Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Reflecting & Renewing: Client Focus, 2025 Dreams, & A Thank You to You

Transcript

Reflecting & Renewing: Client Focus, 2025 Dreams, & A Thank You to You · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello, and welcome to the show. Today's podcast recording is not
• 0:04
  going to be a lengthy one. It's just to let you know a
• 0:06
  couple of things that are going to be coming up over here on the
• 0:09
  podcast in a couple of days. So my market day trip is coming
• 0:12
  to a close and, you know, we all have to go back home because
• 0:16
  work is going to resume pretty soon and we're going to be
• 0:18
  heading into 2025. So yeah, get back wifey, Get
• 0:22
  ready for work, kids, get ready for school.
• 0:24
  And but still in a few days, I'm going to share with you one more
• 0:29
  case study that we did because I think in this holiday period, I
• 0:33
  think I've shared 3 case studies on my interactions with
• 0:36
  businesses back here Makudi. So there's going to be one more
• 0:39
  and we're going to look at how qualification can help you close
• 0:43
  more deals. Qualification is just the part
• 0:45
  in the sales conversation. Sorry.
• 0:49
  One moment. Sorry about that.
• 0:53
  Yeah, I got toothpick stuck in my teeth.
• 0:55
  You know how it is now you just meet, meet, meet, meet, meet all
• 0:59
  day. So I have to keep the teeth
• 1:03
  clean. Yeah.
• 1:05
  So qualification, how Qualification can help you close
• 1:07
  more deals. Now, qualification is just that
• 1:09
  part in the sales conversation or the business relationship
• 1:12
  where you're trying to figure out what problems does this
• 1:15
  person have? Can I even solve these problems?
• 1:19
  What are the alternative ways of solving these problems?
• 1:24
  How bad? How bad is the problem?
• 1:26
  Because sometimes some people think they have a problem, but
• 1:28
  it's not the kind of problem that is worth spending money on.
• 1:31
  Now, qualification is that stage of the conversation where you
• 1:34
  handle all these things, because the way you handle qualification
• 1:38
  is going to determine the kind of proposal that you can give.
• 1:41
  If you do your qualification process real well and you have a
• 1:44
  firm understanding of what the problem is, that's all.
• 1:47
  Determine what you can prescribe.
• 1:48
  So it's like when you show up to the doctor.
• 1:51
  Oh, yeah, let me give you the example that I gave a while ago.
• 1:54
  So you show up to the doctor and you say, oh, my leg is paining
• 1:57
  me. Now.
• 1:58
  For you, you might think your leg is paining you just take a
• 2:02
  paracetamol. But depending on the questions
• 2:04
  that the doctor asks you, we might be able to figure out if
• 2:07
  the problem is that your left leg is paining you because you
• 2:10
  have a cardiovascular issue or maybe you have a brain issue.
• 2:13
  Now, of course, this is rather outlandish scenario but I'm just
• 2:18
  trying to show you how sometimes people think they have one
• 2:20
  problem but you are the business specialist, you're the one that
• 2:22
  is a specialist. By the time you ask a couple of
• 2:24
  questions, you know what problem it is that you can solve.
• 2:28
  It's like in Abuja, before we took off, one of wifey's friends
• 2:31
  saw something that she liked and she took it to 1 tailor and the
• 2:36
  tailor said Madam, I'm not sure if I can sew this thing.
• 2:39
  She took it to another tailor and the tailor said, Madam,
• 2:41
  there's no way we can sew this thing.
• 2:43
  I took it to another tailor and the tailor said, Madam, there's
• 2:45
  no way this thing can be sown because this thing is AI
• 2:48
  generated. And when you generate AI, it can
• 2:51
  look wonderful and it can look, you know, whatever.
• 2:54
  But Madam, there's no practical way that sitting down we can
• 2:57
  show this thing. So your consumer, your customer,
• 3:01
  your clientele, they might want this sort of thing, but you are
• 3:04
  the specialist and you're the one who'll be able to look at it
• 3:06
  and know that there's no way, given the technology that we
• 3:09
  have now that we can solve this problem or we can achieve this
• 3:12
  so we can achieve that. So that is the reason why
• 3:14
  qualification is important. What problem do they have?
