Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / Why Most People Fail at Being Influencers

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Why Most People Fail at Being Influencers · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

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  Lots of people want to come into Business Today by exploring the
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  influencer route and they don't really think about what it is
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  that it it takes to get there. That's one of the reasons why in
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  the last couple of weeks, maybe the last 2-3 weeks, I'm sure you
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  guys have noticed that I've been putting out a lot of content
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  saying that if you're going to get into the business game, then
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  perhaps the influencer route is not the easiest route that you
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  should take. Now, the reason why I'm making
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  today's recording, by the way, forgive me, you know, I'm making
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  today's recording out and about and then I don't have my fancy
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  new microphone, so I'm just using, I'm just recording
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  directly into my phone. So, you know, there's going to
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  be a lot more noise than usual spilling it, spilling into the
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  recording. Oh, by the way, for those of you
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  just listening for the first time, my name is Tavishma Ayedi,
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  former lawyer turned business consultant.
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  And over here on the podcast, I like to solve business problems.
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  So that's what I do here almost every other day.
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  And today we're looking at the question of why coming into
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  business doing the influencer route perhaps might not be the
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  best option for you if you're coming into this space brand
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  new. So excuse me.
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  So let's see. OK, regular listeners of the
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  podcast might remember the time in, I think this was definitely
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  over a year ago and it was something that I did with this
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  business incubation, this incubation hub.
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  Incubation hub, what was it called again?
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  Avon, Avon incubation hub based in Abuja.
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  Now at the time that I did this event, Avon was an incubation
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  hub, but now they have since changed the business model.
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  Now they are primarily a Co working space.
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  I mean, they've always had the Co working space, but now that's
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  their primary thing. And then the offshore talent for
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  foreign companies, foreign companies abroad, you know,
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  America, UK who are looking for remote talent based in Nigeria
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  to work for them. So if you're thinking of making
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  some extra change, you know, this is 1 avenue that is
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  available to you if you have skills and if you have time,
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  there are businesses in Nigeria that are thinking that we have
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  access to talent. And there are some people who
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  don't mind working for, you know, $500 a $1000 because you
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  know, now that you know, an IRA is crap.
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  So even if somebody they raise you just $500 every month, by
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  the time you take you do the multiplication, you know that
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  $500 is going to make sense. So that's exactly what they're
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  playing on. So, you know, 500 dollars, 600
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  dollars, $1000, you know, blah, blah, blah.
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  That's how some people make make a living.
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  In fact, I have heard, I don't know the guy direct, but one of
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  the guys that I was trying to get ATV show through was talking
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  about how his neighbors that that's and that's how they live
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  basically I think is 222-2000 dollars or something like that.
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  That's how much they earn. So remote work to $2000,
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  multiply it by Niger currency and you can see that nothing
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  kind of makes sense anyway. So back then, Yvonne was a
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  business, a business tech hub and an incubation hub.
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  So people who wanted to start out in business would go there
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  and then resource people like myself would come and give
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  sessions on all kinds of things relating to sales, to marketing,
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  to branding, to tech support, to business planning, to, you know,
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  you know what, all those sorts of things.
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  By the way, my own specialty is sales.
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  So I didn't talk about any of that other stuff.
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  Now, there was one lady in the class, let's just call her
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  Oniega Owen, not her real name by the way, but I say Onyeka
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  Awendo because the girl and her sister, actually, when you look
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  at two of them, they just like they just as in when you see
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  them, you get Onyeka vibes, if you understand what I'm saying.
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  That's for those of us Nigerians who are old enough to remember
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  Onyeka Awendo, the elegant stallion, a pop musician who did
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  songs like One Love and Yo Go Go, Yo Go, Yo Go Go.
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  I ain't can I Bishop, You know that that song, any basically
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  let me not sing it again because every time I sing that song, my
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  wife just she rolls her eyes. She's like, can you please stop
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  destroying my my, my mother's language because my wife is
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  hafibo. So yeah, that Onyeka Owino.
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  So these girls, my class when I was talking to Abuja based
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  businesswomen on marketing. Yeah.
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  So the two sisters gave me Onyeka vibes.
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  So one of them was going to come into wasn't quite sure about
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  what she wanted her business to be, but she was making, she
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  wanted to come into business doing the influencer route.
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  And I remember at the time telling her that, you know, was
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  difficult. Apart from the difficulties
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  involved. There's a lot of time that is
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  involved in cultivating an audience because I've said it
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  time and time again. But let me say for those of you
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  who are listening for the first time, if you want to hammer as
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  an influencer, the way that you're going to do that is
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  you're going to cultivate an audience.
