Watch this to get your first client
AAli Abdaal
Small Business/StartupsAdvertising/MarketingManagement
Transcript
00:00:00- So you are thinking of starting a business
00:00:01because you wanna make an independent income
00:00:03on your own terms,
00:00:04but you are struggling with the question of
00:00:06how the hell do you actually get your first client?
00:00:08- How did you get your first client?
00:00:09- Through my best friend.
00:00:10- Well, what was your approach to it?
00:00:11- I just kept reaching out.
00:00:12- And we started three weeks later.
00:00:14- And then how did you get clients two, three, four, and five?
00:00:16- Two, three, four, and five actually came from .
00:00:20- That is what we are gonna be talking about
00:00:21in today's vlog.
00:00:29- All right, so we are here in Thailand
00:00:30for our team's offsite.
00:00:32And we've got this online business school
00:00:33called the Lifestyle Business Academy
00:00:34where we help normal people,
00:00:36like working professionals start their first businesses.
00:00:38And we were talking amongst the team
00:00:39because we've got lots of our coaches and facilitators
00:00:41for the Lifestyle Business Academy here on the offsite.
00:00:43And one thing almost all of our students
00:00:45really, really struggle with is this thing
00:00:46of just landing that first client,
00:00:48which is by far the hardest part about starting a business.
00:00:51Like if you're starting a business
00:00:52and you wanna make money,
00:00:52coming up with the idea these days
00:00:53is relatively straightforward.
00:00:55There are lots of processes,
00:00:56but then how do you go from like the paperwork
00:00:57of coming up with an idea
00:00:58to actually landing someone
00:01:00who's actually giving you money
00:01:01for your product or your service?
00:01:03So if that question is interesting to you,
00:01:04then hopefully by the end of this vlog,
00:01:05you should have some useful odds.
00:01:13- Oh, all right.
00:01:13So we've just come back from all of the zip lining.
00:01:15And so now we are about to have lunch
00:01:16and I'm gonna bring in a bunch
00:01:18of our Lifestyle Business Academy coaches
00:01:20and the people in our team
00:01:21who have run their own businesses in the past.
00:01:23So we're gonna start by talking to Carol,
00:01:24who is one of our coaches
00:01:25for the Lifestyle Business Academy.
00:01:26Carol spent 20 years working as a VP of Marketing
00:01:29in various big corporations,
00:01:30but then she left corporate America
00:01:31and started running her own leadership
00:01:33and team coaching business
00:01:34that she was then running for five years
00:01:36before I managed to talk her into joining our team
00:01:37as a coach for the Lifestyle Business Academy
00:01:39to help other people kind of do the same thing.
00:01:40And so I asked Carol how she got her first client.
00:01:43Carol, so you were running your own leadership coaching
00:01:45business for like five years.
00:01:46How did you transition into the business?
00:01:49Like specifically, how did you get your first client?
00:01:51So I stayed in corporate America for three years
00:01:54before I make the jump, three to four years really.
00:01:56My company started when I got my first client
00:01:59and the first, I had done a lot of free trials
00:02:02and without, you know, just doing the team dynamics
00:02:04and the team coachings and the Gallup Strength Finder sessions.
00:02:07And I remember I did it for one peer that she loved it.
00:02:11She loved the session.
00:02:12And I said, hey, I'm about to start my LLC
00:02:14and I'm going to start charging for it.
00:02:16If you know anybody that would be interested, let me know.
00:02:19And she's like, hey, my husband actually,
00:02:21my husband's boss needs your help.
00:02:23And I'm like, great.
00:02:23She introduced me to her husband
00:02:25who introduced me to my first client.
00:02:27His name is Caleb and my first client was a B2B client.
00:02:30So from there, we just became 80% of our business was B2B.
00:02:34- I love it. - Yeah.
00:02:35- Great. Thank you.
00:02:35And then how did you get clients like two, three, four and five?
00:02:37- Two, three, four and five actually came
00:02:40from another warm referral.
00:02:42I asked Caleb if he wanted me to do this for anything else.
00:02:46So he was part of this UX design team at a large bank in the US
00:02:51and both of his peers hire me to do their teams.
00:02:54And then after that company,
00:02:56a lot of the people that I have done it for,
00:02:59I just kept reaching out.
00:03:00And every time they moved to a new company, they had a new team.
00:03:03So they wanted to do the same thing for this new company.
00:03:05So I understood that my client was the new leader
00:03:09that couldn't figure out their teams.