• 3:17
  What problem are they trying to solve?
• 3:18
  What vision are they trying to work towards?
• 3:21
  What are the possible ways of getting towards it?
• 3:23
  And of course, this now determines the kind of
• 3:25
  presentations or the kind of proposals that you're going to
• 3:27
  make. So qualification is a very
• 3:30
  important part of the sales process.
• 3:31
  And it's not something that people in this part of the world
• 3:35
  in Nigeria, BU, Makudi or Lagos or I don't know which town is in
• 3:43
  the east, one more here or whatever.
• 3:47
  It's just something that we just don't do.
• 3:49
  So we're going to have a podcast episode in a couple of days
• 3:52
  where I overheard a, a businesswoman also Abuja based,
• 3:59
  who also happened to be back home in Macro Day as well.
• 4:02
  She was conducting some business over the phone.
• 4:04
  And I just thought, man, this is a perfect example.
• 4:06
  I wish I could record this thing and then put it on the podcast
• 4:09
  so that you guys can hear because I keep talking to you
• 4:11
  guys about how good sales skills are necessary to move the
• 4:15
  business forward. And sometimes some people are
• 4:19
  doing good sales skills, they just don't know how they're
• 4:22
  doing it or why it is important. And this is one of those cases,
• 4:25
  I just think that when the lady learnt the business, because
• 4:28
  she's in the industrial cleaning space, I think the person who
• 4:30
  trained her, trained her well, not just in the business of this
• 4:33
  is how you do industrial cleanup, clean the floor like
• 4:36
  this, use alkaline here, use acid here.
• 4:39
  This is how you get rid of cement.
• 4:41
  But the person also told them, this is taught her, this is how
• 4:44
  you have conversations with the customer.
• 4:45
  This is how you cost the job, this is how you book
• 4:47
  appointments, all these sorts of things.
• 4:49
  So we'll talk about it in a couple of days.
• 4:51
  So that is one of the case studies that we can look forward
• 4:56
  to with our time in Makudi. And I'm hoping that you guys can
• 5:00
  also see that even when we take holidays and we take time off.
• 5:04
  So you're going back to pH to be with your family or going back
• 5:08
  to Borneo to be with your family.
• 5:10
  I mean, there's business going on all around you.
• 5:13
  So there's always an Ave. to learn from other people's
• 5:16
  experiences, whether you know them personally or whether you
• 5:18
  just happen to be chilling and you're overhearing your
• 5:20
  conversation. You can hear ways about how you
• 5:22
  can move your business forward and tips and tricks that you can
• 5:25
  apply to your business. So even though we take holidays,
• 5:28
  you know, always keep an open ear.
• 5:30
  Yeah, be present with your family, but just keep an open
• 5:33
  ear because you might learn a couple of things.
• 5:35
  So that's one thing that we're going to look forward to in a
• 5:37
  couple of days. Then I'm also going to do my
• 5:40
  first book review over here on the podcast, and that's going to
• 5:43
  be by Jeremy Horowitz. I hope I'm pronouncing it
• 5:47
  correctly. Jeremy Horowitz And that's How
• 5:50
  to Sell Like a Spy. The title is long, but let me
• 5:53
  just say the full thing. How to Sell Like a spy, The art
• 5:57
  of persuasion from the world of espionage.
• 6:00
  And the book was written August 27th, 2024.
• 6:03
  So it's a brand new book. One of my juniors who is a
• 6:06
  practicing lawyer right now did a review of the book and I
• 6:10
  figured, let me just hop online and look at the book and see
• 6:13
  what wonderful ideas that we can we can discuss over here on the
• 6:18
  podcast. So I'm going to be doing my
• 6:19
  first book review. Sorry about the noise in the
• 6:21
  background, you know, still at home, kids here, you know, so
• 6:24
  it's a full house, cousins, everybody.
