Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Stop Winging It! Building a Structured Sales Machine for Success

Transcript

Stop Winging It! Building a Structured Sales Machine for Success · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Today I'd like to tackle the
• 0:04
  question how to build a sales machine for your business.
• 0:09
  Now, there's certain elements that you're going to need.
• 0:11
  And if you are a Nigerian who is used to those old Zenith Bank
• 0:17
  adverts that used to run on channels, TVCNN and those sorts
• 0:21
  of places, then this is a slogan that you heard before.
• 0:24
  And yes, it's a slogan might sound right, but there is a
• 0:27
  certain element of truth that runs through it.
• 0:30
  So the elements that you're looking for are you need a
• 0:33
  framework or you need process. Next you need people, and then
• 0:39
  after that you need technology. So let me repeat, how do you
• 0:42
  build a sales machine for your business?
• 0:44
  You need a framework or a process.
• 0:46
  You need people and you need technology.
• 0:48
  And now, of course, for those of you who remember the old Zenith
• 0:52
  advertisement, it was always Zenith Bank.
• 0:55
  People process technology. So let's start off with the
• 1:00
  framework or the process. Because if you've been listening
• 1:02
  to this podcast for any length of time, you know that I'm a key
• 1:05
  process person. I'm a key framework person
• 1:08
  because I believe that the main problem that people face when it
• 1:12
  comes to building their business is not that they lack motivation
• 1:16
  or creativity or things like that.
• 1:18
  It's just that it's a little daunting trying to figure out
• 1:21
  what to do, how to do it, how to go about it.
• 1:24
  If you wake up and you don't have a mental framework for
• 1:26
  anything. So it's all well and good to say
• 1:28
  2024 or 2025, or whenever you're listening to this podcast, it's
• 1:33
  all well and good to say this is the year that I'm going to smash
• 1:35
  it. But if you wake up tomorrow,
• 1:38
  January 1st, or, you know, February 2nd, or whenever you're
• 1:41
  listening to this podcast and you do not have a framework for
• 1:47
  customers, you're going to go after problems.
• 1:49
  You're going to tackle how exactly you're going to smash
• 1:51
  it. I mean, it's not just enough to
• 1:53
  saying to say I will overcome, you need a road map to overcome.
• 1:58
  And it's not just enough to say I'm going to smash it or this is
• 2:01
  the year that I won't agree. You know, you need a framework
• 2:03
  or a process that will show you how not to agree or show you how
• 2:08
  to overcome. Or for those of you who are not
• 2:11
  Nigerian listening to the podcast.
• 2:12
  By the way, when you say that I know Go Green, all that means is
• 2:20
  I will not accept. OK, well, let me put it this
• 2:23
  way, word for word. It might mean I do not accept.
• 2:26
  But the spirit of it is more like I shall not be overcome or
• 2:30
  I shall not be undone. Or I will not let anything
• 2:34
  prevail over me. Yeah, that's a better
• 2:35
  interpretation. I won't let everything, anything
• 2:38
  prevail over me. So yeah, all these sort of
• 2:41
  things are good. But primarily we need a
• 2:43
  framework and we need a process. When we have that in place, then
• 2:47
  the rest of the journey comes a whole lot easier.
• 2:50
  Now from a sales perspective, from a sales or marketing or
• 2:54
  business development perspective or whatever it is you want to
• 2:56
  do, my chief advice is stop freestyling.
• 3:01
  You need a framework, You need a process.
• 3:02
  You need a framework that is proven and a framework that is
• 3:06
  cohesive, that makes sense, That is well thought out.
• 3:09
  Because if you keep trying to tackle things in this business
• 3:12
  game and you're freestyling every day, there are some
• 3:14
  dangers that are going to come about from this.
• 3:17
  And the boy is like your customers are going to have a
• 3:19
  poor experience because there's some days that you wake up and
• 3:22
  you're going to be on your game and your customers be like, wow,
• 3:26
  like this guy, this girl, I mean, she she's on point.
• 3:29
  This person is legit. But then there'll be some days
• 3:31
  that you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and customers
• 3:35
  are going to be on the receiving end of that as well.
• 3:37
  If you do not have a well thought out framework or process
• 3:40
  that you have to apply every single day, it's like with me on
• 3:44
  the podcast, if I wake up and I'm on fire, I'm still here for
• 3:48
  you guys. If I wake up and I feel, you
• 3:52
  know, I feel like spoiled eggs for instance, I'm still here for
• 3:56
  you guys because there's a framework, there's a process
• 4:00
  that I'm following. There are questions that I need
• 4:02
  to follow. So come rain or sunshine, no
• 4:04
  matter what it is, I'm still here.
