Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Unlocking the Nigerian Market: The Customer Education Key

Transcript

Unlocking the Nigerian Market: The Customer Education Key · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today we're back on the
• 0:05
  challenges of selling your fintech ideas in Nigeria.
• 0:08
  And I want to look at another problem that you fintech boys
• 0:11
  and girls are going to face and that is the problem of customer
• 0:15
  education and digital literacy. OK, Now the idea behind this is
• 0:23
  you are trying to do something in a context that is not to tech
• 0:29
  savvy. Well, First off, The thing is
• 0:31
  the ideas that are involved in fintechs all the way up to
• 0:40
  what's that word, Gosh, I can't remember that word.
• 0:44
  Anyway, fintechs, Web 3, there's a third word I'm trying to
• 0:48
  remember the third class of people that I usually razz on.
• 0:52
  I can't remember now anyway, but you get my point.
• 0:55
  There's a whole spectrum of ideas that are typically very
• 0:59
  complex to explain anyway when you're looking at things from a
• 1:02
  technical point of view, which is the reason why I've always
• 1:05
  said on the podcast that you're better off using metaphors,
• 1:08
  Similes. Look for much more simpler ways
• 1:11
  of explaining the idea and also talking in terms of benefits
• 1:16
  that people are going to derive from using your fintech, you
• 1:21
  know, looking for simpler ways to explain it because these
• 1:23
  ideas are complex. So in order to get your thing
• 1:27
  off the ground, there has to be a certain level of customer
• 1:30
  education that you get involved in and bringing people up on
• 1:34
  their digital literacy skills. So the aim of getting involved
• 1:39
  in these sorts of things would be to promote fintech adoption
• 1:43
  as a whole in Nigeria. And that, of course, will make
• 1:46
  it easier to sell your your services, your app, your
• 1:49
  website, your whatever it is that you're setting now, the
• 1:54
  stage of execution. OK.
• 1:58
  Where this, where this comes in handy is where, you know, you've
• 2:01
  raised, yeah, you know, your funds.
• 2:03
  Let's say you're one of those guys or girls that will read
• 2:06
  about on the Internet, you know, on the tech blogs where raise
• 2:09
  millions of dollars for their fintech ideas.
• 2:12
  So I'm talking to people who have reached this stage of
• 2:15
  execution. You've raised your millions of
• 2:17
  dollars. Now these are the things to put
• 2:19
  your millions of dollars to use to to put it to good use.
• 2:23
  So it's not just about taking the millions of dollars and then
• 2:28
  getting yourself a new apartment, what else?
• 2:31
  Getting a fancy office in lucky phase one and all that.
• 2:36
  So these are also good things that you can take the millions
• 2:39
  of dollars and and put them to good use.
• 2:42
  Now, First off, you have to pursue strategies for content
• 2:45
  marketing. Now the reason why this is
• 2:47
  important, remember, because I said you're trying to sell some
• 2:51
  very complex ideas and use case scenarios in an environment
• 2:55
  where lots of people are not that digitally literate or not
• 3:00
  that tech savvy. And like I confessed over here
• 3:03
  on the show a couple of episodes ago, even for those of us who
• 3:06
  are fairly tech savvy, there are a couple of people like me, for
• 3:09
  instance, who are not going anywhere because we're just
• 3:11
  going to stick to our traditional banks.
• 3:13
  But I also explained in that episode about how you can
• 3:16
  address some of those concerns that some of us conservative
• 3:19
  folks have. But we really can't get away
• 3:23
  from the fact that for those of you who are trying to staff in
• 3:26
  tech ideas, you do have to engage in some sort of education
• 3:31
  around your product, your service, your idea.
• 3:34
  And content marketing is not a bad way to go.
• 3:37
  No content marketing. OK, let me not bother defining
• 3:41
  content marketing. Let's just go straight to the
• 3:44
  features. So content marketing, you're
• 3:46
  using blogs, you're using infographics, maybe you're
• 3:49
  creating podcasts or you're appearing on podcasts like this
• 3:54
  one for money transfer. I think cheaper.
