In the previous articles we looked at how you can set up your own business. Now is the time for us to address the area that is a priority for all companies, freelancers, and entrepreneurs - how will you find the customers and how will they find you? In the following 3 articles we will discuss several aspects that you need to consider when building your customer base.

Without customers, you will get nowhere. Regardless of your track record or time in business, you always need to replenish the customer flow. Because this is a complex topic, we will divide it into a few different stages and look at how you can work with these different parts.

The stages are:

Create visibility
Fill the pipeline
Come to a conclusion
Customer care

Use the water mill as a metaphor

Metaphors and visualizations can be a powerful and useful tool for entrepreneurs. This is why I prefer to use the metaphor of a watermill. Let’s see how this metaphor can help you get more clients and boost your freelance or entrepreneurship journey.

Creating visibility is about creating your own collection of people who know that you exist and what you do. I see these as the water you get to use as the driving force for your water wheel. Maybe you are strategically placed next to a suitable stream, maybe you dam up a pond in your area. You can carry water there, you can create flows that lead water there, you can wait for the rainwater to fill a reservoir - the more active you are, the faster it goes. Use that entrepreneurial spirit and be proactive.

Then imagine a gutter where the water is led up to the paddle that runs the entire operation. This is what I call the pipeline. The gutter leads the water to your water wheel where it flows through and, with its power, drives the wheel round. Customers who know you approach you for your products and services and when this becomes a business, you can charge a price and the business gets revenue. Customer care is about what you do with the water after you work with it: do you let it splash away and find its way on its’ own, or do you lead it back to the pond?

Depending on the phase your company is in, you have to focus on different parts, but all four need to be up and running at all times. Whichever of them stops, it will soon dry out the others as well. Let's go through the four parts and see what needs to be done in each of them. Along the way, I offer you a tool for creating your own action plan. Regardless of whether you are a new entrepreneur or freelancer or a veteran who got stuck at one of these waterwheel steps, you will get tips for each step in turn on how to get started (or unstuck).

Create visibility

Every company, entrepreneur, and freelancer needs to have their group of people who know that they exist and what they do. In that group are your potential customers. This group is very small in the beginning when you start mostly alone with most awareness coming from your loved ones and friends.

Pretty quickly you have to turn up the volume. It helps to be a loud entrepreneur. The more people who know you, the greater the chance that you will get the customers you need. Imagine the metaphor of the water wheel: the more water there is, the more the wheel will turn. Not everyone who knows your company and entrepreneurship journey will become customers, but the more they are, the greater the chance that you will be visible to the right person at the right time.

The first thing you should do here is decide who is your target audience. Who are the most likely customers? Focus on them. Being known by "everyone" is not necessarily a good thing. It is expensive and time consuming to reach everyone at once. The wiser strategy is to choose a specific group of people and focus on them.

Here are some examples of questions that you can ask yourself to reach your target segment:

Where are they?
What are they interested in?
What do you have to offer them?

The main idea behind visibility is that you need to connect the answers to these questions: figure out what value your product offers the customer, find this group and show them how your product can solve their problems or bring them extra value. Remember that entrepreneurship, in part, is about offering solutions to people’s struggles.

Channels you can use to gain visibility

You can create your visibility in many ways. Some standard channels include advertisements, lectures, flyers, and networking. In this phase, it is about getting yourself out there, drawing attention to yourself, and creating an understanding of what it is you are offering. Different products come with different challenges. You will need to adapt your marketing approach to fit your product.

You need to reduce the uncertainty surrounding your product

Generally speaking, the more you can reduce the uncertainty surrounding your product, the more likely people are to buy it. This is why physical products tend to be more easily sold than non-tangible products. Your task is to find novel ways to make your product stand out and offer your customers as much proof of the product’s value as possible. Here you can think about offering freebies and demonstration sessions.

Another way to reduce the uncertainty factor is by first reaching out to those who already know you - perhaps former colleagues or employers, friends, family, and their extended network. Because they already know you and you have a relationship of trust with them, they are more likely to purchase your product.

One last tip on reducing uncertainty is by marketing yourself and your products in communities which already embrace the type of solution that you offer. For example, if you run a coaching business, a good place to promote yourself is in self-development groups where people are looking for ways to improve themselves and are hungry to learn.

Extra tip: zero in

What is your way of being seen as an entrepreneur or freelancer? Choose 3 activities that suit you and that make your company widely visible to new people. If you want ideas, borrow a book about guerrilla marketing or outreach sales work, there are lots of books and websites on how to get new customers if you are empty of your own ideas. The trick is to pick 3 things and actually consistently do them for 30 days. Here is a free action plan to help you follow through with this task.

Join us in the next episode when we continue our exploration of the water wheel metaphor.