How to get your first customers for a local business

Start with people who know you

Tell everyone: friends, family, former colleagues, your neighbours and anyone you have done work for before. Give them a short way to describe what you do and who you do it for, such as “mobile dog grooming in Worthing and Lancing” or “electrician for landlords across Brighton”. A specific description is easier to pass on than “I’ve started my own business”.

Ask your first few customers who else they know who might need you. A simple thank-you for referrals, such as money off their next job, is allowed. Rewarding reviews is not, which is covered below.

Get on Google Maps

Ofcom’s Online Nation 2025 report found 82% of UK adults online use Google Search and 78% use Google Maps. A free Google Business Profile is how a local business appears there.

• Eligibility: you need to meet customers in person, either at your premises or by travelling to them. Virtual offices are not allowed.
• If you travel to customers, hide your home address and add up to 20 towns or postcodes as your service area. Google says the area should stay within about 2 hours’ drive.
• Verification: Google chooses the method, which can be a phone call, text, email, video or postcard. Postcard codes usually arrive within 14 days.
• Fill in everything: the most specific category, your services, opening hours, photos of real work and a link to your website.

Collect reviews properly

Reviews decide a lot of local choices. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of US consumers, 97% read reviews for local businesses, 47% said they would not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% only paid attention to reviews from the last three months. UK figures are not published in the same detail, but the pattern is a useful guide.

Ask every customer for a Google review, by text or WhatsApp, as soon as the job is done. The rules are strict:

• Google does not allow you to offer anything in return for a review.
• Google does not allow you to ask only happy customers, a practice called review gating.
• Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act bans fake reviews and hidden incentivised reviews in the UK. The CMA can fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover.

Reply to every review, good or bad, politely and briefly. Potential customers read the replies.

Give people somewhere to check you

In the same BrightLocal survey, 54% of people said they visit a business’s website after reading positive reviews. A recommended customer will also look you up before calling. A simple website answers what they want to know: what you do, where you work, rough prices, photos of your work, reviews, and how to book or get a quote.

It does not need to be expensive. Our website cost guide compares DIY builders, freelancers and agencies.

Local channels

Partnerships often beat advertising. A dog groomer and a dog walker, a cleaner and an estate agent, an electrician and a kitchen fitter all meet the same customers. Agree to recommend each other.

In Sussex, free start-up support from the growth hubs, Business Brighton & Hove and BIPC Sussex at Jubilee Library also puts you in a room with other new business owners.

Marketing rules to follow

• Emails and texts to individuals, including sole traders, need consent or the “soft opt-in”. The soft opt-in only applies to people who bought from you or asked for a quote, for your own similar services, with an opt-out offered when you took their details and in every message.
• Limited companies can be emailed without prior consent, but you must say who you are and offer an easy opt-out.
• Social media messages count as electronic mail under PECR. Letters through the door are not covered by PECR.
• Prices and claims in adverts must be accurate. The ASA’s rules say a “from” price must be available to a significant proportion of customers, and you need evidence for factual claims before you publish them.

A first-month plan

1. Week 1: set up and verify your Google Business Profile, and get a simple website live with your services, area and contact details.
2. Week 2: message everyone you know with a one-line description of what you do; post in two or three local groups that allow it.
3. Week 3: ask every customer so far for a Google review; contact two businesses who serve the same customers about recommending each other.
4. Week 4: look at where your enquiries came from and do more of what worked. Consider a leaflet drop in the streets where your best customers live.