A couple of days ago I was talking to a friend who started a business with a cousin. He told me he was a little disappointed because of slow sales, and that most of his prospects seemed interested but would never return calls or close the deal.

I asked him if he had any references to show to his potential customers, someone saying “yes, I bought this and obtained this benefits.” He said he had a few letters from companies in other cities but not any local references. Precisely last week I was reading My Start-Up Life by Ben Casnocha, and he wrote a full chapter on getting your first customers to build credibility.

In my friend’s case, I suggested trying to get early customers by offering to let them try the product for a few months, and only pay if they were completely satisfied. In exchange, they would let him tell other prospects they were happy customers, and thus improve on his chances of completing more sales.

Selling to companies is a little bit harder than selling to individual people. Most of the time they want to see someone has already benefited before taking the risk. But getting those first customers can become a chicken-and-egg problem. In this case, you need to focus first on signing a few customers before you can focus on making money.