Latest / Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint / The Smart Way to Finance Your Business: Customers First

Transcript

The Smart Way to Finance Your Business: Customers First · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Aede.
• 0:04
  I solve sales and marketing challenges and I'm making
• 0:06
  today's recording at home, so expect to hear some noise in the
• 0:09
  background. The goal of this podcast is for
• 0:12
  business education. So if you're impressed, please
• 0:15
  spread the word so that your friends and family members in
• 0:18
  Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we
• 0:20
  tackle. They can do that by subscribing
• 0:23
  on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of their choice.
• 0:27
  And if you'd love to connect, then you can call SMS on
• 0:30
  WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Today on the podcast, the very
• 0:39
  old question that seems to come back again and again and again
• 0:42
  in a different guise. And today it was a listener
• 0:46
  question from what's his name again?
• 0:50
  So let me check my notes. Jerry, yes, from Jerry in APO.
• 0:54
  APO is the, let's say, I'll put it now, Abu is in Abuja.
• 0:59
  Anyway, I don't know how to explain it.
• 1:00
  I say like a local government, it's a part of Abuja.
• 1:02
  Let me just put it that way, where the old legislative
• 1:05
  quarters used to be. So Jerry from Abu runs a snack
• 1:08
  business and he called in not on the podcast because of course we
• 1:12
  can't call in on the podcast, you know, on my radio show.
• 1:15
  And he runs a snack business. And he was trying to see how he
• 1:18
  could drum some support for his business.
• 1:21
  Now, based on the yarns that Jerry and I had on the air, I
• 1:26
  got the feeling that what he was looking for was a benefactor for
• 1:29
  his business. A benefactor is someone who out
• 1:32
  of goodwill or who out of kindness or who out of you know,
• 1:36
  I love Jesus Christ or you know, I love humanity or whatever
• 1:40
  person just decides I like your horse will let me just dash you
• 1:43
  money, no string attached. Now some of you always must be
• 1:47
  thinking, do people like that exist?
• 1:49
  And the answer is yes, there are benefactors.
• 1:53
  And if you think about it hard, you will see that either you or
• 1:58
  your parents or somebody, you know, has actually benefited
• 2:01
  from benefactors in the past. There are some of those people
• 2:04
  who have said, you know, I like what you do.
• 2:06
  Let me just bless you with this small money or let me just
• 2:09
  support your house with this small, you know, this thing or
• 2:12
  nothing. So benefactors do happen.
• 2:15
  And yes, there are people who are looking for benefactors in
• 2:17
  business. I'm not going to fault anybody
• 2:20
  who's looking for benefactors. So that's the impression that I
• 2:23
  got. Nasha is benefactors that he's
• 2:24
  looking for. And you know, we had the
• 2:27
  conversation. I mentioned the usual thing
• 2:29
  because to be honest, because benefactors are rare.
• 2:35
  Whenever anybody finds out that there is a benefactor in this
• 2:41
  community, excuse me, you find out that they're usually plenty
• 2:45
  people on their neck, like, oh, this is a good guy.
• 2:47
  He likes to drop paper. People will start flooding him.
• 2:50
  There's a good woman, she likes to take care of people, people
• 2:53
  who start flooding her. So to be honest, even if there's
• 2:56
  a benefactor within arm's reach, before you reach that person,
• 2:59
  you go hard, honestly. And even when you do, a person
• 3:03
  is probably overtaxed. So benefactor for your business,
• 3:11
  you know it happens, but don't count on it.
• 3:15
  And yes, there are some things you can do from a sales and
• 3:17
  business development perspective, like using
• 3:20
  principles around stakeholder management to manage that kind
• 3:23
  of relationship because benefactors, I can assure you,
• 3:27
  benefactors in Nigeria are used to people coming looking for
• 3:30
  handouts as far just give me money to solve my problem.
• 3:34
  That's all. Now, because there's a huge
• 3:36
  handout culture in Nigeria, if you happen to meet a benefactor,
• 3:39
  you strike up something with a benefactor, it drops some money
• 3:42
  for you and then you start doing good stakeholder management.
