Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Business Audit: How to Attract and Retain Clients and Distributors in Abuja

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Business Audit: How to Attract and Retain Clients and Distributors in Abuja · 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 an art and about
• 0:04
  episodes. We're expect to hear some noise
• 0:05
  in the background. What we're going to look at
• 0:07
  today is how to engage clients in your new hustle.
• 0:11
  It's a business audit. I'm not going to reveal lots of
• 0:14
  details about the person or the business because I didn't get
• 0:17
  the permission to do that. Although for those of you who
• 0:19
  are going to do business audits in the future, I'm sure to get
• 0:22
  your permission so I can share the benefits of the conversation
• 0:25
  over here on the podcast so that people can learn from, you know,
• 0:28
  you and I bouncing ideas back and forth.
• 0:31
  So basically today we're just trying to figure out how to
• 0:33
  engage more clients. If you have a side hustle and if
• 0:37
  you happen to be involved in the retail business like this person
• 0:40
  is, you know, ideas about how to keep up with cash flow, how to
• 0:43
  get new clients and those sorts of things.
• 0:46
  So this was just a one off conversation.
• 0:48
  It's a business audit, so nothing too in depth.
• 0:51
  The whole point of the business order is just you and I having a
• 0:53
  sales, sorry, not a sales, a business conversation, trying to
• 0:56
  figure out what the problems are in your business and trying to
• 0:59
  see what you need to do to take things to the next level.
• 1:03
  Of course, if it's something that I can help out with, then
• 1:06
  of course we will explore conversations in more details
• 1:10
  about how I can end up working with you.
• 1:12
  But at the very least I should be able to give you some ideas
• 1:14
  about where your business is at, what you need to do to take it
• 1:18
  to the next level. So that's what we're going to
• 1:19
  look at today. Before I get on that, I would
• 1:23
  like to say thank you very much to all of you who've been
• 1:26
  listening to the show, who've been subscribing and who have
• 1:29
  been sharing because I just got the details from Spotify.
• 1:34
  The also called Spotify Wrapped because at the date of this
• 1:38
  recording, we're at the end of 2024.
• 1:40
  So Spotify has sent me the rap just so I can see about the
• 1:44
  growth of the podcast. And I'm really, I'm glad I'm,
• 1:49
  I'm, I'm touched by those of you who like the show, who joined
• 1:51
  and who shared and who are helping the podcast to continue
• 1:55
  to grow. I think the growth of the
• 1:58
  podcast this year was over 600%. I'll get the actual figures from
• 2:03
  the rap later on. Then I think I experienced the
• 2:07
  most growth with listeners who are between the ages of 25 to
• 2:10
  29. So I'm glad to have you guys on
• 2:13
  board. It's always nice when people
• 2:14
  start early. So yeah, thanks for listening to
• 2:18
  the show. I also found out that people who
• 2:20
  listen to my show, for lots of people, I'm a top 10 show, for
• 2:26
  some people, I'm a top five. And for very small niche, I
• 2:30
  think I'm about OK, not niche anyway, or for a very small #170
• 2:36
  something I'm a top one podcast. So I'm really glad that you guys
• 2:40
  keep me on top of the playlist. And also found out that a bunch
• 2:42
  of you listen to Femi Lazarus, listen to Coin Nonia experience,
• 2:47
  the honest bunch, I said What I said and the celebration Church
• 2:51
  International podcast. And I'm glad to see that you
• 2:54
  guys listen to those shows as well because these are things
• 2:57
  that also peak my curiosity, you know, faith, theology,
• 3:01
  philosophy, all these sorts of things.
• 3:04
  So, you know, when we chat one-on-one, these are things we
• 3:07
  can talk about. But of course, I'm going to
• 3:08
  limit the podcast to purely business matters.
• 3:13
  So overall, just saying thank you guys very much for helping
• 3:15
  the podcast grow in 2024. I'll make another podcast
• 3:19
  episode later on after I have all the details from Spotify so
• 3:23
  that I can say I can be more specific about what I'm thanking
• 3:26
  you guys for. So back to the conversation for
• 3:31
  today on how to engage clients in your side hustle.
• 3:36
  So this individual, a lady, let me see, I should come up with
• 3:41
  the name for her. Phoenix.
• 3:42
  OK, let's just call her Phoenix. Yeah, called Phoenix X-Men.
• 3:45
  Phoenix rising from the ashes. So I had a chat with Phoenix.
• 3:48
  Phoenix is based in Abuja. This is a side hustle that she's
• 3:51
  doing. She works with the National
• 3:52
  Population Commission. Yes.
• 3:54
  I'm going to say where she works just so that when Phoenix is
• 3:57
  listening to this episode, she knows that, you know, I'm
• 3:59
  talking about her, of course, not using her real name.
• 4:02
  So Phoenix works in the National Population Commission and she
• 4:08
  has a side hustle where she sell.
