Founders share top tips for landing your critical first clients

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So you’ve got a great idea that promises to solve a problem in a certain industry, and you’ve found some of the most capable specialists in their fields. You’ve also somehow managed to get them on board to develop a product or service that will reshape the market as we know it. Now, you’ve decided that you’re formally ready to take on clients, but how are you going to do that?

While it may seem easy to cold call someone and hope to get lucky, acquiring clients to keep your business afloat can be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome. You could run into a resistant market, tough competition, untrusting prospects, or just flat-out refusals that could discourage even the most optimistic of entrepreneurs.

Tech in Asia spoke to three startup founders about how they landed their first clients. Here are their top client acquisition tips.

1. Identify key decision-makers

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Businesses seeking to reel in larger companies as clients often have to be prepared for a long onboarding process — a problem that Andrei Roudenko, co-founder of Singapore-based mobile engagement platform RL Club, is familiar with.

Such firms “have many stakeholders and departments that they have to go through to obtain approval before getting back to you,” points out Roudenko. “From the moment you first pitch to them, you could find yourself waiting for as long as six to 24 months before the sale happens.”

Aside from the need to be patient and persistent in these situations, Roudenko emphasized that it’s important to “identify and reach the key decision-makers in the companies you are pitching to as soon as possible.”

You also need to “make them realize your product’s worth to their business so that they will be more inclined to buy into your product quickly.”

2. Don’t oversell

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Sometimes, you may be tempted to make promises you can’t keep and agree to impossible requests in order to secure the sale. This happens especially in the middle of a big client pitch. After all, getting the client’s “yes” is what the pitch is all about. However, Unscrambl’s Vibhore Kumar cautions against unrealistic measures.

“Be honest,” advises the CEO and co-founder. “Don’t sell dreams you can’t deliver.”

Founded in 2013, Unscrambl chose a different route to make themselves stand out in an increasingly cluttered data processing industry. Kumar focused on building its reputation as a highly capable service provider – something that could not have been achieved had Atlanta-headquartered startup oversold itself to early clients. Instead, Unscrambl banked on its founders’ reputations and credentials.

“Amongst the five co-founders, four of us had PhDs in computer science from top-ranked US universities and the lone non-PhD holder was a top-notch sales executive in the ASEAN region. The credibility of the team helped, and continues to help when we are pitching to clients,” said Kumar. “The core tech team, to their credit, contributed to a book written on data stream processing and have authored numerous patents and publications in forums of international repute.”

As Kumar puts it, “Failing to deliver because you obtained a sale through false promises is worse than not getting the sale at all.”

3. Be part of global networks

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Fomo Pay, a Singapore-based QR code payment solution provider, was born out of a realization that the demand for mobile payments in the country was rising.

“A large percentage of the tourists in Singapore is made up of visitors from China, where mobile payments are a norm and almost nobody carries cash with them. But that was a fairly unfamiliar payment mode among [local] merchants when we started in 2015,” says Zack Yang, Fomo Pay’s chief operating officer, and co-founder. “We aimed to bridge the gap between traditional merchants and QR code payments in Singapore, building towards the vision of a cashless society.”

Today, Fomo Pay is a leader in the QR code market with a strong reputation among its clients. But one of the first obstacles it encountered was the distrust among potential customers on how the finances would be handled and how secure mobile payments were.

“Especially in the hotel and finance sector, the initial response to our service was very reluctant. Some clients took as long as three to six months to make a decision,” says Yang.

How did the startup resolve this? By taking part in programs organized by global networks to foster trust among potential clients. Initiatives such as the Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator (no equity was taken) helped Fomo Pay shed insight to potential clients on how much effort goes on behind the scenes in creating, providing, and maintaining its services.

A program like Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator gives startups business development opportunities, mentorship, and connections to investors. Benefits for startups include access to professional co-working space and cloud credits.

“These programs helped us in advancing our product and opened opportunities for us to clients that we would have otherwise had no connections with,” explains Yang, “Once a few clients got on board with us, other companies in the same industry realized our credibility and were more likely to get on board as well.”

Getting clients is the first step

Client acquisition goes beyond just raking in dollars to hit sales targets. Just because a client says “yes” doesn’t mean the sales process is over. Instead, factors like client satisfaction often determine brand loyalty, which, in turn, could generate repeat customers and subscribers. More importantly, positive experiences can encourage positive reviews, resulting in organic lead generation.

But even if a sales pitch ends with a “no”, it’s hardly the end of the world. Building an impressive network through accelerator programs organized by companies with global reach could be the difference that converts that rejection into a signed contract. With some practice and hard work, you can influence potential clients by establishing credibility with others in their industry or by simply speaking to the right people.

Startups looking to accelerate their growth can sign up for Singapore Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator here. The closing date for applications is June 28, 2018.