How Do I Get My First Customers With No Marketing Budget?

Shawna Suckow: Are you a new business, and you’re trying to figure out how to get those first customers through the door when you don’t yet have a track record, a reputation, reviews, anything like that? Or, if you are a business who is trying to come up with ideas to kind of jumpstart your business, this episode is for you. Today, I’m going to be covering unique ways that you can get new customers, and examples are going to include a roofer, a chiropractor, a Botox provider, a painter, permanent makeup, and a trade show. So, kind of a whole array of different types of businesses, and hopefully you can see yourself in at least one of these, and glean some ideas for your business.

So let’s start out with a story about a business that I owned. This was back in 2009. One of the many, many businesses. I’ve always been an entrepreneur since 3rd grade, when I sold pencils with, like, fuzzy hair on them and googly eyes. That was a big hit with the third graders.

So, in 2009, I decided I owned an event planning business, and I was tired of being at the mercy of my clients. I was getting weary of being an event planner, having this business, and I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny. I wanted to own my own event, rather than be a planner for other corporations or associations. So, I decided to create my own consumer show. Basically, like one of those shows, like the boat show, or the hunting show, or whatever that you’ve probably been to in your life.

I decided that I was going to create one of these, and I live in Minneapolis, and there was a man who started a show for women. And it was a women’s conference, and I was like, okay, fine, I’m going to start a trade show for men. And so I started this thing called the Guy Expo. I had no reputation in trade shows, consumer shows. I had no credibility for the types of sponsors that I was going to need, and the types of exhibitors that I was going to need to convince to part with their money, that I could bring in the foot traffic and the customers.

So, what I decided to do is I decided to go after two huge corporations, Best Buy and Lowe’s. Because I wanted to... I had this vision of what this show could be, and I wanted to create the ultimate man cave, and have this be a cornerstone on the show floor, where people could walk into this structure, and it would replicate, like, this cool man cave. And so, I wanted Lowe’s to build it, and I wanted Best Buy to deck it out with all the technology, and then I wanted to find an interior designer to come and make it really, really cool. So this was my vision for this trade show.

So, I created a prospectus. And I got a meeting with Best Buy, and I got a meeting with Lowe’s, and I went in and I said, I want to give you my Platinum Sponsorship. You, Best Buy, and you, Lowe’s, will be the Platinum sponsors of the inaugural Guy Expo. And here’s what it’s going to entail. And I gave away this marketing package that, at the time, I could have easily charged anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 if I had the track record, but I didn’t. So, both of them said yes. And it was going to be an expense, especially for Lowe’s. They had to bring in lumber, and they had to bring in builders, and they had to bring in drywall, and they had to basically create this structure on the show floor in a really short period of time as well.

And that’s how I did it. In a nutshell, I then was able to go to Pizza Hut, and Harley-Davidson, and Hooters, and MMA. I had an MMA group come in and put a ring in the middle of the trade show floor, and they all said yes because they saw other companies said yes, and those other companies gave me credibility, and gave them the ability to trust me. And it worked.

Unfortunately, I, as a new trade show owner, did not know what I didn’t know, and long story short, I picked the wrong weekend. I picked a beautiful summer weekend, of which there are not many in Minneapolis, because summer is very short, in August, for an indoor show, and right across the street was the Irish Festival, which was free, and outdoors, and a raucous good time. So it wasn’t good. I eventually did it again in another market, but just to say, I’ve had some hard knocks, too, so if you are a small business owner, I’ve been where you are.

But that is one idea: give away a big thing. And get the credibility from that company. Make sure that you have the ability to get testimonials, or have that big company give you reviews, or get the footage, get video, get photos, get all the things that then you can turn those into marketing assets to get other similar companies or people to say yes. So that is idea number one: just give it away.

Let’s talk about, say, a roofing company. Similar idea is... you may have seen on TikTok, or Facebook, or whatever platform you’re on, videos of a guy that does yard cleanup. He goes to overgrown yards and finds people who are struggling, who, for whatever reason — maybe health issues or money issues — they have not taken care of their yard, and it’s gotten way out of hand. And he offers to do it completely for free, as long as he can videotape himself doing it and show the before and after. And not to mention, this guy, in one city, has gone viral and has hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views for this. It helped him grow in his community, but he’s also getting paid by TikTok and Facebook for doing this.

But, how can you show what you do if it’s a service, like roofing? If you do it for charity, that’s a write-off. Or you could start out and have fun doing a re-roofing of a doghouse, and have fun with it, and show the process, and say, this is what we could do on a larger scale for your house. Look at all the things that you could do, and have a series of doghouses. But show your work, get video of you doing it, not just the pretty after and the ugly before, but what I call the messy middle. And you doing the work, your people doing the work, interview them as they’re doing it. Have fun with it, but make sure that you get the assets that you can use, because those assets can be used for years.