00:03:10- All right. So that was Carol,
00:03:11one of our wonderful Lifestyle Business Academy coaches.
00:03:13She got her first paid client
00:03:15by talking to one of her friends and colleagues
00:03:16who introduced her to her husband,
00:03:18who introduced her to his manager.
00:03:19And that was the first paid engagement.
00:03:20And then clients two, three, four, five and six
00:03:22all came from a referral from that one manager.
00:03:24And so that's kind of interesting.
00:03:25And I'm sure as we talk to the other people on our team
00:03:28who have experience running their own businesses,
00:03:29you might start to see a little bit of a pattern
00:03:31about how people tend to get their first couple of clients.
00:03:34Okay. So it's time to grab some lunch
00:03:35and then let's find someone else to talk to.
00:03:40All right. So we are now going to hear from Nathan,
00:03:42who is another one of our coaches
00:03:43in the Lifestyle Business Academy.
00:03:44Nathan spent the early part of his career
00:03:46working at various companies in Australia,
00:03:48initially doing web development
00:03:49and then doing video production.
00:03:50And then he joined a mortgage broker company
00:03:52as a marketing manager.
00:03:53Before he then left the corporate world
00:03:55and then started his own business
00:03:56doing marketing services for other businesses.
00:03:58And so we're going to talk to Nathan and ask him,
00:04:00how did he get his very first actual paying client?
00:04:03Nathan, how did you get your very first client?
00:04:05Yeah. So with my first client,
00:04:06I ended up just going to like a local chamber of commerce event
00:04:10where there was just a bunch of business owners,
00:04:12some small like freelancers,
00:04:13but there was some large businesses as well.
00:04:15And just started chatting with people
00:04:16and started wanting to just rank their websites.
00:04:18I'm like, yeah, cool. I can, I can help with that.
00:04:20Yeah. Oh, wow. Nice.
00:04:21So did you go to that event thinking,
00:04:22I'm going to get some clients and pitch my services
00:04:24or like, well, what was your approach to it?
00:04:26For me, I was new to the town.
00:04:27So I kind of like, I'm like, I like talking to business owners.
00:04:30So I initially just went there just to meet people
00:04:32who I could just get to know a bit more.
00:04:35And yeah, just as I was learning more about their businesses
00:04:38and what their challenges were,
00:04:39I could see there was an overlap between my skillset
00:04:41and what they were dealing with.
00:04:43And that's kind of how the conversation naturally evolved.
00:04:46Amazing. So then, then you go out for coffee
00:04:48with this random guy and talk more about the challenges and stuff.
00:04:51And then how does he end up like saying,
00:04:53Hey, let me give you some money to help me out.
00:04:54For us, I was just like kind of understanding his problem.
00:04:57And after a while, I'm like, I can help with this.
00:04:59Like I'll do an audit, figure out exactly what you need.
00:05:02And then we can talk about price after that.
00:05:04Love it.
00:05:04And then how did you get clients two, three, four and five?
00:05:06So yeah, so this guy was part of a church
00:05:08and he ended up just referring me to a lot of people at his church
00:05:10who were also business owners and stuff like that.
00:05:12Yeah, it was a small town.
00:05:13So a lot of people kind of knew each other.
00:05:15Yeah.
00:05:15That's kind of how I started getting a lot of clients.
00:05:17Brilliant. Thank you very much.
00:05:18All right.
00:05:18So one key thing I've learned from running this business
00:05:20is that being busy is really not the same as being productive.
00:05:23Like if you're selling stuff online, you can spend your entire day replying to comments and DMs,
00:05:27but you might not actually get any sales for the thing that you are trying to sell.
00:05:30Now, this is where ManyChat comes in who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
00:05:32ManyChat is a wonderful tool for social media automation.
00:05:36So if, for example, you go on Instagram, you'll often see like big creators doing the thing
00:05:40where they say, hey, comment the word books
00:05:42and I will send you my free guide to books or comment the word course
00:05:45and I'll send you my course on whatever the thing might be.
00:05:47Now, especially if you have lots of comments, doing that stuff manually is a total nightmare.
00:05:51And even if you don't have that many followers still doing that stuff manually is a total nightmare.
00:05:54But the great thing about ManyChat is that it's an official meta business partner,
00:05:57which means you don't need to worry about this kind of automation banning your Instagram account,
00:06:00which would probably be pretty bad.
