Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Sales Velocity Secrets: How to Generate Consistent Revenue & Fuel Your Brand

Transcript

Sales Velocity Secrets: How to Generate Consistent Revenue & Fuel Your Brand · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

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  Hello and welcome to the show. Recently I was having a
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  conversation with a potential customer or potential client and
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  our discussion in our discussion a couple of juicy stuff came up.
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  So I figured I'd just hop on here on the podcast real quick
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  and share some of those insights.
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  Now the potential customer like most of you who reach out, you
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  know you have different goals that you want for your business
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  and we were able to isolate the two of the key things that you
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  wanted to achieve for her business was to help the brand
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  and also to make consistent sales.
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  So one part of the conversation was me trying to educate or
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  rather set the right expectation because you've been listening to
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  the podcast for any length of time.
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  You will know that it's part of my business philosophy that to
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  be to improve your sales and the quality of people that you're
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  talking to and also to improve the customer experience, the
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  client experience, you need to be able to set expectations very
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  clearly and from the get from the beginning.
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  Because if you set the expectations wrongly, you have
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  people getting into business with you and they think that
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  you're going to be able to achieve certain outcomes for
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  them when you didn't promise it. And it's not something that you
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  can directly achieve. Oh, by the way, if you guys hear
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  any noise in the background, that's because it looks like the
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  rains are here finally. So it's raining outside.
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  But anyway, you know how I do it.
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  I, I don't always wait for perfectly quiet conditions to
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  make the recording. So I'm just hopping on the on
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  the phone right now and just getting it done.
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  So, yeah, so that was part of my setting expectations that brand,
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  that brand is not something directly related to sales
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  because there are lots of sales activities that give you the
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  Intel that you need and can influence your brand perception
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  in the market. But when it comes to building a
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  sales framework, increasing revenue, brand is not a direct
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  how I put it. Brand is not a direct, is not a
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  direct focus of sales activity, let me put it that way.
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  And so my advice to her was that she would hold on hold off brand
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  conversations for the future at least for six months, because in
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  my own opinion in working together we're going to be able
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  to achieve a couple of things once we executed the sales plan.
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  Now if we came up with a good sales framework and processes,
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  we're going to be able to get some data.
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  Sorry, excuse me, sore throat. Where was I?
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  Yeah. So we're going to be able to get
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  some data from executing the sales process.
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  And some of that information that we're going to get will be
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  the ideal customer profile. We're going to be able to figure
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  out who her ideal customers are. That is either the people that
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  she makes the most money from or the people that she has the most
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  fun working with. Either way, if there's an
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  overlap between those two, then those are definitely the people
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  that we should be running after, because there's a whole bunch of
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  you who are in business who have no idea about who the ideal
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  customer they should be chasing. So I told her that in a couple
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  of months, we're going to be able to figure out the ideal
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  customer profile, narrow down her value proposition.
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  That's the value that she brings to the market, why people love
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  doing business. With her.
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  We would have figured out the sales channels that she works
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  best with and also figured out her style of interaction and her
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  voice. Now I said all of these things
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  would be necessary for the brand conversations that she's going
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  to be having when she gets a brand person later on, you know,
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  six months from now. And also if she starts talking
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  to a public relations person. So I told her I'll hold it off,
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  let's run these sales things first.
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  These are the benefits that we're going to be able to get
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  when we execute the sales conversation and sorry, the
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  sales frameworks. And then when you now start
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  having conversations with brand people, things are going to run
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  a whole lot smoothly. So if you are business owner out
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  there who is thinking of engaging professionals to grow
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  your business, I really don't think you should start off these
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  conversations with the brand and the public relations person
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  except if you already know who your ideal customer is.
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  You've narrowed down your value proposition, You know what sales
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  channels that you work best on and you have a firm idea of what
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  your your style of interaction is, your brand, voice and all
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  those sorts of things. So if you figure these out by
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  yourself, then sure, no problem it makes sense to bring in the
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  PR person or a brand person. But either way, I think it's not
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  a bad idea to start off bringing a consultant in or professional
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  in to look at things from the from the sales element.
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  Now I'm not saying that sales solves everything, because
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  sometimes what you have actually is a management problem.
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  Maybe everything is running all right, you guys just need to
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  tweak your management style or maybe do human resource concerns
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  or things like that. But for most of you who are
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  early stage founders or you're just recently self-employed,
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  things like that, you're trying to get the business off the
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  ground. The major focus for now should
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  be sales, and in trying to execute on the sales process,
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  you get all the information that you need to start informing the
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  other thing. So it's from running sales that
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  you'll be able to see whether you guys have a communication
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  problem, a breakdown in management and all those sorts
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  of things. Then the second part of the
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  conversation that we had was second strategy.