Those stories will certainly help you attract and stop the scroll, and attract your customers, and have footage, have photos, have stories, have testimonials, have Google reviews, Yelp reviews, whatever. From happy customers who were so grateful even for you to do their doghouse, but especially if you did a small home for an elderly couple who really needed it, or you went in after a storm and offered your services. Those are the types of things that establish trust, they stand out, and they make you unforgettable.

Let’s talk about painting. There is a young man, his name is Ryan Pettis, and he owns Pettis Painting. If you saw just him and his social media, and he was just putting before and after shots up like every painter does, you would say, this guy’s pretty young, what could he possibly know about painting? Well, Ryan goes a different route. He has bought some Facebook ads, and he talks about painting while a project is underway. He’s like, this is what we’re doing today, and sometimes he has one of his coworkers there, and he interviews that worker, and he shows what he’s doing. And he makes an ad out of that. He doesn’t have to do an ad, but you can reach your exact right customers through whatever social platform your customers are on. Those stories stop the scroll. It has to be something that your competitors aren’t doing, and all of your competitors are saying the same things. So, it’s about showing the before, the messy middle, and the after.

Now let’s talk about a market that is very, very saturated, and one that my bonus son is going into. He is going to become a chiropractor very soon, and he can either work at another chiropractic practice, or he can open up his own shop. How can Brady, my bonus son, how can he differentiate himself? How can he start out when he has no customers, and be able to pay the rent, and be able to buy the equipment he needs?

He has to do something different. He cannot just go into business and say, we work with health insurance, we work with auto injuries, we work with workers’ comp, we are customer focused. Those are all things that every chiropractor says. So Brady’s going to have to go about this a little differently.

He could come up with theme parties, theme nights, to get people in the door. What about game day? He could bring in a giant screen TV and have a game day party, where... I came up with this: cracks and snacks, because you’re cracking people’s backs. Get a bunch of guys and women too, get them through the door for a game-watching party, and you offer the snacks, and you offer the drinks. Start with your friends. Start with your family. Just get people in there to show what such an event could look like. Or I could have a post-triathlon party, and all of my fellow triathletes, we’re going to go, and we’re going to get our backs cracked, and we’re going to have some protein and carbs, and we’re going to refuel, and we’re going to work out the kinks, and maybe Brady brings in a massage therapist who’s also looking to get new customers, and you create an experience.

This makes great stories, gets great footage, gets great photos, reviews. Everybody that comes in, especially your first couple times, if you do something like this for free or very low cost, make sure that they know the price of admission is that you want — if they’re happy — a video testimonial, a written testimonial on Google, on Yelp, wherever you are positioned to get reviews. And you’re going to take photos, and have them sign a release. But something like that is going to stop the scroll, it’s going to build trust, it’s going to differentiate you, and it’s going to make you unforgettable.

I told you I was going to talk about Botox. I have a friend in St. Louis, Angela, and she does Botox parties every 3 months, when her friends... every 3 months is generally when you get fresh Botox injections, because they wear off. Every 3 months, at her house, she has a Botox party, where she has a provider come to her house. And she gets a discount for her and all of her friends, because this provider comes after hours on an evening or on a weekend when she’s not at work, and she knows she’s going to get a lot of clients in a short amount of time. And so she offers them a deal, and in return, she gets all of these customers, she gets this great reputation, she gets reviews, she gets word of mouth from this. And it is hard to get into Angela’s Botox parties now, because Angela’s Botox parties have this cool reputation of being really fun, too.

So, anybody who does lashes or permanent makeup, like brows, which is semi-permanent — if you’re looking to get customers, this is the type of thing that makes you stand out, gets you the marketing assets that you need, gets you the reputation. If I am going to get semi-permanent makeup, I want to see examples of this before I go in. But the way to do that is to create social-media-worthy experiences. Can you imagine a bridal party coming in, maybe at their bridal shower, a couple months beforehand, they come and they get their brows done, or they get waxing done, or they get Botox, or whatever, and it becomes a fun thing. I know of a tattoo shop that offers this as a package, and it’s a way for them to get people through the door, and she has hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok.

So, just another way for you to think differently. I hate the term "think outside the box." I say throw away the box and create your own experience. Look to other industries, and see what other people have done, and see if you can adopt something like that for your company.

By the way, I have lots and lots of free resources for you in my vault. 90% of these tools are free, and you just go to thebuyerinsider.com/vault. I want to help as many small businesses as I can.

So thanks for tuning in. I hope this has given you at least one idea that maybe you can try and adopt, and if you do try one of these, please let me know about it. You can reach me through my website, or you can message me if you happen to be on one of the social channels. I would love to give your business some free media coverage as well, maybe have you on the show. So, keep me posted. And thank you for tuning in to Underestimated.