MBA2522 Q&A Wednesday: How Long Should It Take to Make My First Sale?

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host Omar Zinhome. And today's episode is Q &A Wednesday, where we answer a question from one of our listeners, one of our community members, one of you. If you've got a question you want to ask, head on over to 100mba.net slash Q, and you can submit a question, and we'll answer right here on Q &A Wednesday. Today's question is from Eddie, and Eddie asks, how long should it take to make my first sale? This is a great question, because it's a very common concern for a lot of new entrepreneurs. And in my opinion, many people wait too long to actually ask for their first sale.

0:44They wait way too down the line when they've created their product, their service. They have created their website, all that kind of stuff. In today's episode, I'm going to tell you when you should be making your first sale. And it's a lot earlier than you think. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Did you know that on average, it takes a new business anywhere from a few weeks to several months to make their first sale. This is according to a report by the Small Business Administration, and they have this timeline that varied depending on the industry or market that the business is in.

1:17And I want to stress something here. We don't want to be average, okay? We don't want to be average. We want to be exceptional. So we're not going to try to get our first sale in a few weeks or several months. We're going to try to get our first sale in a matter of a day or two, if not hours, okay? We want to get our first sale as fast as possible, as soon as possible. From the moment you are committed and you make the decision, hey, I'm going to do this thing, right? I'm going to give this a try. This is when you need to make a sale because it's the first indication that your business is a good one.

1:54It's validation that people are willing to part with their cash in the hopes that you can solve a problem for them. And I'm going to walk you through exactly how to do this. I'm going to break down why making your first sale early is crucial and how to do it. But this touches on something I need to talk about. And that is a lot of people forget that business is sales. At the end of the day, when you start a business, you are selling a product or service that has value to people in exchange for money. Okay. You got to just get your head around this and you can't just avoid the fact that you have to sell in order for you to be in business.

2:29And a lot of people try to kind of avoid this, especially in the beginning, they try to skirt around it. No, you need to be proud enough of what you're putting out in the world to say, I have something that you're going to love and I'd love for you to buy it. Okay. And this has to be real. You can't ask somebody, Hey, I have this idea for a business. I have this idea for a product. Would you buy it if I offer it to you? That's not real. It's easy for them to just say yes to that. Yeah, sure. I'll support you. That is not real validation because there are no stakes. You didn't actually ask for the sale.

3:03You didn't actually make a transaction. So I'm going to give you some real world examples of how to ask for the sale and collect cash to validate your idea very early on. The first one was 15 years ago, I started my own clothing line called Zinnum Designs. It was an e-commerce brand. It was custom tailored clothing for men. And I was living in Dubai at the time. I was an English teacher. This was my side hustle. and it started because I was just creating my own clothing. I am 6 '5", I'm tall, I have long arms and it's hard for me to buy a dress shirt that fits me properly in a store. So I used to get it custom tailored and I would wear these shirts and I would go back home to the States to visit my friends and family and people would ask me, hey, that's a nice shirt, where'd you get it from?

3:46And I said, well, I actually made it myself, I tailored it. They're like, oh cool, can you make me one too? Right, can you make me a shirt as well? In that moment, a light bulb hit. I was like, okay, maybe this could be a business. I'm not sure yet. I need to see if there's enough people that would say that, right? And I'm not just gonna go ahead and make them a shirt and then send it back, right? And say, you owe me this much money. No, I'm gonna say, hey, great. It costs this much to create a shirt. It costs, let's say$50. It costs$50 to make the shirt. Can you give me$50? And then I'll make it for you and send it to you.

4:19And then if there's any difference in price and postage, we'll do the difference. So it's sort of like a deposit, you know? And in that moment, you're going to find out if your product is a good one, if your business is a valid idea that people actually want because they're either going to say, no, no, no, it's all right, thank you. You know, I just love your shirt, but don't worry about it. And that's really common, that could happen. Or they're going to say, sure, open up their wallet, give you 50 bucks, or they're going to PayPal you or Venmo you or whatever. They're going to send you the 50 bucks because they actually want what you're selling.

