16 successful creators discuss how to make

Do you want to start your own online business? Discover how to get your first sale from business owners who've been there, done that and are now sharing their advice.

The advice they offer has been compiled into six easy-to-follow suggestions, so if you're trying to market your first item or already a veteran creator in need of a boost of inspiration Here's what those who have gone through the same process were able to share.

First: Learn to get to know your clients

"Sales come more easily when you know exactly who you're selling to.

When I launched my ebook, The Swap , I had the urge to address the decluttering needs of every person with a closet, but the language was broad fuzzy, unclear and aimed at no one.

When that customer became specific -- someone who conceptually loved KonMari but couldn't practically get on board -- I was able to surpass my secret, it'll-probably-never-happen goal.

The point? Know. Your. Customer."

- Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius Collective

For your first sales, you need to know the needs of your customers.

In order to understand what your audience wants it is important to get to know them.

Seventy-six percent of customers expect companies to understand their requirements and desires However, more than half think that the companies don't are keeping their best interests in mind.

With so many businesses missing their target, showing your clients that you care about them makes you stand out from the competition.

This is where the customer's research comes in.

Customer research involves gathering the most information possible regarding your market in order to provide the perfect customer experience to make customers feel valued and appreciated.

One of our top ways to research customers is through review mining. Use a search engine or Amazon to locate different products targeted at your intended audience. Then, go through the reviews. These product reviews offer qualitative insights into your customers' desires and needs.

Imagine selling an online course in songwriting for beginners. You can look up "songwriting for beginner" on Amazon, then read the reviews of books like The Art of Songwriting :

From these reviews, you can tell that students are drawn to insightful, actionable tips for music writing, with an emphasis on music and lyrics. Use these tips when building and marketing your program to ensure it meets your audience's needs.

If you're interested in learning from your audience directly Surveys are a great method of conducting research on your customers. Here's why:

The results of surveys show that you care about the feedback of your customers.

They provide first-hand insights that cannot be found in any other research method could.

Surveys help you measure the need of customers for your product.

companies that focus on getting feedback from their customers have greater customer retention rates .

Gathering feedback directly from potential customers can help you avoid the most common reason why entrepreneurs fail : Their products or services don't bring anything new or innovative to the market.

It's easy to assume that we know what our audience wants. This is exactly what happened to John D Saunders when he launched his first course. Being a novice entrepreneur and creator of courses, he assumed what his customers wanted.

Be sure to ask your clients what they would like to see. Tiffany Williams, the founder of Rich Girl Collective  discovered what kinds of the people who patronized her wanted to see by contacting them directly -- as well as listening to their feedback.

"I just ask my audience to tell me what they would like, what they want to learn If it is in line with something that I have accomplished, and am successful in the subject, I then teach this to them,"" she elaborates.

A final point before we get to the next point: Getting to know your customers should not end after the first purchase.

In other words, show your customers that you value them long after they spend the first cent with you. This can make a huge impact on your profits:

52% of buyers will go the extra mile to buy from companies they've been loyal to for years.

Repeat customers are 9 times higher likely be converted as compared to a customer who has never been before.

It can cost up to seven times greater to attract new customers than to keep an existing one.

If you take care of them, your first customers can be your best advocates and, most importantly, they will be willing to tell others why.

Of course, word-of-mouth (WOM) isn't the only tool needed to get your first sales. It is important to improve all of your tools also.

#2: Make the maximum of your marketing

"Having an extensive social media following? Sure, that's cool.

Are you one of the many YouTube viewers? Great.

But the platform I focus upon when it comes to marketing is email. When it comes to email funnels, sequences and even emails I'm convinced that there's a lot of worth because it's just one more step towards telling me that they are truly interested in what it is I provide or offer."

- Sef Chang, House of Royalties

Small-business owners has to be responsible for 4.2 roles  that you can assume, and when first starting out, "marketer" is definitely one of them.

From the Google AdWords to search engine optimization (SEO) There are a ton of different ways for you to market your company. However, for Sef as well as almost every other creator we speak to -- email marketing is a highly successful ways to get your message out to an customers and increase sales.

And the stats agree -- email marketing has the potential to earn $42 for each $1 spend .

(That ROI could be greater if you utilize an all-in-one program such as .

