When thinking about starting your own business or ways to attract more customers, it is easy to get clouded with doubts and uncertainties. As you just set foot, you start to question if whether you’ve got what it takes to succeed. You even ask yourself, why will customers avail of my offer/program?

You fill your head with thoughts that the market is saturated or you’re too late or there seems to be a lot of mentors offering the same niche as what you have selected. What you have failed to do though is to recognize all the real reasons people would buy from you in the first place and how you could turn this around and make these customers beg you to take their money.

Today we have the privilege to talk with Belinda DiGiambattista, Founder and CEO of Choose Your Metric. Let’s dive in deeper as she shares her strategy into starting and growing the business and taking it to its peak that customers come begging to take their money:

1. Understanding what your mission is.
A mission is something that’s usually something unique to your company that’s going to be the big idea that you’re coming to your customers with. You need to have clarity on what you are offering. Find the reason why you attract more customers or why they avail of your program. What will your offer/product do to improve your customer’s life? Will it help solve their problems? And once you have it figured out what it is that hooks your target audience is, it will lead you to understand your market.

2. Know your actual customer.
One trick to find out who your customers will be (if you haven’t heard about it yet) is go to Google and search “ideal customer attributes” or “ideal customer avatar” or “my customer avatar” and you’re going to find lots of templates to help you study and investigate who your customer is. Another way is to reach out to your customers thru social meet-ups like coffee and find out their pain points. People are generally excited to give you their information, to give you their opinion. Probe, get them talking and at the end of the conversation where you’re really trying to get at is, how badly do they want to solve this problem? The greater understanding you have of your customer will determine the success of your marketing efforts for your business.

3. Repeat the process.
After you have come up with an offer or a product to solve the problems of your customers, it is equally important to validate this and get feedback to keep your business growing. How do you do this? Iterate. You have to ask for feedback whenever you are creating something new. Only by talking to your customers will you come to know what needs to be changed and what needs to be adjusted. This applies to products and services. A common mistake most people make is not setting expectations – that you are giving away a discounted rate or voucher for your product in exchange for their valuable feedback.

Set the expectation right up front so the customer knows their role and this prototyping highlight tends to process that they’re going through with you in order to get this amazing value that you’re giving to them at a free or discounted price. Going through this process will also lead you to find out the trends even though you do get 20 different things back you are going to start to see some trends and that will help you figure out a direction.

4. Know your value.
Many people have a very hard time knowing their value. You probably feel like you’re too small compared to the big fishes out there in the industry. Putting a price on your service of what it’s really worth and figuring how to get to attract more customers that are willing to invest for your value and recognize your value is also another skill you need to learn. Hence, it is also necessary to conduct a self-audit on your skillset, upgrade yourself time and time again and be open to the never-ending process of learning.

5. Equip yourself with the right communication and engagement skills.
This is one skill that many start-ups struggle with because they don’t have the experience or you haven’t really had the training on how to effectively communicate through email. You may be writing a sales page or an email that could have hooked your prospective client and next thing you know, you are just caught in the exchanges of emails without closing a deal! Initially, as an early start-up, you will have a lot on your plate. It may seem overwhelming but you can consider investing in yourself and get an expert opinion from a mentor.

6. Recognize when it’s time to pivot.
If your company is not accomplishing what you set out for it to accomplish then you do have to analyze and find out the reason why. If there is a reason that you realize that says okay I need to pivot for this reason and this is what I’m going to pivot to. Sometimes, your idea may not work but take the emotion aside and be aware of what works without taking it personally. Make sure that you know how to do it and have the stomach for continuing on with the business and all of the headache and stress that comes with it to attract more customers.

In conclusion, Belinda gave us a beautiful insight to ponder on,

“Entrepreneurship is a process and a journey. It is not something that you just go through over a course of a month and boom, you’re hitting your sales goals for the year. This is something that you need to understand. There will be ups and downs. It is not for the weak of heart. It is definitely for someone who is resilient, who is ready to take the punches as well as the glory to celebrate the small wins and recognize when the small wins happen as opposed to just glossing over them”.