Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Stop Guessing, Start Selling: Data-Driven Strategies for Sales Growth

Transcript

Stop Guessing, Start Selling: Data-Driven Strategies for Sales Growth · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to the show. Before we begin, I'd like to
• 0:05
  apologize because today is a late night recording and that's
• 0:09
  because I had an event earlier in the day.
• 0:11
  I was talking about simplifying, simplifying business thinking or
• 0:20
  something like that. It wasn't a lecture per SE, but
• 0:24
  it was more of a business type symposium where I was there with
• 0:29
  a lawyer, with a fashion entrepreneur, with web, three
• 0:33
  artists, someone with AIT. So I know AITAI specialty, let's
• 0:42
  see who else, OK And then somebody in mental health.
• 0:46
  So it was much more of a business roundtable.
• 0:48
  And of course I was talking about the things that I talk
• 0:51
  about best, which is how we ought to have a process driven,
• 0:57
  framework driven method for improving our sales and building
• 1:01
  our businesses. So that's what I spent a lot of
• 1:03
  the time doing earlier today. So maybe after I reflect on the
• 1:07
  session, especially on the perspectives from the other
• 1:10
  speakers, I might make a podcast episode to share some of the
• 1:14
  good stuff that we discussed then.
• 1:18
  So if I sound a little slow or hazy, that's because it's late
• 1:21
  at night and I figured let's just knockout an episode because
• 1:28
  we're always behind because it's no secret that even though we
• 1:32
  have over 830 episodes published so far on the podcast, I still
• 1:37
  have roughly another 800 or so topics or questions that I have
• 1:42
  not addressed. So let's just keep the show
• 1:45
  moving. Now, today, I'd like us to look
• 1:48
  at data-driven sales decisions. And that is just all about the
• 1:54
  kind of metrics that we keep, how we track information, how we
• 1:58
  track data, how we collect data. And the whole point of doing all
• 2:03
  of this kind of activity is just so that we can optimise our
• 2:05
  sales strategy. So First off, we have to answer
• 2:08
  the question whether data is important in improving our sales
• 2:12
  because some of you are going to say you know, you boys have come
• 2:16
  again, any small thing. Data, data, data, data, I beg
• 2:20
  what is data of? Is it even important?
• 2:22
  And the answer is yes. But the problem is that most
• 2:25
  people, especially those of us born, you know, close to the 80s
• 2:30
  around that time, we just assume that anytime you hear data,
• 2:35
  we're only talking about things that you can quantify and things
• 2:38
  that you can put into numbers because we are that generation.
• 2:42
  You know, those of us who grew up during SAP, you know,
• 2:45
  structural adjustment program during the Babangida era and
• 2:49
  stuff like that. You know, pundits will say
• 2:52
  economic data says this, economic data says that people
• 2:56
  should do this, people should do that.
• 2:58
  So for my generation, that's just how we grew up.
• 3:01
  Anytime you hear data, you hear numbers and the thing has
• 3:04
  carried on till today. You know, Gen.
• 3:07
  Z people like my kids, every time anybody hears data.
• 3:13
  OK, well, let me not generalize. Let me say in Nigeria where most
• 3:15
  people hear data, they think numbers and they think things
• 3:19
  that you can quantify numbers, ratios, those sorts of things.
• 3:23
  But in the real sense of the word or in the older sense of
• 3:26
  the word, data just means information, whether that
• 3:30
  information is quantifiable or not.
• 3:33
  Now the kinds of data that we need to build our business are
• 3:40
  two things. We need quantifiable data and
• 3:43
  then we also need qualitative data.
• 3:45
  Now let me get into the difference.
• 3:47
  Quantifiable data is the data or the information that we get from
• 3:55
  quantitative research. That is where we're asking
• 3:58
  people questions and we're trying to figure out numbers.
• 4:01
  So we're asking people, we're getting involved in
• 4:04
  conversations or we're doing some research and we're trying
• 4:06
  to find out numbers or we're trying to track our activities
• 4:11
  because we're looking for some kind of metrics.
• 4:15
  So when you keep a logbook and every time you make a phone
• 4:19
  call, you scratch in the logbook, you make a tick in the
• 4:22
  logbook and then at the end of the day you see that you had 35
• 4:26
  ticks. So you know that OK, you made 35
• 4:28
  phone calls today. That is you doing quantitative
• 4:32
  research because you are looking for numbers.
