Starting an online Business. Need Help Getting Clients

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New answer on Jun 12, 2020
7 Answers
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Gabriel asked on Jun 11, 2020

Hello. I am currently working on my online fitness consulting business and was wondering if anyone has any good tips on gathering new clients online. I currently have a test client and he is very happy with what I have been teaching him so I know that what I am offering will be great for people that are in need. If you want more information on what my business will be here is my LinkedIn profile which has more information on it: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-cabello-professional-fitness-coach-54b448187/ . Thanks looking forward to hearing some advice from y'all!

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Clara
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Jun 11, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

I was smiling when reading your post, since I am also launching a online business at the moment and facing the same exact challenge: customer adquisition.

In fact, if you listen to Bill Aulet, from the Entrepreneurship Center in MIT, he always obsesses about this topic too.

You need to try to find what he calls "the water areas", meaning, those places in the nature where there is calm water and animals stop to drink. You need to precise find those for your targeted client. Here I leave you the 24 steps to Entrepreneurship

24 steps to Entrepreneurship

Watch Bill Autlet! He really knows what he talks about > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqmCN5Tt0Jo

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

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Robert
Expert
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replied on Jun 11, 2020
McKinsey offers w/o final round interviews - 100% risk-free - 10+ years MBB coaching experience - Multiple book author

Hi Gabriel,

On top of Clara's excellent recommendation, a natural sequence I see in many (small-scale) online business:

  • Do the service work and get your hands dirty yourself = building your competence first
  • Tell everyone (reasonable) you know about your plans - if you solve a worthwile problem, don't hesitate to share the message
  • Take on a few test clients - even if it's oftenly considered as a "stupid" move, undercutting the price of your competition might be the right thing to do to build paid experience
  • Most likely only at this stage you really understand your ideal customer and can target that - there is no general answer possible here
  • Build your audience = demonstrating your expertise on a regular basis (content-marketing is raising in popularity whereas paid ads decreased significantly in performance over last ~2 years)
  • Develop a product and sell more than your personal time

Hope that helps - if so, please give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

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Ian
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Jun 12, 2020
#1 BCG coach | MBB | Tier 2 | Digital, Tech, Platinion | 100% personal success rate (8/8) | 95% candidate success rate

Hi Gabriel,

Just to add to all the points below...use data analytics

What I mean is, track every single outreach you conduct, and all the variations to it. Then, run regressions to determine the most efficient ways of obtaining clients.

For example, if you're opt to advertise on facebook, create a few different ads and target range of ages, interests, etc. Then, determine which combinations are most effective (i.e. demographic + ad type)

Do the same for any outreach via LinkedIn (i.e. multiple types of messages, track responses + follow-throughs to determine the most effective messaging / targeting)

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Anonymous replied on Jun 11, 2020

Dear Gabriel,

Online businnes is getting more intense nowadays, so the best way to gather clients is to use Ads (Google, FB, Instagram, LinkedIn or any other platform you're going to develop your business )

But first and the most important thing - you have to know portrait of your clients and what specific services and products and on what price they are redy to buy. You can do it by yourself or ask some market specialists for help.

Hope it helps,

Best,

André

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Antonello
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Jun 12, 2020
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

Hi Gabriel, in addition to the great advices of other coaches I confirm the first step of standard consulting companies is starting from data: gather data about every smart segment you can identify about your business (product mix, distribution channel mix, customer mix: age, salary, geography, ...), identify patterns, and focus your energy on most profitable or growing segments

Best,
Antonello

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Luca
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Jun 11, 2020
BCG |NASA | SDA Bocconi & Cattolica partner | GMAT expert 780/800 score | 200+ students coached

Hello Gabriel,

Good luck with your new adventure! Another good option, especially if you don't want to invest a lot of money in ads, is a "Member get member" policy. In a nutshell, you leverage you current customer base to get new customers offering a reward for every person introduced to your business.

Best,
Luca

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Anonymous replied on Jun 11, 2020

Hi,

At the beginning, you probably face a lot of competition, and I'm not sure that investing € 10,000 on a Facebook campaign is interesting at the moment. I really believe in word of mouth for start-up; I therefore advise you to start with free or really inexpensive lessons, and why not do them in groups at the start to attract more people. The main idea is to make yourself known (not just your name, but especially what you can really bring). Good luck, it's great.

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Clara gave the best answer

Clara

Content Creator
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut
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