Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Beyond the Hustle: Building a Sustainable Business

Transcript

Beyond the Hustle: Building a Sustainable Business · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today's episode is an out and
• 0:05
  about episodes. We expect to hear some cars in
• 0:07
  the background, and I'm actually parked next to a chicken.
• 0:11
  For now. The chicken is asleep, but if
• 0:13
  the chicken wakes up and crows, yeah, you just know that.
• 0:18
  Yeah, that's what it's about. I'm not in a zoo.
• 0:20
  I'm actually waiting for a meeting with the client, the
• 0:23
  potential client. And they're running late, so I
• 0:26
  forget. Let me just loop up my phone and
• 0:27
  make a recording real quick then, OK, I listened to the last
• 0:34
  episode that I recorded the one that I recorded in my in my
• 0:38
  audio booth and I noticed that the sound quality actually was
• 0:41
  quite, quite tight, quite good. I mean, there's a difference
• 0:44
  when I'm doing this out and about things and when I'm in
• 0:46
  audio booth. So I just want to apologise to
• 0:49
  you guys who are audio files. You know, you like your audio
• 0:51
  nice and clean and things like that, but you know, to be
• 0:55
  honest, I'm very, you know, I'll put it like up and about, up and
• 1:00
  down. And so if I'm going to wait
• 1:02
  until I can set up the audio booth and then record and all
• 1:04
  that, then I probably would only be recording, I don't know,
• 1:08
  maybe once a week or once every other two weeks.
• 1:10
  So the reason why I'm taking this approach for now is just I
• 1:13
  just want to make sure that I get the episodes out, you know,
• 1:16
  as they occurred to me or as things happen, things like that,
• 1:19
  so we can share the gospel of sales on personal selling to
• 1:25
  improve our businesses. But yeah, I noticed that there's
• 1:29
  a difference. So I'll try and make sure that I
• 1:32
  go back to doing as many episodes as possible in the in
• 1:37
  my audio booth. But for now, I'm out and about,
• 1:40
  I'm on the road and let's get down to business until the
• 1:44
  client shows up. So what I want to address today
• 1:47
  is this whole thing of are you a business owner or you
• 1:51
  self-employed? Yes, I know it's something that
• 1:53
  I've made a couple of episodes in the past, but of course there
• 1:57
  are a couple of people who are newbies, and so excuse me, who
• 2:00
  are newbies listening to the show for the first time.
• 2:02
  And then of course, it doesn't hurt to bring these things up
• 2:07
  every now and again just so we can get our thinking straight.
• 2:10
  So why am I making another podcast episode on this whole
• 2:13
  thing about whether you're a businessman or whether you're
• 2:15
  self-employed? And it's because I saw a post on
• 2:18
  LinkedIn recently where this guy was talking about a ghost
• 2:21
  writing business. In fact, once I saw a ghost
• 2:25
  writing business, I kind of knew where this thing was heading
• 2:28
  already because there are lots of people who say they're
• 2:31
  writing a ghost writing business, but you know, really
• 2:35
  they're just self-employed because the ghost writing
• 2:37
  business would be more of like an agency model where you set up
• 2:41
  an agency, you have people working for you, you know, stuff
• 2:43
  like that. Well, anyway, this guy's really
• 2:46
  proud of himself. And actually I'm proud of him
• 2:48
  because the money that guy's making is, is not bad.
• 2:51
  You know, it's mad, you know, you take the the dollar
• 2:54
  equivalent and then he converted to Niger and that looks like
• 2:56
  some mad money. Anyway, so the post was just
• 3:01
  about, you know, him proclaiming about how he started his
• 3:04
  business in quote and then sharing the steps about how
• 3:06
  people can become business owners as well.
• 3:09
  And that's the reason why I'm making this post because there
• 3:12
  are lots of you who want to be business owners.
• 3:17
  But anyway, let me just continue.
• 3:21
  So the steps. So First off, he decided on the
• 3:24
  person or the service that he was going to that he was going
• 3:28
  to do. And then he decided on the 1A
• 3:32
  one person service business model.
• 3:35
  So let me repeat, he decided on what it is that he wanted to do,
• 3:38
  the product that he was going to sell, all those sorts of things.
• 3:40
  And then he decided on the business model, which was a one
• 3:43
  person service business model. That's how he called it.
• 3:47
  And that's the reason why I'm making this episode because
• 3:51
  very, very nice on TV. There is no such thing as a one
• 3:55
  person service business model. If it's a business, then it has
• 4:01
  to go beyond you. If it's just you, you are
• 4:06
  self-employed or you're a hustler or you're whatever it is
• 4:10
  you want to call it, but it is not a business.