4:50You get a few of these and you now know that there is enough demand, right? And that's what happened to me. I went to another friend's house. I saw a family member. They're like, oh, that's an awesome shirt. I was like, oh, I'm actually making another one for a friend of mine. Would you like me to make you one as well? Oh, cool. Yeah. It just needs 50 bucks so I can be able to cover the cost. And then if there's any difference in price, I'll let you know via email. And that snowballed. And that one trip I took to see my friends and family over a course of a month, I had about 10 sales. Okay. And in that moment, I was like, okay, cool.

5:20I think I have something here worth pursuing. It's not worth you creating a website and investing all this money on photos and product development, all that kind of stuff, if you can't make one sale, two sales, three sales in real life. So let me give you another example in the online world, okay? Webinar Ninja, my webinar software that I created 10 years ago and built to over 30 ,000 users, multi seven-figure business, and then we exited that business recently. We got acquired by ProProfs. So how did I get started? Well, I actually pre-sold Webinar Ninja, right? I didn't even have the product for sale yet.

5:59I just had a landing page that I created with the mock-ups of my software and told people, this is the problem it's going to solve. Give me your money. Give me your money. Put a deposit down and I will deliver the software within four or five months. If the problem is painful enough, I knew in the moment, If the problem was painful enough, then they would put the money down. They would actually put the money on the hopes, on the promise, I can solve that solution. Now, one of the things I like to do is have a risk reversal. And we'll talk about more about that in a second, but a risk reversal basically says, hey, give me your money, right?

6:36Either online or in person. And if I can't sort this out, if I can't get you the product, I will give you the money back. Don't worry. It's refundable, okay? So it lowers the risk and it doesn't make them feel like, hey, you're just taking their money and you're never gonna see them again, okay? So that risk reversal is really a good idea to say, hey, I will give your money back if for some reason I can't deliver. Because there is a chance that you won't get enough demand and then you'll be like, okay, I'm not gonna go ahead with this idea. And then you can just give everybody their money back.

7:07So let's start with the things you need to consider when you're trying to get your first sale, okay? And these are some tips that you should really think about implementing as you are making this sale. First of all, you want to validate very early, as soon as possible, like this weekend, try to make a sale based on the concept, based on the pitch of your business. You don't even need to have the product itself, right? Just ask them to put a 50 % deposit. So say, for example, you are selling t-shirts, all right? And you are a graphic designer and you approach your friend over the weekend and say, hey, you know, I'm a graphic designer.

7:42You know, I'm cool with art and my designs are pretty nice. Let me show you my iPad. Let me show you what I've been designing. I'm actually creating these cool t-shirts. Would you be interested in me creating one for you? And they'd be like, oh yeah, cool. That looks cool. Awesome. I just need$20 as a deposit so I can get the ball rolling and get the t-shirt made. And then it's$40 for the full t-shirt. So you pay me$20 now and then$20 on delivery. How does that sound? Right? You got to find out, You got to save the money. You got to ask for the sale because at that moment, they're going to tell you, yes, here's$20 or no, that's okay.

8:16And then you know, you need to think about this product idea. I got to tweak. I got to pivot. I got to change. You got to do something to add more value and make it more appealing. Now, once you get that first few sales and now you know your product is worth the market and worth actually selling, this is awesome because now you can provide the product to them after you fulfill it and you gain the cash and you have now your first sales and you're making your first revenue. Congratulations. Celebrate, right? But now you can be able to get some testimonials. You can actually ask people, what do you think of this product?

