Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Selling Clay Without Dough: Creative Strategies for Budding Entrepreneurs

Transcript

Selling Clay Without Dough: Creative Strategies for Budding Entrepreneurs · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Before we begin, apologies.
• 0:05
  Apart from the usual noise outside, that is, the cars
• 0:08
  driving by the road, you're going to hear some generational
• 0:10
  noise. And that's because as at the
• 0:12
  time of this recording in my estate, we had the usual
• 0:16
  transformer issues. As soon as we sorted that out
• 0:19
  for one night, then there was the labour strike and you know,
• 0:23
  effectively the whole country was in a total blackout.
• 0:26
  And when I say total, I mean total like 100% everybody, no
• 0:31
  power for roughly about 2 1/2 days.
• 0:34
  So we're kind of in the throes of recovering from all that.
• 0:39
  And so that's why there's generator noise everywhere now.
• 0:44
  Let's see. OK, so the question we're going
• 0:45
  to look at today is how to build a sales strategy that you can
• 0:49
  execute on a shoestring. In other words, we're going to
• 0:52
  answer the question, does sales have to be expensive or do sales
• 0:56
  and marketing activities, do they all have to be expensive
• 1:00
  And the answer is the capital N&O?
• 1:03
  No. However, all sales and marketing
• 1:06
  efforts have a cost associated with them.
• 1:10
  Please get what I'm trying to hint at.
• 1:12
  Sales and marketing. Does it have to be expensive?
• 1:15
  No, but that doesn't mean that sales and marketing will be free
• 1:19
  because you're going to see lots of stuff on the interwebs people
• 1:22
  saying do these free marketing tactics, do these free sales,
• 1:25
  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's no trusting as free.
• 1:28
  Everything that you're going to do, sales and marketing related
• 1:31
  is going to have a cost associated with it.
• 1:34
  It is either going to cost you time or it is going to cost you
• 1:37
  money. There's nothing that is free.
• 1:40
  So for those of you running around looking for free this,
• 1:43
  free that, perish your thought if it's sales and marketing
• 1:46
  related, I can't speak of any other aspect of business.
• 1:49
  But if it's sales and marketing related, it's either going to
• 1:52
  cost you time or it's going to cost you money and you are going
• 1:56
  to spend the one that you have excess of.
• 1:59
  Because the problem with all this free stuff that people are
• 2:02
  promoting to, you start off and yeah, it's free, but it requires
• 2:06
  a lot of effort. And then after a while you get
• 2:08
  tired. It's like people who are tired
• 2:11
  of playing the organic social media game.
• 2:13
  Organic social media is free, as in no money, but you have to
• 2:18
  spend a whole lot of time to get things going.
• 2:23
  So if you are listening to this episode because you think
• 2:27
  there's going to be some easy thing that you can apply, I'm
• 2:31
  sorry, that doesn't exist. You will either spend time or
• 2:35
  you will spend money. My advice is to start with the
• 2:38
  one that you have in excess. So if you have excess moola, if
• 2:42
  you have lots of money right now, then use sales and
• 2:45
  marketing tactics like advertising, which is
• 2:48
  essentially paying for your messaging and your content to
• 2:51
  reach the widest audience possible or the most qualified
• 2:53
  audience possible. So that is advertising.
• 2:56
  If you have tons of money, by all means start off with
• 2:59
  advertising. Also use money for
• 3:02
  merchandising. Merchandising summary.
• 3:05
  My own rough and ready definition is just paying for
• 3:08
  stuff to look good, paying for stuff to look at and Polish
• 3:11
  branding. You know everything like if you
• 3:15
  set up your office or your studio.
• 3:16
  Back to my wedding photography days, you know, you stepped in
• 3:20
  into my studio, I had the wall length mirror, I had the wooden
• 3:23
  panelling, my nice wooden desk with what's it called, a
• 3:28
  bookshelf built into it. My wife came up with a really
• 3:31
  cool design. I had my plush carpets, nice
• 3:37
  unit to keep the whole place cool.