• 4:13
  And I'll talk some more about that then next.
• 4:16
  He decided on the ideal customer profile, the people that he's
• 4:21
  going to pursue. And you can see how some of
• 4:26
  these things that we talk about over here on the podcast are
• 4:28
  kind of common sense, but people don't think about it when we're
• 4:31
  starting off. We need to know who we're
• 4:32
  chasing after, who are we going to pursue, you know, to, to make
• 4:36
  our clients. Because if you don't know who it
• 4:39
  is they're running after, then you're going to be marketing any
• 4:42
  which way, trying to do sales any which way, spending money
• 4:45
  any which way, running advertisement, any, any how,
• 4:49
  creating content any which way and end up attracting nobody in
• 4:52
  particular. But if you decide that for this
• 4:56
  product or this service, I'm going to be targeting IBO women
• 4:59
  who live around Orca between the ages of 50 and 63 and who are
• 5:09
  retirees and who are interested in this and this and that and
• 5:13
  that, you can see that that's a very clear ICP.
• 5:16
  You now have a sense of, oh, OK, this kind of people, maybe they
• 5:19
  attend Christian Mother meeting, so I should be going to trust to
• 5:22
  do the marketing and maybe they're interested in these
• 5:24
  sorts of topics around grandchildren or whatnot.
• 5:26
  So they should inform the kind of content that I make.
• 5:28
  But I'm just trying to say that when you're very, very clear,
• 5:32
  like this is the person that I'm chasing, you can see how what
• 5:35
  you should do becomes even clearer.
• 5:37
  Where you should go becomes clearer, or you should write or
• 5:39
  tweet about becomes clearer instead of just assuming that
• 5:42
  the whole world is your, is your target market.
• 5:46
  Then the fellow took relevant courses.
• 5:48
  And I'm impressed that the guy did that is something I think we
• 5:51
  should do. And also like the fact that the
• 5:53
  guy only took six courses and then he started, let me repeat,
• 5:59
  this fellow only took six courses, and then he started.
• 6:03
  The problem that a whole bunch of us make is you want to be,
• 6:07
  excuse me, properly educated. And we don't want to make
• 6:10
  mistakes, so excuse me. And so because of that, we take
• 6:14
  one course after another, after another, after another.
• 6:17
  And before you know it, two years have passed and you're
• 6:20
  still taking courses. But my guy just took six courses
• 6:23
  and then he started. So then of course, he also
• 6:27
  joined online communities. And then he talked about his
• 6:30
  activities of trying to build a brand.
• 6:32
  For him, building a brand was mostly website work and LinkedIn
• 6:36
  work, you know, optimizing profile and then stuff like
• 6:38
  that. And the part that was really
• 6:41
  sweet in my belly when I read the whole thing was my guy said
• 6:44
  he sent out 50 personalized emails with an introductory
• 6:48
  offer. And I really, really love that
• 6:51
  because I've been talking about how when we're trying to start a
• 6:54
  business, prospecting, prospecting is key.
• 6:57
  Prospecting is that whole thing of who might be interested in my
• 6:59
  product or my service, Where do they hang out?
• 7:01
  How am I supposed to reach out to them?
• 7:02
  How should I start a conversation?
• 7:04
  That is really what gets, excuse me, that's what really gets.
• 7:09
  Our business is up and running. So it really gladdened my belly
• 7:14
  that my guy sat down, looked through his contacts and came up
• 7:18
  with 50 people that OK these people I think they might need
• 7:22
  ghost writing services and then crafted emails and then sent the
• 7:25
  emails to them to get things rolling.
• 7:28
  Now I would have preferred 50 phone calls but I mean any which
• 7:31
  wisha. So anyhow, the guy just got the
• 7:37
  ball rolling. So 50 emails.
• 7:41
  So we need to be taking concrete action like this.
• 7:43
  Come up with a prospecting plan. Sometimes it's that simple.
• 7:46
  Sit down, open your phone. On your phone you have 2000
• 7:49
  contacts. If you look at your 2000
• 7:52
  contacts and you can come up with some people 30-40 fifty.
• 7:54
  It's not a bad way to start. The good thing is these are
• 7:57
  people that you already know. Having conversations with them
• 7:59
  is going to be relatively easier because you won't be afraid of
• 8:02
  rejection because some of these people will be your cousins,
• 8:05
  your ex-girlfriend, your ex-boyfriend, your former orga,
• 8:09
  people in church, former colleagues, what else?
