September 24, 2024 • 7 mins
Want to know how to get your first customers?
In episode 2 of The Frugal entrepreneurs podcast, I'm going to show you the strategies that I've used to get customers.
This isn't generic advice, and it includes both common and uncommon strategies for getting your first customers in business.
Make sure to follow the podcast if you like entrepreneurship, frugality, business, and anything in between.
In episode 2 of The Frugal entrepreneurs podcast, I'm going to show you the strategies that I've used to get customers.
This isn't generic advice, and it includes both common and uncommon strategies for getting your first customers in business.
Make sure to follow the podcast if you like entrepreneurship, frugality, business, and anything in between.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to episode two of the Frugal Entrepreneurs podcast.
And today I'm going to tell you how to get
your first customers. And yesterday, of course, I talked to
you about the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur,
and in that conversation I brought up marketing, and of course,
acquiring customers boils down to marketing. But rather than giving
(00:24):
you generic advice, I'm going to tell you my stories.
These are the stories about how I got my first customers.
After all, if you want a generic advice, you just
go to chat GPT right. So this will teach you
the basics of marketing, it will inspire you, and it
will show you that getting customers is not as complicated
(00:45):
as you might think. I'm going to start by telling
you about my first job. I was a grow guy
at Wendy's, the fast food restaurant. Sure this isn't my
own business. How did they get customers? Well, first starters.
They have a nice, big building off the freeway with
a big sign displaying their name. They also have a
great reputation, which leads to lots of word of mouth marketing.
(01:05):
But outside of simple local marketing strategies, Wendy's kills it
on social media. They're hilarious on Twitter, and that's thanks
to their clever comebacks when people write to Wendy's or
write about Wendy's. There are a lot of great YouTube
videos about this subject. I quit Wendy's when I started
selling newspaper subscriptions, and I'll tell you exactly how I
(01:26):
did it. First, I would stand at the front of
local grocery stores with a bunch of free newspaper samples.
As people would walk by, I would say, would you
like a free newspaper? Most people would say yes. After that,
I would ask them if they had a subscription to
the newspaper. If they said no, I would tell them
that we're offering a special right now where if they
(01:46):
sign up for a newspaper subscription today, they will get
a twenty five dollars gift card and a free Mugger
book of their choice. This was a great strategy because
it played into their fear of missing out, which is
a tried and true strategy for getting people to buy
your products. If they objected to buying a subscription, I
would handle it by telling them that the newspaper pays
(02:08):
for itself. With the coupons in the back. This is
another powerful sales strategy because they don't feel like they
are losing money. It turns the purchase into an investment.
But that's enough about newspaper subscriptions. Let's move on to
my experience teaching guitar. I taught my first guitar lessons
when I was still in high school. I put up
a flyer at a nearby music store and I got
(02:30):
a customer from that flyer. This is in the spring
of twenty sixteen. I didn't start teaching again until March
twenty seventeen. At that point, I started teaching guitar regularly
and I was nineteen years old. I taught at a
local music store and I got my guitar students because
of their existing brand reputation. From there, I started to
(02:52):
acquire guitar students from referrals. This included referrals from family,
friends and current students. This is how I got all
my guitar students, and I talk guitar at the music
store until mid twenty twenty. In March of twenty twenty,
my wife and I started a pet waste removal business
and it took off fast. This is thanks to the
power of local Facebook groups. My wife would post in
(03:15):
them saying Hi, my husband and I own Dooty Budyes,
pet weste Removal. We clean up dog poop in the
local area. This is a fast, great way to acquire
our first customers. We still have many of them to
this day. Further down the line, we discovered the power
of a website and local SEO. We built a website
with card dot Co and we made a Google business profile.
(03:35):
These two things have led to far more brand visibility
and a lot more customers. Two years into the business,
in twenty twenty two, we started to get referrals from
a local landscaping company and our regular private customers. Now
in twenty twenty four, business is thriving and going well.
Now let's talk about some side hustle experiments. I started
(03:56):
in interior car detailing business with a friend. We made
the most money from a local dealership and we got
their business from a cold walk in. We walked into
the business, told them we are car detailers, and they
pull up a car for us to detail. They liked
our work and then they asked us to come back.
We detailed at least twenty cars for the dealership. We
(04:18):
also got private customers from our Google business profile. But
in the end, this is not a business that I
cared for my friend and I disbanded the business after
less than six months. Me and my wife have a
side hustle selling used goods on Mercury. Mercary is a
reseller platform reseller e commerce platform similar to epay. We
(04:39):
have sold over two hundred fifty items and we've made
over ten thousand in revenue from the platform. The great
thing about existing marketplaces like Mercury is the fact that
you don't have to do any of the marketing yourself.