00:06:01But instead, what you can do is you can go on ManyChat and you can create these visual automations
00:06:05within a few minutes.
00:06:06So in our account, we've got loads and loads of these automations that offer people free resources
00:06:10or signups to my email list.
00:06:11And even some of these automations that actively sell up products.
00:06:14And so what ManyChat can do is that it can take comments and DMs and story replies.
00:06:17And if they trigger a particular keyword, it can run automations based on that,
00:06:21which is insanely helpful.
00:06:22The really cool thing is that it can even act as your own follow up system.
00:06:25So for example, if people are asking questions about your product,
00:06:27it can answer those questions instantly using your own knowledge base.
00:06:30It can point people in the right direction of the support email or whatever.
00:06:32And it can show people exactly how to enroll in your product and even collect emails along
00:06:36the way, which is great for building up your own email list.
00:06:38So to be honest, especially if you're trying to create stuff online,
00:06:40like as you know, building the product is just the beginning.
00:06:43Selling the product is way, way, way harder and way more of a long slog.
00:06:46And that is where a tool like ManyChat can really help.
00:06:48So if you are looking to grow your business or your audience online,
00:06:51then try to comment the word empire on literally any of my Instagram posts.
00:06:55And using ManyChat, I will send you a completely free resource to help you with audience building
00:06:59and also give you a link to 30 free days of ManyChat Pro.
00:07:02Alternatively, if you don't want to go over to Instagram,
00:07:03there's a link down in the video description.
00:07:05And if you go to the checkout on the web, you can use the code AliAbdahl for that free 30 day trial.
00:07:09Thanks again to ManyChat for sponsoring this video and let's get back to it.
00:07:14Alrighty.
00:07:14So Nathan was brand new to a random town in Australia.
00:07:19He did not know anyone, but he went to the local entrepreneurship event with the Chamber of Commerce.
00:07:24While he was there, he got into a casual conversation with a business owner,
00:07:26which then turned into a coffee conversation.
00:07:28Nathan was able to be helpful.
00:07:29And then this business owner eventually ended up hiring him to do a paid project.
00:07:32And then crucially, Nathan did a good job for his first client.
00:07:35And so the first client actually referred him to clients number two,
00:07:37three, four, five and six, all of whom were part of the same church.
00:07:40And so again, I want you to log this as a data point.
00:07:42And we'll see by the end of the video, can we spot any patterns in the data?
00:07:51All right, next, we are speaking to Catherine.
00:07:53Catherine is another one of our wonderful coaches at the Lifestyle Business Academy.
00:07:56Catherine spent 10 years working at various corporations from marketing to PR to hospitality.
00:08:00But then Catherine decided that she was going to start her own business.
00:08:02And so she ran her own coaching business for five years where she was an executive slash life coach.
00:08:07And they were paying her to help them navigate that process.
00:08:09And so I asked Catherine how she got her very first paying client.
00:08:12So Catherine, how did you get your first client?
00:08:14Great question.
00:08:15So I was a part of a women's professional network.
00:08:18And there was a Slack community where folks posted in there about all sorts of different things.
00:08:22I shared that I was going through coach certification,
00:08:25actually not even as a way to get clients, but just as part of an update I was sharing.
00:08:29And someone reached out to me directly and said,
00:08:31Oh, my son in his mid-20s could really use something like that.
00:08:34Could I put you in touch?
00:08:35We had a conversation and I thought he would be perfect for this workshop idea I had.
00:08:39And so I ran him through it as the first test case.
00:08:42He paid $75 for that and then said,
00:08:46I think this could really work for me.
00:08:47And he became my first long-term client.
00:08:48Oh, amazing.
00:08:49Were you expecting that that would lend you some clients or like what was the...
00:08:52Not at all.
00:08:53And the person who reached out to me, I actually didn't know.
00:08:55We didn't have a one-to-one connection,
00:08:57but there was a very big community feel in this professional network.
00:09:00The reason I did it is just because people often shared updates.
00:09:03Oh, what are you doing?
00:09:04And I was so excited about coaching at the time.
00:09:06So I was sharing about it and I'm glad I did.
00:09:10Amazing.
00:09:10And then how did you get clients to 325?
00:09:13So from there, I went to a small conference actually through the same organization.
00:09:18I didn't know anyone.
00:09:19And the idea around it was really just connection time post-pandemic.
00:09:23I really connected with this one woman and we were talking about coaching,
00:09:27what it does for people.