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  So a second goal because remember how the first goal was
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  help the brand and the second goal was increase sales rather
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  than make consistent sales. So I tried to set the
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  expectation that yes, we can achieve consistent sales, but it
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  is something that is effort driven and it's not something
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  that you turn on a tap or you do this tip or this tactic and then
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  everything works. So it's effort driven and it
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  depends on the willingness, the capability and the the hard work
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  that the team on ground is going to put into it.
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  Because me coming in as a business development consultant
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  or a sales coach or whatever in your business, there's no way
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  that I'm going to be able to stand in front of the hall and
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  do some magic and then your profits will increase.
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  I'm going to be having conversations with you guys.
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  I'll be trying to coach your people through certain things
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  and we'll try to execute on the framework that we agree upon to
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  grow your business. But The thing is, if you guys
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  are not willing to put in the work, then there's no how that
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  the organization is going to turn around because there's no
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  how. I mean, I'm not Superman.
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  I'm not going to come into your organization and you know
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  because I'm so smart, I'm going to start doing this, doing this
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  and then your business is going to now thrive overnight.
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  It's effort driven. If you guys are not willing to
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  put in the work, nothing is going to move.
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  And to try and flesh that out, I introduced her to the concept of
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  something called the sales Velocity.
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  Spoken about it on the podcast, but I think that was maybe in
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  the first year of the podcast. I think right now we're over
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  year three, maybe heading into year four, and we currently have
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  over 810 episodes. So if you're new to the podcast,
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  there's lots of good juicy stuff over here.
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  After you're done listening to this episode, skip back.
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  You have 810 at the very least that you can go back and learn
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  lots of interesting stuff on. Oh, by the way, I noticed that
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  people who reach out to me on LinkedIn, WhatsApp, people
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  discovered the podcast. I noticed that a whole bunch of
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  you seem to, what's that word binge.
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  You guys seem to binge on episodes.
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  And yeah, that's not a bad idea to take the episodes, download,
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  download a whole bunch of them binge, and then listen, using
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  them as learning opportunities. And I really think that that's
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  the best way to make use of podcast.
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  Now. It doesn't have to be my own
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  podcast because there are other sales podcasts out there.
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  Nigerian. OK, well, I haven't come across
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  another Nigerian podcast. This is Ghanaian dude.
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  What's his name? Paul Fo.
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  Then there's also of course the usual names, the UK and in the
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  US. So.
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  But I really think that this is the best way to take advantage
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  of them. So take it, binge it, listen,
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  make notes, go out and try. So yeah, sales velocity,
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  something I've spoken about on this podcast, something in
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  sometime in the past, a couple of years ago, maybe 2-3 years
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  back. So I introduced her to the
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  concept of sales velocity. And the velocity just answers
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  the question, how much, how much business am I doing, How well is
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  the sales chugging along? And so to figure out the sales
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  velocity, the answer to the question is you have to look at
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  the number of things. So sales velocity is determined
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  by the number of opportunities. That's how many people are you
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  talking to? Then the deal size, how much
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  money is on the table? How much money are you trying to
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  close to close per client? Then the win rate.
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  If you talk to a bunch of people, how much business do you
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  close? So if you talk to 10 people, do
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  you end up doing business with eight or with three or maybe
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  with one? And then we'll also have to look
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  at the sale cycle, which is how long does it take you to close
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  that business? Does it take you 3 weeks to tour
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  somebody and win the business or does it take you six months to
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  pursue the person or pursue rather to pursue the person and
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  then win the business? Now sales cycle, it depends,
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  depends on what it is that you're trying to achieve.
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  If you're going to the market to buy a Gucci, the sales cycle is
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  like, I don't know, 5 minutes 'cause you get there, how much
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  it tells you is 3500 per cup. You guys are go and then you buy
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  5 minutes, you're done. If you're buying a house on the
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  other hand, sales cycle much longer.
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  But these are the sorts of things that we look at when
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  we're talking about sales velocity.
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  You know, how healthy are the sales?
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  How much money are you guys making?
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  Also, one moment. The kids need my attention.
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  I'll be right back. All right, guys, I'm terribly
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  sorry about that. Making this recording late into
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  the night at home as usual. So the kids needed something.
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  So I had to stop. And yeah, we'll sort that out.
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  OK. Now I was at sales velocity.
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  Yeah, that's where we were. And I spoke to you guys about
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  the different elements involved in sales velocity.
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  That's I'm trying to figure out your sales velocity, how was the
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  health of all the sales activity, how much money do we
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  expect to bring in all those sorts of things.
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  So the elements again are the number of opportunities.
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  So how many people are we talking to the deal size, how
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  much money do we expect to get out of this transaction, the win
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  rate, how many people do we end up doing business with and then
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  the sales cycle. So I was talking about how if
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  you want to achieve consistent sales, it's effort driven.
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  So it's not about the the strength of the consultant that
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  you bring in, but how much effort that your team is willing
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  to put in. So let's look at the individual
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  elements, a number of opportunities.
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  So that means if you call me in to speak to your organization or
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  let's say you're a solo person and so you know I'm over at your
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  office, you know you and me, we're chatting live, direct.