• 4:05
  Good days or bad days, That's the reason why I show up.
• 4:09
  So it's not that I'm more motivated than the average
• 4:12
  business commentator or consultant out there.
• 4:15
  It's just that there's a framework, there's a process so
• 4:18
  I can wake up every day, regardless of my motivation and
• 4:21
  get stuff done. So if you're freestyling, your
• 4:24
  customers are going to have a poor customer experience.
• 4:27
  There's also going to be incoherent brand projection.
• 4:30
  And that's because, let's say you're in business with your
• 4:32
  spouse or with your brother or you have other business
• 4:35
  partners, you know, things like that.
• 4:37
  Whenever people are talking to you, they're going to receive
• 4:41
  one kind of customer experience, one kind of brand projection.
• 4:44
  Whenever they talk to your wife, they might receive another kind
• 4:48
  of experience, another kind of brand projection, whether
• 4:50
  greater or worse. And when they call your business
• 4:53
  partner, they're going to meet another kind of brand
• 4:56
  projection. And, you know, you get the whole
• 4:58
  point. If you have your boyfriend
• 5:01
  selling on your behalf, you know these are sorts of things that
• 5:03
  I'm talking about. Everybody's going to be running
• 5:05
  from different playbooks and so you can't.
• 5:07
  Even the customers are not even going to be able to say this is
• 5:11
  exactly how this business is like.
• 5:13
  So if you're wedding photographer, you know
• 5:15
  Kanechuku, Kanechuku and Ku people can't even say this is
• 5:20
  what Kanechuku. The experience of dealing with
• 5:22
  Kanechuku wedding photography is like because if you call and you
• 5:25
  get Kanechuku himself, it's one way.
• 5:28
  If you call and you get his wife, it's another way.
• 5:30
  In fact some people might even prefer that.
• 5:32
  Please when I call let it be Madam that picks up let it not
• 5:35
  be Kenichi Go because Kenichi Go is a big you know, you know what
• 5:39
  so we're going to be having I'm a coherent brand projections
• 5:43
  when we're freestyling up and down because everybody is trying
• 5:45
  to sell to market to brand to position to do whatever the way
• 5:50
  that they feel like. But the biggest problem with
• 5:53
  trying to freestyle and sell is that people end up making
• 5:57
  promises and promises and promise what it is that you
• 6:00
  cannot do. Let me go back to the wedding
• 6:02
  photography example. Now I'm using that not because
• 6:04
  that's the best business to be involved in, It's just that if
• 6:07
  it's your first time listening to the show started off my
• 6:09
  business journey over a decade and a half ago as a wedding
• 6:12
  photographer. So that's my primary
• 6:14
  constituency. In fact, this podcast, if you
• 6:16
  listen to the early episodes, I'm talking primarily to wedding
• 6:19
  photographers, wedding planners, you know, blah blah, blah.
• 6:22
  But over time, I found that most of the listeners are beyond
• 6:27
  events, beyond weddings, those sorts of things.
• 6:31
  And that's why the the focus of the show has changed to what it
• 6:35
  is like today. So back to what I was saying,
• 6:38
  People are going to end up promising what it is that you
• 6:40
  can do if everybody is freestyling, everybody has their
• 6:43
  own sense of the sales process. People are trying to overcome
• 6:46
  objections anyhow. There might be somebody who will
• 6:48
  be selling on your behalf. This hasn't happened to me, but
• 6:51
  I've seen other photographers that has happened to.
• 6:53
  Somebody is selling on your behalf and the person is trying
• 6:57
  to do a favor so that with a bride and the bride is talking
• 7:01
  about how her skin is like this or her arms are like this or her
• 7:04
  tummy is like this. And then the person who wants to
• 7:07
  close the deal by all costs says that's not a problem.
• 7:09
  Now we can fix this in Photoshop and the bride's like, really?
• 7:12
  They say yeah, of course, no, my guy can't let you go and he does
• 7:14
  this all the time is is not a problem.
• 7:17
  In fact we're free for so, so and so did.
• 7:20
  All you have to do is just pay the 300K deposits, but the total
• 7:24
  money is 500 K The bride pays, she's happy.
• 7:29
  Of course you you collect the money, you thank your cousin or
• 7:33
  you thank your sales person or whatever for bringing in such a
• 7:35
  huge check. Because maybe what you've been
• 7:37
  doing is you've been the deals you've been bringing and has
• 7:40
  been maybe 250K250K300K and then this guy brings you 500K and you
• 7:45
  know you're you're happy only for you to finish the wedding.
