Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Turning Lookers into Buyers: Arinze's Heavy Machinery Sales Challenge

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Turning Lookers into Buyers: Arinze's Heavy Machinery Sales Challenge · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the show. Making today's recording in the
• 0:04
  kids room actually because the house is full.
• 0:06
  It's a public holiday. The house is being cleaned, so
• 0:08
  expect to hear some interruptions in the background.
• 0:11
  Now this is the first time of discovering the podcast.
• 0:14
  The goal of this show is business education.
• 0:16
  So it's not about my life. So don't worry, you are in the
• 0:19
  right place. Oh, I'm sorry, you know the
• 0:21
  noise with the ram in the background?
• 0:23
  That's because we're heading into the Eid eel something.
• 0:31
  Sorry about that. So like I said, we're heading
• 0:32
  into the Eid holidays. So our neighbors have Rams
• 0:35
  roaming all over the place, the place.
• 0:38
  So yeah, so we're here for business education and if you
• 0:42
  like what you hear on the podcast, then please let your
• 0:44
  friends and family members know in Nigeria and abroad so that
• 0:48
  they can benefit from the questions that we tackle.
• 0:50
  They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or
• 0:54
  any player of their choice. And if you have any sales and
• 0:57
  marketing questions, then bring them to me by calling, sending
• 1:00
  an SMS or WhatsApp message to 08064662140.
• 1:08
  Now today on the show, OK, today's show is going to be a
• 1:11
  very long one. We're going to tackle a listener
• 1:14
  question from Irene Z in Lagos. He's in the business of
• 1:17
  construction and in the mining sectors.
• 1:20
  He sells heavy duty machines like excavators, forklifts,
• 1:24
  wheel loaders, you know, all those sorts of things.
• 1:27
  And well, pretty much he reached out because he likes the show.
• 1:31
  He's had lots of stuff from different businesses, but I
• 1:34
  haven't done anything from the construction and the mining
• 1:36
  sector. And so that's what today's
• 1:38
  episode is going to be about. We're going to be looking at his
• 1:40
  business, a couple of things around business development
• 1:44
  ideas, how he can grow more sales and how he can deal with
• 1:48
  increasing conversions in his business.
• 1:50
  Conversions just mean if you're talking to a certain number of
• 1:53
  people, you know, 561020, how many people do you get to take
• 1:58
  the next step? So if normally you talk to 10
• 2:00
  people and you get let's say five people to book an
• 2:05
  appointment from the five who book an appointment maybe to
• 2:08
  close the deal and become your paying customers.
• 2:12
  So all those steps in, all those small steps in the process, that
• 2:16
  is what we call conversions. So today's episode is going to
• 2:19
  be a very general one. We'll be looking at all these
• 2:21
  sorts of things. All right.
• 2:24
  So like I said, Ariza is in Lagos.
• 2:26
  He's in the business of construction and mining sectors.
• 2:28
  He sells heavy duty machines. So all those tractors that you
• 2:31
  see whenever Julius Berger or you know, whether people in
• 2:35
  Lagos who are doing work on the Eco Atlantic, you know that
• 2:38
  whole side. So all those heavy machines that
• 2:39
  you see, that's the kind of thing that he sells now.
• 2:42
  The channel that he has used for business growth and sales in the
• 2:46
  future has been sponsored ads. So he runs lots of sponsored
• 2:51
  advertisements and from there, based on the conversation that
• 2:55
  we've had, we have like 3 categories of people that he's
• 2:58
  been interacting with so far. So, so far 9095 S Let me check
• 3:03
  the messages. OK?
• 3:04
  So 95% of the leads that come in as people who call or send
• 3:10
  messages, 95% of them request photos and they ask him tons of
• 3:14
  questions, but then they don't end up taking any action at all
• 3:18
  once they receive the information.
• 3:21
  So that's the first group. He sends text messages and 95%
• 3:26
  of people they call in, they send messages, but then they
• 3:28
  don't take action. Then there's 3% that show up
• 3:34
  physically and inspect the equipment, but then they don't
• 3:38
  buy. Then overall, only 2% of people
• 3:43
  end up closing the deal, end up closing.
• 3:46
  He's able to close the deal and they end up buying some
• 3:49
  tractors, some diggers, some cranes, some forklifts, some
• 3:52
  whatever. From him, only 2%.
• 3:55
  So let's repeat, He sends out sponsored advertisements and
• 4:00
  from those advertisements, 95% of people, they say, hey, I'm
• 4:04
  interested, I beg, send me picture.
• 4:05
  But then from the picture, they just ghost.
• 4:08
  They don't do anything. 3% they show up and they look at the
• 4:12
  tractor, they look at the disk, they look at the darkness.
• 4:14
  Oh, I like this, I like this, I like this.
• 4:16
  And then from there they disappear and then only 2% end
• 4:19
  up buying something. So Irene has two questions that
• 4:22
  he wants answered and the questions are, let me see.
• 4:26
  So I have to check the messages again.
• 4:29
  OK. He wants to know, are there any
• 4:30
  other ways of going after clients?
• 4:32
  That's the first question. Then the second question is how
• 4:34
  to avoid time wasters, how to avoid people who should
• 4:39
  otherwise be worker pass. You know those people that when
• 4:42
  they come to your storefront, when they come to your shop,
• 4:44
  when it's lightning to your DM, you just want to tell them like,
• 4:47
  look, you know what, just get out, you're wasting my time.
• 4:49
  So that's the second question, how to avoid time wasters in
• 4:52
  this scenario. OK, so there are, how do I put
• 4:58
  it? OK, There are multiple
• 5:00
  perspectives, different perspectives, different ways for
• 5:02
  dealing with these sorts of things, these sorts of issues.
• 5:05
  Now, the first perspective that I want to put out there is what
• 5:08
  I will call the tech bro perspective of the Texas.
• 5:11
  You know, once you check out all this stuff online from YouTube
• 5:14
  and things like that, you can see that these tech Bros, the
• 5:16
  tech brothers and sisters, you know, they think in a very
• 5:19
  mathematics way, they think in a very quantitative approach.
• 5:24
  You know, everything has to be, you can reduce everything to
• 5:28
  numbers, you can reduce everything to adequation.
• 5:31
  And so that is 1 valid way of looking at this sort of thing.
• 5:34
  So the tech bro perspective in this case now is to look at
• 5:37
  things such as CAC. The CAC is a customer
• 5:41
  acquisition costs or the cost of acquiring a customer.
• 5:45
  You're trying to figure out what it is as a number.
• 5:48
  Now, this number is usually expressed, you know, in a ratio,
• 5:51
  you know, 3 to one, one to five, one to two, two to 10, you know,
• 5:55
  whatever. But the math idea, the tech bro
• 5:59
  perspective idea behind it is this.
• 6:02
  So long as you have a good ratio in the business with the
• 6:06
  expenses, continue to spend money and continue to enjoy the
• 6:09
  profits, Don't disturb yourself. So that is the tech bro
• 6:13
  perspective. Look at the customer acquisition
• 6:17
  cost. How much money does it cost to
• 6:18
  acquire a customer? So long as the ratio is good,
• 6:21
  don't disturb yourself, continue to make the money.