• 4:11
  OK, I'm not going to say what she sells because if I do, then
• 4:17
  that might be revealing her identity also so that if her
• 4:19
  boss is listening to this podcast, he doesn't figure out
• 4:21
  who she is. Because as we know in this part
• 4:25
  of the world, if you work in the civil service, you're not
• 4:27
  supposed to have a side hustle. But I'm one of those Nigerians
• 4:30
  who has a gripe with these kinds of rules because you work
• 4:34
  somewhere NTAMPC Ministry of Finance, but you know, Olga has
• 4:40
  a side hustle, your line manager has a side hustle as a everybody
• 4:45
  has side hustle. So like, what are we doing here?
• 4:49
  I might as well just change the law and make sure that we have
• 4:52
  strict regulations under which conditions you can have these
• 4:55
  sorts of side hustles. Because I remember the kind of
• 4:58
  abuses they used to go on back when.
• 5:01
  So excuse me, People in my set were like in primary school, you
• 5:04
  know, some teachers come in, they're supposed to be teaching,
• 5:06
  but you know, they're selling clothes on the side and stuff
• 5:09
  like that. You're like, maybe customers
• 5:10
  come and meet them in the classroom.
• 5:12
  I didn't have any of those incidences, but I heard from
• 5:15
  some of my classmates that stuff like that used to happen.
• 5:19
  So yes, we do not want to have these situations where people
• 5:24
  are supposed to be doing their main work, the government work,
• 5:26
  and then they're doing side hustle.
• 5:27
  So I understand where these things are supposed to be.
• 5:30
  But The thing is, if we're not going to enforce these rules
• 5:34
  uniformly, because in practice, what happens is desk office, I
• 5:38
  can't have a side hustle. But then the DG outside hustle
• 5:42
  or the MD outside hustle. In fact, the MD might even have
• 5:46
  a company that is now supplying to, to the, to the Paris state
• 5:52
  health to the ministry. Anyway, don't mind Misha,
• 5:56
  because, you know, my father used to be in the civil service.
• 5:58
  So I just have very strong opinions about some of these
• 6:00
  things. We, you find that those of us
• 6:02
  who are civil service kids, we have some strong opinions about
• 6:05
  these things. So, yeah, so she has a side
• 6:08
  hustle. And then we had a conversation
• 6:10
  around margins because her own margins are roughly between 15
• 6:14
  and 30K. And so she didn't know what was
• 6:16
  a healthy idea for her margins, to be honest.
• 6:20
  When we say margins in this case, all mean is, you know, the
• 6:22
  money you put on top. So let's say you sell something
• 6:25
  and to manufacture anything or to buy, you think it costs you
• 6:29
  60K. And then when you sell it, you
• 6:31
  sell it for 75. So that 15K on top, that is your
• 6:35
  margin. By the way, for those of you who
• 6:38
  studied accounts, you will tell me that yes, my math is wrong.
• 6:40
  And yeah, of course, there's a much more technically precise
• 6:43
  way to calculate your margins. But for now, to keep it simple,
• 6:47
  if you buy something for X and you sell it for X + 2, then that
• 6:50
  +2 is your margin just for the purpose of this podcast and the
• 6:54
  purpose of keeping it simple now.
• 6:55
  So our margins are between 5015 and 30 K 30,000.
• 7:00
  And so she doesn't know if that's a healthy margin.
• 7:02
  And for our industry, I don't know if it's a healthy margin
• 7:04
  either. This is something that you
• 7:06
  figure out after you stay in the industry a bit and after you
• 7:10
  talk to a bunch of people, you know, like, well, how much do
• 7:12
  you sell your own for, you know, stuff like that because you
• 7:16
  might be selling for 1530 K and you think that that's a good
• 7:18
  margin. But then you talk to your
• 7:20
  contemporaries and you find out that your contemporaries are
• 7:22
  selling 100K margin. And then you know, in that case,
• 7:26
  you now know that OK, your margins are not, are not
• 7:29
  typical, are not healthy. So it all depends.
• 7:31
  So there's some industries where if you sell at A15K margin, it's
• 7:34
  fantastic. And then there's some industries
• 7:36
  where if you sell at a 15K margin, it is absolute rubbish.
• 7:40
  And the example that I gave Phoenix when we're talking was a
• 7:43
  friend of mine who sells rice. And the last time that we spoke
• 7:46
  to that, I spoke to that friend of mine, he was making about 7 K
• 7:51
  on each bag, 710 K on each bag. And that was considered typical.
• 7:55
  So for her, she sold a relatively smaller, what she's
• 7:59
  selling is smaller. And so for her to make it 15 to
• 8:02
  30 K on that thing, I thought was not was not bad.
• 8:06
  However, this was my advice. Whether it is a healthy margin
• 8:09
  or not is not the main thing that we're supposed to be
• 8:11
  discussing. Now, my own opinion was this.
• 8:14
  You have margins of 15 to 30 K. Let's keep it like that.
• 8:17
  Now let's see how you can get some things moving in your
• 8:20
  favour. Let's see how you can work on
• 8:21
  payment terms for your business. And let's see how you can
• 8:24
  increase the number of distributors or number of
• 8:26
  resellers and the number of customers that you have.