• 3:46
  It will leave an impression, I can assure you.
• 3:49
  You collect the money, you say thank you once in a while you
• 3:53
  show up and greed, not because anything, just because I'm
• 3:56
  angry, that's all. Then once in a while you show up
• 3:59
  and then you give updates. Thank you very much.
• 4:02
  That 50K you gave me, I did like this.
• 4:04
  I did like this. This is what was able to I was
• 4:06
  able to do the money, I was able to increase it.
• 4:09
  I was able to achieve this impact.
• 4:10
  I was able to achieve that impact.
• 4:12
  So from those kinds of moves, yes, you will be able to
• 4:17
  maintain a relationship with the benefactor to make sure that
• 4:20
  next time you want to go and beg in quote, you know, you'll be
• 4:24
  given a favorable ear. But then, of course, remember
• 4:27
  that I keep talking about over here on the podcast, it's not
• 4:30
  just about value that we extract.
• 4:31
  It's also about value that we can give.
• 4:34
  So we also should be keeping our eye open that this person has
• 4:37
  been blessing me, you know, with money every once in a while.
• 4:39
  What can I do to make this person's lives better?
• 4:42
  Small, small things. It helps.
• 4:44
  Very, very, very small, small things.
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  I told you guys about how I got my first mobile phone.
• 4:49
  Mobile phones had just come out. Things were damn expensive.
• 4:54
  Yeah, my mom, she had one. She bought one for my brother
• 4:57
  because he was in uni like by then.
• 4:58
  But I was in E fair. So, you know, there was no
• 5:00
  service because it took a while before service rolled out.
• 5:05
  But eventually service got to E fair and the things are so
• 5:07
  expensive. I just told mom.
• 5:08
  She like, you know, just flashy. No need.
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  Like I don't need a phone. I know some of you will be
• 5:13
  shocked, but that was it was early days.
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  So like, how was I supposed to know mobile phones are going to
• 5:18
  become like revolutionary, you know, So I told her, no need.
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  I don't need the phone. No Ala.
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  But mom, she had a bunch of people that she had been
• 5:27
  carrying along in her career because of the circumstances
• 5:31
  around my parents break up and things like that.
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  Mom, she has always kept a very sharp eye when she was young
• 5:36
  around young woman, like this young woman be like, say, you
• 5:40
  know, like she has something. So my mom, she was always
• 5:43
  mentoring, carrying around people from one place to another
• 5:47
  like that. Young women in particular,
• 5:51
  especially people in the secretarial, like administrative
• 5:53
  staff, because you always find someone who is a secretary and
• 5:56
  you can't tell that no, this babe has something.
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  She's sharp, she's intelligent. This person is executive
• 6:01
  material. So my mom had a thing for
• 6:04
  carrying these people along and grooming these sorts of people.
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  So Momsy was a benefactor to someone's career.
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  The other person was a beneficiary and some of them
• 6:17
  will keep in touch with Mumsy, you know.
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  So one of those ladies happened to get a job in a
• 6:22
  telecommunications firm MTN at an executive level.
• 6:27
  And that was a conversation like ma, all the things, you know,
• 6:30
  for my career, you know, I can't pay you back, blah, blah, blah.
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  I know that Tabi doesn't have a phone.
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  Just take this one and give Tabi.
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  And that was my first phone. Samsung Blueface and then when I
• 6:42
  held that thing in my hand and I was standing outside my room,
• 6:48
  you know you above me, I will know then I was in block 7 room
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  2O2 second floor. I stood in front of my room.
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  I was looking at this phone. Something just struck my heart
• 7:01
  and a voice told me that this thing will make you millions.
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  I was like mobile phone and then that's what my love with the
• 7:08
  mobile phone began anyway. So it was a manufacturer
• 7:13
  basically. I was just trying to say thank
• 7:15
  you, ma'am, all you've done. I can't have money to give you
• 7:18
  back. So you know, your son doesn't
• 7:20
  have mobile phone, just management take and give your
• 7:23
  son. So we should always be having
• 7:25
  these kind of relationships with our benefactors.
• 7:27
  Don't just go and be collecting, collecting, collecting.