• 6:24
  In other words, the tech bro will say if you're spending one
• 6:28
  M and at the end of the day you're collecting 6M, then don't
• 6:32
  disturb yourself. Next year spend 2 M, then you
• 6:37
  will collect 12. Maybe the year after that spend
• 6:41
  3 M and then you will collect 18 M.
• 6:45
  So the math perspective of this is don't disturb your head.
• 6:48
  Just look at how much money am I dropping?
• 6:52
  How much money is coming in? So long as The thing is
• 6:54
  positive, just continue to pour money down that equation and
• 6:57
  continue to make that money. So if you're looking at things
• 7:00
  from this perspective now, this very math based approach, this
• 7:04
  quantitative approach, this tech bro and this tech sister
• 7:07
  approach, the big question now is, you know, ask yourself how
• 7:10
  much did you spend to get customers last year or last
• 7:13
  quarter? You add everything up,
• 7:15
  advertising costs, added up the amount you spent for content
• 7:19
  marketing, added up the amount you spent on hosting your
• 7:22
  website, on going to trade shows, on travelling to see
• 7:24
  customers. Customers come and see you.
• 7:26
  Maybe you take them to a restaurant.
• 7:28
  You guys want, you know, eat as soon and drink stout.
• 7:31
  You know, entertainment costs, overhead, salary, everything add
• 7:34
  up all those costs. Then you now ask yourself, OK,
• 7:39
  after dropping all this money last year, how much money in
• 7:41
  total came in? You're now trying to figure out
• 7:44
  the AOVAOV is the average order value.
• 7:48
  What that means is you're trying to figure out on average how
• 7:50
  much is each customer spending after I'm dropping all these
• 7:53
  millions on advertising and everything.
• 7:56
  On average, how much are people coming in or you now trying to
• 7:59
  figure out another ratio that is the gross margin or some people
• 8:03
  call it the gross profit per customer.
• 8:06
  That just means you're trying to look the long and short is we're
• 8:08
  trying to figure out on average how much is 1 customer bringing
• 8:11
  in. That's what they're trying to
• 8:12
  figure out. And like I said, the idea behind
• 8:17
  it is this. So long as your ratio is good,
• 8:20
  don't disturb yourself. If you're spending one naira to
• 8:24
  get 3 naira, then don't disturb yourself.
• 8:28
  The goal is the answer is now how much 1 naira can I spend?
• 8:33
  Hope you guys understand the logic.
• 8:35
  You're just trying to see whether the ratio is good.
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  Now spending all this money, this is how much is calling
• 8:40
  coming in. You express it in the form of a
• 8:42
  ratio and if it means you're dropping 2 naira and for every
• 8:49
  two naira you drop, you get 10 naira back.
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  Then the goal is where can I go and get another two naira,
• 8:57
  whether I will borrow or whether I will invest for my savings or
• 9:00
  whatever, but how much 2 naira can I throw back into the
• 9:03
  business so that I keep coming, I keep getting more and more and
• 9:07
  more. That is just the take way of
• 9:10
  looking at it. So our brothers and sisters who
• 9:13
  are in the tech space, they're trying to do fintech.
• 9:16
  Excuse me, they're trying to do fintech or they're trying to do
• 9:19
  this fancy business idea. This is the mathematics that
• 9:21
  they play with every single day. They just want to know, can I
• 9:24
  drop A and I get 5 * A? If the thing works, they will
• 9:30
  just continue to throw the money, throw the money, throw
• 9:33
  the money, throw the money, get the returns, get the returns,
• 9:35
  get the returns. Don't disturb your head because
• 9:38
  the average person will look at the fact of man, I spent like
• 9:42
  5:00 AM in advertising last year.
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  That's how the average person will look at it.
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  The tech bro or he will say is OK, you spent five M last year
• 9:51
  in advertising, but how much money you made?
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  How much money did you make or you made 250M no problem.
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  Continue to spend the five M and continue to get the 250 on every
• 10:01
  single five M. That is one way of looking at
• 10:04
  it. Then another formula that our
• 10:09
  tech Bros and tech sisters like to use is ROW as that is return
• 10:13
  on advertising spend. But the philosophy is the same.
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  How much money did I spend? How much money came in?
• 10:19
  So you can see that the different formulas, but the all
• 10:21
  the formulas are trying to ask these two questions.
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  How much did I spend? How much came in?
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  In other words, there is only a problem.
• 10:30
  If you spend 5 million and then 5 million came in, that means
• 10:34
  this problem. It means you are break even.
• 10:36
  It means zero, it means you didn't get progress.
• 10:39
  In fact, if you spend 5 M and then only three million came in,
• 10:43
  there's fire on the mountain. It means you're running at a
• 10:45
  loss. But you can see it's a very
• 10:47
  mathematics based way of looking at things.
• 10:52
  So that would be one way of looking at things from our
• 10:55
  brother's situation, from arranged the situation.
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  That's the tech bro perspective, the math perspective, the
• 11:02
  quantitative approach. Now for those of us who come
• 11:07
  from the sales and business development perspective, we are
• 11:09
  not always this math inclined. In fact, you've been following
• 11:13
  the podcast. You know that I'm not a math
• 11:14
  genius. So I don't think in those terms
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  what is a useful, but you should know about these things so that
• 11:20
  you can think about it and factor it into your business.
• 11:22
  It's a very useful way of looking at things.
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  But from a sales, sales perspective, we are usually much
• 11:27
  more concerned with improving conversions.
• 11:32
  So generally what we try to do in the sales, we sales people is
• 11:36
  sorry, 1 moment. OK, Sorry about that.
• 11:41
  I had to step away for a while because one of my kids needed my
• 11:44
  attention. So I believe I was talking about
• 11:47
  Arinze and OK, how we would look at things from a sales
• 11:52
  perspective, because we have looked at the mathematics
• 11:54
  perspective, the tech perspective for dealing with
• 11:57
  these sorts of things, which is to try and narrow everything
• 11:59
  down to numbers, narrow everything down to ratios.
• 12:02
  And so long as the ratio is positive, you continue to throw
• 12:05
  more money at the problem. Because the question is if
• 12:09
  somebody would say, look, give me one error and every time you
• 12:12
  give me one error, I'll give you 7 back.
• 12:14
  The response is OK, no problem. The response is OK.
• 12:17
  How many one errors can I give this guy if every single time I
• 12:20
  give him one error, I get 7 back?
• 12:23
  Excuse me? So that is the perspective.
• 12:25
  Now from a sales perspective, what we try to do is we try to
• 12:30
  improve conversions. Sorry, 1 moment.
• 12:34
  OK, sorry about that. Recovering from a cold as usual.
• 12:38
  Now from a sales perspective, what we try and do is we try and
• 12:40
  figure out conversions. So we try and figure out what is
• 12:43
  working first of all, so that we can tweak and optimize what is
• 12:47
  working because the more you can optimize or make things better,
• 12:50
  you improve conversions. Now, conversions, just in case I
• 12:54
  didn't define it at the top of the episode.
• 12:57
  The conversion just means the amount of people who are taking
• 13:00
  the next relevant step towards starting a buying relationship
• 13:04
  or becoming a customer. So the way that I explain it
• 13:07
  using my wedding photography background is this.
• 13:10
  In the old days, I will go to a bridal show because I was hoping
• 13:13
  to meet brides and grooms who are planning their weddings.