• 8:29
  Because even though the profit margins was 15 to 30, she was
• 8:33
  having problems with her payment terms because it's one of these
• 8:35
  things that people buy now and then they pay later.
• 8:39
  And then of course, you know, she buys the goods now, she
• 8:41
  gives it to the person now, but then the money is going to come
• 8:44
  maybe like next month or in two months.
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  So I told her that some of those concerns, how to manage these
• 8:50
  sorts of things is mostly a cash flow issue.
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  And it's not something I have the expertise to be able to sort
• 8:56
  out because I don't, you know, it's not my era specialty.
• 9:00
  So I can't advise you on those sorts of things.
• 9:02
  You know, how many things should you keep?
• 9:04
  OK, let's say it's bags. How many bags should you buy?
• 9:07
  How many should you keep in inventory?
• 9:09
  How many? What is the maximum number that
• 9:11
  you can sell every single month on credit?
• 9:14
  And if you sell on credit, how many days do you have?
• 9:19
  Must you collect your money before you run out of money?
• 9:22
  Because these are some of the concerns that those of you who
• 9:24
  sell physical products have. For those of us who sell
• 9:27
  services, we don't really have these concerns per SE.
• 9:29
  Because even if you do something for someone on credit, by the
• 9:33
  way, I'm not going to advise that you sell services on credit
• 9:35
  because that's really tricky. Because at least if you sell
• 9:37
  handbag on credit, the person is using the handbag.
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  So The thing is tricking the person's conscience that I'm
• 9:42
  rocking this bag, I haven't paid this money.
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  With services, it's a bit different.
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  If you're a web designer, you go ahead and you design the website
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  and you give the personal credit, then may you put
• 9:52
  yourself on some long jump. So I would recommend service
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  providers do things on credit. So what was that?
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  Yeah, it's a cash flow concern because of you who sell physical
• 10:02
  stuff, you need money to buy the goods.
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  Sometimes you're paying to store the goods somewhere.
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  Let's say you have a shop, and then when you sell the goods,
• 10:11
  you need to bring money in so that you can buy the next set.
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  So if you're giving people goods on credit now you're tying up
• 10:18
  money that you're supposed to use to be buying new inventory.
• 10:21
  So it's a cash flow thing. So I told her, go talk to
• 10:23
  someone else who studied accounting or maybe somebody who
• 10:25
  studied biza. I mean, even if they can't
• 10:27
  answer your questions, they'll be able to point you to the
• 10:29
  right specialist who'll be able to advise you.
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  And I told that it's just typical because it's like banks
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  that I told her. So banks, they collect people's
• 10:37
  money and they keep in the coffers, but as they're lending
• 10:41
  it out to other people, they also need to have a certain
• 10:43
  amount in reserve so that when people come and say, look, give
• 10:46
  me my money, they have money to give them.
• 10:49
  So there's a cash flow management thing.
• 10:52
  So I told her less so you need to work on your payment terms.
• 10:56
  How do you stop selling to people on credit?
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  How do you make sure that you collect, you're you're
• 11:02
  collecting quicker, you know, all those sorts of things.
• 11:04
  Because if you reduce the amount of credit you're giving people,
• 11:07
  and that's assuming you keep the revenue the same.
• 11:11
  So let's say last year you made one M on your business.
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  This year you make one M on your business.
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  But last year you are giving people credit and they were
• 11:19
  taking two months to pay. If in this year you still made
• 11:24
  1M revenue, but you are giving people 30 days to pay or 15 days
• 11:29
  to pay, you'll find that your life will just be with a whole
• 11:32
  lot less stress. So same amount of money but a
• 11:36
  better quality of life because there's less stress because
• 11:40
  people are paying quicker. So you don't have to worry too
• 11:43
  much about where you get money to make inventory or to pay your
• 11:46
  staff or things like that. So yeah, I told her margins just
• 11:51
  hang on for now. We don't, we both don't know
• 11:53
  enough about what is good. We need to talk to other people
• 11:54
  in the industry. So let's figure out payment
• 11:57
  terms. Let's say we can't be collecting
• 11:58
  money, shop, shop or we reduce the amount of credit that we're
• 12:02
  selling on. And then she had two
• 12:04
  distributors based in Abuja, 1-2 distributors based in Maraba.
• 12:10
  So she's sourcing stuff from, I can't remember if it's Kano or
• 12:14
  Lagos that she's sourcing her stuff from.
• 12:17
  And then selling in Abuja, especially the outskirts, you
• 12:21
  know, all those places closer to NASA, our estate.
• 12:24
  So selling in Maraba. So she has two retailers there,
• 12:28
  1 retailer, very consistent. The other one not so much.