• 3:56
  I think it's cheaper. I, I heard about them on the
• 4:00
  well, I had seen their, their billboards, you know, with
• 4:03
  Bonoboy and all that in Abuja and then also came across the
• 4:08
  advertisements on I think it's the I said what I said podcast.
• 4:11
  Is this really Nigerian popular podcast.
• 4:14
  It's supposed to be about the millennial experience.
• 4:18
  They're these two ladies, pretty cool girls, but it's a just
• 4:22
  podcast more or less. So if you're the kind of person
• 4:27
  who is only looking for business content on podcast, then don't
• 4:30
  listen to the show. But if you need a nice podcast,
• 4:32
  you know, to step down because you want to listen to two
• 4:35
  millennials moan about the work experience, maybe business,
• 4:41
  maybe relationships, maybe politics.
• 4:43
  It's a free Wheeling kind of podcast.
• 4:46
  Then you can check that out. I said what I said.
• 4:50
  So, yeah. So cheaper.
• 4:52
  Put advertisements on Nacho, and then you can also put out
• 4:55
  videos. So those are the sorts of things
• 4:58
  that are involved in content marketing.
• 5:00
  And the idea behind content marketing is that you're going
• 5:03
  to put out content features, things that people find useful
• 5:07
  and valuable. It's an excuse for you to remain
• 5:10
  top of mind with your audience instead of only putting out
• 5:14
  messages all the time. That says buy from me, buy from
• 5:16
  me, buy from me. Now, One example of content
• 5:19
  marketing is this blog, sorry, not blog, this podcast, you
• 5:22
  know, that I put out on a weekly basis.
• 5:25
  So I'm currently in your earholes talking about all
• 5:28
  things sales, marketing, business development and those
• 5:32
  sorts of issues. So it's a good way for me to
• 5:34
  remain top of mind with you and my potential customers around
• 5:37
  these sorts of things so that when people are ready to pull
• 5:40
  the trigger when they feel like they need a sales coach or the
• 5:42
  one, the consultant to look over this aspect of their strategy or
• 5:45
  that aspect of their strategy and the person that they're
• 5:48
  going to call. So that's the idea behind the
• 5:50
  content marketing strategy. So for those of you who fintech
• 5:53
  guys and girls, you raise millions of dollars.
• 5:55
  This is where you should start throwing your money behind.
• 5:58
  So blog posts, hope you guys have a team that is putting out
• 6:03
  blog posts on your website. Or maybe what's that word, you
• 6:08
  know, when you write A blog post, but the blog post is
• 6:11
  intended for for another, another publication?
• 6:18
  Syndication, yes. Syndication, yes.
• 6:20
  So you should have a team that is either publishing your blog
• 6:23
  post, you know, on your own assets or you're syndicating
• 6:26
  blog posts to go up on other places.
• 6:29
  So let's say you put out your blog post and you happen to get
• 6:33
  your blog post on TechCrunch. Apart from TechCrunch, is this
• 6:38
  Nigerian one? What's it called?
• 6:39
  Tech tech, something I can't remember, but there's sort of
• 6:45
  like a Nigerian equivalent of tech crunch.
• 6:49
  So I've done my research before I started.
• 6:52
  OK, but you get the whole point. So the blogs should be up on
• 6:56
  websites that you own or you syndicate it across other
• 7:00
  platforms so you can find other readers.
• 7:03
  And the same thing with infographics.
• 7:05
  Infographics, basically it's just where you have data,
• 7:09
  photos, things like that, with information at the bottom that
• 7:13
  is trying to pass across information in an easier way
• 7:16
  than using only text. Then of course, like I said,
• 7:20
  podcast, that's an option that's available if you guys are bold
• 7:24
  enough, brave enough. For some reason, lots of people
• 7:27
  are afraid of podcasts. Then there's also videos that
• 7:31
  you guys can put out and some fintechs already do that.
• 7:34
  So if you check YouTube, you can already see some videos there
• 7:39
  above found. I was talking about who we are.
• 7:41
  This is what we do. This is a problem that we want
• 7:43
  to solve. The last one that I saw not
• 7:46
  fintech related, OK, well it does have some fintech aspects,
• 7:50
  but this was in the, this is in the real estate space for a
• 7:53
  company raise millions of dollars.