00:09:29And she had actually had the idea previously that the five people on her team could really
00:09:33use a coach.
00:09:34And she said to me, "Hey, maybe we could work something out.
00:09:38Would you put together an idea for how you could work with?"
00:09:42So right after the conference, I got back home.
00:09:44I sent her an email with what I thought something could look like.
00:09:46And we started three weeks later.
00:09:48Oh, wow.
00:09:49Amazing.
00:09:49Yeah.
00:09:49Okay.
00:09:50So client number one through this random Facebook group for that?
00:09:53It was in a Slack.
00:09:54Oh, nice.
00:09:55Yeah.
00:09:56Awesome.
00:09:56And then number two from an in-person event where you just got talking to people,
00:09:59you find someone with good vibes and then see what happens.
00:10:02Yes.
00:10:02So that was clients one through six.
00:10:04Oh, wow.
00:10:04Nice.
00:10:04And then what about subsequently?
00:10:06Did you have to do any content or ads or anything like that?
00:10:09So I didn't do any ads.
00:10:11I did a lot of content and got very little return from it.
00:10:14So I remember client number seven came because very early on,
00:10:19I hosted a small men's mastermind and there were three guys in it.
00:10:24There were three guys in it and one of them reached out to me and said,
00:10:27"Hey, I could use some one-to-one support."
00:10:29And so he signed up for a retainer.
00:10:32Love it.
00:10:32Yeah.
00:10:33Thank you very much.
00:10:33You got it.
00:10:36Alrighty.
00:10:36So that was Catherine, one of our Lifestyle Business Academy coaches.
00:10:39And again, I would like for you to note the pattern here that is emerging.
00:10:42Catherine got her very first client by posting in a Slack group of other women entrepreneur
00:10:47type people.
00:10:48And then she got a bunch of her subsequent clients by basically going to an in-person
00:10:51networking-y, meet-up-y type event, striking up conversations with people,
00:10:54having a chat with someone, being helpful to them.
00:10:56And then that person was who referred her to clients two, three, four, five, and six.
00:11:00So interesting pattern to note there.
00:11:01Yes, again.
00:11:02And let's just keep asking some more people to see how we get our first clients.
00:11:06Okay.
00:11:06So we are now going to hear from Andrea, who is another one of our Lifestyle
00:11:09Business Academy coaches.
00:11:10Andrea spent the first half of her career working at various different corporations,
00:11:13primarily in marketing and then as a project manager for big corporation
00:11:16before Andrea decided to start her very own business.
00:11:19So she started her own boutique marketing agency.
00:11:21And she was running that business for three years before I managed to convince her to join
00:11:24our team as a coach for the Lifestyle Business Academy.
00:11:26So let's now hear from Andrea about how she got her very first client.
00:11:29So Andrea, how did you get your very first paying client?
00:11:32So through my best friend who was in sales.
00:11:33So he knew a lot of people.
00:11:35And I told him I was starting a boutique marketing agency.
00:11:38And he was like, hey, these guys need some paid advertising for their new business.
00:11:41Like, do you want to do it?
00:11:42And I'm like, sure.
00:11:42Got on a call.
00:11:43I booked them right away.
00:11:44They already trusted me because they trusted my friend.
00:11:46So it was very easy, very quick.
00:11:48Did a quick proposal, quick presentation.
00:11:50And we started working like a week later.
00:11:52Oh, wow.
00:11:52That's incredible.
00:11:53And then how did you get clients two through to five?
00:11:55Then I did Upwork.
00:11:56In the pandemic, there was a boom of people looking for marketing agencies.
00:11:59A lot of people started their businesses.
00:12:01So I was applying to like 10 jobs on Upwork, like every like two other days.
00:12:06And that's how I got like client two and three.
00:12:08And then the rest of them through a previous agency that I work with.
00:12:11And I reached out to them and be like, hey, I'm starting my own project.
00:12:13And they were like, yeah, sure.
00:12:14Like if we have smaller clients that we cannot handle, we'll send them over to you.
00:12:17Oh, nice.
00:12:18Yeah.
00:12:18And so they were just cool with that.
00:12:19Just giving you clients.
00:12:20Yeah.
00:12:20They actually ventilated me.
00:12:21They were like, oh my God, this is so great that you're doing your own project.
00:12:23This is amazing.
00:12:24Like we'll definitely help you out because I have been working with them for a long time.
00:12:28Nice.