• 3:39
  You know, you understand all that if easy.
• 3:41
  You know what we Nigerians like to call packaging, especially
• 3:44
  Yoruba people. You say package yourself, so
• 3:47
  merchandising equals packaging in the Nigerian context.
• 3:52
  So if you have tons of money, yes, these are the things that
• 3:53
  you should do. Pay for advertising, pay for
• 3:56
  merchandising, branding, packaging, everything.
• 4:00
  However, even if you have tons of money, as in you've raised
• 4:04
  lots of money or you have investors or whatever, when it
• 4:08
  comes to the content game, still I would advise that you produce
• 4:12
  organic content first so that you can get a general idea of
• 4:16
  what's working in the market before you throw money behind
• 4:19
  it. Because one of the difficulties
• 4:21
  of having tons of money and starting the game with plenty of
• 4:23
  money is that sometimes you throw money behind things that
• 4:26
  are not going to work. How you can figure out what is
• 4:29
  going to work is if you do some organic stuff 1st and see the
• 4:32
  kind of engagement that comes from that, and then that's
• 4:35
  what's going to tell you. Oh, OK, you know what, let me
• 4:36
  throw some money behind it. I was having conversations with
• 4:41
  someone, didn't end up working with the guy that was a fellow
• 4:44
  who was doing male sexual enhancement products.
• 4:47
  We didn't end up working together.
• 4:49
  And I was putting money behind promoting perfectly crafted
• 4:53
  comedy skits. And the skits were not bad, you
• 4:55
  know, they were good. But The thing is, if you're
• 4:59
  trying to promote skits, but right now it's looking as if
• 5:03
  natural, unscripted, authentic Instagram reels are the things
• 5:07
  that are popping off, like that's what's gaining traction,
• 5:10
  then really you're just wasting your money.
• 5:12
  So in my own opinion, I'll say like, if you're in that kind of
• 5:14
  situation, create your skits and then create your reels, then put
• 5:18
  them out organically. See what happens.
• 5:21
  If it looks like the skits are popping off, uh huh.
• 5:24
  Then throw advertising money behind the skits.
• 5:26
  It looks like reels are popping off and throw money behind the
• 5:30
  reels. Or you can use the feedback to
• 5:35
  see which kind of content is getting the highest organic
• 5:37
  engagement. And that will not tell you what
• 5:40
  kind of advertising to create. Should I create advertising that
• 5:44
  looks like it's natural, unscripted, authentic, you know,
• 5:49
  natural point of view, simple camera phone kind of thing?
• 5:53
  Or should I put, should it be a high end properly produced
• 5:57
  skits? So if you got money, that's my
• 6:01
  approach, do the organic thing. That organic give you a sense of
• 6:04
  what is popping off, what is working, then you know what to
• 6:07
  throw money behind. So if you're broke and you have
• 6:12
  a lot of time on your hands, you're going to need a lot of
• 6:15
  body contact. Now, when I say body contact, I
• 6:18
  don't mean that kind of contact for those of you who need Jesus.
• 6:21
  I'm talking about meetings, phone calls, visits, trade
• 6:26
  shows, networking, basically all that old school stuff, the stuff
• 6:30
  that nobody likes to do, the things that people think our
• 6:33
  fathers who are trying to hustle in the 60s and 70s and 80s and
• 6:38
  90s, OK, no, by 90s had the Internet come 90s anyway,
• 6:45
  whenever it is that the Internet came pre Internet.
• 6:47
  OK, let's say pre Internet and then OK, no, we're still in the
• 6:51
  Internet. We can't say post Internet, but
• 6:53
  you get my stuff, you get my juice rather.
• 6:55
  So all that stuff that people had to do pre Internet, that's
• 6:58
  what I'm calling body contact in this episode.