• 12:31
  So my advice was OK, now, now that you have this guy, the
• 12:35
  fellow that's consistent, OK, I told her about the what people
• 12:39
  some people call Paretos principles, some people call it
• 12:42
  the 8020 rule, some people call it the law of unequal
• 12:44
  distribution. I prefer to say law of unequal
• 12:47
  distribution because they tell people 8020 and then they look
• 12:50
  and then they see that statistically was not 8020.
• 12:52
  Those all this thing is false. The main thing is not the
• 12:56
  amount. The main thing is this that
• 12:58
  you'll find in your business that the most money you will
• 13:01
  make will come from a small group of your customers.
• 13:04
  The biggest results that you get will come from the smallest from
• 13:09
  the smaller segments, smaller group of customers or small set
• 13:13
  of activities that you do. So when you think of the law of
• 13:15
  an equal distribution, you're trying to figure out what is
• 13:18
  that thing that I do that gives me the most profit and then let
• 13:22
  me double down on that. So in this case, to a few
• 13:28
  retailers, but mostly to one of them, really, really consistent.
• 13:31
  So if you double down on what's working, you talk to the guy who
• 13:34
  is consistent, you try and get him to buy more from you or you
• 13:38
  try and raise the prices on what it is that he buys.
• 13:40
  Or you try and get referrals from him so that he's referring
• 13:44
  you to other distributors who have the same work ethic and who
• 13:48
  have the same reach and who bring in good business.
• 13:53
  And you'll find that that will make your life a whole lot
• 13:54
  easier if you're similar in Phoenix's position.
• 13:57
  So if you have two distributors, one of them is very consistent.
• 14:02
  The other guy is one kind, one kind.
• 14:04
  My advice, the one kind guy, OK, keep doing business with him.
• 14:07
  But that person who is consistent, man, doubling,
• 14:10
  doubling, give him or her favorable terms.
• 14:13
  Try and see how you can move more merchandise.
• 14:15
  See if you can move merchandise with this person at higher
• 14:17
  prices. Worst case scenario, make sure
• 14:21
  you're trying to get referrals from this person so that this
• 14:23
  kind of distributor is referring you to other kinds of
• 14:26
  distributors because it will make your life much, much, much
• 14:28
  sweeter. The goal is we try and sweeten
• 14:31
  up our life so that this other distributor who is one kind, we
• 14:34
  just free the person because business is hard to come and now
• 14:39
  start babysitting somebody else, constantly calling, constantly
• 14:42
  toasting, constantly chasing. But that's what highlight that
• 14:45
  we don't need. So let's make sure that we're
• 14:48
  dealing with resellers, distributors, merchandisers,
• 14:52
  whatever people that don't give us stress people that they're
• 14:54
  doing their business, they're handling their business.
• 14:57
  We're working with them. And you know, like I'm growing
• 15:00
  my I'm growing my business, you're growing your business
• 15:02
  together. We're growing our business
• 15:04
  partners in progress. That's all we should be looking
• 15:05
  for. Anybody who's not a partner in
• 15:07
  progress, just let that person fall by the wayside.
• 15:10
  So for now, yeah, do basically personal, but people are not
• 15:13
  really partnering with you. Let that person fall by the
• 15:15
  wayside. Let's those of us who want to
• 15:16
  make progress, let's be making progress together.
• 15:18
  Let's be moving forward. Then let's see what else.
• 15:22
  OK, then she also has a bunch of customers in the office.
• 15:24
  And for that, I applauded her because when you're starting off
• 15:28
  in business, just like Phoenix's, it is well, talking
• 15:32
  to strangers is hard. So it's easiest when you start
• 15:35
  with when you start with friends, family members and
• 15:37
  associates. So if it's something that Mumsy
• 15:40
  and Popsy can buy, you know, talk to mumsy and Popsy.
• 15:43
  If they buy, you can ask if mumsy and popsy have friends who
• 15:46
  might be interested. That's a lot easier conversation
• 15:49
  to have than way to go and start with somebody brand new.
• 15:52
  So start with family. See if you can sell your family,
• 15:55
  then move to your friends. See if you can sell with
• 15:56
  friends, then move to colleagues.
• 15:58
  People at work seem to buy from you and spread it out small.
• 16:01
  See if you can buy from people who, who go to church with you
• 16:05
  or who go to mosque with you or whatever, you know.
• 16:09
  So like that, like that, like that, you start with the people
• 16:11
  that you know and it's easier to gain some confidence so that
• 16:15
  then you can start talking to strangers.
• 16:17
  So that's one thing that Phoenix did.
• 16:18
  I was really good. I clapped for her and you guys
• 16:22
  should do that as well if you're coming into the business.
• 16:24
  Friends, family members, colleagues, associates,
• 16:30
  acquaintances, you know, before you start moving out to
• 16:32
  strangers, some of us have no problem with talking with
• 16:35
  strangers, but it's, it's a muscle that you build over time.
• 16:38
  So I told her, yeah, cool. Talking to people in the office,
• 16:41
  very good. But after a while, you're going
• 16:43
  to exhaust the office. So what you do is, unfortunately
• 16:47
  for her, the parastatal that she works with is not in like in the
• 16:52
  secretariat, because it wasn't the secretariat.