• 8:13
  And maybe a random acquaintance you met at last week's
• 8:15
  networking session. But these conversations are
• 8:17
  going to be a whole lot easier than trying to go and talk to
• 8:23
  random people from the get. So my guy's overall advice was
• 8:27
  just start. And I agree, just start.
• 8:32
  So 100% I clap for the guy, how he went about doing this thing.
• 8:36
  And I hope that if you guys come across these sorts of stories on
• 8:40
  LinkedIn or wherever you hang out, you guys are going to be
• 8:44
  inspired by the decisiveness and the level of action that these
• 8:48
  people take. So we should all clap for the
• 8:50
  guy. But now this is the question, is
• 8:54
  he really a business owner? Because to be a business owner,
• 9:00
  it means they're going to set something up so that they think
• 9:02
  has processes and has systems that exist beyond you.
• 9:08
  Let me repeat, because the whole bunch of you listening to this
• 9:12
  podcast right now, you're currently working for someone
• 9:15
  and you're thinking, I'm tired, I want to start a business, I
• 9:19
  want to start a business, I want to be a business owner, blah,
• 9:21
  blah, blah. And so because of that, you run
• 9:24
  out like this guy and start your ghost writing business.
• 9:27
  You say you're doing a one person service business model or
• 9:32
  you you're doing it like me and you're running things solo and
• 9:35
  you deceive yourself that you are running a business.
• 9:39
  You do not have a business because businesses have
• 9:43
  processes and have systems that continue beyond you.
• 9:50
  If you do not believe me, let me spell it out some more.
• 9:54
  There are some of us who are running things.
• 9:56
  I'm not saying that what this guy is doing is bad, and I'm not
• 9:59
  saying what I'm doing is bad. I'm just saying that open your
• 10:01
  eye and be very clear about what you're doing so that there's no
• 10:05
  frustration in the future. Some of us have decided to run
• 10:09
  our business, our passion or whatever it is you want to call
• 10:12
  it in a way, unfortunately, that we have to be there. 2474 things
• 10:18
  to work. My guy is calling this thing a
• 10:20
  business, but let's face it, if he's going for his daughter's
• 10:24
  naming cerem, OK, No, it's his daughter.
• 10:26
  So that won't be him going for the name.
• 10:28
  If he's organizing his daughter's naming ceremony.
• 10:31
  And you know how these things can be now, you don't have to
• 10:33
  hire a planner. So basically he's going to be
• 10:36
  very, very busy for like a week and a half.
• 10:39
  In that week and 1/2, when he's out of the system, business is
• 10:42
  not going to be moving because there are no processes.
• 10:46
  There are no systems that run beyond him.
• 10:50
  There is nobody in the office manning the phones or whatever
• 10:55
  it is that needs to be done to bring in business because he's
• 10:57
  running up and down, talking to vendors, he and his wife looking
• 11:01
  at colours, which one are we going to use What?
• 11:07
  What kind of list are we going to sew?
• 11:09
  Talking to Taylor, talking to the caterer, blah, blah, blah,
• 11:12
  blah, blah. If you need to be there for this
• 11:15
  thing to work out, please don't call yourself in your mind, the
• 11:19
  business owner, you are self-employed.
• 11:24
  And that is why over here on the show, I keep saying for the
• 11:26
  business owner, for the self-employed, for the whatever,
• 11:29
  because I am self-employed. You know, if, God forbid, but
• 11:35
  you know, if minding my business and I'm walking past the
• 11:39
  construction site and the block of cement falls on my head and
• 11:41
  I'm in a corner coma for three weeks, nothing is going to
• 11:44
  happen. You won't hear any podcast
• 11:46
  episodes. No business is going to be
• 11:48
  coming in. And that's because I would be in
• 11:50
  a coma for three weeks. When I come out of the coma,
• 11:52
  then your business will resume. Somebody who is a business owner
• 11:56
  like Dangote, for instance, if the same thing happens to
• 11:58
  Dangote and Dangote is in a coma for three weeks, it doesn't
• 12:01
  matter. The refinery is still going to
• 12:03
  function because he has group managing directors for each arm
• 12:06
  of the business and this and this and that and that business
• 12:10
  will still continue to come in. And that is the main difference
• 12:14
  between a business owner and someone who is self-employed.
• 12:19
  Some of you are going to say, look, it's not the money that's
• 12:22
  the Coco. The money is the important
• 12:23
  thing. So why are we quibbling over
• 12:25
  definitions whether it's self-employed or whether it's
• 12:27
  business owner? The reason why I want us to get
• 12:31
  these things right is so that we have the right expectations from
• 12:34
  the beginning so that we don't have frustrations in the future.