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  And you have to cultivate a sizable audience because these
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  platforms have very high thresholds before you can
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  monetize. Let me give you an example.
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  I don't know the thresholds, but let me just give you an example.
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  Currently, I have about 4300 and something subscribers on
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  Spotify. And guess what?
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  I have not hit the threshold for monetization.
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  Let me repeat for those of you who are thinking I will monetize
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  my audience no problem. I have over 4000 subscribers on
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  Spotify and the last time I checked, I am not even close to
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  the threshold for monetizing. So just bear that in mind when
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  you will say, oh, I'll create an audience and I'll begin to
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  monetize. So Spotify high threshold,
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  YouTube high threshold as in everybody the threshold day
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  high. So stop thinking that you're
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  going to start putting out content today, in March of 2026
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  and then another 3-4 months. You go don't blow, you go no
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  hammer because you've amassed an audience.
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  In fact, that's the reason why in the older episode, I did, I
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  think I made the episode maybe 2 days ago when I was talking
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  about FA Carta, the Nigerian stream FA Carta and then his
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  boy, what's his boy's name again, I can't remember.
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  Anyway, so just go listen to that episode and you see what
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  I'm talking about. Because for him, it also was a
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  long, long period as well. So you the, the thresholds are
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  very, very high. That's number one.
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  Then #2 the conversions are very, very small.
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  So like when people typically typically send out e-mail
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  campaigns, the conversions that they expect are between 0 and
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  3%. Now what that means is for
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  somebody who wants to do e-mail marketing every time, then they
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  blast e-mail. You just send e-mail out like
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  that between zero and three. People out of 100 are those who
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  will take the next step or who will end up buying.
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  Let me repeat conversions. Average conversions nowadays are
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  between zero to 3% on e-mail. So in the influencer space, I
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  don't know what the exact figures are, but just know that
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  it's very, very low. So even for somebody like me
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  that has an audience of 4300 and something, it does not mean that
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  every single time I release a product and I say bye, it does
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  not mean that 10% of people will buy, meaning I'll get 400
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  orders. It doesn't work like that.
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  Conversions are very, very, very low.
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  Now, these are some of the reasons why for those of you
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  coming into business, you want to pick the influencer out.
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  You are picking a very, very hard route to get into this
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  space anyway. So I said all the things that I
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  had to say for those ladies, Abuja based business women that
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  we did the session on marketing through Avon Incubation Hub or
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  at least it used to be an incubation hub at the time.
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  So also one more thing, production value.
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  Now a lot of you who want to create content nowadays, you
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  guys focus on very, very high production value.
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  What that means is you guys want your audio to sound right, you
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  want your videos to look right, you want your photos to be you
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  know colored right, composed right, everything you want
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  everything to look professional. Now you guys are starting with a
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  very, very high bar and it is too much of A high bar to start
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  off your business journey with because when you want to make
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  things that are of high production value, it takes a lot
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  of time or it takes a lot of money.
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  Now for this particular lady in particular shows dropping stuff
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  on YouTube and she wanted high production value.
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  So what that meant was she either had to edit this thing by
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  herself or go and pay somebody, I think at the time like 10K.
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  I'll be like 15 K to edit every single video.
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  Now ladies and gentlemen, let's run the math.
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  You say you want blue Abbey, You want to be an influencer?
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  No problem, YouTube is your ticket, Abbey.
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  No problem. You want to be paying somebody
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  10K per video? OK, how many videos do you think
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  you're going to have to drop on a weekly or on a monthly before
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  you amass an audience? Run the mouth in your head.
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  How long is this thing going to be sustainable for now, luckily
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  for this young lady at the time, she never marry her and her
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  sister to today. You know she never marry no
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  problem. So any money where she did drop
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  is not going to be coming from a place of you know, you know,
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  it's not going to be picking school fees, it's not going to
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  be diapers, it's not going to be, you know, stuff like that.
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  But even as a single lady, to be dropping 2020303040405050K every
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  single week on top say you won't become influencer, how these are
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  some of the questions that you need to ask yourself.
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  Anyway, I told her at the time that look, babe, the way you're
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  going about this, you pick the hard route.
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  And to be honest, I foresee you're going to give up and you
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  know, show us full of vim vigor that know that she's here in the
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  game that she will make up. She will make us all right, no
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  problem. So lo and behold, I'm chatting
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  with her a couple of days ago. I'm like, hey, what's up, Happy
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  New year, how you been, blah, blah, blah.