• 13:16
  I'll go there with a list because I'm hoping to capture
• 13:19
  leads. A lead is anybody who has done
• 13:22
  something to show that they might be interested in your
• 13:24
  product or service. So if I go for this bridal show
• 13:27
  and I stay in my booth, I stay at my table and 100 people come,
• 13:33
  We have a conversation. It shows they might be
• 13:36
  interested. Of the 100 people that come, if
• 13:39
  70 of them give me their phone number, then that means I've
• 13:42
  captured 70 leads or 70 contacts.
• 13:45
  These are people who might be interested.
• 13:46
  They've done something true. They might be interested.
• 13:49
  So this step between 100 people coming to the booth and me
• 13:53
  collecting 70 phone numbers, that is a conversion. 100 people
• 13:58
  came and then from the 100 that came, 70 dropped their phone
• 14:04
  number. So that is one step, 70 people
• 14:08
  converted. For the 70 people that
• 14:10
  converted, the next week I'll definitely try and call or send
• 14:14
  messages to all of them. I'll try and hook up meetings,
• 14:17
  whether they will come to my studio or whether I'll go to
• 14:20
  their house or to their office so that we can chat some more.
• 14:23
  So let's say for the 70 that I collected contact details, 50
• 14:27
  show up and come to my studio so that we can look at albums.
• 14:32
  That is also another step and you can see another set of
• 14:35
  conversions. 100 people came to the booth, 70 dropped their
• 14:41
  phone number, only 70 converted. Of the 70 that dropped the phone
• 14:45
  number, only 50 showed up for meeting.
• 14:49
  The other 20, maybe they ghosted me.
• 14:51
  So those fifty, that means 50 converted.
• 14:54
  Then for the 50 that come to the studio and we look at samples,
• 15:00
  maybe when I start discussing numbers and some of them invite
• 15:03
  proposals, so let's start over that 50.
• 15:06
  Only 30 people agree and we exchanged fact and figures.
• 15:10
  You know, we send proposal, we send invoice that is 30.
• 15:13
  You can see another step and another series of conversions.
• 15:17
  So of the 50 people who showed up to the studio, only 30 people
• 15:21
  said how much Gimme proposal, Gimme invoice that is
• 15:25
  conversion. Then for the 30 who said Gimme
• 15:29
  invoice, Gimme proposal, maybe at the end of the day, only 20
• 15:33
  people paid deposit and became customers.
• 15:36
  So you can see now that every single step that we've been
• 15:38
  taking, small, small, small, small, at each stage there's
• 15:41
  been something that we in sales like to call a conversion. 100
• 15:45
  people came to the booth. I tried to convert only 70
• 15:49
  dropped their phone number. I tried to convert only 50
• 15:52
  showed up to the studio. I tried to convert only 30.
• 15:56
  As for proposal invoice, I tried to convert only 20 paid deposit
• 16:02
  and that is the final conversion.
• 16:03
  So those 20 have become my customers.
• 16:06
  So based, so the gap from the 100 that showed up at the
• 16:12
  exhibition and the 20 that became my customer, that is me
• 16:19
  trying to close the deal in micro steps and we can see
• 16:22
  series of conversions happening along the way.
• 16:25
  So the salesperson, the traditional salesperson, this is
• 16:28
  where the personal focus. Now, if you can't convince
• 16:31
  conversions in one stage, you will get a better outcome at the
• 16:35
  end. In other words, if 100 people
• 16:38
  show and you're able to collect 98 contact details, you can see
• 16:44
  that it's going to improve the overall result because before
• 16:49
  set 100 people came, you collected 17 numbers.
• 16:53
  From 17 numbers, you did 50 meetings.
• 16:55
  From 50 meetings, you did 30 proposals.
• 16:59
  From 30 proposals, you collected 2020 deposits.
• 17:06
  So if you're able to next time instead of 100 in from 100,
• 17:11
  you're getting 70 people to drop their details.
• 17:15
  If you're able to get 98 or 80 to drop their details, you can
• 17:19
  see that that progress will cascade all the way down.
• 17:22
  So sales people were always worried about our conversions.
• 17:27
  How can we improve our conversions?
• 17:29
  I'm talking to 10 people. I'm able to close the deal with
• 17:32
  two. How can I go from 2:00 to 3:00?
• 17:34
  How can I go from three to four? How can I go from 4:00 to 5:00,
• 17:37
  no matter how small? Because on paper, conversions
• 17:41
  look small. You say somebody only did 1%,
• 17:44
  They only improved conversions by 1%.
• 17:46
  But in reality, depending on your profit margin, it could be
• 17:49
  huge. Like I said, tell other wedding
• 17:51
  photographers back in the day, it makes a difference.
• 17:54
  Somebody would say I only got one extra client.
• 17:56
  But The thing is this, if you have 5 clients, each client,
• 18:00
  your profit is 100K on them. If you're able to increase your
• 18:03
  conversions and you're able to close just one more deal, that
• 18:06
  is an extra 100K. That is the difference between
• 18:09
  doing 400 K every month and doing 500 or 600 every month.
• 18:17
  That extra is a big deal. So even small conversions add up
• 18:24
  to a big deal. So those are the perspective of
• 18:27
  looking at things. We can either go to bath based
• 18:29
  approach, narrow everything down, figure out the numbers and
• 18:33
  if the numbers are positive, don't worry yourself, continue
• 18:36
  to spend. Or we can try and figure out
• 18:43
  what our conversion rate is, the points of conversion and improve
• 18:47
  on that. Of course, ideally you should be
• 18:48
  doing both. Your business is never either
• 18:51
  or, so we should be doing both. So let's try and answer the
• 18:57
  arises questions directly now. So are there other ways to go
• 19:00
  after clients? Yeah, sure they are.
• 19:04
  You wouldn't be surprised if you've been listening to the
• 19:06
  podcast for a while that I always start off with targeted
• 19:09
  outreach because me, I'm in favour of your customers out
• 19:12
  there. Go and chase them because it's
• 19:14
  really the most straightforward thing to do.
• 19:16
  Any other thing you do, you don't have control over it and
• 19:19
  it takes too much time. So for me that is always my
• 19:22
  default. I will say targeted outreach.
• 19:24
  Let's try and figure out where they are.
• 19:25
  Let's go outlook for them. So the first way that RNC can
• 19:29
  get more clients is targeted outreach or in his own case A/B
• 19:32
  MABM just means account based marketing.
• 19:35
  Basically that just means you're trying to look for high value
• 19:38
  targets. In his own case, he's going to
• 19:40
  be looking at high value construction companies and
• 19:43
  mining companies that might need machines.
• 19:46
  And then he will now come up with ideas for going to them
• 19:49
  directly, whether by going to their office or whether through
• 19:53
  networking, trying to hook up with some of the executives.
• 19:55
  Or maybe he will get somebody's phone number.
• 19:57
  And then he will do call calling and just try and call straight
• 19:59
  and see whether he can get some introductions or set up some
• 20:02
  meetings or something like that. So targeted outreach instead of
• 20:06
  doing advertisements, Irene Z can try targeted outreach.
• 20:11
  Then there's also social media, although because he's in the big
• 20:16
  machine space, because he's not selling things that people buy
• 20:18
  for, you know, 500,000, you know, he's selling things that
• 20:21
  people buy, hundreds of millions, 10s of millions.