• 7:56
  Well, at the time I think was a three M was $3,000,000 that they
• 7:59
  had raised. And I think the operations is
• 8:01
  out of I think Nigeria and maybe Kenya.
• 8:05
  I think the websites, you have landlords on it, you have
• 8:10
  tenants on it, you have regular people who want to rent on it.
• 8:13
  And it's supposed to just make the whole process of finding
• 8:17
  real estate easier, paying rent easier, you know, stuff like
• 8:20
  that. So that's the fintech component.
• 8:22
  But they put out really good video on YouTube saying this is
• 8:25
  who we are, this is what we do, this is how far we've come, This
• 8:29
  is how many people that we have on our platform.
• 8:31
  If you're on this platform, these are the benefits that you
• 8:33
  can derive. If you are a renter and you're
• 8:35
  strapped for cash, this is how we can help you pay rent.
• 8:37
  If you're a landlord and you're on this platform, this is how we
• 8:40
  can help you verify who credible renters are, you know, blah,
• 8:44
  blah, blah, stuff like that. So you fintech guys and girls,
• 8:49
  give that a shot. Content marketing and your
• 8:52
  content marketing can be not just around these ideas that
• 8:55
  I've discussed right now, but can also go beyond, you know,
• 8:59
  basic concepts because since we're talking fintechs solving
• 9:01
  financial problems or problems in the financial space, you guys
• 9:05
  can build your stuff around content on savings or budgeting
• 9:09
  or investing or money transfer, you know, stuff like that.
• 9:13
  So if you're like Cheaper or one of these other fintechs that is
• 9:19
  in the money transfer space, oh, by the way, Cheaper has not
• 9:22
  given me money. You know, I'm not promoting
• 9:25
  them. The thing is just that I'm real
• 9:27
  conservative when it comes to these sorts of things.
• 9:29
  I wasn't going to try any of them.
• 9:31
  I saw the Burner Boy advert billboard and then I heard about
• 9:36
  them on. I said what I said at the time,
• 9:39
  I was thinking of monetizing the podcast to see how I could
• 9:41
  accept donations from listeners. so-called up my brother who's in
• 9:46
  the UK. I'm like this one I have in
• 9:48
  mind. Let's just test out this
• 9:49
  platform. Let me see how easy it is for me
• 9:51
  to send money and how easy it is for me to receive money.
• 9:54
  So I downloaded the app and then did the verification thing.
• 10:00
  You know, know your customer, customer verification, send
• 10:04
  money now was Valhalla, receive money now was Valhalla, customer
• 10:08
  service was Valhalla zero. Nobody responded to our text
• 10:12
  messages and so no text messages to our emails.
• 10:16
  So I'm not promoting cheaper and I'm not saying they're bad.
• 10:20
  The only reason why I mention them is because really they're
• 10:23
  the only ones that I've tried. But there are other names out
• 10:26
  there. Chipper is the only one that I
• 10:28
  tried. So mainly I'm not saying they're
• 10:30
  bad. Maybe, you know, my brother and
• 10:32
  I were just unlucky. You know, we signed up when
• 10:35
  service was done or something like that.
• 10:37
  Why? Let me move on.
• 10:39
  So where was I? OK, yes, what I was trying to
• 10:42
  illustrate was this. So folks like Chipper, they
• 10:44
  actually can be making content around money transfer.
• 10:47
  So what are the reasons that people transfer money?
• 10:50
  Typically, you're trying to help family back home.
• 10:52
  And there are some people, like one of my classmates who is
• 10:54
  based in Atlanta right now, who has a bunch of charities in
• 10:57
  Nigeria that she is supporting around female issues and the
• 11:02
  care of the elderly. So it would not be out of place
• 11:05
  if you're one of these cheaper type organizations, fintechs
• 11:08
  that are involved in money transfer.
• 11:10
  You see someone like my classmate who's involved in this
• 11:12
  sort of thing and then, yeah, you start writing about, you
• 11:18
  start supporting her 'cause writing about those sorts of
• 11:20
  things because there's a Nexus there.
