Entrepreneurs make quite a few mistakes throughout the course of their careers.
The biggest mistake that they make is becoming too passionate about their project and getting too emotionally involved. Many will make the mistake of believing their product will sell itself.
Even when entrepreneurs don’t fall into this trap, they often realize that starting out can be an incredible challenge.
Getting potential customers to buy into the idea is essential to getting it off the ground, but it’s nearly impossible to sell something unless it’s already been proven.
This leads to a sort of chicken-and-egg problem where they can’t sell an unfinished product, but they can’t finish the product without the money from selling the idea to investors. This is where salesmanship comes in.
It’s a skill that many entrepreneurs neglect, but without it, it’s nearly impossible to get off the ground.
When entrepreneurs do make their first sales, they often make crucial mistakes, leading to further problems down the road.
Where Entrepreneurs Stumble
There are five crucial missteps made by the majority of entrepreneurs, and avoiding them can be key to success!
Getting a Late Start
In many cases, entrepreneurs waited until their products were fully developed before getting any input from potential clients. This means that they never got honest feedback or opinions from the people they’d be selling to, and never really learned what their potential customers actually wanted.
Just talking to a few customers and getting them excited about the idea can accomplish far more than any amount of market research.
Ignoring Feedback
Many entrepreneurs, even those who started gathering feedback early on, elected to ignore it.
This is one of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make and can lead to a product that doesn’t meet the needs of the market, and in some cases, a potential client-base that’s already angry at the company for ignoring or dismissing their feedback.
It’s important for entrepreneurs to actually listen to the feedback they get, and to make sure their product addresses the pain points in the market. If they’re not offering what people want, then people aren’t going to buy it.
Tossing Discounts Around Like Candy
Entrepreneurs face a lot of pressure to make initial sales, but offering discounts on those initial sales can devastate their business in the long term.
Initial discounts will establish pricing precedents that aren’t sustainable and actually end up hurting the market. It’s important to find alternative means of sweetening the deal.
Mistaking Family and Friends for Customers
It’s incredibly common for entrepreneurs to make early sales to family members or friends.
However, this often leads to a false sense of confidence and validates a product that may not actually be that good.
It’s important for early sales to be from real clients that can provide legitimate feedback, and who aren’t emotionally involved in an entrepreneur’s success.
Selling Indiscriminately
Early on, it’s not about the number of sales you make, but the quality of each sale.
It’s important when starting out to find customers who can open new doors, provide referrals or supply usage data that can help you get more sales later on.
Properly assessing your first few buyers, and carefully picking out who you want to pitch to can help you immensely.
Handling Objections and Knowing When to Walk Away
The biggest hurdle when selling a brand new product is the fact that you actually have to sell it.
Potential customers will have little or nothing that proves its usefulness and is likely to have never even heard of it. This is why entrepreneurs need to be prepared for questions, objections, and rejections.
They also need to know when it’s time to walk away from a potential sale. So, what are the biggest concerns that customers have?
Delivering on Promises
The biggest concerns that potential customers have are about the ability of entrepreneurs and their products to actually deliver on the promises they make.
Beta tests or lab results can help in some cases, but for many products, the only way to prove the effectiveness of a product is by offering samples and trials, or by having other clients provide positive reviews of their experience with the product.
Lack of Experience
Another concern that many potential clients have is that the entrepreneur may not have the experience to run the business. Personal background and age will often play into this.
A strategy that generally works for those that don’t have the necessary experience is touting any partners that they have with a solid reputation in the industry. This can help assuage fears of inexperience.
Small Companies
Another common concern is the size of the company. If an entrepreneur has a small, unestablished company, then it’s not going to have the same reputation as a larger, more well-established one.
The most common solution has been to gradually build that trust with the client through smaller concessions, such as not asking for deposits or pay-on-delivery sales models.
This can lead to quicker development of a company’s reputation.
The Cost of Switching
One of the greatest hurdles that potential customers will have to overcome is paying the “cost to switch” to the entrepreneur’s product or service.
For many, this will mean modifying routines and procedures, changing systems, and establishing or dropping relationships with other companies.
Making these modifications can be costly, and it’s important for entrepreneurs to help their clients through this process and acknowledge the risks involved.
Concerns About Price
Everyone wants to get a better deal. Haggling on price can be especially hard for entrepreneurs.
Potential clients will often know that the newer, smaller company is eager, or even desperate to make early sales, and is more likely to budge on their prices because of that.
If the potential client doesn’t accept a fair offer, then it may be time to walk away, but often they can be convinced to settle for full price.