• 4:36
  And when you talk to your customers and you're trying to
• 4:38
  get a sense of how many times they've done business with you,
• 4:40
  how much they pay, things like that, that is you looking for.
• 4:44
  So excuse me, you looking for numbers, So that is you doing
• 4:48
  quantitative research. So that is one kind of data that
• 4:51
  we need quantifiable data, data we can put into numbers that we
• 4:55
  can calculate, we can divide, we can multiply, we can put in a
• 4:58
  spreadsheet. So that's one kind of data.
• 5:02
  Now, the second class of data that I spoke about is
• 5:04
  qualitative data, and that is data that we get from
• 5:08
  qualitative research. And this is the difference.
• 5:11
  Qualitative research or qualitative data is when we're
• 5:14
  talking to people, we're having conversations, we're trying to
• 5:17
  track stuff. But we're not looking for
• 5:18
  numbers per SE, but we're looking for insights.
• 5:21
  We're looking for judgement, we're looking for wisdom, we're
• 5:24
  looking for perspectives. We're looking for, you know,
• 5:27
  whatever it is from talking to people or from carrying out our
• 5:31
  business activities. So when you finish your phone
• 5:34
  conversation with someone and you get like a bad vibe, you
• 5:37
  know, in your belly, you feel like this call didn't go well or
• 5:40
  something. That is qualitative data.
• 5:45
  You should think about that. Why do I think this call didn't
• 5:48
  go well? Why do I think I should have
• 5:49
  spent more time with another person?
• 5:51
  You can see that when you're asking yourself these sorts of
• 5:55
  questions, you're getting insights that you cannot readily
• 5:58
  reduce down to numbers or ratios or figures that you can put it
• 6:04
  on the spreadsheet. So both kinds of data or
• 6:08
  information are important. We should be paying attention to
• 6:12
  the quantifiable data, all the numbers that we're tracking when
• 6:17
  we're talking to people. And we should also be paying
• 6:19
  attention to qualitative data that is information, insights,
• 6:24
  judgment, wisdom, perspectives, or whatever from from talking to
• 6:31
  people. So my dear brothers and sisters,
• 6:35
  don't just think numbers every time you think data.
• 6:38
  When you hear data, think of numbers.
• 6:39
  Yes, but data or information is also about insights.
• 6:43
  It's also about judgement. And all of them are necessary
• 6:46
  for improving business. So if you have numbers only, no
• 6:50
  problem, you can work with that. But we need insights.
• 6:54
  If you have insights only and you don't have numbers, no
• 6:56
  problem. We can start with the insights
• 6:58
  and we can start tracking numbers.
• 7:00
  So now the next question that we have to look at is how do you
• 7:03
  get data? Of course, if you're listening
• 7:05
  to the show, it's no surprise you know that.
• 7:07
  My answer is if you want data, go out and talk to people, talk
• 7:11
  to customers, talk to stakeholders, your business
• 7:14
  partners, investors, people who didn't end up doing business
• 7:17
  with you. Talk to anyone reasonable that
• 7:21
  you think you should talk to in the beginning.
• 7:23
  It's a good approach to take because when you start talking
• 7:26
  wide, you now get a sense of, OK, me spending time with these
• 7:30
  people. It didn't make sense.
• 7:31
  I didn't get anything out of it. So let me flashy these people so
• 7:35
  you can never go wrong with starting abroad and then narrow
• 7:37
  in narrowing it down. People always talk about getting
• 7:41
  qualitative, sorry, what's it called?
• 7:44
  Good quality data. Yeah, we should be aiming for
• 7:46
  good quality data. But The thing is in the
• 7:48
  beginning we don't know what is going to be good quality data.
• 7:51
  So you're better off starting wide and then you narrow down
• 7:54
  when you start wide, you now know that OK, this person was
• 7:57
  talking off point. There's no need in me conversing
• 8:01
  with these sorts of people in the future when I want
• 8:03
  information one-on-one data. So talk to people widely,
• 8:07
  customers, stakeholders, investors, business partners,
• 8:10
  you know, blah blah blah. Then also when you're reviewing
• 8:15
  your business activities, how many phone calls did I make?