• 7:02
  So you have lots of time on your hands.
• 7:03
  Then what you're going to do is lots of body contacts as you
• 7:08
  need meetings, you need phone calls, you need visits, you need
• 7:12
  trade shows, you need networking.
• 7:14
  You have to be seeing people one-on-one as I'm here in the
• 7:17
  flesh and I'm looking at you in the flesh and we're having
• 7:21
  conversations in the flesh trying to move things along.
• 7:25
  Or the phone. Phone is still kind of in the
• 7:29
  flesh. Definitely better than e-mail,
• 7:32
  but you get my drift. So if you're broke, then body
• 7:35
  contact, that's the way to go. Plenty of leg work, plenty of
• 7:39
  driving, plenty of bus, plenty of taxis, plenty of Ocada.
• 7:44
  You get the gist. Then for online activities, if
• 7:49
  you're broke, you're going to require a lot of content
• 7:52
  creation. And that's the reason why I say
• 7:54
  nothing is free. They say these free content
• 7:56
  ideas, blah blah blah blah, blah.
• 7:58
  And then you start doing it and you realize that ah come, I woke
• 8:01
  up at 8:00. I started with content
• 8:03
  production. It's 2:00 in the afternoon.
• 8:05
  I'm still doing content production.
• 8:06
  Which kind will Hallow be this? Unfortunately, it's just the
• 8:09
  name of the game. Yeah, they're going to require a
• 8:13
  lot of content creation, content repurposing, content promotion.
• 8:18
  And the reason why the repurposing and the promotion is
• 8:21
  important when you don't have money is because organic content
• 8:25
  that is created and is not promoted goes absolutely
• 8:29
  nowhere. Let me repeat it again.
• 8:32
  It doesn't matter how solid your videos are, your text, your
• 8:37
  reels, your whatever. If you create organic content
• 8:40
  and it is not promoted, it is going to go absolutely nowhere.
• 8:45
  If you are on discovery platforms like Tiktok, then you
• 8:49
  know you stand a chance. The the philosophy behind Tiktok
• 8:51
  is these platforms are they call discovery platforms.
• 8:57
  The philosophy is slightly different.
• 9:00
  The algorithms there are trying to show up whatever seems
• 9:03
  interesting. Doesn't matter how much traction
• 9:06
  it may have gotten in the past, but he's just trying to show put
• 9:09
  up interesting stuff now. If people seem to love it, then
• 9:14
  you know the algorithm is going to promote it more.
• 9:16
  But for other things, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, things like
• 9:19
  that, platforms that are not discovery, then you actually
• 9:23
  have to promote because good stuff that is not promoted will
• 9:26
  go nowhere. And the example that those of
• 9:28
  you will know who've been listening to the podcast for a
• 9:31
  while, you guys know that in the first three years, my total
• 9:35
  downloads were at about 5K. Now currently I'm at almost 15
• 9:40
  K. But you guys know that me
• 9:43
  doubling my audience really was in the first six months of last
• 9:47
  year kind of when I started promoting really aggressively.
• 9:52
  So most of you who love the show, actually, let's say 80% or
• 9:56
  90% of you who love the show, actually you guys are just
• 9:59
  newcomers. I've been here for a while doing
• 10:01
  this podcast for I'll say maybe like four years now, maybe
• 10:05
  slightly more. So those of you who actually
• 10:09
  love the show and you know, you guys have been growing my base.
• 10:13
  Actually, you are the the new cats, the O GS have been here
• 10:16
  since good luck Jonathan era. So, yeah, so my own case is, is
• 10:22
  a pretty good example of what is that I'm talking about.
• 10:24
  For the first three years, I just made the podcast and I put
• 10:26
  it up. My idea was like anybody that
• 10:28
  will discover, let them discover.
• 10:30
  But unfortunately what I guess is after three years, 5000
• 10:33
  downloads. But then one day I wake up, wise
• 10:38
  up, start doing the work. Within six months I double and
• 10:41
  currently I'm at 15 K. So that's that's the proof.