• 11:25
  This person is in Atlanta raising funds and then sending
• 11:28
  the money back home here to Nigeria and with the current CBN
• 11:32
  restrictions and, you know, payments and it has just become
• 11:36
  a nightmare. I don't know why it's so
• 11:37
  difficult just to send money out of Nigeria or to send money in.
• 11:41
  I'm sure if you economics people sit down and explain it to us in
• 11:44
  the common sense way, it will make sense why you guys have to
• 11:46
  make it so difficult. But I really missed the days
• 11:49
  when it was as simple as you go into the bank, you fill the
• 11:52
  form, you give them the Nara, the person in the UK will call
• 11:55
  you up and say, hey, bro, thanks, I received the money.
• 11:58
  Or the other way around, the person goes does the whatever
• 12:01
  they need to do on the UK and and then your account is
• 12:04
  credited here and they can call up and say, hey, Edmor, thanks,
• 12:07
  I received the money. So cheaper people, you can liass
• 12:11
  with other people like that and start talking about the benefits
• 12:15
  of money, benefits of money transfer and how that changes
• 12:19
  lives and how that changes communities.
• 12:21
  And then things of that nature, so you can do all these sorts of
• 12:25
  things around content marketing. How does it serve the overall
• 12:28
  aim? You can see that it'll be
• 12:30
  educating people and making people more literate around
• 12:33
  digital issues. So instead of just billboard
• 12:37
  with Boner Boy, people will see and be like, oh, OK, that is
• 12:43
  what cheaper actually does. Those are what this whole
• 12:47
  fintech thing is about. It's about making it easy to
• 12:50
  send money so that I don't need to know somebody in central bank
• 12:55
  or I don't need to pally up with somebody in Axis Bank or
• 12:58
  whatever. It can be as easy as I get my
• 13:00
  phone, I do this, the person in the UK gets their phone, they do
• 13:04
  that and then next thing, voila, money shows up in my bank
• 13:07
  account. Then something that you guys
• 13:11
  should consider in the fintech space 'cause I noticed that a
• 13:13
  lot of what you guys do is is in English.
• 13:17
  In fact, the all the stuff I've found so far is in English.
• 13:21
  But I would like to recommend that if we're talking about mass
• 13:24
  adoption, maybe you think that boys and girls should consider
• 13:27
  translating into local languages.
• 13:29
  Maybe it might help you reach a wider audience.
• 13:32
  You know, consider because in the telephony space, it's
• 13:36
  something, it's a, it's a, it's part of their tactic that all
• 13:41
  the major companies have have used.
• 13:44
  Like when? Back when I was in the OK, this
• 13:48
  was after uni, I think after my uni, I think it was, gosh, I've
• 13:54
  forgotten the name of the company, but I think it was
• 13:56
  Etisalat. I mean it was the the company
• 13:58
  that this musician bank, EW Bank, Willy Wellington, the one
• 14:04
  that he became a brand ambassador for, I can't
• 14:07
  remember. It was Etisalat or Nymobile or
• 14:10
  Abby. Is it the same company?
• 14:12
  But anyway, so it was, I remember that back then they had
• 14:15
  a real big push 'cause I was serving in, after law school, I
• 14:20
  served in Kano. So, you know, I was around
• 14:24
  Abuja, Kano, these areas, I noticed that they had a huge
• 14:28
  push around, you know, with Hausa campaigns trying to get
• 14:34
  the, trying to get the, trying to get what's that word, you
• 14:41
  know, adoption for adoption for the company, you know, in that,
• 14:45
  in that part of the world. And I don't speak house anyway.
• 14:48
  But for the folks who do understand how say you know, the
• 14:52
  place where I was squatting, it kind of 'cause I didn't have my
• 14:54
  own, I didn't have my own. I didn't get a house as in a, a
• 15:01
  friend or for that squad at his place.
• 15:02
  So, you know, I just did. So you know, people are talking
• 15:05
  about how good the campaigns were, like there wasn't even a
• 15:07
  general house that they were using.