• 7:29
  Try and look for ways that you can show value for some of your
• 7:31
  benefactors. If you try and give them money
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  will be an insult. Like let's say I run into down
• 7:35
  with that down, which is like your correct guy.
• 7:37
  I like your podcast. You know, let me bless you.
• 7:40
  Just take this 500 M, I'll be very happy.
• 7:43
  But because that is a big boy, there's no amount of money I can
• 7:46
  take and say I want to give down with it.
• 7:49
  So even when I hammer and I'm a billionaire and I say down with
• 7:52
  a what's up now, you know, you really bless my life.
• 7:54
  Just take this 1 billion, you know, you'll be somehow, you
• 7:58
  know, down with your say. Look, young man, when I saw you
• 8:00
  that time and I gave you this 500 M, it's not because I was
• 8:03
  looking for anything in return because I could see that you're
• 8:06
  a sharp guy and I say let me bless you.
• 8:09
  So don't try and insult me by thinking I did this thing for
• 8:13
  money. Keep your money.
• 8:14
  I have my own. So if Dan would, he decides to
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  bless me with 500 M truth of matters, there's no amount of
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  money I can give him back. So I need to look for ways to be
• 8:25
  adding value to him. Who knows, maybe then he will
• 8:28
  have a young nephew or something.
• 8:29
  And I can say, oh, Uncle Dan would say, I noticed that your
• 8:32
  nephew is doing like this, Like this, like this.
• 8:34
  Yeah, no problem. Now let me take him under my
• 8:36
  wing. I can teach him one or two
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  things, especially, you know, regarding sales, you know, let
• 8:41
  me just internship the guy, groom him in one or two things.
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  Then by the time we took him back in, your organization in
• 8:48
  downloaded industries, you know, will be a valuable asset.
• 8:52
  So maybe that's how after downloaded dashes me 500 M, I'll
• 8:55
  be able to, you know, sow into his, sow back into his career.
• 9:00
  But anyway, some of what I'm saying is benefactors very hard
• 9:03
  to find. If you find one, don't be a
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  professional beggar. Make sure that you're only
• 9:09
  extracting value from the person, but that you're
• 9:11
  delivering value as well. And if you listen to the
• 9:14
  podcast, you'll be able to learn things about stakeholder
• 9:17
  management, delivering value, all these sorts of things that
• 9:21
  you can use to build relationships with your
• 9:23
  benefactor. So those are some of the gist,
• 9:25
  but then I now decided to expand the conversation that you know
• 9:28
  what, for people who are looking for support for the business,
• 9:30
  it's not just benefactor, they're also investors who can
• 9:33
  support your business. You can also collect debt that
• 9:36
  is DEBT loans to to grow your business.
• 9:39
  And you can also get support for your business or you can also
• 9:42
  finance your business by from your customers.
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  Now the key thing I wanted to stress over on the radio, I want
• 9:51
  to stress right now is when it comes to support for your
• 9:55
  business or growth of the business, Benefactors is good,
• 9:58
  but hard to find the other two investors or debt is OK, they're
• 10:03
  good. But the easiest or the safest
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  way is actually to finance your business from your customers.
• 10:11
  Finance your business from your customers.
• 10:14
  Let me say one more time, finance your business from your
• 10:17
  customers. What that means is get more
• 10:20
  customers, do a good job in retaining those customers,
• 10:24
  increase, increase your prices, small, small, small over the
• 10:27
  long term. And then the cash flows that you
• 10:30
  get from that is what you throw back into your business.
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  Because when you have an investor, they want a share in
• 10:37
  your business and they want to determine one or two things.
• 10:39
  And some of us, the reasons why we entered into business is
• 10:42
  because we don't want to answer yes, Sir.
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  You cannot take an investor in your business and say you will
• 10:48
  not answer yes Sir. You will have to answer yes Sir
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  or yes. MA is just part of the package.
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  Even if it was not part of the agreement, after some time, the
• 10:58
  guy will tell you that look, young man, I gave you 10 M for
• 11:00
  this business. You're saying that I cannot tell
• 11:03
  you anything about how to run this business.