• 10:47
  So you can't argue with that. Create good stuff, but then you
• 10:54
  have to have a content for distribution.
• 10:56
  So you need to have a strategy for distribution and promotion.
• 10:59
  How was I promoting promotion doesn't have to be complicated
• 11:02
  now I was mostly sharing the links on LinkedIn.
• 11:05
  I also did some link sharing on Facebook, on Instagram, on
• 11:08
  Twitter, on Threads, on YouTube. But after a while I was like,
• 11:12
  man, this is too much work for my temperament because I don't
• 11:16
  mind how it work, but it I won't like I was I was kind of
• 11:20
  stretched. So most of my podcast growth, as
• 11:23
  impressive as it seems, has come from sharing mostly on two
• 11:26
  places, WhatsApp and LinkedIn. So I share on LinkedIn, I share
• 11:29
  on WhatsApp and that's it. Once in a while I lose myself, I
• 11:34
  forget and I try sharing again on Facebook and Threads and
• 11:38
  YouTube. And then I remember that, oh,
• 11:39
  OK, there's a reason why I stopped this.
• 11:41
  So and then I stop again. So I've been focusing mostly on
• 11:44
  two platforms. So for those people who say
• 11:46
  focus on specific platforms to get growth, they actually do
• 11:50
  have a point there because I've I've seen it happen that once I
• 11:53
  narrowed down to only WhatsApp and LinkedIn because that's
• 11:58
  where I was seeing the best amount of traction, I actually
• 12:01
  made progress. So let's look at the case study
• 12:05
  now. And I'm going to look for the
• 12:06
  most obscure business that I can find that I can think of as a
• 12:10
  Nigerian. Let's look for a case study
• 12:12
  about how to grow sales and marketing on the budget.
• 12:15
  And what I'm going to pick is those of you who are artists,
• 12:19
  pottery people, clay people, because there's someone right
• 12:23
  now who does clay pottery kind of products.
• 12:28
  They sell the clay and it's about 3500 naira and a pop.
• 12:33
  And so for someone in that situation who has plenty of
• 12:36
  money, like I said at the top of the of the episode, go into your
• 12:40
  merchandising and your branding. So get the right look, get the
• 12:43
  right feel of the product, get your packaging right, you know,
• 12:46
  set up the websites, you know, go and pay boys or girls that go
• 12:50
  with design, you know, the Instagram, your website, you
• 12:55
  know everything. And then just start running
• 12:57
  advertising on the Meta suite that's on Facebook and Instagram
• 13:01
  and also on Google. Make sure you target schools and
• 13:03
  parents who have little children.
• 13:05
  And that's how you're going to get traction pretty quickly if
• 13:08
  you have money. But if you don't have money,
• 13:11
  remember what I said. Body contact.
• 13:13
  The good kind, not the bad kind. Don't be promiscuous.
• 13:16
  So body contact. Start attending book fairs,
• 13:19
  education fairs. Get an affordable booth.
• 13:23
  Run demos for free. Do free classes, but get people
• 13:26
  to contribute something for the clay.
• 13:28
  Talk to school principals and art teachers about how you can
• 13:31
  expand the art curriculum, some extracurricular activities.
• 13:34
  Propose fun activities in school or in church.
• 13:37
  Engage in community building online.
• 13:40
  You know, you're doing all of these activities and bottom line
• 13:42
  is you're trying to sell your clay.
• 13:44
  But make sure that you promote yourself and your products.
• 13:47
  Doing all this leg work because I know someone who is doing it
• 13:50
  right now. OK, Well, I don't know the
• 13:52
  person because I've not seen the guy or the girl.
• 13:54
  I don't even know if he's a guy or a girl.
• 13:57
  And that's because there's someone who's currently doing
• 13:59
  the rounds and the person has hit my son's school.