• 20:25
  So in this case, I really think the social media he should be
• 20:28
  doing so. Yeah, this is just a guess by
• 20:30
  the way. But anyway, in sales, sometimes
• 20:33
  we always start with guesswork. I'm assuming that for those
• 20:37
  kinds of expenses, big, big money like that, you know,
• 20:40
  hundreds of millions, my guess is he probably should not be
• 20:45
  doing Instagram or Tiktok. I could be wrong, but I don't
• 20:50
  think people are buying tractors and diggers and excavators from
• 20:53
  Instagram and from Tiktok. So I'm thinking that is it
• 20:58
  should be on LinkedIn. So on LinkedIn, I would
• 21:03
  recommend that he tries LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
• 21:06
  That is one of their paid options because he gives you
• 21:09
  more searching and more filtering criteria so that he
• 21:12
  can sit down in the comfort of his home and be able to figure
• 21:15
  out that, OK, all these companies that are around Julius
• 21:18
  Berger or Lagos State Construction, you know, or FCDA
• 21:24
  Abuja, that's the Federal Capital Development Authority.
• 21:27
  Those people handle constructions.
• 21:28
  He can sit down on LinkedIn and be able to search and filter and
• 21:32
  figure out, you know, who is the MD or who is the head of
• 21:35
  planning or who is the head of this or who is the head of that,
• 21:38
  be able to find them on LinkedIn and be able to send messages to
• 21:42
  them. So because for those of us who
• 21:44
  have free accounts on LinkedIn, we can only send people, we only
• 21:47
  send messages to people that we're personally connect
• 21:49
  connected with. But if you have LinkedIn Sales
• 21:52
  Navigator or other paid LinkedIn accounts, you have more
• 21:57
  features, you can send messages to more people, you can
• 22:00
  broadcast messages to more people, you know, things like
• 22:02
  that. But basically using social
• 22:05
  media, especially LinkedIn and especially the paid features,
• 22:09
  you'll be able to go after a much more targeted set of of
• 22:14
  clients and do outreach that way.
• 22:17
  Then I really say can also do partnerships and alliances.
• 22:20
  I've spoken about it a lot, especially since back in the
• 22:23
  day, that's how we wedding photographers, that's how we
• 22:26
  used to enter the business. You know, the idea is very
• 22:28
  simple, you're coming into a new place, you want to look for
• 22:31
  people who offer complimentary services, you not pally with
• 22:34
  them and you send business back and forth.
• 22:37
  So that meant when I was coming into Abuja, those of us were
• 22:40
  entering into Abuja back then. You know, I'm thinking who are
• 22:42
  the wedding planners we can hook up with or who are the wedding
• 22:46
  wedding venues that we can hook up with, all the decorators that
• 22:50
  we can hook up with and hope you'll be able to get from small
• 22:53
  business. So the logic is the same.
• 22:55
  So Aransi would not be pattering partnering with people who offer
• 23:00
  complementary services. So in this case, I'm thinking
• 23:02
  civil engineering companies and then companies that let me see
• 23:08
  what else, OK, not just civil engineering, but companies that
• 23:11
  do leasing and repair. And then they can now be
• 23:16
  referring customers back and forth.
• 23:18
  So you value up with a civil engineering company.
• 23:20
  The civil engineering company says, oh, I'm dealing with
• 23:23
  Alhaji Dangote. They're working on their news
• 23:25
  and manufactory. They'll need this, they'll need
• 23:27
  this, they'll need that. But you can you supply these
• 23:30
  kind of things? Yes, I can.
• 23:31
  OK. But you know, now scratch my
• 23:33
  back and scratch your own. If Dangote should buy 20 tractor
• 23:36
  for you, how much are you giving me?
• 23:38
  Is it one 1%? Is it five 5%?
• 23:40
  You know, you have that conversation and then you hook
• 23:42
  things up. So partnerships and alliances,
• 23:45
  you know, people do that. I'm sure they can also work in
• 23:47
  the ring. This case, then this one.
• 23:51
  Now inbound marketing, people talk about this one a lot,
• 23:54
  content marketing. But in my own opinion, I think
• 23:58
  this is one that people should not start.
• 24:00
  How I put it, inbound marketing and content marketing, it's
• 24:04
  good. Inbound means you try and set up
• 24:08
  your marketing in such a way that people are attracted to you
• 24:12
  and they try and rush you, they chase you.
• 24:14
  What wrong inbound marketing or content marketing is?
• 24:17
  It's not a good approach for someone who is looking for
• 24:19
  immediate returns. If you're looking for money now,
• 24:23
  now, now, this is not a good strategy for you because inbound
• 24:27
  marketing and content marketing is a long term strategy.
• 24:30
  In fact, in most cases, I'll say maybe like 3 years before you
• 24:34
  start to see money on it because inbound marketing and content
• 24:37
  marketing is going to involve you putting out things on blogs,
• 24:41
  putting out things on YouTube, on podcasts, on, excuse me,
• 24:48
  websites, you know, just putting out content share.
• 24:50
  But The thing is, it takes a lot of time to generate no lack and
• 24:54
  trust through inbound marketing. So if you need money now, now,
• 24:58
  now it's not a good idea. I can say.
• 25:02
  So from my own personal experience because this podcast
• 25:04
  has been going on for five years.
• 25:06
  I can assure you that the first year of the podcast, I didn't
• 25:08
  make any money. The second year of the podcast,
• 25:11
  I didn't make any money. The third year of the podcast,
• 25:13
  that is when people started sending messages.
• 25:15
  So you know, boy, half hour, what's up?
• 25:17
  Are you free? How much do you cost?
• 25:20
  So I can tell you from personal experience that if you're going
• 25:23
  to use content marketing, inbound marketing to source for
• 25:30
  leads is not automatic. It's not going to start the
• 25:32
  first six months, it's not going to start the first year.
• 25:36
  So I would not even recommend that Irene should try about
• 25:41
  marketing or content marketing strategy.
• 25:43
  But then it depends because like there's someone else that I'm
• 25:46
  talking to. She has a course that she's
• 25:50
  trying to sell. And we had the conversation like
• 25:53
  how far how's money? Everything at work is a good.
• 25:58
  You know your boyfriend like you're you're all a good
• 26:01
  parental support. How does that want to check out?
• 26:04
  We have the conversation and not to tell.
• 26:06
  The reason why I'm asking all these questions is because if
• 26:10
  you start this content marketing approach, just know that for the
• 26:13
  next 2-3 years, you will not see anything.
• 26:17
  In fact, we'll even be demoralizing at some point.
• 26:19
  You even be asking yourself. Every day I wake up, I do my
• 26:23
  makeup, I put on the light, I put on the camera, I get my
• 26:26
  computer, I record the audio, I edit the thing, I put it up.
• 26:30
  I'm not seeing any returns. Should I haven't continued this?
• 26:34
  So you need to ask yourself these questions from the
• 26:35
  beginning. Can you put up with this kind of
• 26:37
  thing? And my conversation with her,
• 26:39
  she said, oh, money is not a problem.
• 26:42
  I said OK, cool, no problem. In that case, let's continue.
• 26:45
  So because the one that she will use to pay rent is settled, the
• 26:49
  one that she will use to eat is settled.
• 26:52
  The one that she will use for Internet is settled.