• 8:18
  Who did I visit? Which meetings did I think were
• 8:21
  good? Which meeting did I think were
• 8:22
  bad? You should pay attention to
• 8:23
  these sorts of things because you're looking for cues, also
• 8:26
  looking for clues, you're looking for patterns.
• 8:29
  And so these are ways that we can get data.
• 8:32
  Now why should we be chasing down data, which goes back to
• 8:35
  the first question, when somebody will say you boys have
• 8:38
  come again and it's more thing data, data.
• 8:41
  Now why we should be chasing data is because it helps us to
• 8:43
  make lots of decisions that are key to our sales strategy.
• 8:47
  Now, some of these decisions or some of these questions, we're
• 8:50
  going to be able to define #1, we're going to be able to refine
• 8:54
  our ICPICP is our ideal customer profile.
• 8:58
  Those are the people that we enjoy working with the most, the
• 9:03
  people who pay us the most, the people where we're best spending
• 9:07
  our time chasing after so we can do business with them.
• 9:09
  So when we ask ourselves all these questions, qualitative
• 9:13
  questions, quantitative questions, we're able to figure
• 9:16
  out who are the most profitable people that we should be
• 9:19
  spending our time chasing. Because if you wake up on
• 9:22
  Monday, you're chasing everybody up and down.
• 9:24
  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it's just a waste of time.
• 9:26
  But if you start off the business, maybe in January, you
• 9:30
  are chasing everybody. But then in February, you sit
• 9:33
  down, you look at your data, you now start thinking, you now get
• 9:36
  a sense of, oh, OK, when I'm in this part of Abuja, I'm talking
• 9:41
  to people from who work in this kind of sectors.
• 9:44
  These people buy quickly. These people pay the most.
• 9:47
  You now know that, OK, for the month of March, instead of me
• 9:50
  going to this other part of town and talking to this other kind
• 9:52
  of people, I should only spend time with these kinds of people.
• 9:56
  Because the data has shown qualitative and quantitative,
• 10:00
  that when I speak to these kinds of people in this kind of
• 10:03
  location who work in this kind of space, these are the people
• 10:07
  who pay me the most. So we need the data because it
• 10:11
  will help us figure out who should we be chasing down.
• 10:14
  It'll also help us to improve our sales and marketing efforts
• 10:17
  and also our business processes. Then it's also going to help us
• 10:21
  to create personalized and relevant offers or promos,
• 10:26
  communications, things like that.
• 10:28
  Because once we start asking all all these questions and we
• 10:30
  narrow down our ICP, we know exactly what it is that people
• 10:33
  want. We know what it is that works,
• 10:35
  what it is that doesn't work, you know, things like that.
• 10:38
  So these are the sorts of benefits that we get when we
• 10:41
  start chasing down data and that is why we should take this kind
• 10:45
  of thing seriously. Now, what kind of data should we
• 10:47
  track? Because we've spoken about how
• 10:49
  we should be running after trying to get qualitative data
• 10:53
  and quantitative data. In other words, we're trying to
• 10:57
  look for insights, judgments or trying to look for numbers.
• 11:00
  So what are the kind of data that we can track?
• 11:03
  You should be trying to figure out where our leads are coming
• 11:05
  from. Now remember, a lead is anybody
• 11:08
  who has raised their hand, who has given you a signal, who has
• 11:11
  given you a sign that they might be interested in your product or
• 11:14
  service. We need to try and figure out
• 11:16
  where that is coming from. If most of your leads are coming
• 11:19
  from one part of town, one part of Lagos for instance, for those
• 11:23
  of you who are based in lag and it only makes sense for you to
• 11:26
  spend more time in that part of town.
• 11:29
  Now let's go back to the online thing.
• 11:32
  If you realize that most of your leads are coming from Instagram,
• 11:36
  then why are you going to waste time on LinkedIn?
• 11:40
  If most of your leads are coming from LinkedIn, sorry from
• 11:42
  Instagram, then abandoned LinkedIn and start spending more
• 11:46
  of your time on Instagram. Then again, it's also the other
• 11:49
  way around that there are people who insist that they must build
• 11:54
  a robust Instagram page. What does it profit you?
• 11:59
  Excuse me? What does it profit you to build
• 12:02
  a solid Instagram page and have hundreds of thousands of
• 12:05
  followers just so you can feel like an influencer?
