Loading...
Answers
MenuWhat is the best way to build a customer base for a creative services business?
Answers
Are you a professional?
(I assume you'll say that you are)
As such, you deserve to be paid for your service and skill.
Rather than offer your services for free, focus your efforts on understanding the need of your big-brand clients. You can underpromise and over deliver without sacrificing the value of your product.
By deeply discounting, or offering your service for free, you actually come off as an amateur who doesn't deserve (or believe in) your rate.
You deserve better.
Instead of dropping your price, consider adding more deliverables.
Discounting tends to show desperation.
The biggest problem I see tech people having is getting enough prospects to talk to.
You cannot simply hang out your shingle and expect the world to beat a path to your door. And it's kind of worse than that: you have to spend MORE time than you thought to get those clients.
http://www.salestactics.org/how-much-time-should-you-spend-prospecting/
In the beginning, three-quarters of your time! That's 6 hours a day. Most people are spending perhaps 2 hours a WEEK so is it a shock that most businesses fail so soon?
And I'm talking about real conversations with qualified prospects here, not posting on Facebook or twiddling around with your website.
I can help you put a plan together.
This may not be what you want to hear but you MUST go try to sell it prior to launching it. I've launched a couple serviced based businesses before and the difference between success and failure is having around 4-5 PAID customers prior to the official launch day.
Do get 4-5 I would reach out directly to LinkedIn contacts you think would be good fits and pitch them the idea. Try to avoid friends and family as much as possible.
Also, remember that anything but a hard yes is a hard no. What does that mean? It means if someone says 'how much is it so I can sign up' or 'can I sign up now' that's a yes. If someone says 'yeah, sounds like a good idea' or 'wow, some people would really love that', those are no's. Do your best to get 4-5 yes's prior to launching. That way you know your idea is validated and maybe you can get some good testimonials for marketing purposes.
Good luck!
Related Questions
-
How do you get your first customers for a consulting business?
Back when I started LinkedIn wasn't as huge as it is now. I wish it was. I didn't have a large network and those networking sessions NEVER brought me any clients. I used to go to all sorts of them hoping to get clients. There were a couple of nibbles here and there, but never anything serious. The only thing that helped was reaching out DIRECTLY to people in my target market. That meant cold calls and cold emails. I'd sell myself while thinking about their needs. Once I got a few bites I'd build good rapport by keeping in touch, asking questions, repeating back what they were saying so that they knew I was on the same page and kept my promises. If I said I'd call them back next Tuesday at 2:15 I'd do so. Eventually I built trust with them without having a network, or an insane amount of experience. Oh and the most important thing about consulting is to LISTEN. When those first clients notice that you're truly listening and you're not selling the cookie cutter solutions everyone else is trying to sell them that's when you got them hooked. You start to understand their problems, fears, and see through their eyes and not just yours. A network will help, but in the beginning just good 'ol salesmanship will get the ball rolling.JC
-
How can I become an idea person, as a professional title?
One word: Royalties This means you generate the idea and develop it enough to look interesting to a larger company who would be willing to pay you a royalty for your idea. This happens all the time. Rock stars, authors and scientists routinely license their creative ideas to other companies who pay them a royalty. Anyone can do it. Your business, therefore, would be a think tank. You (and your team, if you have one) would consider the world's problems, see what kinds of companies are trying to solve those problems, and then develop compelling solutions that they can license from you. You have to be able to sell your idea and develop a nice presentation, a little market research and an understanding of basic trademark and patent law. The nice thing about doing this is that if you develop enough cool ideas you will have royalties coming in from a lot of different sources, this creates a stable, passive revenue stream that requires little or no work to maintain. Start in your spare time and plan on the process taking 3-5 years. Set a goal to have a few products in the market that provide enough revenue (royalties) to cover your basic living expenses. Then you can quit your day job and dedicate more time and increase the momentum. A good idea business should have dozens, if not hundreds of license contracts generating royalties. It's possible to pull this off. And it is a fun job (I'm speaking from experience).MM
-
How can I make a million dollars?
First, I agree with Chad in that the pure pursuit of money is unlikely to render anything significant. By using a monetary value as a primary goal, you're only diluting the real drivers of success: passion, crafting great customer experiences, building an incredible team and culture etc. That said, making $1m isn't that hard. :) I love this thinking by Amy Hoy and that's how I would go about making $1m: http://unicornfree.com/30x500. Using that logic, this is what I'd do: * To earn $1m in a year, I need to earn +- $80k a month. * To earn $80k a month, I need 1600 customers paying me $50 per month. * So what can I build that could attract 1600 people to pay me $50? * Or, what could I build that could attract 400 people to pay me $200 per month? This logic works on two drivers: * Cumulative revenue and growth. So SaaS works best in this regard, as you only need to focus on having new signups that are greater than your churn. * Building something that people are willing to (really) pay for and going for quality over quantity. If you are building something that sells for $5 pm, you'll need to sell at much higher volumes (which are tricky). In terms of doing that, these are the areas of my business that I would prioritize: 1. Build an awesome team that do things they're passionate about. 2. Prioritize customer experiences above anything else. Do everything in your power (regardless of whether it can't scale) to add value and help your customers. 3. Build a brand and reputation that has long-lasting value.AP
-
My startup just failed. What could I start to "immediately" generate $1,000/mo?
The quickest path to cash is almost always consulting. Be very specific about what it is you can offer. Don't just offer "business consulting". Find a niche and serve it. Reach out to your network, including friends and family and ask if they need or know of anyone who might want to hear about what your consulting has to offer. That will be way faster than trying to go at it from scratch or cold calling. If you call 100 people in your network this week, you will have a consulting gig within 3 weeks. Good luck, and let me know if you'd like advice on entering a digital marketing/lead generation consulting niche. I've grown from zero to $8,000 of monthly recurring payments in the last 40 days! DaveDR
-
If I have a business idea for a large company, how can I give it to them and mutually profit, without them just taking the idea and squashing me?
Probably not the answer you're looking for, but companies have so many unimplemented ideas that the likelihood of partnering to implement someone else's idea is really low. And besides which, the idea is not something that has much value in and of itself. If you're passionate in the idea, build it yourself. That's the only way you can have leverage.TW
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.