• 26:54
  The one that she will use for car is settled.
• 26:56
  She doesn't have kids. The boyfriend herself, the guys
• 26:59
  are now serious fellow. He's like a useless somebody.
• 27:01
  So the one is as if the relationship service is going to
• 27:04
  fail. So for her, there's no problem.
• 27:06
  So in her own case, content marketing strategy, inbound or
• 27:09
  sure, no problem because money is sorted.
• 27:12
  If you need money now, now, now I'm telling you, please do not
• 27:16
  start with inbound marketing, excuse me, or a content
• 27:22
  marketing approach. That is why for some of you who
• 27:25
  reach out to me and say I love the podcast, I want to start a
• 27:27
  podcast. That is the reason why I'm going
• 27:29
  to say, look, podcasting sound fun, sounds fun, but do not
• 27:34
  start a podcast. I'm not trying to discourage
• 27:36
  you. I'm just being real with you.
• 27:40
  If you're going to do something that is content marketing and
• 27:43
  that is inbound marketing, it requires time.
• 27:46
  If it sounds to me like you're looking for money now, now, now,
• 27:49
  do not go and start a podcast. Podcast will not give you money
• 27:52
  now, now, now. Blogging will not give you money
• 27:55
  now, now, now, just know it. So I'm not going to recommend
• 28:01
  this last one inbound marketing content marketing for Arinzi
• 28:06
  then how to avoid time wasting clients.
• 28:10
  OK, that's a wide question, to be honest, very, very wide.
• 28:17
  And The thing is this, usually if you're having clients that
• 28:22
  are very anyhow anyhow very walk up us, then usually what happens
• 28:27
  is you're not doing good. Qualification and discovery
• 28:29
  questions. Qualification and discovery
• 28:31
  questions are the stage in the sales relationship where you're
• 28:34
  asking questions about the individual or about the
• 28:37
  opportunity or about their vision or about their problem
• 28:40
  and you're trying to figure out who are they, What's the
• 28:43
  problem? Do I have inventory that can
• 28:45
  solve this problem? Does it look like there's room
• 28:48
  for progress here? There's a stage for that.
• 28:51
  Some of you are not even aware. And because you're trying to
• 28:54
  bypass qualification and discovery, that is why you're
• 28:56
  getting with people who are wasting your time.
• 29:00
  This is a conversation that I had with somebody who is in the
• 29:02
  freight forwarding space. The person was telling me that
• 29:05
  he is doing good qualifications and discovery.
• 29:08
  And I told him that look, you're not.
• 29:10
  He was going with me and I told him, look, calm down, listen,
• 29:13
  first listen. And I told him I look back at my
• 29:16
  wedding photography days. If a babe came to me, no matter
• 29:20
  how much money she has, if the boyfriend has not proposed, I
• 29:24
  know that that's not a good deal.
• 29:27
  I'm a wedding photographer or rather then I was a wedding
• 29:31
  photographer. So on my checklist was has
• 29:34
  somebody even proposed to this babe?
• 29:36
  Any person that they've not proposed to who is asking you a
• 29:39
  question? She is just curious if you take
• 29:43
  it to heart. I continue following up with
• 29:44
  her. It is you that are doing
• 29:46
  yourself, you didn't ask any qualification, any qualifying
• 29:50
  questions. You didn't ask any discovery
• 29:52
  questions. So you just assumed it was a
• 29:53
  good deal and you were running after somebody that was never
• 29:56
  going to buy. Because think about it, if you
• 29:58
  are selling wedding photography person when they never proposed
• 30:02
  to like honestly, you think and close the deal.
• 30:04
  So for me, it was on the checklist and it was part of the
• 30:07
  conversation points I used to have.
• 30:10
  Of course, I won't say how somebody proposed to you.
• 30:13
  I'll just say, oh, tell me what the proposal was like I just
• 30:16
  said, oh, oh, no, he hasn't really proposed, but I think
• 30:18
  he's going to propose soon, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:21
  In my mind, I already know that. OK, this one, this is not
• 30:23
  somebody that I now pursue, you know, fool fire, whether they've
• 30:28
  proposed to her, that's good. You can see that when you handle
• 30:32
  this thing by keeping it simple and conversational, they will
• 30:35
  think you're just good. You're just making casual
• 30:37
  conversation. It's not casual conversation.
• 30:40
  I know the information that I need.
• 30:41
  I'm just trying to be friendly about it and getting them to
• 30:44
  loosen up and open up. So I said, oh, tell me about the
• 30:47
  proposal, should begin the talk. I will now start getting all the
• 30:51
  background information. Oh, OK, he's proposed.
• 30:54
  Next thing I wanted to know was whether the family has met and
• 30:57
  whether this wedding date because sometimes the couple
• 31:00
  will say they have a wedding date, but it's two of them that
• 31:03
  gave themselves that date. And let's be honest, why
• 31:05
  Nigeria? Let's be honest here, that two
• 31:07
  of you came together and put up a date.
• 31:09
  You're deceiving yourself is when the families meet, they
• 31:12
  will now tell you the date that is convenient for them because
• 31:15
  your father will want his uncles, his friends, your mom's.
• 31:18
  You will want, you know, classmates and you know, So if
• 31:22
  bride and groom meets together and they say they have a wedding
• 31:25
  date, I will ask you've told them give themselves that date.
• 31:29
  Another OK, these people are not serious.
• 31:30
  They haven't even started. So is when they're proposed to
• 31:34
  somebody 1st and then the family has met and given a wedding date
• 31:38
  and I know that OK now I'm making progress.
• 31:41
  Another question I used to ask was wedding hall, because the
• 31:44
  person that has paid for wedding hall, the person is on the
• 31:47
  moving train, they have wedding date, they've paid for the hall,
• 31:51
  they have started spending money, they're heading
• 31:52
  somewhere. This is another serious client
• 31:54
  for me to be pursuing. Hope you guys understand what
• 31:57
  I'm saying. Now I'm asking questions about
• 32:01
  the couple and I'm asking questions about the situation
• 32:04
  and about the vision. The answers that they are giving
• 32:06
  me is helping me to determine who is serious and who is the
• 32:09
  worker pass. So you need done with his
• 32:12
  daughter comes and meets me as she asks how much you know, if
• 32:15
  nobody has proposed to down with his daughter and to be honest,
• 32:18
  we're just wasting our time. Of course, I'll I'll keep her
• 32:21
  phone number and I'll be calling her once in a while to say
• 32:22
  what's up because somebody like that, you know, they will spend
• 32:26
  well a wedding photo and a wedding video.
• 32:31
  But you should be asking people some questions.
• 32:34
  The answers that you get we'll be able to let you know is this
• 32:37
  a serious somebody? Is this somebody that has money?
• 32:40
  Is this somebody that has a problem?
• 32:42
  Is this somebody that's taking action?
• 32:44
  That is how you figure out who are the time wasters, who are
• 32:49
  the worker pass or who are the serious people.
• 32:53
  This stage is called qualification and discovery.
• 32:58
  So to avoid time wasters, you should be engaging in
• 33:00
  qualification and discovery. There are different techniques
• 33:04
  that are out there because of the industry that Arrange is in.