• 6:26
  So this is the best place I can find to record, but you still
• 6:29
  hear the kids in the background. So that's going to be my first
• 6:32
  book review. Now the main thesis of the what
• 6:35
  this guy is trying to say in the book is this the guy is trying
• 6:37
  to say that there are some things that intelligence
• 6:41
  operatives do, you know, spies, you know, James Bond, you know,
• 6:46
  all those people know there's some things that they do that
• 6:49
  also apply when it comes to sales and business relationships
• 6:51
  and client relationships. Information gathering.
• 6:54
  When you're a James Bond, you need to gather information.
• 6:58
  Although for James Bond, you know, gathering information
• 7:00
  always means sleeping with beautiful women.
• 7:01
  But unfortunately we don't have that luxury in real life.
• 7:06
  So but we have to do information gathering then understanding
• 7:09
  human behaviour. So whether you're a James Bond
• 7:12
  or you are a, let me see who else I don't know.
• 7:17
  It's only James Bond I can think of at the moment.
• 7:19
  So whether you're James Bond or whether you're a real life spy,
• 7:22
  you need to understand human behavior.
• 7:24
  It's also something that we have to do when it comes to sales and
• 7:26
  client relationship and then building rapport.
• 7:29
  If you're James Bond, James Bond obviously has to build rapport
• 7:32
  so that he can get to the bad guy and then kill the guy and
• 7:34
  then save the day. Real life spies also need to
• 7:37
  build rapport. So if you work as part of the
• 7:41
  diplomatic corps, if you're part of the diplomatic corps in
• 7:44
  Nigeria and maybe you've been attached to Washington DC or
• 7:47
  whatever, you'd have to be very good at building rapport with
• 7:50
  politicians over there in America.
• 7:52
  So whether you're attached to Washington DC or whether they
• 7:54
  hook you up in Mexico or whether they send you to, let me see,
• 7:59
  Libya. So if you're a diplomat in
• 8:01
  Libya, it's all the same. You're trying to build rapport,
• 8:04
  trying to know who's who, what the politicians I need to know
• 8:07
  on ground to protect Nigerian interests, to build bilateral
• 8:11
  relationships and all these sorts of things.
• 8:13
  So what this guy is saying, Jeremy Hirowitz, how to sell
• 8:16
  like a spy, he's just trying to say that these core skills,
• 8:19
  gathering information, understanding human behaviour
• 8:22
  and building rapport apply both for diplomats and spies, also
• 8:28
  applies to sales and client relationships and business
• 8:30
  people. So that is going to be something
• 8:32
  that we're going to explore as well.
• 8:34
  Then one more thing that we're going to explore, particularly
• 8:37
  in the new year, because I told you guys about how one of my
• 8:41
  consulting clients scored a really big development project.
• 8:45
  And one of the students in particular, who's an employee of
• 8:48
  the company, reached out to me to tell me about his role in
• 8:51
  securing the deal. So excuse me.
• 8:55
  So excuse me eating too much. So I'm just full of gas.
• 9:00
  Where was I? Yeah, so I'm going to use that
• 9:04
  as an example to, I'm not just going to talk about how, you
• 9:07
  know, my, the ideas that we explored with the company, the
• 9:11
  name of the company is Crimson Energy.
• 9:13
  They're in the alternative energy space.
• 9:15
  So solar panels, inverters, batteries, power as a service,
• 9:22
  what's it called? Mini grids, you know, where you
• 9:24
  powerful communities, all these sorts of things.
• 9:26
  So I'm not just going to be discussing general ideas, what
• 9:29
  we talked about in training sessions, but I'm going to talk
• 9:32
  about some small testimony about how this guy who's a member of
• 9:34
  the team, how he learnt certain things that he thought was
• 9:37
  instrumental and pivotal to him closing XYZ number of deals
• 9:42
  after I've stopped working with them.
• 9:45
  So that should give you a sense of what it is that is possible.
• 9:48
  When you call in people to come and talk to your, to your team,
• 9:54
  to your employees, we'll let you know, give you a sense of what
• 9:56
  kind of multiples are possible. And then it'll also set the
• 10:03
  right kind of expectations because it's something I keep
• 10:05
  saying time and time again, but some people don't understand
• 10:08
  that unfortunately. Sales training, you know, it's
• 10:11
  not like mathematics. It's not like 1 + 1 = 2.