• 12:08
  If all your leads are coming from LinkedIn, So don't waste
• 12:12
  time on Instagram before your leads are coming from LinkedIn.
• 12:15
  And then if you're spending all this time online, but then you
• 12:20
  find out that most of your leads are coming from, let's say,
• 12:25
  local churches in your area, why are you wasting time online?
• 12:29
  Start spending time in churches and track down your customers.
• 12:32
  So those are the kind of data we need to track where are the
• 12:37
  leads coming from? Then we also try to figure out
• 12:40
  the quality of the leads coming from each source.
• 12:43
  Because you might find out that when you talk to people on
• 12:46
  LinkedIn, that these kind of people, that kind of people,
• 12:50
  they don't seem to be serious. But when you talk to people
• 12:53
  after the church parish meeting or something, those people are
• 12:56
  ready to buy now. So if you're talking to, if
• 13:01
  you're getting, let's say, 100 leads from LinkedIn, but for the
• 13:05
  people that you talk to on LinkedIn, they don't seem to be
• 13:07
  serious. You only get two business deals,
• 13:09
  but every time you go to a local parish, every time you go to a
• 13:12
  business Expo and you talk to 10 people, eight people buy.
• 13:16
  You can see that even though you're getting more leads in
• 13:20
  terms of number from LinkedIn, the quality seems to be better
• 13:25
  when you go to church or when you go to the business and fair.
• 13:29
  So you can see how these things are now determining the kind of
• 13:32
  strategy that we're going to do. So I was trying to figure out
• 13:35
  the kind of data where we also need the quality of leads.
• 13:39
  Then we also try to figure out how many people become paying
• 13:42
  customers. That's really important.
• 13:44
  You also have to try and figure out how long does it take to
• 13:46
  close the deal. Because if you talk to people in
• 13:49
  a business fair or in church, maybe you see that you closed
• 13:51
  the deal in 5 minutes. But if you're chatting with
• 13:54
  people on LinkedIn or Instagram or WhatsApp, it takes you 3
• 13:58
  weeks to close the deal. It's also gives a good sense
• 14:01
  about where you should spend your time.
• 14:03
  Should you be spending your time in places where you talk to
• 14:06
  people? Sharp.
• 14:06
  Sharp. 5 minutes? Thirty minutes?
• 14:08
  You've got a customer or spending time on this online
• 14:11
  thing where you're chatting with people back and forth and you're
• 14:14
  taking three weeks, you know, so there's no right or wrong
• 14:17
  answer, but there's it's not like you have right or wrong,
• 14:22
  it's like it's it's about the what is most appropriate and
• 14:25
  what is least appropriate. So these are the data that we're
• 14:27
  looking for and these are the calculations that we're trying
• 14:30
  to make. Then you also try to figure out
• 14:32
  on average, how much do people buy from us When we talk to
• 14:38
  people from this place or from that place, how many do they
• 14:41
  buy? Do they buy one item or do they
• 14:43
  buy five? And then how much do they pay?
• 14:46
  Because you can notice that you talk to certain kinds of people
• 14:49
  and they'll be pricing groundnuts with you.
• 14:52
  But then you talk to some other people and they only say the
• 14:54
  only concern is, oh, what's your bank account details?
• 14:57
  Let me transfer. How quick can you deliver?
• 15:00
  So you have to ask yourself those sorts of questions to then
• 15:03
  you also need to figure out how long on average people remain
• 15:06
  customers because people are buying from you.
• 15:10
  Once they leave and they never come back.
• 15:12
  It could be a sign that there's a problem, but then the people
• 15:16
  buy now, come back in two months, come back in six months
• 15:20
  and then they start referring people.
• 15:23
  So excuse me, it could be a sign that there's lots of stuff that
• 15:26
  is going on, right, that you need to continue doing.
• 15:28
  So these are the kind of data that we should be looking for.
• 15:32
  When we're going out and we're talking to people, where are our
• 15:35
  leads coming from? What is the quality of the
• 15:38
  people we're talking to? How many people become paying
• 15:42
  customers? How long does it take for you to
• 15:45
  close the deal? And when I say closing deal
• 15:47
  here, I mean when they send you money for a deposit, how much on
• 15:51
  average do they buy from us? How much are they paying?