• 33:08
  I want to recommend Spin to him. Spin is a selling is a
• 33:14
  qualification technique where you ask questions around the
• 33:16
  situation, around the problem, around the implication and
• 33:20
  around their needs. SPIN situation, problem,
• 33:25
  implication and needs. Basically you're just trying to
• 33:30
  figure out, oh, how far? How far would you guess what's
• 33:33
  going on? Or are you guys facing problems
• 33:36
  here and there? This problem self, how big is
• 33:39
  it? How serious is it?
• 33:41
  OK, it's a big problem, all right?
• 33:45
  If we don't solve this problem now, what will happen?
• 33:47
  OK, What other needs do you have that gives you all the
• 33:51
  information to figure out if this person is serious?
• 33:55
  If there's a problem, how do I put it?
• 34:00
  It gives you a good sense of whether this is somebody you
• 34:03
  should be chasing 100% or somebody should just, you know,
• 34:07
  just relax more, collect their contact details once in a while,
• 34:11
  you know, just the send a message like what's up, what's
• 34:14
  up. But it's not as if you'll be
• 34:16
  following up with them 100%. Also, if you use trial closes
• 34:21
  early and use them often, the trial close is just questions
• 34:25
  that you use to try and gauge people's temperature to try and
• 34:28
  figure out are they interested? Are we on the same course?
• 34:31
  Then also, you should be seeking advancements when you're having
• 34:35
  conversations with people and advancement just means at every
• 34:38
  conversation you agree to what the next step is supposed to be.
• 34:42
  Because too many people are reactive.
• 34:44
  You are allowing the other person to determine what the
• 34:45
  next step is. You are the sales professional.
• 34:48
  You are the one who's supposed to be determining what the next
• 34:51
  step is. Now you can see that I've
• 34:53
  mentioned lots of things. I've mentioned qualification and
• 34:56
  discovery. I've given 1 qualification and
• 34:59
  discovery technique, which is spin.
• 35:02
  I've also talked about using trial clauses and I've also
• 35:04
  spoken about seeking advancements.
• 35:07
  And to be honest, each of these things that I've called now in
• 35:11
  itself is probably another 30 or 45 minutes podcast episode.
• 35:15
  So you can see why I say the talk is plenty, which is why
• 35:19
  it's best. Although in arises case I didn't
• 35:21
  continue the conversation with me by said, let me just put up
• 35:24
  this podcast episode here so that other people in the
• 35:26
  situation will learn. These are the reasons why when a
• 35:30
  consultant says you don't need to ask you some more questions,
• 35:33
  these are precisely the reasons why I can't just be advertising
• 35:36
  you in the general general. I need to figure out exactly
• 35:39
  what it is that is going on. So anyway, it's from having more
• 35:48
  conversations with someone like an easy that can be able to
• 35:51
  figure out where exactly is he dropping the ball?
• 35:54
  Is it that he's not seeking advancements?
• 35:57
  Is it that he's not using trial closes or is it that he's not
• 35:59
  doing qualification and discovery?
• 36:01
  But anyway, let's talk some more about qualification and
• 36:03
  discovery. OK, This is almost 14 minutes.
• 36:05
  OK, let me try and wrap it up. So I came up with some sample
• 36:08
  questions that somebody like Aaron's they can use in the
• 36:10
  situation because all the examples I've been given so far,
• 36:16
  people in the wedding space now usual reason why, excuse me, I'm
• 36:20
  using I started off at weddings because I want you guys to see
• 36:24
  that this is a simple process that simple people can use
• 36:27
  because somebody will now come and say, oh, you're only talking
• 36:29
  about construction My own business is not that big I'm
• 36:32
  selling you my hair is not that big.
• 36:34
  I'm just trying to show you that whether the business is big or
• 36:36
  small, it applies wedding photography where you're
• 36:38
  collecting 10s of thousands or hundreds of thousands, it
• 36:42
  applies construction equipment where you're collecting 10s of
• 36:45
  millions or hundreds of millions, it applies.
• 36:48
  So the qualification questions, sample questions, now you can
• 36:53
  ask questions around the problem, around their need and
• 36:57
  try and figure out the implications.
• 36:59
  You know, what's going on here. So someone like I really say,
• 37:02
  when somebody shows up, you should be asking them.
• 37:04
  So what are your current opera, current operations?
• 37:07
  I know it seems, it seems general, but you have to be
• 37:11
  asking. You need to know who you're
• 37:12
  dealing with. Based on the replies they give
• 37:15
  you, you will now know whether, OK, this person is a jam bite,
• 37:17
  they haven't started this business at all, or whether this
• 37:19
  person has been in this business for 20 years and they are buying
• 37:25
  new tractors every six, six years or something like that.
• 37:29
  Is I'm asking this kind of general question about the
• 37:31
  current operations that you know, what's up.
• 37:34
  You also ask questions. I really should also be asking
• 37:36
  questions like, So what projects, what ongoing projects
• 37:41
  do you have currently or what ongoing projects requires this
• 37:45
  kind of equipment? If somebody comes and says he
• 37:48
  needs a dredging equipment and he's asking for the XYZ 7000,
• 37:53
  you ask the person what kind of project are they working on now?
• 37:58
  The person who says, oh, they need it because they're
• 38:00
  currently working on a Co Atlantic and they're dredging.
• 38:03
  You know, you can see that from the response.
• 38:06
  You'll not be able to hear that. Oh, OK, this is a big boy.
• 38:09
  The guy has already been awarded contract for a Co Atlantic and
• 38:12
  they are dredging 20 feet of of coastline.
• 38:17
  Because of that, they need a dredger that is different from
• 38:21
  somebody who is just asking because, well, they're curious.
• 38:24
  They just want to enter the business.
• 38:26
  So if you ask these kinds of questions, what are your current
• 38:28
  operations? What ongoing projects do you
• 38:30
  have? And the persons like, Oh no, I'm
• 38:32
  just curious. I want to enter the business.
• 38:35
  Me and my uncle, we've raised some money.
• 38:37
  Clearly you can see that they're on.
• 38:43
  How will I put it is not the same the way you follow somebody
• 38:48
  who has been in the business for 20 years and who has a car, a
• 38:52
  current project that has been awarded with Lagos State
• 38:55
  government. The way you follow that person
• 38:57
  and be yawning is not the same way you follow the other person
• 39:00
  who says me and my uncle, we've been able to raise like 200 M,
• 39:03
  We just want to start the business.
• 39:05
  The conversation is different. You also ask questions about
• 39:10
  frustration with their processes.
• 39:12
  Oh, this is the project you're working on.
• 39:13
  These are the equipment you have.
• 39:15
  I can see that you have the CAT 2000.
• 39:16
  You have the this 50000. This equipment sometimes in the
• 39:21
  past, it usually normally has RPM of this, this, this, because
• 39:25
  of that is very slow. Have you been facing this kind
• 39:27
  of frustration? And you ask and then you wait
• 39:31
  and you hear if they're OK with the RPMRPM is I think it's
• 39:35
  rotations per minute or something.
• 39:37
  So if you're happy with the speed of this equipment and it's
• 39:39
  not a problem, it's not a problem.
• 39:41
  You now know that you're proposing or looking at other
• 39:44
  kinds of other kinds of machines to propose.
• 39:50
  But The thing is you should be asking all these questions.
• 39:53
  See, This is why I tell people that some people move too fast.