8:48Get some feedback. and then you can use these testimonials on that website you're gonna build now that you have a real business idea that's working. The second tip I wanna give you is to offer something exclusive, like a pre-sale or early access. We did this with Webinar Ninja where we only had limited spots, 150 at one point and then 100 again for our beta access to Webinar Ninja. So you wanna say, hey, get in early before anybody else has this product. A lot of people like to have exclusivity, like to be early, like to be early adopters. And you could say that with any real product, physical product, digital product, whatever, you could say this is a limited edition, right?

9:28This is the first time we're doing this and we're not going to do it again. It could be a version of your product or service that won't be offered in the future, which includes other things or bonuses or something like that, right? So offer some sort of early access for that sale. Say, for example, you have an online course and you want to offer this pre-sale idea and early access and create that kind of exclusivity. Well, only open the course for 50 people. We're only taking 50 people the first time. The reason why we're doing this is because we're only taking a certain number of people so we can give them high touch value.

10:00We want to be able to help them along the way, get feedback, answer their questions and improve the course based on their feedback. So this really gives them a feeling of, wow, I'm going to actually contribute to this curriculum. This is amazing. Pre-sales, early access, great idea. Tip number three, leverage your existing network. You need to feel comfortable enough to talk to your friends and family, your professional connections about what you are doing, your new venture, your new product, your new service. If you're not willing to do that with your friends and family, you're going to have a hard time selling to strangers.

10:34A lot of people think, oh, it's easier to talk to a stranger because they don't know me. Well, that's the problem. They don't know you. You have zero trust. Okay. There's zero trust involved here with people, you know, your friends and family, you've already built that trust. They know that you're a trustworthy person that you're going to deliver, that you're actually ambitious, that you are a hard worker. There is a lot less selling you have to do because they know you, right? But if you're selling to a stranger, okay, they have no idea who you are. You could be a criminal in their case. They could be somebody that's going to run away with their money.

11:07They have no trust, right? You haven't built any trust with the stranger. So it's much harder to sell to a stranger, despite what you think, in terms of your social anxiety. So try to reach out first to your friends and family and people that would be interested in your product and service. Don't just sell to anybody that has no need for your product and service. So say, for example, I have an online course that teaches how to snowboard in three days, okay? I would not sell this to my mother because my mother is nearly 80 and she would never snowboard at this point in her life. This is not something I'm going to sell to her.

11:39This is not valuable for her. So I would offer this course to my friends and family that might be interested in going snowboarding. Maybe they've always thought about it. Maybe they thought it was cool. Maybe they're just looking for the opportunity to learn or maybe go on a group trip with you. The point here is that look at your friends and family, your professional colleagues, your co-workers, your neighbors, your whatever, your whole network and find out who would be interested in this, who would find this valuable. When I first launched The$100 MBA, the first people I reached out to were my friends, the people that I knew in my world of online business, the people that I was connected to on Twitter at the time or Facebook, the people that I met at conferences, my network, right?

12:20People that would be interested in this or have audiences or have people that would be interested. So I reached out to them and said, hey, I'm creating this new thing called The$100 MBA. If you think that your audience is interested in this, can you include it in your newsletter next week? Just go ahead and have a one-liner. That's okay with me. Thanks so much for supporting me. That's it. Some will do it, some won't. But you know what would happen if you don't ask anybody? No one will do it, okay? You have to ask to get something in return, right? It's not going to happen magically. So reach out to your network.

12:53My fourth and final tip is try as much as possible to make the offer compelling, even if it means you will break even. In the beginning, you want to just validate the idea and make it a no-brainer. Again, you're dealing with an unknown entity. There is nothing out there to prove that you can actually deliver what you're promising. They're just trusting you. So you got to make it a no-brainer for them. Well, that sounds great. I'll do that. So for example, at Webinar Ninja, we made it a compelling offer by selling our first beta members. First it was 150, then 100, so it was 250 beta members. We told them, hey, when you buy this product, you'll have lifetime access.

