MBA2426 Q&A Wednesday: How do I sell my first product with no email list or following?

0:08Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show, practical business lessons you can count on. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday, where I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. Today's question is from Matt and Matt asks, how do I sell my first product with no email list or following on social media? No fear, Matt, I got your back. You have options. And your problem is not unique. Most businesses don't have followings before they start selling their products or services.

0:45There was no such thing as an email list or a following 30 years ago. So all the businesses that came before that had to find a way to sell their product without any contacts or emails or presence on social. It didn't exist. I'm going to share with you some options that you can explore so you can start selling your product, making some money while growing your audience so that you can then use your organic audience, whether it's your email or through social media, to start promoting your products and services, get free traffic, and conversions. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

1:22I want to start by saying that it's okay to have a product for sale and no following yet. No audience yet, no email list. As long as you've got a product that people want, then you can sell it and you can make money. Having said that, it's always a good idea to grow your audience. to grow your email list, to have somebody to talk to and tell them about what you do. Why? Because these forms of marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, YouTube channels, podcasts, whatever they are, they're low cost per acquisition marketing. It's going to cost you less to get a customer because they are free forms of marketing, in essence, or low cost, I should say.

2:01And it's marketing that you can tap into over and over. You own this following on your email list. So just because you're going to get a solution today to sell your product without a following doesn't mean not to grow your following or not to grow your email list. This should be one of your priorities as a business owner. So what are your options to sell your product with no email list, with no social? Well, since the beginning of business time, this is a problem that people throw money at, right? It's called marketing, paid marketing in this example, where you're going to acquire attention and you're going to acquire customers via paid marketing.

2:37This could take the shape of Facebook ads, Instagram ads, TikTok ads, YouTube ads, Google ads, you name it, banner ads. You are spending money to rent an audience from the internet, okay? So Facebook's got an audience, right, of captive audience of people that are logging in every day. Instagram's got the same thing. All the social media platforms have the same and they're willing to let you tap into that audience if you pay them money. That's what an ad is. Now, the downside of this is that you don't have access to this audience when you're not paying. So you're renting the audience, so to speak.

3:13So my advice is always try to do something with your advertisements to get them to move off Facebook to your audience, which is your email list. So getting the sign up for some sort of freebie, even a discount code is great because now they're off Facebook and onto your database. and then now you can market to them over and over via email at no extra charge. So paid acquisition is huge, but paid acquisition is not just ads. You can also get in front of an existing audience that would be interested in your products via sponsorship. So say for example, you sell shampoo for men. You can go to an existing business or influencer in the space that has a great audience, like a great email list that would be interested in your product.

4:00Maybe a fashion specialist or expert that has an email list of 100 ,000 people and they specialize in men's fashion. People that buy nice clothes that are interested in fashion, care about what they look like, care about what they feel like, and will care about their shampoo. So you might approach this person and say, hey, I know you got a great thriving audience. I want to run an ad in your newsletter. I want to sponsor your newsletter and I want you to email your audience promoting my product. This is a very direct way to get in front of people that would buy your product. This is kind of like a mini Facebook ad.

4:36You're kind of going into very direct. And it's very powerful because this audience trusts this person and they're basically endorsing you. And email is a whole lot more compelling and a lot more effective and the conversions are much higher than ads. So you can get creative when it comes to paid acquisition, not just ads on social. You might be saying, well, Omar, I don't have a lot of money to spend on ads. No problem. Are you willing to give them a cut of the sale? This is called affiliate marketing. So you can create an affiliate program. There's a lot of great software out there when it comes to creating a simple and easy affiliate program.

5:13Rewardful is one I've used before that's good. And basically, you can reach out to these influencers. You can reach out to these audiences. Reach out to the people that have access to the people that you want to get in front of, bloggers, YouTubers, and say, would you be willing to promote my product for an affiliate commission. And if your affiliate commission is generous enough, 30, 40, even 50%, if your margins are really good, then they will promote your product and get a kickback when they make a sale. This allows you to have some sort of marketing with no marketing budget, because again, you're only paying them when they actually make a referral, when a sale gets made.