The customers are already there and they are there to buy.
This is called warm traffic and it's the best kind
of traffic a business can have. If you're wondering, we
have sold sneakers, games, video games, trading cards, books, and
(05:02):
pop culture items. Now let's move on to another interesting
side hustle marketplace Rover. Rover puts your animal care business
on easy mode. You simply make a profile, get a
background check, and people will start messaging you to take
care of their pets. It's arguably one of the easiest
businesses to start, and if you like cats and dogs,
it can be a blast. My wife and I spent
(05:23):
three days and two nights at someone's house watching their
two dogs and two cats. We spent that time hanging
out with the animals, eating good food that we cooked
in their back patio fire pit, and watching stranger things.
We got paid for that. How much better can you get?
But of course we're talking about acquiring first customers here
and what can you learn from Rover? Well, you learn
(05:45):
that there are plenty of platforms where you just create
a profile and you'll start to get customers. Now, I'm
going to talk to you about a local business that
you can do from home, web design and SEO. I
got my first web design customer from a friend. I
told her that I was offering web design services, and
then she told her friend about it and the rest
is history. The rest of my web design and SEO
(06:07):
customers have come from my Google business profile. Affiliate marketing
is the last type of business I'll talk about. If
you don't know, when you sell something through an affiliate link,
you get a commission. The first way I made money
with affiliate marketing was through YouTube. I'm a guitarist and
I've made YouTube videos talking about guitar books. I tell
viewers that they can click the link in the description
(06:28):
if they want to buy a book from the video.
The second way I've made money with affiliate marketing is
from my blog. I have a blog in the music
education niche and I create product recommendation articles with affiliate links.
YouTube and blogging are great for promoting affiliate links, but
they're great for promoting other products too. Now let's do
a quick recap on ways you can get your first customers.
(06:50):
Have a physical location, use a billboard, get referrals, create
profiles on existing marketplaces, promote in Facebook groups, make a
Google business profile, use local SEO, use content SEO, make
videos on YouTube, use blogging, which blogging is kind of
a subcategory of SEO, and do cold selling. And there
(07:13):
are more ways to get customers, but these are the
ways that have worked the best for me. Anyways, Thank
you so much for listening to the Frugal Entrepreneurs podcast,
And if you want to help us grow, tell a
friend and leave a review and I'll catch you in
the next episode. Have a good day,
Hello, and welcome to episode two of the Frugal Entrepreneurs podcast.
And today I'm going to tell you how to get
your first customers. And yesterday, of course, I talked to
you about the advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur,
and in that conversation I brought up marketing, and of course,
acquiring customers boils down to marketing. But rather than giving
(00:24):
you generic advice, I'm going to tell you my stories.
These are the stories about how I got my first customers.
After all, if you want a generic advice, you just
go to chat GPT right. So this will teach you
the basics of marketing, it will inspire you, and it
will show you that getting customers is not as complicated
(00:45):
as you might think. I'm going to start by telling
you about my first job. I was a grow guy
at Wendy's, the fast food restaurant. Sure this isn't my
own business. How did they get customers? Well, first starters.
They have a nice, big building off the freeway with
a big sign displaying their name. They also have a
great reputation, which leads to lots of word of mouth marketing.
(01:05):
But outside of simple local marketing strategies, Wendy's kills it
on social media. They're hilarious on Twitter, and that's thanks
to their clever comebacks when people write to Wendy's or
write about Wendy's. There are a lot of great YouTube
videos about this subject. I quit Wendy's when I started
selling newspaper subscriptions, and I'll tell you exactly how I
(01:26):
did it. First, I would stand at the front of
local grocery stores with a bunch of free newspaper samples.
As people would walk by, I would say, would you
like a free newspaper? Most people would say yes. After that,
I would ask them if they had a subscription to
the newspaper. If they said no, I would tell them
that we're offering a special right now where if they
(01:46):
sign up for a newspaper subscription today, they will get
a twenty five dollars gift card and a free Mugger
book of their choice. This was a great strategy because
it played into their fear of missing out, which is
a tried and true strategy for getting people to buy
your products. If they objected to buying a subscription, I
would handle it by telling them that the newspaper pays
(02:08):
for itself. With the coupons in the back. This is
another powerful sales strategy because they don't feel like they
are losing money. It turns the purchase into an investment.