• 12:38
  Somebody who says I'm tired of working for Mr. so and so,
• 12:43
  Barrister so and so I'm tired of working for Dangote.
• 12:46
  If the person goes and sets up a business, then after a while you
• 12:50
  know that you can take a break and income will still come in
• 12:53
  because you have set up processes and you have set up
• 12:56
  systems that are beyond you. So the money you're looking for
• 13:00
  will come. The rest you're looking for will
• 13:02
  come. If you're tired of working for
• 13:04
  Dangote or whoever it is you're working for and you say you want
• 13:07
  to so it'll be business and then you do this thing and you say
• 13:11
  you're doing a one person service business model.
• 13:15
  You know a business owner. You're not, you're
• 13:18
  self-employed. You have just moved to a new job
• 13:20
  and now you are the boss. You are the one who's
• 13:25
  responsible for payroll. You are the one who's
• 13:28
  responsible for sales and marketing.
• 13:30
  You are the one who's responsible for admin.
• 13:32
  You are the one who's responsible for customer
• 13:34
  service. You are the one who's
• 13:35
  responsible for a whole bunch of stuff, at least in your heart of
• 13:40
  hearts, if you know that. OK, yes, right now I'm
• 13:42
  self-employed, but the goal is eventually I want to build this
• 13:44
  thing into a business. No problem.
• 13:47
  So all these frustrations that people have because you, you see
• 13:50
  it on LinkedIn, people say I used to be employed before blah,
• 13:53
  blah, blah. I thought my employer was crap.
• 13:55
  So I decided to go out on my own business.
• 13:58
  Life is tough and this and this and that and that and that and
• 14:00
  that. You know, some of these
• 14:01
  expectations, mismatch expectations is just because we
• 14:05
  were not clear with ourselves what we're doing from the
• 14:07
  beginning. If you know, I own with your
• 14:10
  full chest that you're being self-employed, then there's no
• 14:12
  frustration. So like for me, I know right now
• 14:14
  there's no frustration. That's just the life that I
• 14:17
  chose. I know that was something, you
• 14:21
  know, I know that if I oversleep Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I, I
• 14:26
  had met with my full chest. Yes, oversleeping Monday,
• 14:29
  Tuesday, Wednesday, it means that there's work that needs to
• 14:33
  be done that has not been done. But as a business owner, if I
• 14:36
  wake up one day, I say, Kai, it needs to take a mental health
• 14:39
  day. All I need to do is to call
• 14:40
  office manager and say, look, I'm not coming in today.
• 14:42
  So, so, so and so accounts are pending.
• 14:44
  Make sure that we do so, so, so and so you guys are not hear
• 14:46
  from me for two weeks and then I called the phone and then I can
• 14:48
  sleep for two weeks and the business still continues because
• 14:53
  there are systems and there are processes that go beyond me.
• 14:58
  Now eventually personally, I'm going to migrate into an agency
• 15:01
  model. I'm looking for sharp guys and
• 15:04
  sharp girls who are interested in sales who also believe in my
• 15:09
  own gospel of personal selling. Because there's some people here
• 15:13
  who when they hear sales, what do you think is they think of
• 15:17
  what this thing is called sales funnels, blah, blah, blah.
• 15:20
  You know, online, online, online blasting people, mass e-mail and
• 15:23
  all these sorts of things. And that's not how that's not
• 15:26
  what I believe. That's not what I do.
• 15:28
  It works, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that that is not
• 15:32
  how I choose. That's just not what I believe,
• 15:36
  and that's just not how I think is the best way to grow
• 15:39
  businesses for SM ES. So eventually I'm going to
• 15:42
  migrate into an agency model. And when I do have that agency
• 15:46
  model, I will now be able to beat my chest and say I am a
• 15:50
  business owner because then there will be systems and
• 15:55
  processes beyond me. So that if me and my wife decide
• 15:59
  let's take the children, let's travel to Switzerland, let's go
• 16:01
  and ski. But we have never travelled to
• 16:03
  Switzerland. And I don't know how to ski.
• 16:05
  And I don't think it might be a good idea because my children,
• 16:08
  they know how to skate. So one day I said, let me try
• 16:10
  this skating thing while the skating rink and I put on the
• 16:13
  skating shoes. And before I knew it I had done
• 16:15
  the 360 and I was on my back. And I thought to myself that
• 16:19
  homo at this age, I can't afford to be having these kinds of
• 16:25
  accidents like this. So that's how my skating career
• 16:28
  ended. So my children skate, but me, I
• 16:30
  know skate. And so I don't think I'm going
• 16:32
  to try, what's it called, you know, snow, all that snow,
• 16:38
  anything anytime soon. Yeah.