• 39:56
  Somebody will reach out to you and say I want to buy the
• 39:59
  CAT5000. You will now respond CAT5000,
• 40:02
  that one is 15,000,000. You will now send them proposal,
• 40:05
  send them price, you send them account details and it goes to
• 40:08
  you and you'll be saying that they're not serious.
• 40:10
  The problem is not with them. The problem is with you.
• 40:12
  You didn't ask enough questions. How do you know that this person
• 40:15
  actually needs the CAT? Whatever the person asked for?
• 40:18
  How do you know engage people in conversations?
• 40:22
  This is why the average person that reaches out to me, I'm
• 40:24
  trying to get them to understand that sales is a conversation.
• 40:28
  Engage people, engage someone and have a conversation.
• 40:33
  From the responses that they're giving you, this is how you now
• 40:36
  know this person is a big boy, this person is a big girl.
• 40:38
  This person is a useless somebody.
• 40:39
  This person is a church, right? This person is a time waster.
• 40:42
  You will now know how to guide your time accordingly that for
• 40:46
  these people, I'll be following up with them every 5-5 days.
• 40:49
  For this other person, maybe I was sending them message once
• 40:53
  every two months. What frustrations do they have
• 40:58
  with the current equipment? The person who is reaching out,
• 41:02
  are they trying to replace equipment or are they trying to
• 41:05
  add to a fleet? That is also an important points
• 41:09
  to know the person who is replacing equipment.
• 41:13
  It means that they have a project, the clock is ticking,
• 41:17
  time is going because they've already been paid.
• 41:20
  They need to replace this thing now, now, now.
• 41:22
  The person who is adding to an ongoing fleet is important.
• 41:26
  Maybe they're just adding to an ongoing fleet because they just
• 41:28
  want to do routine maintenance. You know, it's not as if there's
• 41:31
  any job going on right now. But as a general principle, they
• 41:36
  like to have 5 tractors on standby just in case.
• 41:41
  The urgency, the need is different.
• 41:42
  We should be asking these kind of questions.
• 41:45
  We should ask questions around their timelines.
• 41:48
  What projects are they working on now?
• 41:50
  What is the timeline? When are they trying to finish
• 41:52
  up? What are the critical dates?
• 41:55
  When exactly worst case scenario, do they need this kind
• 41:57
  of equipment by We should be asking all kinds of these
• 42:01
  questions. I remember when asking them in a
• 42:03
  conversational way, they would just think, oh, you're nice,
• 42:07
  you're making a small talk. But you, you're the
• 42:11
  professional, you're the one you're asking the question
• 42:13
  because you know the kind of information that you need to be
• 42:16
  able to make a killer proposal. Also ask questions around
• 42:19
  budget. Some people wait for too long.
• 42:23
  Hi, I'm a fan of bringing up budget questions early and you
• 42:27
  should be asking what kind of investments are you guys willing
• 42:30
  to make? Ask them right here.
• 42:33
  The person that says I'm not willing to spend more than 20 M,
• 42:36
  you know, it tells you a lot because if honestly, the market
• 42:40
  value of the equipment brand new is 45 and somebody tells you
• 42:44
  that they're not only spent 20, what does that tell you?
• 42:46
  It tells you that this person is not serious or that this person
• 42:49
  has not done research or that this person is a jam bite.
• 42:53
  He's entering the industry for the first time, so he doesn't
• 42:55
  know what's up. Ask or after somebody comes, you
• 43:03
  will have looked at one or two models, you've talked about
• 43:05
  different things. You put it to them very
• 43:07
  straight. The options you have looked at
• 43:09
  so far are within XYZ and ABC, millions of narrow range.
• 43:14
  Is that an investment you're willing to make at the moment
• 43:17
  you ask them, are you here? Ask the person that says A20M to
• 43:26
  50M for what You as the professional, if you know that
• 43:30
  that is the going market rate, you now know that this person is
• 43:34
  a jam bite in the space or the person is an illiterate in the
• 43:36
  space. The person doesn't know what's
• 43:38
  up. This is not a serious prospect.
• 43:42
  The kind of person who says, OK, 20 to 30 million, that sounds
• 43:46
  about right. But to be honest, by the time I
• 43:49
  talk to my partners, we'll be looking for a discount.
• 43:52
  You know that that kind of person is a serious person.
• 43:54
  I mean a little serious. So you ask.
• 43:59
  Also, you should be asking questions around authority.
• 44:03
  Who typically authorizes these kinds of purchase in your
• 44:05
  company? Who else is going to be
• 44:08
  evaluating this equipment before you buy?
• 44:12
  The reason why you shouldn't ask is because sometimes the
• 44:16
  decision is going to be made by a committee.
• 44:18
  If you know the decision will be made by a committee, then you
• 44:21
  can start roping people in from the beginning.
• 44:26
  You need to know also because sometimes the person who is
• 44:28
  asking you the questions does not have the authority to, to,
• 44:31
  to purchase anything. If the adult company sends his
• 44:36
  PA, go on call, go on make inquiries.
• 44:39
  Whether we like it or not, the PA cannot authorize anything.
• 44:43
  But of course, no PA will call you and say I'm the PA.
• 44:45
  It is from having all these questions.
• 44:49
  Who else is going to be evaluating this equipment?
• 44:51
  Is I'm asking all questions like that that you now discovered
• 44:53
  that Oh after all this person is only APA.
• 44:56
  The person that will evaluate this equipment is actually
• 44:59
  Engineer Show Care Phone. Now that you know part of your
• 45:03
  questions will be OK since Engineer Show Care Phone is
• 45:06
  going to be part of this process, how soon will Engineer
• 45:10
  Show Care Phone be in Lagos and when can we hook up an
• 45:15
  inspection? Doing an inspection with the PA
• 45:19
  who has no authority to buy is wasting your time.
• 45:23
  If you figure out that Engineer, Show careful or MD Abdul Rahman
• 45:27
  needs to be on site and inspect the thing.
• 45:30
  The sooner you can hook up a meeting with Engineer Show
• 45:33
  Careful and MD Abdul Rahman, the closer you are you will be to
• 45:36
  get in the deal. So all these questions around
• 45:39
  authority are there now. The way I used to do it for
• 45:44
  wedding photography use, I normally used to say, especially
• 45:46
  when it was guys, I normally say something like hey bro, usually
• 45:50
  it's the babes who come and ask me for wedding photography.
• 45:52
  But this one we've seen like 3 times is only you.
• 45:54
  Like how far is it? Your babies not interested?
• 45:58
  I would ask straight up, there's some people who tell you that oh
• 46:03
  in my culture it is the man who does these kinds of things.
• 46:07
  In that case, I now know that OK, I can continue talking with
• 46:09
  this guy because based on that culture, it is the man who gets
• 46:12
  the wedding photographer and some other cultures, like for
• 46:16
  Yoruba people, you know, towards that legal side, it is the
• 46:19
  babe's family that procures this thing.
• 46:23
  So if you're talking to a Yoruba couple and he's been the guy all
• 46:28
  the way through, you've had like 6 meetings, you've never seen
• 46:30
  the bride, maybe it's not a good sign, maybe.
• 46:36
  So authority questions you asked in this case, you can say it,
• 46:40
  everything can say it. OK, well bro, been talking like
• 46:44
  two or three times, but usually it's procurement manager or
• 46:47
  project manager who reaches out for this kind of inquiry.