• 11:05
  Come on, be a realistic. Even if it's not in the
• 11:08
  agreement, I can assure you that one day that's what the guy will
• 11:10
  say. Debt.
• 11:14
  If you take debt, you must pay back the loan, whether the
• 11:16
  business grows or doesn't, whether you are fine or you're
• 11:20
  not. So these things come with
• 11:22
  obligations that financing from your customers does not.
• 11:28
  When you finance from your customers, they get their
• 11:30
  product or their service. So they have no other hold on
• 11:33
  you nor the obligation on you. The money that you get is free
• 11:35
  and clean and yours to use. I'm also hoping that you will
• 11:38
  use it, you will reinvest some of it into your business.
• 11:41
  Don't make the mistake that some of us made.
• 11:43
  There was one guy who used to tell me that, look, young man,
• 11:46
  do not eat your capital. I did not understand what he
• 11:49
  meant when he kept saying don't eat your capital, Don't eat your
• 11:51
  Capital One day. He put it like this because it
• 11:53
  was a much older gentleman. He said back in the days when we
• 11:57
  were in the village, not me. I didn't grow up in the village.
• 11:59
  I'm a Township boy. I was born in Makudi, then from
• 12:02
  there to Abuja and from there to Lagos and then the most rural
• 12:06
  rural place I ever lived was I'll say if if I was a small
• 12:09
  town by my city boy thrown through.
• 12:12
  So you say back in the village is how it happened.
• 12:15
  You will have like 100 heads of yam and you will sow all of them
• 12:23
  and they will reap yam. What will not happen is you take
• 12:26
  yams and store in the ban. There are some that you will
• 12:29
  eat, you and the family. There are some you will take to
• 12:32
  the market and you will sell. There are some that you just
• 12:34
  decapitate the head and you keep that you will use to farm for
• 12:39
  the next season. So that's what the guy was
• 12:40
  telling me. Don't eat your capital.
• 12:43
  If you harvest all the yam, I eat everything now.
• 12:45
  Next season there'll be nothing to plant.
• 12:47
  But I didn't understand and I went through a very long time of
• 12:51
  eating all my capital. If I do business, 400K enter
• 12:56
  pure. I'll clean everything if I do
• 12:59
  another one. 100K enter. Yeah, I'll clean everything.
• 13:03
  The one that I did. Me and my brother. 800K entered.
• 13:06
  Oh, boy. We just clear everything.
• 13:09
  We're eating our capital. So please do not be eating your
• 13:12
  capital. Some you eat, some you will
• 13:15
  apportion, some other you will invest back into the business so
• 13:18
  that in another season there'll still be something that you can
• 13:21
  eat. All right, now, where are we?
• 13:24
  Because I lost my train of thought.
• 13:29
  I can't remember how we got here.
• 13:31
  OK, so so for Jerry, no benefactors.
• 13:36
  I mean, so I've already found what the benefactor is out of
• 13:38
  the goodness or the person's heart, out of the kindness, you
• 13:41
  know, person wants to be a nice guy or the baby wants to be a
• 13:44
  nice baby because that's your money.
• 13:46
  No, one reason why I think benefactors is not a good idea
• 13:50
  is because if you're suffering from some business problems,
• 13:53
  then having a benefactor is just delaying the problem.
• 13:57
  And these are some problems that I wanted people to be really
• 13:59
  mindful of #1 is poor unit economics.
• 14:02
  And then number 2 is not enough customers.
• 14:04
  I repeat, problems that you can also by having benefactors #1 is
• 14:09
  poor unit economics and then number 2 is not enough
• 14:11
  customers. This is what poor economic
• 14:14
  means. Unit economic just means when
• 14:16
  you have a product or your service, a certain amount of
• 14:19
  time and money effort goes into creating that product or goes
• 14:22
  into creating that service. When you sell that thing to the
• 14:25
  public, you want to make sure that you add enough money on top
• 14:28
  so that you're able to recoup the time and the money that went
• 14:32
  into making this thing. And then there's enough extra
• 14:35
  that you can use to flex and buy shawarma and then also to
• 14:39
  reinvest in the business. I repeat, if you create, let's
• 14:44
  say you import headphones, yes, gamer headphones now, and you
• 14:48
  import 1 gamer headphone AT200K. If you sell the gamer headphone
• 14:55
  AT250K, is that 50K enough for you to put something in your
• 15:01
  pocket, enough for you to reinvest back into the business
• 15:05
  and then enough for you to settle, you know NEPA, what
• 15:10
  else? Because you have a physical
• 15:12
  shop, so you have NEPA, what else?