5:51So when you make money, they make money. Another way to sell your product without any following or email list is just hand-to-hand combat, one-on-one sales. This is also known as outbound sales, where you're just trying to make one sale at a time. Now, if you have a software product, if you have a service that maybe is high ticket, a few thousand dollars,$10 ,000 for your service, this is well worth it. You're going to reach out to people that you believe would love your product, and you're going to do everything you can to get them on a phone call, get them on a video call, and show them the benefits and make it a no-brainer for them to sign up for your product.

6:31Free setup, free 30 days for free in the beginning, maybe a trial. Maybe you're going to do all their setup and onboard them for free or switch them from a current provider to your provider or your service, I should say, and show them the return on investment. and you're going to do this over and over with new clients. A lot of businesses start this way. I started this way. I had a business consulting firm and I just did it one-on-one. All my services, I would reach out. People I thought would love my product, love my service. I did that enough times to make enough revenue to then take that revenue and invest in paid marketing.

7:07So make a list of anybody and everybody you know that you've met at a conference, that you've met at a meetup, people that you've emailed just personally through your Gmail account, stretch yourself to come up with a list of 50 people. You might be thinking 50, that's a lot. Try your best. Maybe it's somebody you don't know directly, but somebody that knows somebody. They can make an introduction for you. The point here is that you want to go through this list and reach out and try to sell your product or service to them directly. The crazy thing is that sales is a numbers game. You'll have this list of 50.

7:39and because you have a list of 50, you can close 10 to 15 customers. That's gonna be enough for you to get started and start investing in marketing. This might feel uncomfortable, but this is gonna allow you to know all the different things people worry about, that people care about when it comes to your product or service, the language they use. You may even wanna record these video calls so that you can research them and use them in your marketing copy. The point here is that you gotta be proud of your product or service. You gotta be willing to sell it to other people if you're going to believe in your business.

8:11A following is also in real life, your network. So get out there, go to conferences, go to meetups, go to events, go to retreats, go to dinners, go to as many events in your space that you can. So you can meet new people, so that they can meet you, so that you can exchange LinkedIn's and contacts and all that kind of stuff. And then follow up afterwards. Send them a message that day or the next day and say, hey, it was great meeting you. Let's grab coffee. Let's have a call. Let's bounce ideas off each other for 20 minutes. You're building your network because, hey, you never know. They might need you in the future.

8:45They might refer you to somebody they know that needs you. This is how business gets done and has gotten done for centuries. Yes, literally centuries. That's how people did commerce. They talked to people. They knew people and people knew them. That wraps up today's Q &A Wednesdays episode. Matt, I hope that helps and helps everybody who's listening, who's thinking about, hey, how do I sell my product? I don't have a following on social or an email list. You can just get started and start doing it. This is the most challenging time you're going to have in the beginning. It's a little bit rough going.

9:17This is like trying to get your sled down the hill. In the beginning, you got to kind of push manually to get some traction, to get some momentum. And then once you start making a few sales, you start sliding down and the momentum guides you through and gets you some wins. If you got a question you want to ask here on Q &A Wednesday, go ahead and email me over at omar at 100mba.net. I'll make sure to answer right here on the show. If you loved today's episode, if you loved any of our episodes, the best way to show your support is to follow the podcast. Hit follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any podcast app you're using right now.

9:52This sends the signal to the algorithm that, hey, this show's all right and allows us to reach more listeners so that we can keep on improving this show and keep providing you amazing value. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. You know why I say it's hard to do this stuff in the beginning, to talk to people, to meet people, to close sales one-on-one, to get on these calls and try to make your first sales happen? I don't say this to discourage you. It's actually to encourage you because most people don't do the hard stuff. It's the barrier that stops people from actually doing the stuff that matters.

10:26And if you do it, you will differentiate to yourself. You will actually get ahead. It's actually pretty empty at the top of the mountain. People that are willing to do the hard work are few and far. Trust me, I've been doing this business thing for 20 years. Most people don't do the basics and that makes it easier for you because you're willing to do it because you want it bad. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Friday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

11:00Thank you.