To reap the benefits of email marketing, you must to establish your email database.

In this instance, Sef offers subscribers an unrestricted list of inventor-friendly companies accepting the development of new inventions. Sef's target audience is inventors looking to learn more about product licensing, so that list is an excellent resource.

"I am the first to make a sale due to the fact that people are following my work and download my animation software. So my advice would be, provide free help and advice to the community which you're part of, prior to when you even start offering your product to sell."

- Sander van Dijk, Regulus

Imagine the lead magnet as a complimentary sample of your digital product or content for your course. Give your audience an idea of who you're and what they can gain from you.

Other strategies and tools you can add to your marketing toolbox are:

If you've got an investment budget for marketing on influencer relationships, then paying social media advertising can expand the reach of your campaign.

Establishing a presence among your followers' most popular social media channels helps you to build a following and showcase your knowledge.

That last piece is how Min Liu drives online course sales.

One of the most significant things I was able to do was start the YouTube channel I have called The Art of Verbal War for the purpose of building an audience. I created short video clips on my topic (verbal capabilities) and then linked my YouTube channel to my website in order to collect subscriber email addresses.

Now, I have a substantial email list to launch my courses to anytime I want, but mostly simply to provide details and provide the value (which is much more important than merely selling to your followers). To this day, YouTube is my primary marketing channel for my courses."

-- Min Liu, The Art of Verbal War

All in all Your marketing plan should reflect what works best for your business, yourself as well as the customers you serve. There's a chance that you won't be able to be successful on the first go-around -- but that's not always good, but it is exactly what our next section covers.

3. Be open to experimenting

"Experiment! It's difficult to determine the best way to promote your business online and each set of prospective clients is different. You'll have to play around to discover what's most effective (and which ones aren't).

I've found that posting to my blog, then getting blog posts repeated and reposted by other bloggers, as well as having an opt-in feature to my blog is a fantastic way to go.

I've purchased advertising for Facebook, Quora, and Reddit, but with very only a few results. I've created a YouTube channel and started publishing content on it, with decent results, as well.

In everything you do think about, evaluate, and then modify your methods to make them better. There's no one magical solution there!"

- Reuven Lerner, Reuven Lerner's Python Courses

You don't have to do everything perfectly the first time you announce a new product, or at all.

It is important to try new things, and making mistakes and then learn from them is a vital part of the journey to becoming an entrepreneur.

In the Startup Curve , created by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham , failure is an inevitable phase. It happens right before your business begins to grow towards scaling and growth.

"I believe that all we have to look at is the mistakes and failures of the past as wells of information that we can then use to inform what we're doing now."

For letting go aspects of your perfectionist mindset, attempt to adopt what psychologist Carol Dweck calls"a "growth mentality". A growth attitude helps you embrace, overcome, and learn through challenges, focusing on the continuous process of learning instead of aiming for perfectionism.

Therefore, you should be able to try new things when your company grows- just make sure to hold yourself accountable along the way.

#4: Be accountable to yourself

"To to be accountable To be accountable, I informed my friends that I was going to launch my new product within 30 days. And they sent me each day an email that contained D-15, D-14 within it.

Peer pressure worked great for me!"

-- Alexis Santin

A way to make your self accountable is to sell the digital items you have created, according to marketer and author Val Geisler recommends.

"Sell the building before you build it.!

If you think of the outline, map out the content, and sketch out what's coming, you can likely pre-sell the class to your circle before you even create the course.

It's incredible motivation to actually make the course and there's a bit of money in the bank to support the course you're creating."

- Val Geisler, Your Signature Experience

John's tweet explains how he uses the pre-sales method:

John asks his audience to fill out an application form, and then make a payment of $7 if interested to enroll in his new course. Participants who pay the $7 receive 50-60% off the cost of the course when it launches and John takes the remainder of the cost.

"I began to investigate this idea that we were actually building our own business prisons that we were setting the framework of our lives, where the sole outcome could be exhausted and failure because we're not taking care of our own needs."

"Even when you aren't aware of that you have an array of negative belief systems that have caused you to self-defeat and live at home in your own comfortable zone. Invest in yourself(and your self-belief) and things changes. "

Highly successful entrepreneurs such as Becky and Minessa can offer their insights and share because they've been in your shoes. That expertise makes their advice an excellent resource for young creators to draw inspiration from. This is, not incidentally, which is what the next piece of advice about.

