No Sales for My Business: What Each Result Means.
Seeing no sales for my business in the first weeks is expected, not informative. A sale from kindness should not count. Also, if only your employer's customers would buy, the business is not separable from the job, and one real sale earns time, not a verdict.
When nobody replies at all.
Silence is expected and not yet informative. At two per cent, forty attempts gives one expected sale. So what to do when nobody buys is count attempts, not outcomes, for the first month. You will feel like a failure around attempt twelve, and again around thirty. Still, attempts are the only part you control.
Kindness, your employer's customers, and resignation.
If somebody buys out of kindness, take the money but write it in a different column. A kindness brings you relief, while a real sale brings a small shock. Also, if only your employer's customers would buy, your business is not separable from the job. Then chapter 11's route of buying a business becomes the obvious option.
If you make the sale and want to resign, don't. One sale earns you the rest of the twelve weeks, not a verdict.
Reading no sales for my business honestly.
Sometimes you cannot start because you don't know what to sell. Then the problem is upstream, in chapter 8's two columns. So the question of why my product is not selling may mean the right-hand column is empty. In Guadalajara, the shop owner asked early, when the cost was one afternoon. Therefore ask yourself now why a stranger should believe you will be there next week.
Respond to no sales for my business this month.
Make a tally sheet with columns for attempts, kindness sales and stranger sales.
Write your answer to the shop owner's question in two honest sentences.
From the book.
Nobody replies to anything. Expected, and not yet informative. At a two per cent conversion rate, forty attempts is one expected sale, which means you'll feel like a comprehensive failure somewhere around attempt twelve and again around attempt thirty. So count attempts rather than outcomes for the first month, because the attempts are the only part of this you control, and the outcomes will arrive on their own schedule regardless of how you happen to feel about them on any particular evening.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 12: One stranger, one payment, while you still have the job
Questions about no sales for my business.
What does no sales for my business after twelve attempts mean?
Not much yet. At two per cent, forty attempts is one expected sale.
Should I count a sale from a friend?
Take the money if you like, but do not count it. Write it in a separate column instead.
Should I resign after my first real sale?
No. One sale is an anecdote, so it earns you the rest of the twelve weeks, not a verdict.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 12, “One stranger, one payment, while you still have the job”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Building Credibility as a New Business: Own It.
- 02 First Sale to a Stranger: The Six Conditions.
- 03 Is One Sale Enough Validation: What It Proves.
- 04 Employee Duty of Loyalty: Prepare, Don't Solicit.
- 05 Fired for Side Business: Four Questions to Ask.
- 06 Turn a Hobby Into a Business: The Knitter's Runway.
- 07 How Long to Get First Sale: Six to Eleven Months.
- 08 No Sales for My Business: What Each Result Means.