• 15:15
  You have to buy data. Then you also need to pay your
• 15:18
  sales people in the shop. That 5050 K you're putting on
• 15:20
  top, is it enough? So you need economics just means
• 15:23
  that you want to make sure that everything is adequately priced
• 15:26
  so that by the time you collect all that money on top, there's
• 15:29
  enough for you, There's enough for running expenses, there's
• 15:33
  enough to reinvest back into the business, and there's also
• 15:36
  enough to flex. So that's what you need economic
• 15:38
  means. So if you're importing gamer
• 15:40
  headphones from America to sell in Nigeria, you know you need to
• 15:45
  look at the situation very well. You imported it AT200K per one.
• 15:50
  Should you be selling it at 2:50?
• 15:51
  Does that make sense? Or should it be 300K or 350K or
• 15:56
  maybe even 400K? Some of you who said no, I don't
• 16:01
  want to be a thief, you know, it's not about being a thief.
• 16:04
  You know, facts is facts. We have hyperinflation in
• 16:06
  Nigeria. You pay for shop, you pay for
• 16:09
  salary, local government, people who come and harass you, You pay
• 16:12
  all kinds of things. There's money that's involved in
• 16:14
  running this business. It's a matter of just sitting
• 16:16
  down and looking at how much is it costing me to run this
• 16:18
  business. I imported 100 headphones.
• 16:21
  How much do I need to put on top to keep this thing going?
• 16:23
  It is that simple. It's no matter of being a thief
• 16:26
  because some people will hear that you imported the car for 5
• 16:31
  million, but as you're selling it for 15,000,000, then they'll
• 16:35
  say you're a thief, that you're gouging profits.
• 16:37
  Look guy, this is not a matter of gouging profits.
• 16:39
  The numbers either work or they don't.
• 16:42
  So point economics now is that there are some people who are
• 16:46
  not putting enough money on top of the product that they're
• 16:51
  selling. And so because of that, they're
• 16:52
  losing money every single day. They just don't know.
• 16:56
  If a benefactor comes and gives you 5 M, you will think you are
• 17:02
  making progress, but actually you are not.
• 17:05
  You are losing money because the unit economics is bad.
• 17:08
  Your business is dying slowly. It's just that somebody has used
• 17:10
  5M to cover your eyes, so you can't see that your business is
• 17:15
  dying slowly. So there's some things we need
• 17:18
  to fix first before we start looking for benefactors.
• 17:21
  Then the problem of not enough customers.
• 17:23
  If we have not, if we don't have enough customers, then we're
• 17:28
  losing lots of traction on a daily, on a weekly basis.
• 17:31
  You know, steady your business is dying, but you don't know if
• 17:34
  a benefactor comes and dashes you 10 M, your business is still
• 17:39
  dying. You just don't know because
• 17:41
  somebody has used 10 M to cover your eye, but your business is
• 17:45
  dying slowly. The way I explained it is you
• 17:47
  are taking five steps forward, but 12 steps backward.
• 17:53
  OK, no, maybe that's too much. You're taking five steps
• 17:55
  forward, but eight steps backwards.
• 17:58
  Either way, the progress you're making is not like that.
• 18:02
  The business will still die. So before you look for a
• 18:06
  benefactor, before you look for investors, before you look for
• 18:09
  debt, make sure that your unit economics is on point.
• 18:12
  You're selling things at the price that are actually good
• 18:15
  enough to be able to keep the business going and make sure
• 18:18
  that you're getting enough customers.
