the templates and the checklists you need to put it into action. It includes worked examples, copy frameworks and the small decisions that make the difference between a plan that sits in a drive and one that gets used.
Inside you'll find a step-by-step playbook, a downloadable template, a checklist you can run this week and a short list of common mistakes to avoid before you start.
The full action plan, broken into weekly steps.
Ready-to-use scripts, templates and checklists.
Worked examples for different sized businesses.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
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