13:34It was like, what, are you kidding me? I don't have to pay a monthly fee, have lifetime access. And we saw them as sort of investors, people that would invest in our company so they had that startup capital so we could build that software that we wanted. And we were able to do that very quickly because it was such a compelling offer, okay? We only did it for the first beta members because we wanted to feel like they were committed to us and we were committed to them and we can get their feedback to improve the product. Now, I wouldn't recommend doing this for a large number of customers or beyond that first initial kind of wave of customers because you have expenses and you need to make sure that you're covering your expenses.

14:10But that worked for us. Think about what would be a compelling offer for you and your product. So let me just recap real quick. You want to validate your idea and get a sale as early as possible, okay? like tomorrow as fast as possible to collect some cash, some deposit for the promise of a product that will be delivered to them. Number two, offer some pre-sale or early access initiative or benefit for them by joining you now as an early adopter. Number three, you want to leverage your existing network. Reach out to anybody you know that would think that what you have to offer is valuable. and number four, create a compelling offer.

14:47That's a no brainer. Okay. It's a no brainer. This is beyond just the early access, you know, that tip number three is just like, Hey, I'm going to, you're going to get an early access to what is in store for this product or service or course or coaching or whatever it might be. Uh, we're going to make it exclusive to only a certain number of people. This is kind of a scarcity thing. The compelling offer is like, wow, I better jump on this now because I won't have a chance later. This is only exclusive for those people are getting started in the beginning. Okay. So I just want to be clear that the first step, getting your first sales like this weekend from your friends and family, getting three, four, five, six sales from your existing network, this validates and says, okay, green light, let me go ahead and start building out some websites and presence to show people what I have to offer.

15:33Then these next tips come into play where I have early access. I create a compelling offer, something to bring in my first few hundred customers. To wrap up, I want to stress to Eddie who asked today's Q &A Wednesday's question and to you who's listening or watching that that first few sales, that idea validation phase where people actually part with their money in the hopes that you will deliver value is important because it really is when the rubber hits the road. It's really when your business stops being an idea and becomes a reality. and you stop playing business in your head and you start doing business.

16:12Now you're obligated to deliver once you've collected some cash. Now you're really getting going, right? Now you actually have a reputation to uphold as a business owner, okay? Yes, you haven't established your business. You haven't, you know, created a business bank account yet or anything like that. But now the ball is rolling in reality. It's not just in your head, okay? And that's why it's so important for you to do this as quickly as possible. Don't wait. If you already created your website and you already created your products and services, it's fine, but get out there, start talking to people, start going to meetups, speak to your friends and family, start talking to people online, on Twitter, on Instagram, start building some reputation for what you represent, what you sell, okay?

16:58And don't be afraid to share it and to ask for the sale. Say, hey, I have this thing that can help you. This is all the things that are valuable about it. This is how it could solve your problems. I would love for you to give it a try. Give them the risk reversal. Can you give me a deposit? This is how much money I'm asking for. In exchange, I will deliver. And if I don't deliver for any reason, full refund. I will make sure that this is a no-brainer for you. You really want to sell that risk reversal to make sure they know that, hey, worst case scenario, I get my money back. I learn something in the process.

17:34I experience something new. Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show. If you've got a question you want to ask here on Q &A Wednesday, go ahead to 100mba.net slash Q, and you can submit a question right on our website, and it will feature right here on Q &A Wednesday. If you want more resources, more insights, over 2 ,500 business lessons in our archives, go to our website over at 100mba.net and dig in. It's all free. Go ahead and enjoy. All right, until next episode, this is what I want you to do. If you haven't made your first sale, try. Try to go out and make your first sale. Give it a try.

18:09And business is a numbers game. So if you ask 10 people, you will have a higher likelihood to get one sale. If you ask 20 people, you might get a couple of sales, right? But if you ask three people, you're really shooting yourself in the foot and not giving yourself a chance to win, okay? So go ahead and try. If you already have your first sale, make some more sales, right? Go ahead and make some sales, whether it's online or offline. All right. I'll check in the next episode. I'll see you then.