00:12:28Yeah.
00:12:28One thing people often worry about is like, you know, approaching either their current
00:12:32employer or previous employers because they're like, oh my God, they're going to think I'm
00:12:35a terrible person, all of this sort of stuff.
00:12:36When I was telling my friends, they were super excited that I was starting a business.
00:12:39When I told my former employees as well, and I kept in touch with all of them through LinkedIn,
00:12:43like birthdays and things like that, or liking their posts.
00:12:45So it wasn't some random thing of like, oh, I've never heard from Andrea in like three years.
00:12:50I always made sure to like stay in touch one way or the other.
00:12:53Love it.
00:12:53So that was Andrea, the first client through literally asking a friend and then subsequent clients
00:12:57basically through her old employer.
00:12:59And so again, just keep a note of the patterns that are appearing here in the process.
00:13:04All righty.
00:13:06Let me tell you about how I got my first clients for the various different businesses I've run
00:13:10over the years.
00:13:10My very first business was when I was a kid.
00:13:12It was a web design agency.
00:13:14In reality, it was just me, but I pretended to be an agency.
00:13:16So it sounded more legit.
00:13:17And the way I got my first client, his name was Stan.
00:13:19He was the stepdad of one of my friends from school.
00:13:21And I happened to have Stan's email address.
00:13:23And so I sent out an email basically to all of my email contacts at the time.
00:13:26And Stan randomly replied to my email saying, I need a website.
00:13:29And so he paid me 30 pounds sterling in order to design him a really crappy website.
00:13:33And so I designed him a really crappy website at the age of 13.
00:13:36And that was how I got my very first client and my very first testimonial.
00:13:39Fast forward a few years, I started my first business that was actually successful like
00:13:42five years later when I was a first year medical student at Cambridge University.
00:13:45And I started a business coaching other people on how to do well in the BMAT,
00:13:49which at the time was a medical school admissions exam.
00:13:51And the way I got my first clients was I posted about it on Facebook.
00:13:55I was part of a Facebook group called the WHSB Medical Society, which was the name of my school.
00:13:59And I still have the post.
00:14:00We'll actually just stick it on screen.
00:14:01This was the post that I posted.
00:14:02I basically said in the post that like, hey, I'm running a course for this particular exam.
00:14:06It's going to be about 50 pounds for the day.
00:14:08I name dropped a competitor and said, you know,
00:14:10trash talk to them a little bit and said that they weren't very good.
00:14:12And it got seen by four people and liked by Manu Srivastava,
00:14:15who I think is now a consultant neurologist or something at Oxford.
00:14:18That was cool.
00:14:18And so Manu was actually one of my first students.
00:14:20And then my brother, who was in the year below me, had a few friends.
00:14:22And so, you know, it started off with a tiny classroom of like four kids in our living room
00:14:27who were all like either friends or friends of friends.
00:14:30And then in subsequent years, the way I would get my initial few clients for this course was
00:14:33I would just ask people who had done the course previously.
00:14:36I'd send them an email and be like, hey, guys,
00:14:37if you happen to know anyone who's applying to med school this year,
00:14:40can you please give them the details about this thing that I'm doing?
00:14:42I only started online marketing for my courses business,
00:14:45literally like five years into the business when I first started my YouTube channel.
00:14:48And that was the objective of my YouTube channel.
00:14:51Initially, if you scroll all the way back and ignore the music videos,
00:14:53the first actual proper video on the channel was
00:14:56BMAT section one, how to do well in the things.
00:14:58You know, those are videos teaching people how to do the thing.
00:15:00And then they were signing them to my course.
00:15:02But this was years and years after I got my first few clients
00:15:04and got the business off the ground and even got it to six figures in revenue,
00:15:07primarily through initially asking people that I knew and then asking people that they knew
00:15:11and then being referred on by doing a good job for our existing clients.
00:15:14Final thing I want to talk about is another sort of side hustle I had while I was in medical school.
00:15:17This was towards the end of med school was I was doing a user interface
00:15:20and user experience design for medical technology companies.
00:15:23And the way I got this gig was because I attended a hackathon.
00:15:26A hackathon is a sort of event where you team up with a team
00:15:30and you create like a prototype of a product.
00:15:32And I happened to be attending a hackathon that was hosted by a society for plastic surgeons.
00:15:36And in my team, there were these two plastic surgeons,
00:15:38one of whom was running a medical technology company who needed UI design.
