Making your first sale as a small business is a very exciting time. There’s a good chance you’ve operated for a few months without making a penny, and now the time is fast approaching where you’re picking up interest and people are starting to talk about you.
Seeing as this is both an exciting and apprehensive time, it’s a good thing to prepare for it long in advance, and know what to expect. Your first sale is a real work in progress, and seeing as your business has a long way to go to expand on its profits, let’s set it up right from the start.
Your Supply Line
A supply line is the first thing you’ll need to work out, in order to meet customer demands, as well as keep your business inventory regularly moving and updated. Any and all good businesses know just how packed their stock room needs to be, and they have a very efficient system for labeling and placing.
Knowing you have a supply chain should put your mind at rest, so you definitely want to get started with finding a supplier. Aside from this, you’ll want to make it easy to keep in touch and get a purchase order from them as well. You need to know you’re in good hands, so make sure you’re networking strong and on a regular basis here.
Finding Your Customers
Next, you need to know where your customers are, and who is the best type of customer to attract. You’re a new and unestablished business, so it’s a good idea to target the subset of the market that has little to no brand loyalty to anyone else.
But who are these people? Well, they’re mostly younger shoppers and lower-income shoppers, etc., and they could very well make up your target market right now. Sure, maybe you’re trying to corner a niche in the long run, but your first sale could lead to a big boom amongst this market, and could very well show you who your customers really are, rather than who you want them to be.
The Marketing Basics
Finally, it’s time to run the best ad campaign you can come up with – it’s a lot easier said than done! But it all starts with market research, as we mentioned in the point above; what do the people who are most willing to buy from you already responding to within your industry?
Make sure you take into account marketing campaigns of the past, especially those who run similar products to yours. What brought them success? How could you either replicate or make this success better, in your own way? Put together a little think tank and a focus group, and get some feedback on any and all campaign ideas you think hit the spot.
Making your first sale is a turning point in your business. Make sure you’re prepared for it, and treat the moment as the momentous occasion it really is.