But that's enough about newspaper subscriptions. Let's move on to
my experience teaching guitar. I taught my first guitar lessons
when I was still in high school. I put up
a flyer at a nearby music store and I got
(02:30):
a customer from that flyer. This is in the spring
of twenty sixteen. I didn't start teaching again until March
twenty seventeen. At that point, I started teaching guitar regularly
and I was nineteen years old. I taught at a
local music store and I got my guitar students because
of their existing brand reputation. From there, I started to
(02:52):
acquire guitar students from referrals. This included referrals from family,
friends and current students. This is how I got all
my guitar students, and I talk guitar at the music
store until mid twenty twenty. In March of twenty twenty,
my wife and I started a pet waste removal business
and it took off fast. This is thanks to the
power of local Facebook groups. My wife would post in
(03:15):
them saying Hi, my husband and I own Dooty Budyes,
pet weste Removal. We clean up dog poop in the
local area. This is a fast, great way to acquire
our first customers. We still have many of them to
this day. Further down the line, we discovered the power
of a website and local SEO. We built a website
with card dot Co and we made a Google business profile.
(03:35):
These two things have led to far more brand visibility
and a lot more customers. Two years into the business,
in twenty twenty two, we started to get referrals from
a local landscaping company and our regular private customers. Now
in twenty twenty four, business is thriving and going well.
Now let's talk about some side hustle experiments. I started
(03:56):
in interior car detailing business with a friend. We made
the most money from a local dealership and we got
their business from a cold walk in. We walked into
the business, told them we are car detailers, and they
pull up a car for us to detail. They liked
our work and then they asked us to come back.
We detailed at least twenty cars for the dealership. We
(04:18):
also got private customers from our Google business profile. But
in the end, this is not a business that I
cared for my friend and I disbanded the business after
less than six months. Me and my wife have a
side hustle selling used goods on Mercury. Mercary is a
reseller platform reseller e commerce platform similar to epay. We
(04:39):
have sold over two hundred fifty items and we've made
over ten thousand in revenue from the platform. The great
thing about existing marketplaces like Mercury is the fact that
you don't have to do any of the marketing yourself.
The customers are already there and they are there to buy.
This is called warm traffic and it's the best kind
of traffic a business can have. If you're wondering, we
have sold sneakers, games, video games, trading cards, books, and
(05:02):
pop culture items. Now let's move on to another interesting
side hustle marketplace Rover. Rover puts your animal care business
on easy mode. You simply make a profile, get a
background check, and people will start messaging you to take
care of their pets. It's arguably one of the easiest
businesses to start, and if you like cats and dogs,
it can be a blast. My wife and I spent
(05:23):
three days and two nights at someone's house watching their
two dogs and two cats. We spent that time hanging
out with the animals, eating good food that we cooked
in their back patio fire pit, and watching stranger things.
We got paid for that. How much better can you get?
But of course we're talking about acquiring first customers here
and what can you learn from Rover? Well, you learn
(05:45):
that there are plenty of platforms where you just create
a profile and you'll start to get customers. Now, I'm
going to talk to you about a local business that
you can do from home, web design and SEO. I
got my first web design customer from a friend. I
told her that I was offering web design services, and
then she told her friend about it and the rest
is history. The rest of my web design and SEO
(06:07):
customers have come from my Google business profile. Affiliate marketing
is the last type of business I'll talk about. If
you don't know, when you sell something through an affiliate link,
you get a commission. The first way I made money
with affiliate marketing was through YouTube. I'm a guitarist and
I've made YouTube videos talking about guitar books. I tell
viewers that they can click the link in the description
(06:28):
if they want to buy a book from the video.
The second way I've made money with affiliate marketing is
from my blog. I have a blog in the music
education niche and I create product recommendation articles with affiliate links.
YouTube and blogging are great for promoting affiliate links, but
they're great for promoting other products too. Now let's do
a quick recap on ways you can get your first customers.
(06:50):
Have a physical location, use a billboard, get referrals, create
profiles on existing marketplaces, promote in Facebook groups, make a
Google business profile, use local SEO, use content SEO, make
videos on YouTube, use blogging, which blogging is kind of
a subcategory of SEO, and do cold selling. And there
(07:13):
are more ways to get customers, but these are the
ways that have worked the best for me. Anyways, Thank
you so much for listening to the Frugal Entrepreneurs podcast,
And if you want to help us grow, tell a
friend and leave a review and I'll catch you in
the next episode. Have a good day,
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