• 46:49
  So how far now you are come as they ask.
• 46:54
  However, you're going to ask it in a jovial sense, you know,
• 46:56
  whatever sense. But The thing is ask you're
• 46:59
  trying to figure out all the parties in play.
• 47:01
  The goal is when you know who the parties are in play, you can
• 47:04
  now involve them early in the conversation.
• 47:07
  Then trial closes. Trial closes are things that you
• 47:10
  do or questions that you ask that checks the emotional
• 47:13
  temperature or the interests of the person.
• 47:15
  Are they interested? You know, things like that.
• 47:20
  So in this case, if someone like Ariza asked them, OK, so apart
• 47:23
  from this criteria, that criteria, what other technical
• 47:26
  features are you looking at? If they give you an answer, it
• 47:32
  might mean you're on the right course.
• 47:34
  If they say, Oh no, no, no, I think I have all the information
• 47:36
  I need, I'll get back to you later.
• 47:38
  I mean, maybe they're not interested.
• 47:41
  Another question, where in Lagos or where in Port Harcourt are we
• 47:44
  delivering this tractor to? I want to know so I can give you
• 47:48
  an accurate idea of delivery costs.
• 47:51
  By the time you ask that kind of questions on people who say a
• 47:53
  guy, calm down now we haven't finished pricing yet.
• 47:56
  In that case, you know that your own course, another person might
• 48:00
  say, oh is going to pH. So, so, so, so local government
• 48:05
  that we need it by XYZ date. That kind of person, you now
• 48:09
  know that OK, you're also on the same track.
• 48:13
  The person that wants to say delivery cost, how have we
• 48:18
  agreed anything? You're also getting a sense of
• 48:22
  where that person feels. The person that says let me get
• 48:27
  back to you later, you're also getting a sense of where that
• 48:29
  person is just by asking all these small, small trial closes.
• 48:35
  Another question, after we deliver, what kind of sales and
• 48:38
  after support will you guys need?
• 48:41
  The person that says, let me think about it, let me talk to
• 48:44
  you later. It gives you a sense of where
• 48:46
  they are. The person who answers
• 48:47
  confidently that OK, typically when we buy these things with
• 48:51
  our former supplier, this and this and this is what we expect.
• 48:53
  We expect servicing at month 6 and we expect turn around
• 48:57
  maintenance at month 15. You're getting a sense of who it
• 49:03
  is that you're talking to. And then also another question
• 49:07
  that me I'd like to ask, you know, of course I'm not in
• 49:11
  construction, but that's the kind of question I would ask
• 49:14
  anyway when I'm dealing with corporate clients.
• 49:16
  So indicates be something like this.
• 49:18
  So if we're good to go here, when and how will you guys be
• 49:23
  issuing the purchase order or the PO number or what is the
• 49:28
  next step in the requisition process?
• 49:31
  This kind of question is helping you to feel out what is going
• 49:33
  on. The person who answers that, OK,
• 49:36
  this is the next step. We usually issue PO to issue the
• 49:39
  POI have to be in touch with this person, that person.
• 49:41
  This is the next step. You can see that, OK, based on
• 49:45
  the answer, you guys are heading in some particular direction.
• 49:50
  General notes, by the way, if anybody talks about RFP, may I
• 49:53
  avoid RFPRFPS request for proposal?
• 49:57
  May I always avoid RFP? Because whenever somebody says
• 50:01
  our own process is RFP, what that means is they're going to
• 50:04
  collect bids from different people, you know, 3 or 4, and
• 50:08
  then they will now compare. I don't like RFP because usually
• 50:11
  what happens is if somebody has for RFP, they're going to select
• 50:14
  and then they'll just give it to the cheapest person.
• 50:16
  I mean, I'm not going to waste my time, you know, 3 weeks, 4
• 50:20
  weeks, creating a proposal document, send it to you only
• 50:24
  for you to give it to the cheapest person.
• 50:25
  So me, as a general rule, I avoid RFPs, but I'll make a
• 50:30
  podcast episode about that later about RFP processes.
• 50:34
  But yeah, that's a question. If we're going ahead, who is
• 50:38
  issuing the PO? What is the requisition process?
• 50:43
  What is the next step? Are you going to be issuing this
• 50:46
  and this and this? Am I supposed to send you a
• 50:49
  performer invoice to get this going?
• 50:52
  All these trial questions they're helping you to gauge, is
• 50:55
  this person interested? What's the emotional
• 50:58
  temperature? Are they botting?
• 51:01
  Are they on fire? They don't want to move forward
• 51:04
  or they're just cold. Anyway, the summary of what I'm
• 51:08
  saying, well, OK, this is 15 minutes.
• 51:11
  We've been on for a while. OK, let me just wrap up now.
• 51:16
  Basically what I've been trying to say is there are a lot of you
• 51:18
  who are with time wasters in quote.
• 51:21
  To be honest, it's not the other person wasting your time.
• 51:24
  In most cases, it is you wasting your own time.
• 51:27
  You have not been asking the other person the right questions
• 51:30
  because when you ask the other person the right questions, you
• 51:33
  will know, am I talking to a serious somebody?
• 51:35
  Am I talking to a time waster? Is this person just curious?
• 51:42
  Or does the person have a serious need, a serious problem?
• 51:46
  So we should be asking questions to give a sense of who the
• 51:49
  serious prospects are. If somebody refuses to answer
• 51:53
  any of these questions that I've been talking about here, then
• 51:58
  the honest truth is they're no serious buyer.
• 52:00
  Just take it. The serious buyer will answer
• 52:05
  any of these questions that I've told you to ask.
• 52:09
  So it's either they're not a serious buyer or you have not
• 52:12
  done a good job of establishing trust.
• 52:14
  And so because of that, people are staying locked up.
• 52:19
  If anybody doesn't trust me that I'm capable, that I know what
• 52:23
  I'm talking about and that I can help them solve their business
• 52:25
  problem, If they don't trust me, it doesn't matter how many
• 52:27
  questions I asked them. Don't lock up.
• 52:29
  You'll be thinking this guy's a fast talker, this guy's a 419,
• 52:32
  this guy's a whatever. There's something here I don't
• 52:35
  trust. They will lock up.
• 52:35
  Don't give me any info. So those are just the two
• 52:38
  options. If you try and ask questions,
• 52:41
  they're locking up is either they're not serious or they
• 52:45
  don't trust you. If they don't trust you, that's
• 52:48
  a separate question for another podcast episode.
• 52:50
  But let me just stop here because you've gone for close to
• 52:53
  an hour trying to look at the arrange situation.
• 52:56
  And so for those of you who reach out to me and I say let's
• 53:00
  talk some more on WhatsApp or I have some more questions I need
• 53:04
  you to answer. This is the reason why because
• 53:06
  it will affect AB is the effect, it will affect the kind of
• 53:13
  advice or directions that I'm going to give going forward.
• 53:16
  So that's all for today folks. And remember, if you have any
• 53:19
  sales or marketing questions, then bring them to me.
• 53:21
  You can call, you can SMS, you can WhatsApp me on 08064662140.
• 53:27
  Thank you very much for your time and attention.
• 53:29
  I'll catch you, dear listener, at the next episode.