How to get your first customers in 30 days, with scripts
How to get your first customers when nobody knows you yet: a 30-day plan that names one buyer, lists 50 people to ask and gives you the message to send.
Written by OpenRated Team You have a business and no customers. You have told friends, posted twice, maybe printed cards, and the inbox is still empty. The question is how to get your first customers when nobody has heard of you, and the answer this guide gives is that they come from people you can already reach, asked one at a time, with a clear offer and a reason to say yes this month.
This is a 30-day plan for a new small business or a freelancer starting from zero: a software startup, a cleaning company, a bookkeeper, a web designer. It gives you a sentence to write, a sheet to fill, three messages to send and the order to do it in. It also says what will not help yet, because the first month is the easiest one to waste money in.
How to get your first customers in 30 days: the plan in order
Five steps, each with a week it belongs to:
- Days 1 to 3. Define one buyer and one offer, in one sentence.
- Days 2 to 7. List the first 50 people to ask, in a sheet.
- Days 5 to 21. Send the ask, with a real first-customer deal, and follow up once.
- Days 8 to 30. Make it easy to say yes, deliver, and then ask for a review and a referral.
- Every Sunday. Count the sheet, and fix the step where the number drops.
The order is this guide's main piece of advice: an ask sent before the offer is clear invites a polite "sounds interesting" and nothing else, and a profile page built before anyone is asking is a week spent on an audience of none.
Days 1 to 3: one buyer, one offer, one sentence
Write this sentence and keep it where you can see it:
I help [one kind of person or business] get [one result they want] by [what you do], for [price or price range].
Filled in, with made-up prices for the example: "I help independent coffee shops keep their books up to date by doing their monthly bookkeeping, for 150 dollars a month." Or: "I help small clinics get a website that takes bookings by building one in two weeks, for 1,200 dollars."
Two tests. If the buyer in the sentence could be anyone, the people you message will not know whether it is for them. If the result is "better marketing" or "peace of mind", nobody can picture it; name the thing they would notice (books closed by the fifth of the month, a site that takes bookings). This is this guide's advice, and the reason for it is practical: every message in week two is this sentence with a name on the front.
You will want to serve more than one kind of buyer. Do it in month two. One buyer makes the list in the next step possible.
Days 2 to 7: list the first 50 people to ask
This guide's starting point is that the first customers of a business with no reputation come from the people who already trust its owner. So the second step is a list, and the goal is 50 names, written down in a plain sheet with these columns:
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Name | One person, rather than "the gym" |
| Where from | Past job, family, neighbour, local group, old client, supplier |
| Fit | Could they buy, or do they know someone who could |
| Asked on | The date you sent the message |
| Reply | Yes, no, later, or blank |
| Next step | A call booked, a quote sent, a referral name, or nothing |
Fill it in this order, from the people who know your work best outward: former colleagues and managers; people you have bought from and sold to before; family and friends who run or work in a business; neighbours and parents at the school gate; members of any local group, trade body, church, club or online community you already belong to; and anyone who has ever said "let me know when you start something". Some of the names will be people who could refer you rather than buy. Keep them in; in the example below, a referral is how one of the first three customers arrives.
Fifty is a target, and if you reach 30 you still send the messages. Pad the list and you will send asks to strangers, who reply at a rate this post cannot promise.
Days 5 to 21: send the ask
One message, to one person, by whatever channel you already use with them (a text, an email, a direct message). Something like this:
Hi Sam, I've started a bookkeeping service for independent coffee shops: monthly books kept up to date, closed by the fifth of each month, for 150 dollars a month. I'm taking my first five customers this month at 100 dollars a month for the first three months, because I want to get the first five right. Would you want to talk about it, or do you know a shop owner who might? Either is a real help.
Four things in it, and each one is there on purpose. It names the buyer and the result from your sentence. It offers a real first-customer deal: a lower price or an extra, for a fixed number of customers, for a fixed time. It asks for one of two things, a conversation or a name, so a "no" still produces something. And it is short enough to read on a phone.
The deal is your choice, with one firm line: it is given for being an early customer, and it does not depend on a review. The review comes later, and it is asked for with nothing attached. The rule behind that is below.
No reply after five days gets one follow-up, and only one:
Hi Sam, floating this back up in case it got buried. No pressure either way; if it's not for you, a name would still help.
Send five to ten messages a day rather than 50 in one afternoon. A reply needs an answer the same day, and ten replies at once is more than one person can handle well.
Make it easy to say yes
A yes can die on the way to the payment, so before the first message goes out, have these ready:
- The price, written down. The first-customer price, the normal price, and when the first changes into the second.
- A way to pay. A bank transfer, a payment link, an invoice tool: any one that takes a card or a transfer today.
- What happens next, in one line. "I'll send a short form, you'll have the first month's books by the fifth." A buyer who cannot see the next step has a reason to wait, and this guide treats a wait as a no in the making.
- A start date within two weeks. A deal that starts "whenever you're ready" gives the yes nothing to attach to.
That is the whole checklist. A contract, a logo and a proper website can follow the first customer; a price and a way to pay cannot.