• 14:02
  And it's a very smart move. Not a bad idea.
• 14:05
  You're trying to sell your product, you're inside the
• 14:07
  schools. I mean, that's, that's good,
• 14:09
  especially since in Abuja schools can have, gosh, I don't
• 14:13
  know, let me say 30 children per class.
• 14:16
  If they're like 10 children in each arm, that is 300.
• 14:20
  Then plus secondary school that is 310 arms would be 3000.
• 14:26
  OK, well, let me just leave it at that.
• 14:28
  So you can have about 3000 kids per per school.
• 14:33
  So that kind of leg work is not a bad idea.
• 14:35
  But my son's clay arrived. And The thing is, I have no idea
• 14:39
  who the artist is. So the only profit that this
• 14:41
  artist is going to make or this entrepreneur is going to make is
• 14:43
  the 3005 that each parent has paid.
• 14:46
  But there's no future possibility.
• 14:48
  There's no possibility for future sales or classes.
• 14:51
  So this guy or this girl should have included Flyers to send
• 14:55
  home to the parents so that at least the parent know who it is
• 14:58
  who to call later on to say, Oh, my son love this clay thing.
• 15:01
  My daughter loves this clay thing.
• 15:03
  How much for classes or do you have clay in red or in green or
• 15:07
  whatever? So you could have sent home
• 15:09
  Flyers. The person could have packaged
• 15:12
  the clay better, you know, fancy packaging that has your contact
• 15:17
  details on it. Or they could have sent home
• 15:20
  offers for the kids to give to the parents so the parents can
• 15:23
  have a look at maybe their classes for adults, because
• 15:27
  adults can do this thing as team bonding activities and stuff
• 15:30
  like that. So you get the whole, you get
• 15:32
  the whole gist. So you can, you can do money,
• 15:36
  the whole advertising and merchandising thing, or you can
• 15:39
  do plenty of legwork like this person has done.
• 15:42
  Now this is actually a business. The answer is yes.
• 15:45
  People do this as a business because while my kids were in
• 15:47
  nursery school, there also was another person who came by.
• 15:50
  But this person, we saw the person, he did a smart move
• 15:53
  because he included parents in some of the activities.
• 15:55
  So we got to know that, OK, he's here, this is what he does, this
• 15:59
  is his artwork. If you want to do bonding
• 16:02
  activities in the office, these are the packages, you know,
• 16:04
  stuff like that. So this person was more
• 16:06
  strategic about it. But actually, yes, it is a
• 16:09
  business that people do. And that's one of the things I'd
• 16:12
  like to do here on the podcast to show you guys the different
• 16:15
  shades of entrepreneurial activity that goes on in this
• 16:18
  country. So it's not just wedding,
• 16:21
  wedding photographers and people in the fintech space.
• 16:24
  There's all kinds of things in between, and this is also
• 16:27
  another one of those interesting businesses.
• 16:31
  So 16 minutes, let me stop here. Tomorrow we're going to look at
• 16:35
  popular perspectives online on how to tackle this problem of
• 16:39
  selling while you're broke. So today was me just restarting
• 16:43
  on the Mass app. Tomorrow I will look at what the
• 16:46
  pundits on the interwebs tell you guys to do, and we'll try
• 16:49
  and look at all those things from a uniquely sales and
• 16:51
  business development perspective.
• 16:53
  So that's all for today, folks. Thank you very much for
• 16:55
  listening. Please connect with me on
• 16:57
  WhatsApp. The number is 08064662140 and
• 17:03
  the country code is +234. Then connect with me on
• 17:06
  LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Aidi, I'm
• 17:08
  the host of the show, and you can confirm the spelling of my
• 17:10
  name and my e-mail address from the link.
• 17:12
  We're currently listening to this episode.
• 17:14
  Thank you very much for your time and attention.
• 17:16
  I'll catch you guys at the next episode.