• 7:49
  And then the bride is not talking about how OK my arms are
• 7:52
  like this slim. It.
• 7:54
  Your guys say you can do liquefy should be you can liquefy and
• 7:57
  slim. My arm and my tummy is like
• 7:59
  this. You know do it.
• 8:01
  My husband NASCAR on his cheek. I don't like it.
• 8:04
  You know do it. And then you guys start to
• 8:05
  quarrel because she has selected 300 images and in the 300 images
• 8:12
  let's say 250 of them her arm is exposed.
• 8:15
  You're going to slim her arm. 250 images, like that's lots of
• 8:19
  time. And then out of those 300
• 8:22
  images, let's say you know her husband's car.
• 8:24
  She doesn't like her husband's car.
• 8:25
  Out of those 300 images, 150, the husband's car on his
• 8:28
  forehead was exposed. You know, Yeah, you're not in
• 8:31
  trouble. Plenty of quarrel.
• 8:33
  Because even though it's something that you can integral
• 8:36
  the wedding photographer can do, you do not.
• 8:38
  You didn't conceive that you would have to do that amount of
• 8:41
  editing and retouching for weddings, that more than half
• 8:45
  the photos you'd have to devote that kind of of attention to.
• 8:49
  Now, the reason why these kinds of things happen, not just in
• 8:51
  wedding photography or in other kinds of businesses, is because
• 8:54
  you guys are not selling from the same book.
• 8:57
  You're not in agreement on the kind of brides that you're going
• 9:01
  to be. So I know brides customers now,
• 9:03
  kind of customers that you're going to be chasing after
• 9:05
  because that has to be part of the sales process, was the ICP.
• 9:09
  Who are we going to be chasing? You know, so there's some
• 9:11
  wedding photographers that they let everybody know that look, if
• 9:15
  you're with the bride and she starts talking about my skin,
• 9:17
  this, my arm, this, my whatever, like please just free the bait.
• 9:20
  Like I don't want quarrel. I can't deal with that sort of
• 9:23
  thing. You know and you know whatever
• 9:27
  it is that the your yardstick for determining the ideal
• 9:31
  customer profile. The thing is everybody needs to
• 9:33
  know. So if your wife is selling on
• 9:35
  your behalf or your boyfriend is selling on your behalf, or if
• 9:39
  you're older, like much older than the averages of those who
• 9:45
  are listening to the podcast and your children are coming of age,
• 9:47
  your children, you know, maybe your kids are now 1820.
• 9:49
  You want them to be involved in the business.
• 9:51
  Everybody needs to know this is our ICP.
• 9:54
  When you start talking to these kind of people, if they say this
• 9:57
  freedom, that's not our target audience.
• 9:59
  If you see people that look like this, that sound like this, that
• 10:02
  are interested in this or that, do this or do that, that's a key
• 10:06
  audience. That's who we should be chasing
• 10:07
  after. So you're going to run into a
• 10:10
  lot of problems because people end up promising what you can't
• 10:13
  do if you are freestyling and if you're not trying to run your
• 10:16
  business off of a well proven system or process or framework
• 10:22
  or whatever it is that you want to call it now.
• 10:26
  So what is required to get things chugging along in sales?
• 10:29
  If you're looking at things from the framework, framework and
• 10:32
  process and systems and all that is just need a simple system or
• 10:37
  you need a simple script or you need a simple framework or you
• 10:42
  need a simple philosophy. Whether you have reduced it to
• 10:46
  writing or not, you think it has to be simple enough that you can
• 10:49
  say in conversations over and over again.
• 10:51
  Now the reason why I'm using different terms is because when
• 10:54
  it comes to business, everybody gets all righteous and people
• 10:57
  want to. I don't know shall, but people
• 10:59
  just get righteous anyhow. So if you say simple system,
• 11:02
  somebody say no, I'm not a systems person.
• 11:05
  System is too loose. What we need is a well tightened
• 11:10
  well. You know all the dots and the
• 11:14
  eyes. Like what we need is a script.
• 11:17
  Some other people say no script that is too rigid.
• 11:20
  I like things being loose. I want us to be able to inject
• 11:24
  my personality into it. I want us to be able to put some
• 11:27
  authenticity into it. So instead of this script thing,
• 11:31
  let's just have a general philosophy, you know, So
• 11:33
  whatever it is that you call it, whatever term you prefer,
• 11:37
  whether system, script, framework, philosophy, there has
• 11:40
  to be some guiding thing that is simple.