#5: Learn from each other

"Whatever it is you want to achieve -- such as blogging, creating items, or creating a list begin by imitating the people who do the job effectively. All you have to do was done by numerous people already, and you can see how they did it on their websites.

It may sound simple, but try to emulate the successful. It seems that a lot of us waste a lot of time re-inventing the wheel thinking that we need to do everything in an epic, unique way.

The great thing about the internet is that there are a lot of examples of everything you need to get it right are available."

- David Cain, Camp Calm

What ever you're seeking to do,"learn from the top" is a great way to start. That's what makes platforms like MasterClass -- it's a series of online courses that are taught by"the top minds of the world" that range from Neil DeGrasse Tyson to Margaret Atwoodand beyond -- so appealing.

If you're considering the process of starting and running your own business, there's no shortage of advice and resources out on the market. However, the most effective guidance comes from the voices that have experience -- the ones who have been there, been there, and have proven that it's possible to do it also.

There are numerous groups available for young creators and entrepreneurs to connect with one another, from free Facebook groups to mastermind-only groups.

Brit Kolo, founder of Marketing Personalities , said that being part of a mastermind group is one of the greatest investment she's made for her company.

"Business expansion is only the beginning of the incredible impact ... I've also developed as a human being, a leader, and a CEO. The other business owners in my mastermind group have become long-term friends and I don't say that lightly."

A study about remote work by Buffer shows that the top two struggles of working from home are communication and collaboration as well as loneliness -- two obstacles that joining the right online community could help overcome.

MegaMaker is a community specifically for designers and developers with a desire to " want more than the typical nine-to-5 ". MegaMaker connects people who share similar interests, which means they are able to form alliances, share advice, and learn from each other as David Cain recommends.

To get maximum benefit from these communities of members, you need to bring your full self to the table and be open about your experiences and obstacles. In order to make your first (and second, and 100th) sale, it is important to make the same effort with your clients, too.

#6: Be who you are.

"Be yourself. People can spot a fake.

Find your niche and find your distinct voice within it. There is no one who can articulate the things that need to be said in the same way as you."

- Katie Orr, Bible Study Hub Shop

They don't want or.

They are looking for authenticity and worth. Eighty percent of the people believe that authenticity is a key aspect when it comes to deciding which brands they prefer and which ones to support.

And a lot of your value is derived from your own perspective and experiences.

Few people know that better than Minessa Konecky.

"Stop trying to as the person you believe your customers want you to be.

We crave authenticity, and when we purchase from an owner of a small business, we aren't just buying a product, we're buying an opinion.

If people don't know who you are or the values you represent, no amount of photoshopped images and well-crafted content are going to convert them. It gives you the freedom to show your true self regardless of your flaws. You'll be loved by them for it."

- Minessa Konecky, direct to success

In committing her whole self for her work Minessa built a successful business that assists others.

It's win-win.

At the final analysis, your unique perspective and experiences are what will help to connect with your clients rather than the flashiest website or flawlessly-crafted text.

Just show up as you -- that's enough.

Make your first sale and grow a successful business

If you're brand new to everything online-based entrepreneurship, or you're just beginning to market a new product, the path from a product idea to the first sale is full of bumps and valleys.

In the spirit of real-world advice of 16 successful creators, here are six tips to assist you on this bumpy road

Discover the most you possibly can regarding your clients. Conduct customer research and talk directly with them -- chances are, they'll be more than happy to provide feedback to you.

Choose the channels for marketing that you like and run with them. The email marketing channel is a good starting point, and lead magnets are a tried-and-true way to grow your list.

Accept experimentation, iteration and failure. You don't have to do everything right the first time around -- in fact, it's part of the process.

Be accountable to yourself, both at home and outwardly. Making sure you are selling your product in advance helps you stay on path to achieving your goals stopping self-sabotaging behavior ensures you're on the right track to success.

Get inspired by the top professionals and your peers in your industry. Discover communities that don't just teach you something new but also provide support, too.

Be yourself. Your customers want to get acquainted with you as well Your experiences add the value of your job.

Now go out there and get that deal. We're rooting for you.