00:15:41And the other guy was also running some med tech stuff and needed UI design.
00:15:44And I was like the youngest guy on the team because I was just like,
00:15:46you know, a 23 year old medical student.
00:15:47But because I put myself in charge of making the PowerPoint presentation for our pitch
00:15:51and it looked really good.
00:15:52These guys were like, whoa, this guy's really good at design.
00:15:54And so when I got chatting to them during the day,
00:15:56both of them spontaneously asked me if I could help them
00:15:58with the design work they needed for their particular businesses.
00:16:01And so by attending this in-person networking sort of event,
00:16:04by showing up and adding value, by being good at design,
00:16:07because I've been doing it for like years at that point,
00:16:08that was how I was able to land two of these clients
00:16:10and ended up making tens of thousands of pounds from these two separate clients
00:16:13while I was still a medical student and still trying to grow my courses business.
00:16:17And that was actually before I started the YouTube channel.
00:16:19So that was the story of my first few clients
00:16:21for various different business ventures I've done over the years.
00:16:24Let's speak to some more team members now.
00:16:25Cheers.
00:16:27Okay. So now we are going to be hearing from Owen,
00:16:29who is again, one of our team members.
00:16:30And Owen is the marketing specialist
00:16:31that we've got within the Lifestyle Business Academy.
00:16:33So he ends up giving advice to a lot of our students
00:16:34around like how to improve their marketing and how to get sales.
00:16:37Owen's career started off working at a B2B tech startup.
00:16:39He then pivoted into joining a branding agency.
00:16:41And then he worked as part of the nightclub industry
00:16:43in Hong Kong for a couple of years
00:16:44before ultimately deciding to start his very own marketing agency.
00:16:47And so let's ask Owen how he got his very first client.
00:16:51All right.
00:16:51So Owen, how did you get your first paid client for your marketing agency?
00:16:55I got my first client from my existing network.
00:16:58So it was actually an old employer of mine.
00:17:01During break from university,
00:17:03I would come home, do a summer job or whatever,
00:17:05and it was actually sports coaching.
00:17:06So I didn't think much of it at the time,
00:17:08but I was just, you know, working for him as a sports coach.
00:17:10Yeah.
00:17:10And then when I eventually decided that I wanted to try out starting my own business
00:17:15and freelancing initially with the goal to then turn it into an agency,
00:17:19I just tried to reactivate my old network and see if friends of friends knew people
00:17:24or just if I had any existing business owners in my network.
00:17:26Yeah.
00:17:26So you messaged your old boss.
00:17:28Like, what did you say?
00:17:29I basically said, I was like, hey, I'm currently doing this thing for my full-time job.
00:17:32Here are some results I've been able to generate for this company that I'm working for.
00:17:36Now I'm actually looking to take on some clients, you know, work on a freelance basis with my own
00:17:40clients.
00:17:41And so would you be keen for me to maybe do a quick audit of your current like marketing?
00:17:45And so he was like, yep, sure, happily.
00:17:47So initially it was a little free audit.
00:17:49I had a look at the ads he was running and I gave him some feedback on them.
00:17:52And so then we met up for coffee after that.
00:17:53And then he was like, cool.
00:17:55Like how much would it be for you to come on and help us with this stuff?
00:17:57Great.
00:17:58And then how did you get clients to three, four and five?
00:18:00All through referrals and word of mouth.
00:18:02So yeah, like the nice thing about doing like marketing is that it's very visual,
00:18:05you know, customer facing stuff.
00:18:07And so the client I was working with, he had a lot of friends who were other business owners.
00:18:11And so they saw the ads that I was running for him.
00:18:14And so they're like, oh, these ads are pretty good.
00:18:15Who's doing his marketing?
00:18:17And so then he would just say, I'm working with this freelancer.
00:18:19And so then he referred me.
00:18:20And that's how I literally got probably like my first five or six clients.
00:18:23Amazing referrals and word of mouth.
00:18:25Love it.
00:18:25Thank you very much.
00:18:26All righty.
00:18:26So that was Owen.
00:18:28So as we heard, he got his very first client through just WhatsAppping a bunch of people that
00:18:31he knew in Hong Kong.
00:18:32One of those was his former employer.
00:18:34And so there's a principle when it comes to outreach in particular that has a nice acronym,
00:18:37WIIFT.
00:18:39What's in it for them?
00:18:40Generally, if you're going to do outreach for someone, then it becomes a lot easier if you're
00:18:44able to offer something valuable for them, ideally for free.