• 11:44
  If it is written down, good. If it is not written down, so
• 11:47
  long as it's simple enough for you to tell other people and
• 11:49
  that they remember very good. Which is why I use the kind of
• 11:53
  definitions that I do over here on the podcast, because I'm
• 11:57
  keeping it simple. I want you guys to be able to
• 12:00
  remember, even if you don't use the exact words, I want you to
• 12:02
  be able to. When you're out in the field and
• 12:05
  you're talking to someone, you remember that, oh Tavi Shimmer
• 12:07
  said on the podcast. I can't remember the term, but
• 12:10
  this is what he was hinting at. I want you guys to be able to
• 12:12
  remember that. So the framework, the script,
• 12:16
  the philosophy just has to answer a couple of questions.
• 12:19
  How do we identify our customers?
• 12:21
  Who is our ideal customer profile?
• 12:24
  Who should we be chasing after? Who should we be spending time
• 12:26
  and money pursuing or pursue as we say in this part of the
• 12:29
  world, who are the people that make us the most money?
• 12:33
  Who do we love working with? You know all those questions,
• 12:37
  but you have to be able to identify your ideal customer
• 12:42
  profile #2. It has to answer the question,
• 12:45
  how do we start conversations with these people?
• 12:48
  Because there are some people that are trying to project a
• 12:54
  what's it called, What do you call this?
• 12:58
  It's exclusive. You know, like you're trying to
• 13:00
  get an exclusive for you. And so for those kind of people,
• 13:03
  it is a no, no. Your sales people are not
• 13:05
  allowed to go out and chase anybody.
• 13:06
  They're supposed to chill and then people will reach out and
• 13:09
  contact you guys. So but you need to hand all
• 13:12
  these things down. How do we start conversations in
• 13:14
  person? How do we start conversations on
• 13:17
  Instagram, on WhatsApp, or whatever?
• 13:20
  You also have to be able to figure out what it is that
• 13:22
  people need, because you cannot make a sales pitch or a
• 13:27
  presentation or whatever until you know for sure what it is
• 13:30
  that people need. If you don't know what they need
• 13:32
  is you're shooting. You're just, you know, you're
• 13:34
  just shooting your shot. You're spraying in the dark.
• 13:36
  You might hit the target, you might not.
• 13:38
  But your odds for business success go up when you're able
• 13:41
  to figure out what it is that people need.
• 13:43
  So your system, your framework, your philosophy, you need to be
• 13:46
  able to tell people this is how we figure out what they need.
• 13:49
  Then this is the one that most people pay attention to.
• 13:52
  How do we make an effective proposal or presentation?
• 13:54
  Everybody knows that this is part of the package, so there's
• 13:57
  no need to stress that. But please, the earlier stage,
• 14:02
  am I talking to the right person and have I figured out their
• 14:05
  need? That is more important than
• 14:07
  effective proposal or presentation.
• 14:09
  If you're talking to the wrong person, effective presentation
• 14:12
  skills do not count. You won't close the deal.
• 14:15
  If the person does not have a need, or you haven't been able
• 14:19
  to figure out the need, or you don't know how your product or
• 14:22
  service applies to solve their problem.
• 14:25
  Effective presentation or proposal skills do not count.
• 14:29
  So continue to learn all the effective proposal and
• 14:31
  presentation, communication, and all that jazz.
• 14:34
  Learn it. But the earlier things are much
• 14:36
  more foundational. How do you identify the
• 14:38
  customer, your ICP, the ideal customer, the customer avatar,
• 14:43
  the people that we like, the people that we love, the people
• 14:45
  that give us the most money, people that give us the most
• 14:47
  joy? Whatever it is you want to call
• 14:49
  it, that is much more foundational.
• 14:51
  That, and how do we figure out their need?
• 14:55
  Then there's also how do we close the deal?
• 14:59
  Of course, everybody pays attention to that.
• 15:01
  We'll talk about that some more in future episodes.
• 15:04
  So you should be able to tell people, it should be written
• 15:08
  down if you're if you're OK with that.
• 15:10
  If you're not one of those writing types, you should be
• 15:12
  able to tell people over and over again When you guys are
• 15:15
  having sales meeting, Monday meeting, prayer meeting, first
• 15:19
  meeting of the day, opening office meeting, team building
• 15:23
  meeting, whatever meeting it is that you guys have every single
• 15:26
  week, you should be able to tell people that this is what we
• 15:29
  stand for. These are the customers we want
• 15:31
  to serve. This is how we identify them.
