Without sales, you don’t have a business.

You might have a lovely logo, an impressive website, beautiful packaging and a colour-coded spreadsheet that would make an accountant weep with joy.

But without sales, eventually you have a very expensive hobby.

Everything else — marketing, production, admin, operations — only survives if somebody is actually buying what you’re selling.

The problem is that selling makes a lot of people deeply uncomfortable.

It doesn’t suit every personality. Some people hate rejection. Others don’t know what to say. And quite a few would rather reorganise the stationery cupboard than walk up to a stranger and pitch them something.

The good news?

Selling is a skill. And skills can be learned.

I once read a great article about Barack Obama describing how, as a young man, he suffered from severe stage fright and would sometimes freeze when speaking in public. Through practice, he overcame it and eventually became an exceptional public speaker.

Selling is much the same.

You are probably not going to be brilliant at it on day one.

In fact, you may be absolutely dreadful.

That’s fine.

PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE.

Every awkward conversation teaches you something. Every rejection helps you refine the pitch. Every time someone looks confused, bored or starts edging towards the exit, you learn what not to say next time.

Eventually, it starts to feel natural. 

 

It’s all about the first sentence or two

When you are selling, you have a few seconds to earn someone’s attention.

That’s it.

Do not respond by launching into the full history of your company, your personal journey, your manufacturing process and the inspirational story behind your logo.

Nobody asked.

Work obsessively on the first sentence or two.

LESS IS MORE.

Those opening words should do one thing: make the person curious enough to want to hear the next sentence.

Practice on friends and family first. They are contractually obliged to listen to you.

Then move on to smaller or less strategic customers where the stakes are lower. Try different approaches. See what makes people lean in and what makes their eyes glaze over.

Over time, you will develop a pitch that sounds like you rather than something memorised from a sales handbook. 

 

Don’t jump into the deep end

I cannot emphasise this enough.

There is a huge graveyard of start-ups that tried to go too big, too quickly.

When entrepreneurs launch a product, the dream is often immediate: get into the biggest retailer possible.

You walk into a major supermarket, stare at the shelves and think:

Imagine if my product was in 500 of these.

It is completely understandable.

It can also be a very expensive mistake.

If you get into a major retailer before you have created real underlying demand, you may simply have found a highly efficient way of proving that nobody knows who you are yet.

Big retailers can give you distribution.

They cannot magically create demand.

And remember how people actually shop. Most customers do not enter a supermarket and lovingly browse 40,000 products in search of an undiscovered start-up brand.

They have a list.

They know roughly where the milk is.

They want to get home.

So rather than trying to conquer the biggest retailer on day one:

BUILD DEMAND FIRST.

Your ultimate goal should actually be the opposite.

Build enough demand that retailers start asking you.

That is a much nicer conversation.

It can be frustrating when you can see the potential of a major account sitting right in front of you. But resist the temptation to sprint before you can walk.

Put in the hard yards first. 

Hustle

Most start-ups do not have enormous marketing budgets.

This is where hustle comes in.

And hustle, despite what LinkedIn might have you believe, does not mean waking up at 4:30am, taking an ice bath and posting inspirational quotes about “the grind”.

It means being willing to do things bigger companies cannot be bothered to do.

Knock on doors.

Make calls.

Deliver samples yourself.

Turn up at events.

Follow up.

Then follow up again.

You will be amazed at what you can achieve with very little money if you are prepared to invest time and energy instead.

Your biggest competitive advantage in the early days is often not money.

It is effort. 

A formula to follow: B2C

If you are selling directly to consumers, there are two main routes I would focus on initially.

1. Online sales

Online sales are relatively cheap to set up and, if necessary, can be run from your bedroom, garage or dining-room table.

The problem is that online sales are often painfully slow in the beginning.

You launch your website.

You tell everyone.

You refresh Shopify every six minutes.

Nothing happens.

That is normal.

Getting noticed online takes time, consistency and, increasingly, money.

So particularly in the early days, I would put a lot of energy into the second route.

2. Shop to shop

This is where I would focus.

You need to wear out the shoe leather.

Actually go and see people.

Walk into shops.