• 16:54
  It would be beautiful because what you can do is since you
• 16:56
  already work at, let's say, let me see, there's Ministry for
• 17:01
  Commerce. Yeah, Ministry for Commerce is
• 17:03
  in, is in area. I think that's like Durumi side
• 17:09
  in Abuja, Abhi. OK, let me just use.
• 17:13
  OK, so like Durumi and then maybe like Lagos Alousa.
• 17:17
  So you see how all those buildings are chocked together.
• 17:19
  So this is the whole idea. So if you work in Napa, in
• 17:21
  Lagos, in Alousa for instance, you talk to people in your
• 17:25
  department, you can come down and go downstairs and voila,
• 17:29
  it's a whole new department, more people to talk to.
• 17:32
  Let's say you six months, are you?
• 17:33
  You use the whole building. Everybody knows how, OK, this
• 17:37
  girl that stays on the 6th floor, she sells bag of rice.
• 17:40
  Everybody there now knows you. You can now come outside, move
• 17:43
  to the left, move to the right. There's another building,
• 17:45
  there's another ministry, there's another parastatal and
• 17:48
  start trying to sell there. So that's the kind of scope that
• 17:50
  I gave her. So I told her that in America,
• 17:54
  for people in the real estate space, I think they called it
• 17:57
  Land and expand. So the whole idea is this.
• 17:59
  If there's a street of 10 houses and you end up doing business
• 18:02
  with house #5 that's the one that clicks.
• 18:05
  When you finish the business, house #5 you come out and then
• 18:08
  you enter house #4 see if you can do business there.
• 18:11
  Whether it clicks or it doesn't click, you come out and then you
• 18:13
  go to house number six and see if you can do business there.
• 18:16
  So that's the whole idea with the land and the grab.
• 18:19
  This person has agreed with me. OK, no problem.
• 18:21
  Now that I'm finished with this person, I'll move to the left
• 18:24
  and I'll try my luck. I'll move to the right and I'll
• 18:26
  try my luck. It's not everything that clicks,
• 18:28
  but I should keep doing this thing.
• 18:30
  Over time, your odds of business success continue to increase.
• 18:34
  And then of course, if house #4 clicks, you do the same thing.
• 18:37
  You come out and you go to house #3 so you see how it works.
• 18:41
  So you land in one place and try and expand from there.
• 18:44
  You land here, you come out, move to the left, see how you
• 18:47
  can do business, move to the right side, you can do business.
• 18:49
  So I told her she have to do that kind of scope as well.
• 18:54
  That's when it comes to physical prospecting.
• 18:56
  That's going to go and talk to people one-on-one.
• 19:00
  It's land and expand is easy to do when you work, when you're in
• 19:04
  paid employment and you're around some businesses because
• 19:07
  people see you. So it's not hard.
• 19:09
  So if you work in business, a business at OK, let's see, I'll
• 19:15
  put it now. Let me go back to Ministry of
• 19:16
  Commerce. So, so excuse me, Hamartan
• 19:19
  so-called in Abuja. So let's say you work with the
• 19:23
  Ministry of Commerce with the office in Durumi or area one
• 19:26
  that's in Abuja, the old secretariat.
• 19:29
  Now Ministry of Commerce is close to NOA National
• 19:32
  Orientation Agency and it's close to it's close to is it NPC
• 19:41
  that's population Commission and only they're close to
• 19:43
  themselves. Commerce is close, national
• 19:47
  orientation is close and I think population Commission, I think
• 19:49
  I'm not sure. So The thing is this as a
• 19:51
  committee to office every day, let's say I've been working
• 19:54
  there for like 2-3 years. The security guards they know
• 19:56
  you they see you Hopefully you've been greeting them.
• 20:00
  Hey boss, are you there now as a family, that kind of thing.
• 20:03
  So they see you as you're going to work.
• 20:06
  So if by the time you finish working your.
• 20:08
  Your department, let's say you're in midstream of commerce,
• 20:12
  you've talked, you've spoken to people in your department,
• 20:15
  Everybody knows that you sell rice.
• 20:17
  You now move upstairs, people upstairs know that you sell
• 20:20
  rice. You now move downstairs, people
• 20:22
  know that you sell rice. This is what I'm using rice is
• 20:24
  because the date of this recording, it's December, I
• 20:28
  think December 3rd or 4th. Sorry, I left my watch at home,
• 20:32
  so why was I? So it's like December 3rd or
• 20:35
  4th. We're heading towards Christmas,
• 20:37
  so chicken rice, tomatoes, Grano oil, that kind of thing.
• 20:42
  So those are kind of things that folks are trying trying to flog
• 20:45
  right now. Sorry about that.
• 20:49
  This code is really doing me strong team.
• 20:52
  What was I? So, yeah, that's why I'm using
• 20:55
  rice as an example. So everybody, your department,
• 20:57
  they know you sell rice upstairs.
• 20:59
  I know you sell rice downstairs. I know you sell rice.