00:18:46And so he offers a free marketing audit.
00:18:48The guy's like, yes, of course, who wouldn't say no to a free marketing audit.
00:18:50Owen does a great job with the marketing audit.
00:18:52And then literally he gets a paid engagement from that.
00:18:54And then clients two, three, four, and five word of mouth referrals.
00:18:57So hopefully at this point, you can start to see some of the patterns that we're seeing amongst
00:19:01all the various team members that we've got who have experience in running their own business
00:19:04before I managed to talk them into joining our team as coaches and specialists.
00:19:07And so now it is 4:30 PM.
00:19:09We are wrapping up at this very nice zip line place.
00:19:11So we're going to head back to the villa.
00:19:12And by the way, if you're enjoying the video at this point, I would love it if you could leave
00:19:15a comment down below about what are you enjoying about the video?
00:19:18Because we want to do more of these like casual vlog style things in particular, where I can bring
00:19:22on the team members that we have who have their own expertise in addition to my own to talk about
00:19:26stuff that y'all are struggling with as it relates to either being more productive, managing your time,
00:19:30achieving your goals, or in the context of this specific video, starting your own business,
00:19:34generating an independent income, whatever floats your boat.
00:19:36So I would love it if you can leave a comment down below with some feedback because it really
00:19:38helps us out and helps us decide if we want to do more of these kind of videos.
00:19:44The pattern that you've hopefully seen emerge from the various conversations that we've had
00:19:49throughout this video is, you know, everyone worries about how do I sell my stuff to strangers?
00:19:53But as you'll hopefully have seen, often your first client is not actually a stranger.
00:19:57They are probably someone that you know, or if they're not someone you personally know,
00:20:01they are someone who is a friend of someone you know, or even if you don't know them,
00:20:06they are part of some kind of community either online or offline that you are part of.
00:20:12You very, very rarely get your first client by selling to complete strangers.
00:20:17Let's imagine you were starting a bakery.
00:20:20How do you think you would get your first customer for your bakery?
00:20:22Would you do it by running Instagram ads or like advertising on TikTok or like running a billboard?
00:20:30Is that how you would realistically get your first customer for your bakery?
00:20:34Probably not.
00:20:34The way you'd get your first customer for your bakery is that you would almost certainly
00:20:38say to your friends and family in your local area,
00:20:40Hey gang, I have just started a bakery.
00:20:42Would anyone be interested in getting a discounted or whatever?
00:20:46That's probably how you get your first client for your bakery.
00:20:49This in our Lifestyle Business Academy is what we call the magic question.
00:20:52Do you know anyone who happens to need X?
00:20:55I'm offering a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, free audit, a free consultation,
00:20:59a free coaching, like whatever in return.
00:21:01That tends to be how you get your very first client.
00:21:03So then starting a business really doesn't need to be this scary, terrifying thing.
00:21:07Yes, of course, you have a bit of a struggle around like what's your business idea actually going to be.
00:21:11Don't worry, we've done videos on that.
00:21:13We will continue to do videos on that.
00:21:14We've got a Lifestyle Business Academy YouTube channel, which is getting got free content for that.
00:21:17And definitely for your first client and probably for your first $10,000 in revenue,
00:21:21you actually do not need to try and reach out to strangers.
00:21:24You can in fact, get clients by talking to your friends and family and asking if they know anyone who
00:21:28might need your thing.
00:21:29But the final thing I'd say is that selling to our friends can be scarier than selling to strangers,
00:21:35even though it's simple and it's not actually easy.
00:21:38The reason it's not easy is because we all have these emotional hurdles and like mindset blockers
00:21:42that stop us from doing the thing.
00:21:44We worry about coming across as scammy or spammy to our friends.
00:21:47We're terrified of posting on LinkedIn because what if my colleagues find out?
00:21:51What if my boss finds out?
00:21:52And then almost everyone really struggles with it.
00:21:54But then they send the first few messages.
00:21:56They realize they realize the world did not end.
00:21:58They realize that actually people were generally nice and generally supportive.
00:22:01Anyway, that's how to get your first client.
00:22:03And if you're interested in a step-by-step breakdown on how to scale from your very first
00:22:07client all the way up to $100,000 a year in revenue, there will be a video right over here
00:22:13all about that.
00:22:13So thank you very much for watching and I will see you in the next video.
00:22:16Bye-bye!
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