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  You know, that kind of talks. What's up now?
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  I found the YouTube thing and unfortunately she don't give up.
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  She don't crash, she don't crash out of the game.
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  So also, what are you up to? Oh yeah, I'm back to medical
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  practice, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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  And this is one thing that I want to stress for you guys
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  listening here today because sometimes there's some of us
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  talk. You will feel as if you know
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  when they try, you know, tarnish your horseshoe or they try key.
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  Our dreams no be so. Some of us in this game, we have
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  a wealth of experience and we see some patterns and we see
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  some things happen. That's the reason why we're able
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  to drop some insight. Sometimes you can see the future
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  before you do. And also speaking is just a very
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  simple something. Nigeria is harsh, all right.
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  Nigeria is harsh. The economy is not smiling.
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  This tenable economy is not friendly for anybody.
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  If you want to be an influencer and you want to be doing this
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  high production value thing, you're going to have to do this
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  for a long time and it's going to involve either a lot of time
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  or a lot of money before you blow.
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  And the honest, the truth of matter is you can't keep
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  involving, say involving. You can't keep investing hours
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  upon hours upon hours in creating content.
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  Meanwhile, you know they see any positive return.
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  Now, when I say positive return, I don't mean audience.
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  I mean in terms of naira and Kobo, our parents mean well.
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  But how long will your popsy be comfortable that you didn't say
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  house? You do record video.
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  You do record video. You do record video. 8 months,
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  10 months, 12 months, 2 1/2 years.
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  They never see anything tangible.
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  I hope you guys can see what I'm saying.
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  Was the only lady OK? No problem.
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  You know you're still popsy, so popsy you know will chase you.
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  But then you know, upkeep day involved now, upkeep flexing,
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  moving up and down and they just got a bomb money on top beauty
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  YouTube videos. As in for how long?
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  For how long? So I'm not a prophet, but I saw
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  the end from the beginning because I just ran the math.
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  So for those of you who are thinking of coming into the
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  business space, you want to use the influencer route, I beg run
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  the math. It's a very simple thing.
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  Even the good book says it. Who starts to build a house
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  without stopping to check first whether they have enough
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  resources to finish or else they will start, they will hook and
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  then people go begin, they laugh them and say, see, they started
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  to build. They did not have enough money
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  to finish. So it's a very, very simple
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  something. So on this podcast, when I talk
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  about getting into the business space by learning how to trade
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  or learning how to sell a service, I'm not trying to cramp
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  your dreams. I'm just being realistic here.
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  I've want to get into this game. We need to pick the route where
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  we can start seeing some small naira and cobo, you know, quick,
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  quick, quick and some simple traction.
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  The influencer route is hard. If you want to go that round,
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  fine, no problem. Just make sure you budget the
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  time or budget the money that will be required to get you
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  there. For those of you who are
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  listening to this name brand new, after you don't listen to
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  this episode, skip back two or three episodes.
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  Listen to the episode that I made about the Nigerian Twitch
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  super influencer FA Carter. Don't listen to the episode on
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  FA Carter and you will hear from another person's mouth what is
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  involved. I'm not an influencer, so maybe
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  you say what I'm saying, you know, I don't have the
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  experience. No problem.
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  Go and listen to the people who have the experience.
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  Go and listen. You hear from them live about
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  what was involved. So budget at the time or budget
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  the money. Now I'm making today's episode
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  because I don't want any of you to reach out to me.
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  We have a chat. I tell you what's up, what's
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  involved and you say no, I will do it.
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  Now I go make up, I'm a grinder there also no problem.
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  And then in the end I say hey, what's up man?
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  How you doing now, your Twitch channel and how far?
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  And then you say, bro, I don't want you guys to be in that
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  situation. So please take stock.
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  Take stock from the beginning before you begin.
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  Those of you who want to be an influencer, I understand it
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  looks all nice. It looks all cool, looks all
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  cosy. People listening to your
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  podcasts, people watching your videos, you know, walking around
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  feeling like a celebrity, but you know, nobody.
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  So it takes a while to build. So think hard, think fast before
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  you begin. Now, if you want to be in touch
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  with me, just like the Onyeka, the Onyeka window again, not her
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  real name, the Onyeka. You know, sisters.
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  If you want to be in touch just like they were, then you can
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  call me. Send me a text message or a
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  WhatsApp message on 08064662140. You have questions about
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  business, reach out. Let's have a chat.
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  Yeah. So that's it.
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  Thanks for your time and attention.
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  I'll catch you all some other time.