• 21:01
  You will now come out of your building Ministry of Commerce
• 21:04
  because you have spoken to everybody humanly possible in
• 21:06
  Ministry of Commerce. You will not move to the left
• 21:11
  that is NOA National Orientation Agency.
• 21:14
  Since you've been coming to work there for about two years.
• 21:16
  You've been greeting all the security guards.
• 21:17
  The security guards already know you don't stop you from entering
• 21:20
  the building because like, oh, that's our sister.
• 21:23
  I said I don't know how you do our business, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:27
  You entered the building and then you start doing your magic
• 21:30
  again. You know, somebody who works
• 21:32
  with maybe finance department in NOA National Attention Agency.
• 21:36
  You go there, you close you up with the person.
• 21:38
  I say, oh, I beg. Yeah, I'm here.
• 21:41
  It's my break time. You know, Christmas is coming
• 21:44
  now. I have some good deals on rice.
• 21:45
  Are you interested? If she's interested, you know,
• 21:48
  you talk, you know, let me think about it, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:52
  OK, So who else can I talk to? Who do you think might be a good
• 21:54
  person here? She refers you to another
• 21:56
  person. And then that's how you start
• 21:57
  the runs all over again. And you now start trying to work
• 22:00
  your magic in NOA, National Orientation Agency.
• 22:04
  Now, if it takes you 2-3 months to work the whole building in
• 22:07
  National Attention Agency, you come out again.
• 22:09
  And then you now move to the Right to NPC Population
• 22:13
  Commission, and then you try again.
• 22:15
  Now remember what I said on top of the episode.
• 22:18
  I am not advocating that our civil servants should go around
• 22:21
  selling rice and stuff like that, But I believe that they
• 22:25
  are ethical parameters within which we can allow people who
• 22:28
  work in the civil service to engage in the trade.
• 22:31
  Right now, the rules are that if you work in the civil service or
• 22:35
  in the government sector, the only business that you should do
• 22:37
  is farming. I guess the reason why they say
• 22:40
  so is because farming, maybe you can do it one or one or two days
• 22:45
  a week or pay for a person to be on the farm, but it's not going
• 22:48
  to affect your work. But anyways, I'm not saying that
• 22:52
  people who work in the government sector, people
• 22:55
  working the civil service should be trance.
• 22:57
  I'm not trying to show you how you can do land and expand when
• 23:01
  you're trying to promote your business and you're trying to
• 23:02
  look for new customers. Then she had one customer who
• 23:07
  was a really, really good customer, but then the customer
• 23:10
  got transferred to Port Harcourt.
• 23:12
  And of course I asked Phoenix, like, I hope you've been in
• 23:13
  touch with the guy. And she said yes.
• 23:15
  And I was like, oh, very good. Because the problem that we
• 23:18
  have, they had a lot of you, the mistake a lot of you make is
• 23:20
  this. You have a very correct
• 23:21
  customer, but then the customer Jackass, and you're like, oh,
• 23:25
  she has moved to Canada. He has moved to Canada.
• 23:27
  Oh, well. And they never keep in touch
• 23:28
  again. Like you should be keeping in
• 23:30
  touch. You don't know what's up.
• 23:31
  You don't know what kind of opportunities you can leverage
• 23:33
  later on. So we should always be in touch
• 23:35
  with people. It's not just a matter of
• 23:37
  they're here with us, we see them, we're good friends, then
• 23:40
  they get promoted or they get transferred or they travel and
• 23:43
  then we lose touch. So I told her, like, you've been
• 23:46
  calling to greet him. OK.
• 23:48
  Yeah, that's good. And I tried to figure out why he
• 23:50
  was, why he was buying from her, because it seemed for me like it
• 23:55
  probably was not something that the guy would be using himself
• 23:57
  and said, oh, no, it's mostly because he liked my husband.
• 24:00
  He was trying to support my business.
• 24:01
  And it's OK. Fantastic.
• 24:03
  So what that means is trying to get referral conversations with
• 24:05
  him. That will be a lot easier, will
• 24:07
  be a matter of a boss. Everyone, thank you very much.
• 24:09
  While you were here, you really appreciated my business.
• 24:12
  In fact, we miss you now that you're gone.
• 24:14
  Thank you very much for the support.
• 24:15
  I beg now that you're gone, I'd still appreciate referrals,
• 24:20
  recommendations, you know, any way to that you can to continue
• 24:23
  to promote my household. So that kind of conversation,
• 24:27
  there'll be a whole lot easier because the main reason why the
• 24:30
  girl was patronizing anyway was just because like, oh, you're my
• 24:33
  younger sister. I like the way you're doing this
• 24:35
  thing. I want to make sure that this
• 24:36
  business is moving. So it'll be a very easy
• 24:38
  conversation to have. So referrals, for those of you
• 24:41
  who are in this sort of space, you have stuff that you read,
• 24:44
  retailing referrals, something that you should, sorry, no, this
• 24:50
  Qatar. So something you should be
• 24:52
  trying to hook up as well. Then she also had questions
• 24:55
  around producing content and using WhatsApp because WhatsApp
• 24:59
  was a very big way for her to promote her business.