Days 8 to 30: deliver, then ask for a review and a referral
Deliver the first job better than the price deserves, and on the day it is done, send one more message:
Thanks for being one of my first customers. Two small asks, and no is fine for both. Would you write a few honest lines about working with me, wherever you'd normally leave a review? And is there one person you'd introduce me to who might want the same thing?
Ask the same day the work lands, while the result is fresh. Why reviews matter to a business this early comes down to one thing: a stranger who finds your profile in week five has nothing else to go on. How to word the request, and what to do with the lines you get back, is covered in how to ask for a testimonial, and the routine for keeping reviews coming once you have more than a handful is in how to get more reviews.
One rule to keep in view, stated here as published and as a US rule, and this is a guide and not legal advice. The US Federal Trade Commission's final rule on fake reviews and testimonials, announced on 14 August 2024, bars a business from "providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, either positive or negative", with effect, the release says, 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register. So the first-customer deal above is for being first, and the review ask asks for "honest lines". Keep those two apart in every message, and a customer who writes nothing keeps the deal all the same. The same release says the rule "imposes requirements when officers or managers solicit consumer reviews from their own immediate relatives", which matters here because your 50 names include family: this guide's advice is to ask relatives for referrals and keep the review ask for customers who are not related to you.
What a stranger checks before they reply
Some of the 50 will pass your name to someone who has never met you, and that person may look you up before replying. Give them one place to look, and keep it to a day's work:
- A Google Business Profile if you serve a place (a shop, a service with a service area). Google's help page says that verifying the business gives you ownership of the profile and lets you keep its details accurate, and that a business not yet on Google is added first and verified after (Verify your business on Google).
- Otherwise one profile page that carries your sentence from day one, a photo of you, how to contact you and, as they arrive, your first reviews. A single page on a free site builder, a LinkedIn profile written for buyers, or a listing on a review site all do the job; a ten-page website does not do it better.
A profile with the sentence, a face and two honest reviews answers the questions a stranger has. What else earns a stranger's trust, and what loses it, is in how to build trust with customers online.
Freelancers: your first client is the same plan with one change
If you are a freelancer asking how to get your first client, the plan above is yours too, with one adjustment: your 50 names lean on past employers and colleagues, because the people who have seen your work are the ones who can buy it or vouch for it. A former manager who will say "she did this for us for three years" does more for you in month one than a portfolio page.
Marketplaces (Fiverr, Upwork and the like) are set aside here: each has its own rules for a first listing and deserves its own post. Whatever you do on a marketplace, the ask to the 50 people who already know you costs nothing and runs in parallel.
Every Sunday: count the sheet
Open the sheet and count five numbers: names listed, messages sent, replies, conversations, customers. Then read where the count drops:
- Many messages, few replies: the message is unclear, or the list has drifted to strangers. Rewrite the sentence, or send the next batch to the people who know you best.
- Replies but no conversations: the offer is not for them. Check the buyer in your sentence against who you actually listed.
- Conversations but no customers: the yes is hard. Go back to the price, the payment and the next step.
- Customers but no reviews or referrals: you have not asked, or you asked too late. Ask on delivery day.
A worked example: 30 days of a new bookkeeping service
This is an example with made-up numbers, to show the shape of a month that works; it is not measured data. Dana starts a bookkeeping service for independent coffee shops in her city.
Days 1 to 3: she writes the sentence, sets the first-customer deal at 100 dollars a month for the first three months (normal price 150), and opens a payment link. Days 2 to 7: she lists 50 names: 14 former colleagues from the accountancy firm, 9 shop owners she buys from, 11 friends and family in business, 7 from a local traders' group, 9 who once said "tell me when you start". Days 5 to 21: she sends 30 messages, six a day for five days, and one follow-up each where needed; 11 reply. Six of those become a conversation (three are shop owners, three are introductions to one). Days 8 to 30: three become customers, one in each of the last three weeks, the third through one of those introductions; she closes each first month's books on the fifth and sends the review-and-referral message the same day. By day 30 she has 3 customers, 2 reviews on her profile, 1 referral in conversation and 20 names still unsent.
The 20 unsent names are month two's first week, before she lists anyone new. The referral and the two reviews are where she should look for the next ten customers, ahead of any new tactic.
What not to spend money on yet
The first month tempts a new owner to buy things that feel like progress. This guide's advice on timing, which the figure below lays out, with the five and ten as rough marks rather than measured thresholds:
- Before the first customer: the profile or Business Profile, the sheet, a way to take payment.
- After the first five customers: a simple CRM, when the sheet's "next step" column has more rows than you can keep in your head (the signs are in do you need a CRM, and the products in the CRM software listing). A logo and cards only if customers are asking for them; that is the dash in the figure.
- After ten: paid ads, when you know which sentence gets a reply and which buyer pays. An email marketing tool, when you have more past and future customers than you can write to by hand. And the logo and cards, if you have not had them made by then.
Paid ads before customer one is the spend this guide would hold back hardest, and the reason is in the sheet: an ad sends strangers to an offer that has not yet been tested on anyone who knows you, and a stranger who does not reply tells you nothing about why.
The one thing to do this week
Write the sentence, open a sheet, and put the first ten names in it before you close this page. The messages go out next week, and the first review request goes out on the day the first job is done.
