Why Your Startup's Sales Plan Is Super Risky

Why Your Startup’s Sales Plan Is Super Risky

By being available everywhere and to everyone, you’re increasing the probability of making a sale right? 

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When you’re in the first few years of building your business, you do as much as you can to reduce the amount of risk you’re taking on.

You make your products or services available on as many sales channels as possible, you build a presence on multiple social platforms, and put out numerous products to capture a wide range of customers.

By increasing the number of channels and opportunities you’re available to make a sale on, you should be exposed to less risk, right?

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A lesson I’ve learned the hard way throughout my startup career: when you make choices for your business driven by your insecurities, you will always make the wrong decisions.

By making the moves to be more risk-averse, you actually walk right into introducing more risk to your business.

Let me explain — 

When you’re scared of not selling enough to bring in a sturdy income for your business, the natural response is to do as much as possible to increase your probability of closing a sale by:

  • being present on every sales channel — online, wholesale, in-person markets, corporate, and more

  • selling multiple products

  • having a presence on every social media channel where a potential customer may see you

These attempts to reduce your risk actually fragment your energy, focus, and abilities, exposing you to the very risk that you didn’t want to carry. 

When you try to juggle closing corporate accounts, courting wholesalers, and building a robust e-commerce shop all at the same time, you’re essentially trying to build an empire with only 1 person on your team.

To put it in perspective, you’re trying to build a sales system that’s the size of Google with the time and effort of 1 person. 

There are businesses out there that generate million-dollar incomes by only focusing on one type of wholesale channel.

If you’re trying to piece together a business that generates 5-figures with multiple sales channels, you’re clearly building a business that does a little bit of everything but has mastered nothing.

How To Fix This

To reduce the amount of risk your business is taking on, go against your instinct and do much less.

Reduce the number of sales channels you’re building, the number of products you’re selling, and the number of social platforms you’re on.

Your effort, time, and money are better spent mastering 1–2 assets and hacking them to convert into dollars for you.

If you haven’t found at least 1 solid channel, platform, or offering yet to generate revenue through, hold off on adding a second until you’ve got that 1 nailed down.

At a maximum, you should only be focusing on 2 assets at a time.

So 2 social channels, 2 product types, or 2 sales channels — don’t max yourself out on working on 2 for all of these categories if you’re just starting out.

Once you’ve figured out which channels, products, or platforms do and don’t work for you, you can leverage what you’ve learned, turn it into a formula and use it to add more assets to your roster.

I send Friday emails that’ll turn your startup chase into a victory lap. Sign up here if that’s where you’re heading.

Sophia Sunwoo