• 25:03
  If I need to sit down with all these WhatsApp people and take
• 25:05
  classes with them and figure out how you use WhatsApp to be
• 25:09
  drumming or business because they're people who are making a
• 25:13
  killing on WhatsApp. So for her, social media equals
• 25:15
  0 because WhatsApp and talking to people is where she's making
• 25:19
  all her money. So by the way, hope you guys see
• 25:22
  that this is a perfect example about how things are contextual.
• 25:25
  Some people say for XYZ kinds of businesses you must be on social
• 25:28
  media. But I continue running to people
• 25:31
  who cannot even spell social media, but they're making a
• 25:34
  killing doing something else, like in this case, doing
• 25:37
  WhatsApp. So, yeah, so we had the
• 25:42
  conversation. I told her the same thing that I
• 25:45
  told the ladies at the Avon Innovation Hub, the session that
• 25:50
  we had on digital marketing for women.
• 25:52
  We just used Google Gemini. We freestyled, we roughed it.
• 25:56
  We came up with the content calendar on the spot.
• 25:59
  And then she now had ideas for creating content.
• 26:03
  Now this is the beauty of a content calendar.
• 26:05
  What we came up with was 7 ideas for a week, 7 themes for the
• 26:10
  week. There was Monday motivation,
• 26:13
  there was tip Tuesday, there was something Wednesday, something
• 26:15
  Thursday, something Friday 7 days of the week.
• 26:19
  So sorry, one word. All right, so this is what I
• 26:23
  told her. If you take these seven ideas,
• 26:26
  are you able to get 33 ideas on by your head?
• 26:29
  You go on freestyle and come with three ideas for each day.
• 26:34
  What you now have is 21 ideas. Remember Gemini gave us 7 ideas.
• 26:42
  Motivation Monday talk about these kind of things.
• 26:45
  Tip Tuesday talk about these sorts of things.
• 26:47
  Dash Wednesday, talk about these sorts of things.
• 26:49
  Dash Thursday, Dash Friday something, Saturday something
• 26:52
  Sunday talk about these sorts of things.
• 26:55
  So that's if you come up with three, three ideas each, that's
• 26:57
  21 days. I now asked her what's going to
• 27:00
  be comfortable for you? Me, I try and post every day but
• 27:03
  posting every day is hard so it's not for everybody.
• 27:06
  And she admitted a year for her if she does three times a week,
• 27:11
  she has tried so it's OK, no problem.
• 27:13
  So let's look at three times a week then she's OK good, she's
• 27:15
  comfortable three times a week. So I now told her that you see
• 27:18
  this 21 ideas that we have now if you're posting for only three
• 27:22
  days a week, that means you already have content now for
• 27:26
  seven weeks straight. Hope you guys help me.
• 27:32
  Gemini gave some ideas, he gave 7 ideas and I told her you do
• 27:37
  some homework on these seven ideas that we have.
• 27:40
  Just add 22 extra ideas to what was given here.
• 27:43
  That will give you 21 days worth of content.
• 27:48
  But since for you posting every day will be work, but you know
• 27:52
  you can do three days because she's also studying for masters
• 27:56
  at posting for three days a week, you will now have seven
• 27:59
  weeks worth of content. Meaning if you're posting
• 28:03
  January 1st, you have enough content that will now last you
• 28:07
  until February 14th. I'll be February 20 something.
• 28:11
  This is the benefit of a content calendar and that is why I keep
• 28:15
  talking about a content calendar.
• 28:18
  It makes your life easier. You wake up, you don't have to
• 28:20
  think about what to post. You just look at your content
• 28:23
  calendar and then you continue. And in her own case, you have a
• 28:26
  guide that will last you for seven weeks.
• 28:29
  Imagine the freedom of not having to worry about what is it
• 28:33
  that am I going to post today? Because you know that for the
• 28:36
  next several weeks it is sorted. It has already been decided.
• 28:41
  That's why I keep talking about content calendar.
• 28:43
  I know it sounds kind of simple. That's how you guys don't take
• 28:46
  it seriously. But look, content calendar is
• 28:48
  the way to go. How do you think I've been able
• 28:50
  to do 990 something episodes so far?
• 28:53
  It's precisely because I have some sort of a content calendar.
• 28:56
  I don't have to wake up and decide what is it, am I going to
• 29:00
  post today? Also, hold on, let me check the
• 29:01
  clock. I have a 10:00 meeting.
• 29:04
  Oh, OK, so 10 minutes to go. I can wrap this up quickly.
• 29:07
  So that's the reason why I've been able to do about 990
• 29:10
  something episodes so far. In a couple of days, I hit 1000
• 29:12
  episodes. It's because I have a content
• 29:14
  calendar tomorrow. I don't have to think about what
• 29:16
  to post. All I have to do is wake up and
• 29:19
  open my diary. Oh, OK, that's the next thing.