• 18:20
  It's not just OK, it's not just enough that the price is right,
• 18:24
  but you also need to be selling in the right quantity to keep
• 18:27
  this thing moving. So if the right price to sell
• 18:31
  the headphone, you imported it AT200K and the right price to
• 18:34
  sell it is at 550K for one, but then you're only selling one a
• 18:39
  month. Is that enough to keep this
• 18:41
  business moving or are you supposed to be selling, you
• 18:44
  know, 3A week? But that's up to you to decide.
• 18:49
  Now for some of you that will say how can give me headphone
• 18:51
  with 500 Ki am not making this stuff up.
• 18:55
  This thing exists. I'm telling you, there's one
• 18:57
  time mom, she came whenever mom, she comes to Abuja because she's
• 19:03
  a retail therapy kind of woman. She likes to go to shops, she
• 19:06
  likes to look and look and look before I know you should buy the
• 19:08
  shoe, buy the shoe, buy that. And I say, mom, you remember
• 19:10
  you're a retiree or it's not like before you know any salary
• 19:13
  again, no, she will laugh. I said how funny how, how, how
• 19:17
  things change. And so enter one shop now 'cause
• 19:21
  mom, she wanted to buy a printer because she still does some
• 19:24
  administrative work for some charities now.
• 19:26
  So she was looking for a printer to buy.
• 19:28
  And I said, ah, I need new headphones.
• 19:31
  So, and I have small cash on me. I was thinking, OK, if I see one
• 19:35
  headphone that I like and you know, the money is not, you
• 19:38
  know, now just you understand now.
• 19:41
  So collect something from her and on top so I turned into the
• 19:45
  headphones section now for gaming headphones I saw one
• 19:49
  beautiful headphone this headphones looking sweet.
• 19:51
  I picked it and I said to myself self you have found brand new
• 19:56
  headphones. And as I was walking to detail
• 19:59
  now, because when I was thinking, you know, like 50K or
• 20:03
  something, by the time I turned the bottom, I say, yeah, I saw
• 20:07
  350K-350. 1000 naira for gaming headphones and this was before
• 20:17
  the price of fuel increase and everything.
• 20:18
  I know what not. So I am sure if I go to that
• 20:21
  shop right now, that headphone, I won't be surprised if the
• 20:23
  headphone is now 500 and K. These things happen.
• 20:26
  So yeah, there's some stuff I make up, but some of these
• 20:29
  things believe I'm not making this up so.
• 20:33
  So it was the time. So OK, it's almost 12.
• 20:37
  I have a meeting so I'm not getting carried away.
• 20:39
  Let's refocus. OK, so otherwise I'm getting
• 20:45
  support for your business. So investors, now investor is
• 20:48
  just somebody who gives you money.
• 20:49
  Now, typically what a person wants is a share in the
• 20:52
  business, the share in ownership.
• 20:54
  They share in your profits. And so you have to ask yourself,
• 20:57
  are you willing to do that? And then the investor is also
• 21:01
  going to need answer to some questions #1.
• 21:04
  The investor wants to know how much money do you need?
• 21:07
  Excuse me #2 what do you need that money for #3 How is this
• 21:11
  business going to make money #4 What is this business about?
• 21:15
  Self #5 Who are you? What's your background?
• 21:19
  Excuse me, what's your background?
• 21:20
  What are your skills? What do you bring to the table
• 21:23
  as people say nowadays? What do you bring to the table
• 21:25
  so that you can make this thing work?
• 21:28
  Now all these questions are answered in the document that is
• 21:30
  called the Business plan. When you hear business plan
• 21:34
  sounds fancy, plenty of big grammar.
• 21:36
  Well, basically the document that answers that question, that
• 21:39
  is what the business plan is. You will have to come up with a
• 21:43
  business plan for an investor and you will have to come up
• 21:46
  with a business plan for debt if you're going to raise loan from
• 21:50
  a bank or any other financial institute institution.
• 21:55
  So you can borrow from private individuals, you can borrow from
• 21:57
  formal institutions. But however, and I mentioned
• 22:00
  this on the show and I mentioned this here now, if you're going
• 22:02
  to borrow money from friends, from family members, from
• 22:05
  associates, if you're going to borrow from Mumsy or POPSY, you
• 22:08
  need to be very clear on a couple of things.
