Making your first sale – Twin Cities

Second Sunday Series — Editor’s Note: This is the seventh of 12 columns on starting a business — one on each second Sunday of the month, from September through August. Last month’s column described ways to choose your startup focus, while the months before discussed goal-setting processes, key startup steps, burnout, the entrepreneur’s personal assets and weaknesses, and self-employment as a career choice.

Having a great idea is important, and so is the quality of your product or service. But if you’re an entrepreneur, there’s one thing more important than anything else in determining the success of your startup: Making sales.

If you thought the most important thing was going to be customers, you were close — but not close enough. It’s a classic business mistake to imagine that having customers is the same as making sales. But as any boutique owner can tell you, a shop full of people “just looking” is barely better than a shop with no one in it at all.

Sales are about more than cash flow. They’re also an important indicator of which products or services are the most appealing, and to whom. Sales are key for confirming your marketing and the quality of your goods, as well as the effectiveness of your operations.

Wouldn’t it be great to have all this information before you scale up and fully commit to your business? You bet it would, which is why I’m recommending that you try to sell your product or service now, or as soon as you possibly can. By embarking on sales early in your startup process, you can make essential decisions in real time, rather than having to correct course later.

Here’s an example of how this works: Suppose you’re planning to leave your job as a chef to run your own service providing meals to busy families. You’re confident in your skills and certain there are enough families in your area that could buy from you. Shouldn’t you just jump in?

You could, but then what? Renting a kitchen, stocking up on ingredients and putting out your marketing are all cash-intensive steps necessary for an actual launch. If you don’t receive enough orders, some of the ingredients will spoil and the next month’s rent will come due before you’ve been able to make up the difference.

What if you started with a “soft launch” instead, by selling acquaintances on a limited or discounted meal plan while you work out the kinks? A simple menu with associated prices could be emailed to a select group, with payment being made via one of several electronic transfer systems available (Square, Venmo, Zelle, etc.). If this doesn’t result in orders, you could move to the next level by making calls or otherwise asking directly for the sale.

If that last sentence made you squirm, then we’re getting somewhere. Not only do pre-sales help with business planning, but they’re also a rubber-meets-the-road kind of thing for the business owner.

Think of it this way: If you’re uncomfortable asking people to buy your products or service, that’s OK. But if you’re so uncomfortable that you can’t do it? Not OK. At the very least, you’ll need to sell a salesperson on your team, so that person can go out and represent you. But at this early stage, that salesperson is going to be you, so you’ll need to get past your discomfort somehow.

That’s not as ominous as it sounds. In truth, business owners frequently surprise themselves at their ability to sell. When you’re excited about your venture, that feeling can be contagious.

If you’ve been following along with this series of Second Sunday articles, then you know what’s coming next: Homework. Your steps for March are to sell something from your budding business to someone.

That’s intentionally vague, to give you elbow room. You could use this opportunity to test an actual product or service, or you could go “business lite” by offering a sampling of what you’ll later be marketing. If the item is something that can only be produced in bulk, then a pre-sale discount might be the offer you’re making.

As you’re closing the sale and filling the order, pay attention. Was it easy or difficult to get this person to say yes? Would it matter if you targeted a different kind of customer? Offered a variation of the product? Priced it differently? And, how did it feel to ask for the business? If it was difficult, what would make it easier next time?

It’s a small sampling, of course, but any real-world experience at this point is valuable for helping you set your plans. Track your results, then come back in a month for the next Second Sunday installment, where we’ll dive into more steps to guide your business startup journey.