• 29:22
  And then I record the episode and that's it.
• 29:24
  If I forget my diary, I also have a content calendar on my
• 29:27
  phone. I just open the note, I say, oh,
• 29:29
  OK, that's the next thing. And then I record and it's that
• 29:32
  simple. It'll be odd if it hasn't
• 29:36
  happened to me before, that I forget my diary and then I
• 29:38
  forget my phone. So if I forget my phone, I
• 29:40
  forget my diary, then OK, I'm in trouble.
• 29:43
  Then there's no content for the day, but my book is with me.
• 29:47
  If my phone is with me, I'm good to go.
• 29:49
  There will be content that day. So please content calendar now
• 29:55
  for her. The only difference that I made
• 29:56
  was this. There's some there's some posts
• 30:01
  that she tries to that she puts up that supposed to where she
• 30:06
  puts call to action. You know, as in buy now 20%
• 30:09
  discount get for your man because you know, there was an
• 30:13
  international, excuse me, I was international men's day or
• 30:16
  international Father's Day or something like that.
• 30:19
  I think maybe like 2-3 weeks ago.
• 30:22
  So those kinds of posts, buy now, say hi for 5% discount,
• 30:27
  don't leave your husband's out, get for your man, all those
• 30:29
  kinds of things. So I told her that with this
• 30:31
  content calendar she has come up with, she should not be sorry
• 30:35
  about that. As a tractor driving by, we're
• 30:39
  not trust or tractor does mean truck anyway.
• 30:42
  So I was like, yes, so I told her not every single post should
• 30:46
  be buy now, say hi for 20% discount, buy before so so, so
• 30:53
  or get for your man. Not every single business post
• 30:58
  should have that kind of call to action.
• 31:00
  So I told her, how do we agree when they space it out?
• 31:05
  OK, we agree that we're going to do only one day a week, wear
• 31:08
  shoes where the message is going to be buy now.
• 31:11
  But the rest of the posts should be something entertaining or
• 31:15
  something educating so that you remain top of mind with people.
• 31:19
  Because if Monday your posts are buy now.
• 31:23
  Tuesday your post is 20% discount.
• 31:26
  Wednesday your post is buy for your man.
• 31:28
  Don't leave less. Don't leave him left out.
• 31:30
  Thursday your post is buy from buy for your babe, your
• 31:34
  children, you know. Friday buy for your side trick.
• 31:38
  Sunday buy for yourself if that's all you put up bye bye
• 31:42
  bye bye bye bye bye bye. People start skipping you on
• 31:45
  WhatsApp as they're watching WhatsApp status.
• 31:49
  I prefer to say viewing WhatsApp status but puja people keep
• 31:51
  saying watching status and say oh boy you know the watch status
• 31:54
  and like look it is not ATV. We watch TV we don't watch
• 32:00
  WhatsApp status. You view the status wonder
• 32:03
  that's that's just me. So as your viewing status or as
• 32:07
  you're watching the status now you're the person who keeps
• 32:09
  saying bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
• 32:11
  Once they see the first poster. Oh, is this person you just
• 32:14
  skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. Or at least for my wife, this
• 32:17
  way she just taps you tap left, I'll be you tap right, right,
• 32:20
  right, right, right, right. And then if you will just skip
• 32:22
  through everything. Now, some people who even know
• 32:24
  how to skip a person all together, so they'll start
• 32:27
  skipping you. So don't make all your messages.
• 32:31
  Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Those buy messages, you know,
• 32:33
  maybe once or twice a week. Every other thing, let it be
• 32:36
  educational, let it be infotainment or let it be
• 32:38
  something. So that was just a summary of
• 32:43
  the conversation that I had with Phoenix around her business
• 32:47
  audit. So if you would love to have a
• 32:49
  business audit or if you'd love to connect with me, the number
• 32:53
  is 08064662140. The country code is +234.
• 32:58
  For those of you who are not Nigerian, they have to connect
• 33:01
  with me on socials, I'm on LinkedIn, the name is Tavishma
• 33:04
  Aide. Remember, I am shutting down my
• 33:08
  Facebook and my Instagram and my TikTok because I'm not doing
• 33:12
  anything with them and somebody has tried to hack me three times
• 33:15
  already on Facebook and I don't like the stress so I might as
• 33:19
  well just shut everything down. So for Facebook, it's a 30 day
• 33:24
  thing. So the profile is still going to
• 33:26
  be up until January of 2025, but I'm not doing anything with it
• 33:31
  after 2025. January 2025, The thing is going
• 33:34
  to be gone. So LinkedIn, that's the only
• 33:37
  place you're going to be able to find me for now.
• 33:40
  So yeah, that's how to reach out.
• 33:42
  That's how to connect. You want a business audit at no
• 33:45
  cost, reach out to me. That's what we can make happen.
• 33:48
  So thanks for your time and attention.
• 33:49
  I'll catch you guys in the next episode and you all have a
• 33:51
  wonderful day.