• 16:40
  So my kids might try it out, but I'll just stay there and watch.
• 16:43
  So when that time comes that we're going to be able to afford
• 16:45
  to travel to Switzerland and we're going to be able to go
• 16:48
  skiing and all of that, then I'll have my agency business
• 16:53
  model up and running. And if we decide to stay in
• 16:54
  Switzerland for four weeks, won't be a problem because I
• 16:57
  know that back home in Niger, this person is responsible for
• 17:00
  this. This person is responsible for
• 17:02
  that. This system takes care of this.
• 17:04
  That system takes care of that. But until then, I went to the
• 17:08
  business and I went to the podcast.
• 17:11
  So all my guy did in starting up a ghost writing, ghost writing
• 17:16
  business, Congrats to him. Yeah, he has, he has done well
• 17:21
  and he's making all of us proud. He's he's making all of us
• 17:26
  proud. So he has he has done well.
• 17:27
  But we just need to be clear when we do these sorts of things
• 17:30
  that you're not moving into a life of freedom and you're not a
• 17:34
  business owner, you're self-employed.
• 17:35
  And because of that, the same stresses that you had while
• 17:38
  working for OGA will continue now that you're self-employed.
• 17:41
  In fact, it's going to be worse now because at least before OGA
• 17:44
  was responsible for your your paycheck.
• 17:47
  I was responsible for sales and marketing and admin and
• 17:49
  everything now is going to be on responsibility.
• 17:52
  So bottom line, what I'm saying is just only with your full
• 17:55
  chest. A lot of you running around on
• 17:57
  your LinkedIn and put in business owner, CEO something
• 17:59
  some you are not CEO, nothing. You're self-employed.
• 18:03
  You're not business owner something some like just forget
• 18:06
  all those fancy titles. Just own it with your full
• 18:09
  chest. You're self-employed and come up
• 18:13
  with a plan. Is this something I want to do?
• 18:15
  self-employed moves forever. I think Americans, I think they
• 18:19
  call that is it cottage? No, not cottage business.
• 18:23
  What do they call it again? Personal personality, something
• 18:29
  I can't remember, but there's a term for it like this, this
• 18:31
  cottage business. So you either cottage business
• 18:35
  or personality, something entrepreneur, I can't remember.
• 18:39
  But whatever it is, just only with your full chest.
• 18:41
  There's some people who do that and are perfectly fine.
• 18:45
  In fact, there's some business consultants that I used to read,
• 18:48
  American Business Consultants. I can't remember this guy's
• 18:50
  name. He has a podcast and for him
• 18:52
  that was his thing, you know, that was his thing.
• 18:54
  Like look, I'm a professor, I'm a teacher, this is what I do.
• 18:57
  I'm self-employed and I'll be self-employed until the very
• 19:00
  end. I've made quite a bit of money.
• 19:01
  Me and my wife will be fine. The children are OK.
• 19:04
  I'll continue this thing until I can do it no more.
• 19:06
  And then that's the end. And so he knows.
• 19:09
  So just be upfront only with your full chest.
• 19:12
  I'm self-employed. Decide not only be a business
• 19:15
  owner, come up with a plan, start migrating it.
• 19:18
  So yeah, so that's it pretty much for today.
• 19:24
  And the reason why I'm quibbling about this whole thing is
• 19:26
  because if you think you're something but you're not, you
• 19:29
  have the wrong expectations. Heartbreak will follow.
• 19:31
  And yeah, anyway, so that's just it.
• 19:36
  So thanks for listening to today's episode.
• 19:38
  Please connect with me on WhatsApp.
• 19:40
  The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is lost 234 for
• 19:46
  those of you who are not Nigerian, then connect with me
• 19:49
  on LinkedIn for questions, queries, tips, tricks, whatever
• 19:55
  the name to look for establishment IED.
• 19:57
  I'm the host of the show, so you can confirm the spelling of my
• 20:00
  name using this the link. We're currently listening to
• 20:04
  this episode. So just go there, highlight my
• 20:07
  name, copy and paste. You see my handsome face there
• 20:09
  and then send me a connection request and we'll take a
• 20:14
  conversation from there. So thanks for your time and
• 20:17
  attention. I'll catch you guys up the next
• 20:18
  episode.