• 15:09
  They were using a house that was particular to different
• 15:11
  environments. So basically different adverts
• 15:13
  who run in Kaduna, different adverts who run in Kano, even in
• 15:16
  Kano, in different parts of Kano, different kinds of adverts
• 15:20
  would run. So you guys in the fintech
• 15:22
  space, you can also consider something like that for some of
• 15:24
  these, your campaigns, translate them into local languages.
• 15:28
  Perhaps you could gain wider audience and then more adoption.
• 15:31
  Then let's see what else. OK, Other strategies that I've
• 15:35
  spoken about in the past, partnering with influencers to
• 15:38
  promote content also to reach a wider audience.
• 15:41
  Yes, I've already mentioned about I said what I said podcast
• 15:44
  and how cheaper had a couple of adverts there.
• 15:48
  But instead of just money transfer advertisements, you can
• 15:53
  go beyond that because and I said what I said, they have an
• 15:57
  agony aunt segment. Agony aunt basically is where
• 16:00
  people just call in to say to say, you know, I have a problem.
• 16:03
  Can you help me? You know, that's the part of
• 16:07
  that's the part of the show where people call in and say
• 16:11
  like, oh, I'm in love with two men.
• 16:15
  I was dating both of them behind their back.
• 16:17
  I'm pregnant now. I don't know who the father is,
• 16:20
  please help me or whatever, you know, those sorts of things or
• 16:25
  anyway, you get the point. People have problems, personal
• 16:27
  problems, emotional problems, they call in.
• 16:29
  So that whole, not whole thing, it's just called the agony agony
• 16:36
  aunt. So they have an agony aunt
• 16:38
  episode, you know, so perhaps if you're one of these fintech
• 16:44
  people, money transfer people like Chipper and the rest of
• 16:48
  them, you could have a segment if you're partnering with these
• 16:51
  kinds of influencers, where if the question is related to
• 16:57
  meeting savings goals or investing goals or solving
• 17:03
  budgeting problems, you know, personal issues that can tie
• 17:06
  into these sorts of things. You know, perhaps you can have
• 17:09
  one of your company, one of your sales people on the show, you
• 17:15
  know, talking about how your app can solve some of these
• 17:17
  problems. So it's just a, I'm just
• 17:20
  freestyling here. So don't take my don't take this
• 17:24
  to be a golden recommendation or something.
• 17:26
  I'm just freestyling about how you guys can look for different
• 17:32
  ways of educating the public and making people familiar with who
• 17:37
  you are, what you're doing, and getting the whole digital
• 17:42
  literacy game up a notch. Then I've also spoken about
• 17:46
  local partnerships. OK.
• 17:49
  I spoke about the one with the app that was partnering,
• 17:54
  partnering with Sterling Bank for federal government grants.
• 17:58
  And OK, so I forgot to mention in all the episode, you can also
• 18:02
  partner with mobile network operators because MTN has this
• 18:06
  Momo thing going, going on at the moment.
• 18:08
  So that's also an example of fintech because you're using
• 18:14
  mobile telephony money wallets. Basically it's just money
• 18:18
  transfer using your phone, although I don't know how that
• 18:20
  works. I don't have an MTN line, so I
• 18:22
  haven't tried that out. Then I think with Kenya, is it
• 18:25
  MM Pesa or something like that is really big in that part of
• 18:29
  the world. I don't know anything about it.
• 18:32
  I just know that back when my wife was still running her post
• 18:36
  grad studies, you know, she, she had a Kenyan roommate.
• 18:39
  And so, you know, just just conversation.
• 18:42
  I used to come up stuff like that because M Pesa or is it M
• 18:46
  Pesa? I can't remember what it's
• 18:47
  called anyway, but it's really big in that part of the world.
• 18:49
  We didn't have our own equivalent.
• 18:52
  So maybe now MTN and Momo, maybe that's our own equivalent, all
• 18:56
  those sorts of things. So fintech people can partner
• 18:59
  with mobile network operators just like in Ethiopia.