• 10:14
  You know, sometimes it takes a while and there's a ramp up
• 10:17
  period. So we need to have realistic
• 10:21
  expectations because for me, when I come into your
• 10:25
  organization or if I'm working with you in particular, what I'm
• 10:28
  trying to effect is behaviour change.
• 10:30
  I'm trying to get you to stop doing some bad stuff and to
• 10:33
  start doing some good stuff. And of course, if you're already
• 10:36
  doing some good stuff, my goal is to get you to even double
• 10:39
  down more on the good stuff that you've been doing.
• 10:43
  Like let's say prospecting, reaching out to people every
• 10:45
  day. If before you've been reaching
• 10:46
  out only reaching out to only one person every day and your
• 10:49
  business is good, then by getting you to reach out to two
• 10:52
  people every day or maybe even three if you can handle it.
• 10:56
  You know, those are ways that we can start seeing growth in the
• 11:00
  business. So #1 when I come in, not just
• 11:04
  me, any sales trainer or coach who is worth his salt will be
• 11:08
  looking at behavior change. Now there's some people who like
• 11:10
  to show up and just, you know, collect your money, you know,
• 11:16
  hundreds of thousands of naira and just talk for one hour and
• 11:19
  then leave. There's some people who do that
• 11:21
  and to be honest, I don't blame them because it's easier to do
• 11:24
  that, to just show up one day, collect hundreds of thousands
• 11:27
  and then just leave. And the rest is, look, you're on
• 11:29
  your own. But I prefer to see behaviour
• 11:34
  change and to midwife behaviour change because it really tickles
• 11:38
  my belly and makes me happy when people hit me up four, 5-6
• 11:41
  months later on to say, hey bro, how are you doing now?
• 11:44
  Nothing you talked about, I tried it, this is what happened.
• 11:47
  Because of that, this deal that we're looking at that was
• 11:50
  supposed to be 800 K by the time I did like this, I did like
• 11:54
  this, we're able to collect 1.3. You know, that kind of thing
• 11:56
  makes me very, very happy. So we're going to be exploring
• 12:01
  one of those case studies in 2025, then also in 2025 to look
• 12:07
  forward to. Looks like one of my ideas is
• 12:11
  finally going to be on the air. Looks like my radio show is
• 12:14
  finally going to get on the air. But I'll keep you guys posted on
• 12:18
  that, let you know the radio station also so that if you want
• 12:22
  to talk to me live, for those of you who are in Abuja anyway, you
• 12:25
  can call up when I'm on the air and then we can discuss live and
• 12:29
  direct. I'm really looking forward to
• 12:31
  that because I always look for avenues to show people how.
• 12:37
  Well, First off, to give a sense that every single business
• 12:40
  problem has a solution. There are some personal problems
• 12:44
  that don't have solution, you know, unfortunately, and there
• 12:48
  are some things that are life and death, you know, no one,
• 12:50
  there's no solution. But when it comes to business,
• 12:52
  every single business problem has a solution.
• 12:55
  Especially for those of us who are in the SME space, small and
• 12:59
  medium scale, micro scale, nano scale, there is no business
• 13:03
  problem that doesn't have a solution.
• 13:04
  So I'm looking forward to talking with people live,
• 13:07
  whether it's you or not, but talking to people live and
• 13:10
  figuring out problems on the spot and giving people hope to
• 13:14
  show them that you can solve this problem.
• 13:17
  It might be difficult, but by considering one or two ideas,
• 13:21
  looking at one or two resources, by thinking hard on a couple of
• 13:24
  things, we can figure out the way to move things forward.
• 13:29
  So when the radio show gets on air, I'll let you guys know.
• 13:32
  If the TV thing clicks and I end up on TV, I'll also let you guys
• 13:36
  know as well. Unfortunately, the media
• 13:39
  partners that I'm talking to at the moment, you know, they have
• 13:42
  other priorities, you know, heading into the end of the
• 13:44
  year, reviewing accounts, what else?
