Making Your First Sale Online
A pretty website is nice. But that’s not the key to success.
Fancy graphics are fine, but don’t you dare sacrifice time better spent on your business just to get them.
When you’re just getting started, there’s one thing you MUST focus on. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, until you take care of this item.
Today, my business partner at EarlytoRise.com, Matt Smith, explains…
“The Power of Your First Sale”
CB: Matt, why is the first sale so important to people starting a business?
Matt: As entrepreneurs, we work to understand the needs and desires of our target market. We study the marketplace. We might even dissect the competition and survey potential customers.
But while planning and studying does have value, the fact is everything changes once you have your first customer. Prior to this you’re running on pure hypothesis.
“Customers will need ‘X’. Our surveys tell us they want ‘Y’.”
But, once customers actually shell out their hard ear out their hard earned money for your product or service you’ll begin to understand EXACTLY what they need, and precisely what is and what is not important to them.
CB: What changes in an entrepreneur’s psyche when the first sale finally happens?
Matt: All of a sudden we start to see what’s possible.
Up until the first sale, we are driven by hope. We do ven by hope. We do the hard work as entrepreneurs always have, trying to develop solutions to the problems of people around us.
But no matter how passionate or optimistic we are…deep inside there’s a voice that says, “Nobody’s going to like your product” or “You don’t have what it takes.”
It ALL changes once you make your first sale. You get validation and your mindset expands.
CB: Can you explain?
Matt: Validation:
The first sale is a defining moment. There is true validation for the first time. Someone believed in you and your product or service enough to open up their wallet and buy.
They had many choices, but they chose you.
This validation doesn’t slay the internal voice that doubts you, but it does dampen it tremendously.
Possibilities expand: All the hard work of getting a product launched combined with the negative internal voice, often saps the enthusiasm from our spirits.
But, that first sale rekindles and expands the enthusiasm that fueled you on your entrepreneurial journey initially.
Once the first sale comes in, it’s hard not to start imagining the possibilities and this is good.
You might wonder to yourself, for instance, “If I’m able to generate 1 sale, why not 100? If 100, why not 10,000?”
Or, “Just one sale a day, every day of the year and I’ll be able to do ‘X’!”
This type of thinking backed by the experience and skill you’ve obtained in generating that first sale launches the creative mind into hyper-problem solving mode.
You will likely begin to see opportunities that had gone unnoticed up until now.
CB: When was your first sale, and what changed in you when it happened?
Matt: My first sale was of someone else’s Clickbank product sold via Google Adwords in 2001. I did exactly what I said above. I immediately began to imagine the possibilities and that optimism helped drive me to where I am today.
*****
Thanks Matt.
If you’re a beginner, it’s time to shift your mindset.
Start to focus all of your efforts on that first sale.
Stop procrastinating on selling by getting ‘busy’ with web design or other silly stuff.
All that matters is your first sale.
If you want to know what I would do if I was starting all over again, then you’ll love my “Starting From Scratch” article in the June issue of Financial Independence Monthly.
Members can download it from the site today.
And if you’re not a member, you can join FIM and get access to the June issue – on your own terms – right here.
Get selling,
Craig Ballantyne
“You either believe, like me, that because 1% of the people are rich that ANYONE can get rich, or you believe that because 1% are rich that NO ONE can get rich. Don’t let self-limiting beliefs hold – Dan Kennedy