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  We're not going to make any progress.
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  If at the end of the day, you're just not putting in the numbers,
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  you're not putting in the work. Because the number one thing for
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  sales velocities, number of opportunities.
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  If you're only talking to one person per month, you can see
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  that sales velocity, the scope for that is limited.
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  The person who is talking to five opportunities a month, you
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  see that there's a difference between talking to five
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  prospects a month or talking to one.
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  Then again, the person who is discipline enough to talk to
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  maybe 150. Now for a solo printer, you're
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  just starting off business yourself.
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  Chances are you're probably not going to be talking to 100
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  people the month, but you get my idea.
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  If you're talking to only one person a month, if you're
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  talking to 10 people a month, that's a probability thing.
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  The chances go up. So yeah, so you have to put in
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  the effort. How many people are you guys
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  talking to every day, every week?
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  And the deal size, it's not just talking to people who have to be
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  talking with people and then looking at doing some good
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  transactions here. Now of course, you know, there's
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  some things that come per industry that you just take
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  because, you know, you guys pay the bills, as in you just have
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  to make do. So like back in the wedding
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  photography days, you know, I'm not going to front.
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  I've spoken about it before. My first wedding I did it for
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  50K and executing the whole thing plus transport was 47
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  grand. So you can see that that was not
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  really a good deal 'cause I only made 3K on that.
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  But The thing is you know sometimes nothing is coming in
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  at all and so you know anyhow, anyhow let me just take this
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  deal at least let me just see 10K, let me see 20K.
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  So yeah, that happens, but we should be looking at number of
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  opportunities and we should be looking at good deal size and
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  then we should try to optimize, optimize our win rate.
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  So if we're talk to 10 people and we're doing business with
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  two, you know even next month we're able to increase it and we
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  talked to 10 people who do business with three or four,
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  then of course you know things improve.
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  So yeah, sales velocity, these are the things that go into
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  looking at how what is the speed or the acceleration that your
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  business is making when it comes to sales and it's purely effort
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  driven. So whether you guys call in me
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  or some other person just know that there's nobody that can
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  come in and do the magic. At the end of the day it's all
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  going to be you and these are the things we're going you have
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  to be paying attention to. How many people are you talking
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  to? All the people that you're
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  talking to? How many of those deals are good
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  deals? And don't worry, everybody has
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  to take all those in all those cherry weighted deals.
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  You know as in Shah, let me just manage, let me just at least let
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  me use, let me see something and buy credit or see something and
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  buy fuel or buy pure water, you know that that kind of thing.
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  So how many people am I talking to?
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  What's the size of the deal? And then how many people are,
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  how many people am I closing? A lot of that it is going to be
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  determined by you and how much effort that you're willing to
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  put to the table, bring to the table.
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  So that's it. Summary conversation with a
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  potential client. These are some of the juicy
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  Nuggets that I think will be will come in handy for a bunch
• 14:01
  of you listening to the show right now.
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  So if you want to solve sales problems, sorry, brand problems,
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  the sales consultant might not directly help you with that.
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  But working with the sales consultant, you're definitely
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  going to get some good value because you're going to be able
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  to figure out your value proposition, your ideal client,
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  the sales channels you work with, your brand voice.
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  Then when you start talking to your brand person, you guys are
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  going to make huge progress because you work with the sales
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  guy 1st. And so that's why I advocate
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  sales first before other things. By the way, like I said, it's
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  contextual. For those of you who already
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  have solid businesses up and running, standard operating
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  procedures, blah blah blah, some of your problems might be cash
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  flow problems. So you shouldn't be talking to a
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  sales problem, sales professional.
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  Some of your problems might be management problems, so you
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  shouldn't be talking to a sales professional.
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  So it's all contextual then consistent sales to get.
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  That all depends on the kind of effort that you're going to
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  bring, you're going to bring to the enterprise, so you guys
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  ought to get ready. Talk to lots of people or as
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  many people as you can. Make sure that the deals are
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  nice, juicy deals. Don't worry.
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  We all take all those small, small deals just to get by.
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  It happens whether you're a wedding photographer or you're a
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  lawyer or you're a tailor. It happens.
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  And then you try and increase the number of deals that you end
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  up closing. So it's been over 15 minutes, so
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  let me bring it to the close here.
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  Thank you very much for listening to the show.
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  My name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host.
• 15:27
  Please follow me on LinkedIn. That's where I spend most of my
• 15:30
  time. You can confirm the spelling of
• 15:33
  my name from the link where you're currently listening to
• 15:36
  this episode. Also, connect with me on
• 15:38
  WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140.
• 15:45
  I check out Telegram once in a while, so if you send me some on
• 15:48
  Telegram I might see it, but WhatsApp, LinkedIn.
• 15:51
  I'm there every day. Oh, country code +234.
• 15:54
  That's for those of you who are not Nigerian.
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  Thanks for your time and attention.
• 15:57
  I'll catch you guys at the next recording.