• 19:02
  I know that some mobile companies in the past, some
• 19:09
  fintech companies partnered with mobile telephone networks to
• 19:14
  have some money water thing going on and also so that
• 19:17
  farmers could check prices on commodity exchanges and then
• 19:21
  things like that. It's really wild the kind of
• 19:23
  services that you can provide when you guys partner with
• 19:26
  mobile companies. Then of course, partnering with
• 19:28
  microfinance banks will help you.
• 19:32
  It's it's just same thing as partnering with the banks
• 19:34
  basically that will like the Sterling Bank partnership for
• 19:37
  the federal government funds. So you expand your reach, you
• 19:40
  gain new customers, you leverage another person's infrastructure
• 19:43
  and also leverage their customer base.
• 19:46
  So this is not the end all and be all.
• 19:49
  And because my own area of expertise is personal selling
• 19:55
  and I'm sure you've noticed that there are lots of ideas here
• 19:58
  that we have discussed that are not directly related to sales or
• 20:02
  selling, but there are some ideas that you can try out and
• 20:05
  they are good ideas. OK.
• 20:07
  Well, it's a good approach to adopt because these are the
• 20:11
  sorts of things that make selling easier.
• 20:14
  When you do business development campaigns and you execute them
• 20:18
  well, when you run marketing campaigns, marketing activities
• 20:23
  and you do them well, it makes selling easier because the next
• 20:27
  time your sales person walks up to a potential customer to try
• 20:33
  and explain that, OK, This Is Us, this is what we do, It's an
• 20:37
  easier, smoother conversation because at least people have
• 20:41
  heard of it before. Now back to this Momo thing, the
• 20:44
  Momo that's MTNMTN Nigeria, the mobile payment thing.
• 20:50
  Now, I'm not an MTN user, but The thing is because Momo MTN
• 20:55
  has been and Momo, they've been advertising everywhere on radio,
• 20:59
  Momo on TV, Momo on billboards, Momo, in fact, in my
• 21:05
  neighborhood, the shopping all, I call it.
• 21:08
  So I say the estate shop. Yeah, the estate shop.
• 21:10
  There's a huge Momo bought there.
• 21:12
  So the next time I'm chilling, just minding my business and
• 21:14
  somebody walks up to me and the person starts the conversation
• 21:17
  like, oh, I'm an MTN sales Rep, I'm a Momo.
• 21:20
  Something, something, something, something.
• 21:22
  However the conversation goes, at least I have heard of Momo
• 21:26
  and MTN before. So it shouldn't it, it shouldn't
• 21:29
  be a conversation that would be too hard to have.
• 21:32
  So that's why these ideas are important.
• 21:34
  So these kind of marketing activities, content marketing
• 21:38
  strategies, public relations strategies, whatever it is that
• 21:42
  you want to call it, they help to wet the ground and make it
• 21:45
  easier for the salesperson who comes along in the future to
• 21:49
  push your fintech ideas. So that's all for today folks.
• 21:55
  Remember to connect with me. The phone number is 08064662140.
• 22:01
  The country code is +234. If you're not Nigerian, you can
• 22:04
  hit me up SMS, phone call or WhatsApp Telegram.
• 22:08
  I might respond next week but WhatsApp definitely will respond
• 22:11
  tomorrow. Then I'll confirm you on
• 22:13
  LinkedIn on socials. My name is Tavi Shimaidi, I'm
• 22:17
  the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of
• 22:19
  my name from the link. We're currently listening to
• 22:21
  this episode, so thanks for your time and attention.
• 22:24
  I will catch you guys at the next episode.
• 22:26
  I'll have to check my list of questions and see if we're done
• 22:31
  with challenges of fintech in selling fintech ideas in
• 22:37
  Nigeria. I'd have to look for my list,
• 22:39
  but I think we should be done with it in another one or two
• 22:42
  episodes. Now, for those of you who've
• 22:44
  been listening to the last couple of episodes where I've
• 22:46
  been dealing with things fintech related, I'm bringing you ideas
• 22:49
  to the market. If you found any of these things
• 22:51
  valuable and you know anybody who's in the fintech space,
• 22:55
  share a couple of the episodes with them, see if they might get
• 22:57
  some value out of it as well. So thanks for your time and
• 22:59
  attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 23:01
  episode.