• 15:56
  How long do they remain our customers?
• 15:58
  So this kind of data is going to give us a very good picture of
• 16:02
  who our best customers are. When you figure this out, don't
• 16:06
  waste time. When you know these are the best
• 16:09
  people you've been doing business with, spend all your
• 16:11
  time chasing them. It's a very straightforward
• 16:13
  something. So if you want to do business,
• 16:16
  let's say you sell shoes. And ideally you want to do
• 16:19
  business with people who are bank executives because you
• 16:24
  think they have money, you think they're big girls, you think
• 16:26
  they'll buy more. But if by the time you start in
• 16:30
  January, February, you sit down, you start looking at your
• 16:32
  figures and you talk to your customers and you figure out
• 16:35
  that, yes, bank executives, you know, the girls who work in
• 16:40
  Access Bank and send it back, they buy shoes.
• 16:42
  But you can see that most of your promise, yeah, your profits
• 16:45
  are coming from people who are primary school teachers or maybe
• 16:49
  people who work in ministries and things like that.
• 16:51
  So they don't buy fancy shoes, but for the normal shoes, they
• 16:55
  buy plenty, they buy 456. So you're making profit versus
• 17:00
  the bank staff who buys one shoe and you make a profit of 10K per
• 17:05
  shoe. If you look at it and it looks
• 17:08
  like your best customers are primary school teachers and
• 17:11
  ministry workers, then please, let's be real here.
• 17:15
  You might continue chasing the Access Bank staff and Zenith
• 17:19
  Bank staff, but spend most of your time chasing down the
• 17:23
  teachers and the ministry workers because those are the
• 17:27
  ones who are your best customers for now.
• 17:29
  That is what the data is showing.
• 17:31
  Things might change in the future then.
• 17:36
  Yeah. So we figure out who our best
• 17:37
  customers are, You figure out where they come from because
• 17:40
  that way you know where to go and chase them down.
• 17:43
  The data will also tell you whether you need to improve your
• 17:46
  sales presentation, because if you're talking too much story
• 17:51
  before you close, the deal might be a problem that, OK, maybe
• 17:54
  there's a problem with our sales presentation, then let's see
• 17:59
  what else. OK, Also need to figure out who
• 18:01
  buys the most from us. And also we figure out the
• 18:04
  things that people buy the most because that will now tell us
• 18:09
  what it is that we should be promoting the most, because you
• 18:13
  might like certain kinds of shoes.
• 18:15
  Back to the shoe example, let's say you prefer the 4 inch heels,
• 18:22
  4 inch black, 4 inch heels, black stiletto because you think
• 18:27
  it's much more sophisticated, much more elegant.
• 18:30
  But if you look at your numbers, you look at your invoices, you
• 18:33
  look at your receipts, you look at your bank statements, you
• 18:35
  talk to people and you see that these primary school teachers
• 18:39
  and ministry workers, what they're buying is black one inch
• 18:47
  but not stiletto the the one that the sole is wide, like a
• 18:51
  square block. So if it is black one inch block
• 18:56
  heel that they're buying, and please spend most of your time
• 19:00
  selling the ones that are black one inch block sole, even if you
• 19:07
  think the stiletto is finer and much more sexy and much more
• 19:11
  elegant. Unfortunately, most of the money
• 19:14
  is coming from the other shoes that you don't like.
• 19:17
  So by figuring out the things that people buy the most, don't
• 19:21
  want to know which of your market, which of your
• 19:22
  merchandise, you should be pushing some more.
• 19:25
  And like I said, the final one of how long people remain doing
• 19:30
  business with you, You need to figure that out because it's
• 19:32
  going to tell you whether you have a problem with customer
• 19:35
  service and with relationship building.
• 19:38
  So we are 20 minutes. So let me bring this episode to
• 19:41
  a close. So that's all for today.
• 19:42
  Pretty much. Connect with me on WhatsApp.
• 19:44
  The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234.
• 19:51
  For those of you who are not Nigerian, also connect with me
• 19:54
  on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Aidi.
• 19:57
  I'm the host of the show and you can confirm the spelling of my
• 19:59
  name and the e-mail address from the link.
• 20:02
  We're currently listening to this episode, so thank you very
• 20:05
  much for your time and attention.
• 20:08
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.