• 15:33
  This is how we're going to approach them online or offline.
• 15:36
  And this is how we start conversations with them.
• 15:38
  This is how we figure out if there's a need and we're talking
• 15:40
  to the right person. This is how we make effective
• 15:43
  proposals, and this is how we start making moves to collect
• 15:46
  our money and to collect the deposit.
• 15:48
  If you can say this in a simple conversation or you can write
• 15:51
  this out in a simple document, then cool.
• 15:53
  You have a framework or you have a process that you can start
• 15:57
  with today. As your business grows and you
• 16:00
  now have five people selling for you. 10 people selling for you,
• 16:04
  1520 thirty. The complexity of this framework
• 16:08
  will have to change. But in the early days when it is
• 16:11
  you and your girlfriend or you and your guy or you know if
• 16:16
  you're female, you and your ride or die sister, When is that
• 16:19
  early stage? When it's just two of you, three
• 16:21
  of you? This simple thing that can be
• 16:23
  spoken that covers all this or a simple document, whether you
• 16:27
  wrote it on a post it note or you put it on Google Docs that
• 16:30
  covers all these things, that should be fine.
• 16:32
  Over time you flesh it out. So now once the script is
• 16:37
  developed, you're going to need consistency to drive sales.
• 16:41
  So you guys are going to have some sort of cadence, whether
• 16:45
  it's weekly or monthly or seasonal or yearly.
• 16:49
  But there has to be that thing of every Monday we're going out
• 16:52
  or every Tuesday we're doing this, every Wednesday we're
• 16:54
  doing that. We have to apply the script
• 16:56
  consistently. Then let's see what else.
• 17:02
  OK, yes. Then also the script, once you
• 17:04
  have it, is going to make it easier for you to scale because
• 17:06
  you're going to be able to teach your friends, your employers,
• 17:08
  your children, your spouse, your parents, your uncle, your
• 17:10
  auntie, your employees, your whoever to sell for you.
• 17:15
  Then it also solves a bunch of business problems because now
• 17:18
  everybody is singing from the same hymn book.
• 17:21
  Everybody is singing from the same song book.
• 17:23
  So customer experience is uniform, the brand experience is
• 17:27
  the same. That is the reason why Mr. Biggs
• 17:31
  in Abuja, Mr. Biggs in Lagos, Mr. Biggs in Ibadan.
• 17:35
  The experience is the same because they're singing from the
• 17:37
  same brand brown book. The only difference is that
• 17:41
  Mister Biggs in Abuja you won't get amala.
• 17:44
  OK, well, I haven't seen Mr. Biggs in Abuja in a long time.
• 17:46
  I hope they haven't shut down. So the difference between Mr.
• 17:49
  Biggs, Lagos, Mr. Biggs, Ibadon is that Mister Biggs about
• 17:52
  you'll be able to get hot amala. But Lagos people, they're too
• 17:55
  cool. So there's no amala in Mr.
• 17:57
  Biggs. But you get the point anywhere
• 17:59
  you enter Mr. Biggs. Same brand experience.
• 18:03
  So what else? OK, yes.
• 18:06
  Another reason why Frameworker process is important is because
• 18:08
  this is what is going to allow you to escape this
• 18:11
  self-employed. Also that some people who don't
• 18:13
  want to be self-employed you and have be a business owner.
• 18:15
  You have to be like Dangote. You set everything up, you
• 18:18
  travel, you come back, business is doing good, you don't have to
• 18:21
  be there. It is only when you have
• 18:23
  systems, processes, frameworks, philosophies, whatever in place
• 18:26
  that you're going to be free. The reason why you'll be free is
• 18:28
  because now other people can start selling on your behalf.
• 18:31
  And the people are selling on your behalf today, tomorrow if
• 18:34
  easier up to make other parts of the business much more robust
• 18:39
  and resilient, you know, for future growth.
• 18:41
  So let me wrap it up because this is 20 minutes.
• 18:44
  Feel free to reach out to me on WhatsApp.
• 18:46
  My name is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the show.
• 18:49
  Can confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address from
• 18:52
  the link we're listening to this episode.
• 18:54
  Also connect with me on. So did I say WhatsApp?
• 18:57
  So I meant LinkedIn? Yeah, connect with me on
• 18:59
  LinkedIn. So for WhatsApp the details
• 19:01
  0806466 2140. The country code is +234 if
• 19:07
  you're not Nigerian. So thanks for your time and
• 19:09
  attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 19:11
  episode.