• 13:48
  Reviewing strategy, you know, all kinds of things.
• 13:50
  So the TV thing, yeah, maybe not, but radio, looks like that
• 13:54
  one is going to pop off in January of 2025.
• 13:57
  And I'll keep you guys posted. So that's it pretty much.
• 13:59
  These are just some of the ideas to look forward to in the next
• 14:03
  couple of days. I should be heading back to
• 14:05
  Abuja either tomorrow or the day after.
• 14:08
  So if you don't hear from me for another one or two days, it's,
• 14:10
  you know, because of that, you know, seeing relatives saying
• 14:14
  bye bye, travelling back to get with the farm.
• 14:17
  Let me see what else stuff like that.
• 14:21
  But anyway, we have lots of good stuff that we're going to start
• 14:23
  off 2025 with. And I want to say thank you to
• 14:26
  those of you who've been listening to me, especially from
• 14:29
  the beginning because I started this before COVID was the thing.
• 14:33
  I think it was like towards the end of Good luck Jonathan's era
• 14:35
  and I started this. So for those of you who've been
• 14:38
  with me, you know, like this, this is like what now five
• 14:41
  years, five years. Thank you very much for
• 14:44
  listening. I really, really, really
• 14:46
  appreciate the support and I'm hoping that as a rounding up
• 14:52
  2023 and heading into 2024, my biggest goal or desire is to
• 14:59
  keep on providing value to you guys over here.
• 15:02
  And as I provide value to you, expand your worldview of what's
• 15:08
  possible when it comes to sales and business development.
• 15:11
  Please share this resource with other people who you think might
• 15:15
  be able to learn from it as well because I'm helping you guys
• 15:19
  grow your business and you guys are paying me absolutely
• 15:23
  nothing. That's the only way you can pay
• 15:24
  me. Just by spreading the gospel and
• 15:27
  saying that, hey, this podcast is the bomb, giving it to people
• 15:31
  and sharing the link. Speaking of sharing the link,
• 15:34
  let me shout out to Milky. Mikey left a comment on Spotify
• 15:39
  and he said that my podcast episodes are always on point.
• 15:41
  Thank you very much Mikey for your comments.
• 15:44
  Please share the podcast with other people so that they can
• 15:47
  derive some goodness from this always on point Ness of the
• 15:52
  show. So that's it.
• 15:54
  If you'd love to connect and explore opportunities with me.
• 15:57
  The phone number to call or SMS is 08064662140.
• 16:04
  The country code is +234. For those of you who are not
• 16:06
  Nigerian, that's the WhatsApp number.
• 16:09
  Then connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 16:11
  That's the only socials that I have at the moment.
• 16:14
  And the name to look for is Tave Shima Ayede.
• 16:17
  Thank you very much for your time and attention.
• 16:19
  This is the OK, this is 29th as a recording.
• 16:22
  This is the 29th of December, so 30 days are September, April,
• 16:27
  June and November. All the rest are 31.
• 16:29
  OK, so December has 31 days, so 293031.
• 16:33
  OK. So we'll be rounding up this
• 16:34
  year in another two days. Looking forward to spending much
• 16:37
  more time with you guys. And please, the reason why I
• 16:40
  dropped my phone number is because I really like hearing
• 16:42
  from you guys, really love meeting you guys.
• 16:45
  Whether we end up doing business together or not, whether you
• 16:48
  become a client or not, it's always nice to meet you guys.
• 16:51
  Know what you guys are working about.
• 16:52
  Sorry, working on. And then that helps to determine
• 16:55
  the flow of the podcast and the things that we talk about in the
• 16:59
  coming weeks, months and years. So thanks for your time and
• 17:03
  attention. I'll catch you guys at the next
• 17:04
  episode. And I hope you guys are getting
• 17:06
  ready to wind up the year in a blast and starting off 2025 on a
• 17:11
  hopeful note. So I'll catch you guys at the
• 17:13
  next episode.