Introduce yourself.

Tell the story.

Offer the sample.

And remember: it still comes back to those first one or two sentences.

Start small and build geographically:

OWN THE SHOP → OWN THE STREET → OWN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD → OWN THE SUBURB → OWN THE TOWN → OWN THE PROVINCE / COUNTY → OWN THE COUNTRY

The principle is simple:

Dominate your local market before trying to dominate the national one.

For example, I live in a student town.

If I were launching a product, I would try to get it into every relevant shop, café, restaurant and outlet in town until it became difficult not to encounter it.

Then something interesting starts to happen.

Students go home for the holidays.

They take your product with them.

Their parents try it.

Their friends see it.

Someone asks:

“Where did you get this?”

Suddenly your customers are spreading your product into other markets for you.

For free.

That is the most powerful form of marketing there is:

Word of mouth.

People will almost always trust a recommendation from someone they know more than an advert from a company enthusiastically explaining how fantastic its own product is.

More on that in the next blog. 

A formula to follow: B2B

If you are selling to other businesses, the routes are slightly different but the principle is the same:

Make it easy for the right people to discover you, and then get in front of them.

1. Online

Build an online presence designed for businesses rather than consumers.

Look at what successful companies in your industry are doing. There is no need to reinvent the internet.

Then start building a database of potential customers.

Contact them.

Follow up.

Stay visible.

Do not send them fourteen emails before breakfast, obviously, but understand that one email is rarely enough.

LinkedIn can be particularly useful because it allows you to identify the actual people responsible for buying, rather than sending emails into the mysterious black hole known as info@company.com.

2. Direct approach

This is harder.

Unfortunately, it is also often necessary.

Buyers are bombarded.

Their inboxes are full of people claiming to have “an exciting opportunity”, “a game-changing product” or asking whether they have “15 minutes for a quick call”.

Their instinct is therefore sometimes:

Shoot first and ask questions later.

Delete.

Delete.

Delete.

Delete.

So how do you get through?

Trade shows

Trade shows can be extremely useful because, unusually:

The buyers come to you.

You can put the product in their hands, have a proper conversation and usually work out within a few minutes whether there is genuine interest.

The downside?

They can cost a fortune.

Stand fees. Travel. Samples. Accommodation. Branding. That mysteriously expensive folding table.

For a young company, the costs add up quickly.

Choose them carefully.

Networking

Probably the most effective approach I have found is networking.

This can be exhausting.

Particularly if you are not naturally social and would rather be at home watching television than making small talk with a stranger beside a bowl of complimentary peanuts.

But it works.

There is an old cliché that more deals are done on the golf course than in the boardroom.

There is a reason the cliché has survived.

When you meet someone socially, the dynamic changes.

You are no longer immediately trying to sell them something.

You can:

Get to know them.

Understand their business.

Understand their problems.

Build trust.

Then, at some point, the conversation may naturally turn into:

Actually, we might be able to help with that.

And sometimes, eventually, that becomes a sale. 

Conclusion

Selling is a bit like dating.

You may pursue ten potential dates and only one says yes.

That does not mean the other nine were pointless.

The same applies to sales.

If you approach 100 potential customers and ten become customers, congratulations — you now have ten customers you did not have before.

Do not obsess over the 90.

And definitely do not forget them.

A “no” today does not necessarily mean “no forever.”

Their circumstances may change.

Your product may improve.

Their buyer may change.

Their existing supplier may let them down.

Or perhaps the first time you approached them your pitch was simply terrible.

Keep a record of everyone you approach and follow up intelligently.

Some of your best customers may eventually be people who initially told you to go away.

So remember the formula:

Get your story right.

Nail the first one or two sentences.

Get out there.

You cannot score a try sitting on the bench.

Hustle.

Especially when you cannot afford to simply throw money at the problem.

And don’t get despondent.

Selling is a numbers game. You will hear “no” far more often than you hear “yes”.

That is part of it.

Keep asking.

Keep learning.

Keep improving.

Because the only guaranteed way to stop making sales is to stop trying to make them.

 

Kenneth Kinsey-Quick 
Founder & CEO