• 22:11
  What are the terms, Popsy, Thank you very much for this money.
• 22:17
  I appreciate that you want to support me as per I am your
• 22:19
  first son, you know, Popsy, I really appreciate, you know, I'm
• 22:24
  glad. I really, really appreciate.
• 22:27
  But you know, I don't want to take you for granted.
• 22:30
  So no vets, but I'm just asking this money that you're
• 22:32
  supporting me with, is it dash or is it something you need back
• 22:36
  maybe like next year or like 2 years time?
• 22:39
  They hear what Popsy has to say. Popsy says no, my son, I'm
• 22:43
  dashing you. Oh good.
• 22:45
  Then you're free. But the Popsy says, my son,
• 22:50
  ordinarily I would like to dash you, but you know how things
• 22:52
  are. I've been retired for like 20
• 22:54
  years. So this money that I'm giving
• 22:56
  you, please manage it well. I will need it back in like 2
• 22:59
  years time. Your younger sister is going to
• 23:01
  get married. And you know, my hope is that we
• 23:04
  should be able to join at this money to support your sister.
• 23:06
  She's getting married now at least you know very clearly that
• 23:11
  he's supporting you with this money.
• 23:13
  He has faith in you that you will do well, but that this
• 23:17
  money is needed in two years time when your younger sister is
• 23:19
  getting married. The reason why I'm saying we ask
• 23:22
  all these things is because because people don't ask and
• 23:25
  because they don't clarify what the terms are, it causes all
• 23:28
  kinds of family quarrel. You will take the money,
• 23:30
  assuming it is a dash. Popsy will give you this money
• 23:33
  as you need to support. In two years time, your sister
• 23:37
  will now not be able to get the kind of wedding she likes.
• 23:40
  She will now be angry with Popsy, that Popsy has always
• 23:43
  been supporting you and not supporting her.
• 23:44
  And she will now be angry with you that you have mismanaged her
• 23:48
  inheritance or Miss Man. I mean, see the kind of
• 23:51
  complications these things can cause.
• 23:53
  Serious. If you think I'm making this
• 23:55
  stuff up, just pay attention to your own family because I know
• 23:59
  it's not just in my own family that these things happen.
• 24:01
  It's a serious Niger problem. We don't ask questions.
• 24:06
  We don't try and clarify this way that we can clarify
• 24:08
  respectfully. I know what it is because this
• 24:12
  thing can cause some serious quarrels.
• 24:14
  Friendships end over these sorts of things.
• 24:17
  Marriage ends over these sorts of things.
• 24:20
  The wife gives the money to the husband.
• 24:22
  The husband says he's thinking in his mind, she's my wife.
• 24:25
  She's bound to support me. I'm not bound to pay this money
• 24:28
  back. Ask my dear, thank you very much
• 24:31
  for this money that you're giving.
• 24:32
  I really appreciate that you've always supported me as a dutiful
• 24:35
  wife, that you are the long-suffering wife.
• 24:37
  I truly appreciate you and I really, really love you.
• 24:40
  Thank you very much. But my dear, don't be annoyed.
• 24:44
  The money that you're giving me, I just wanted to know is this is
• 24:50
  this something that you're dashing or are you trying to
• 24:53
  become an investor, a partner in the business?
• 24:56
  Or did you take this money from our personal savings?
• 24:58
  And is it money that we need back and when do we need back?
• 25:02
  Oh, OK. We took it from personal
• 25:03
  savings. OK.
• 25:04
  So we need this by the time school fees is coming up in
• 25:08
  eight months time. You see, you ask these
• 25:10
  questions, but you don't ask. You assume is my wife, it's our
• 25:15
  duty to support me. She had this money somewhere,
• 25:19
  she's duty bound to bring it out.
• 25:21
  Then next thing you are now quarreling when school fees
• 25:23
  comes round. So ask anyway.
• 25:26
  Let me stop this whole Nollywood stuff and move on.
• 25:30
  So yeah, ask these questions. If it's going to be a formal
• 25:34
  loan, the bank or the microfinance bank or whoever
• 25:38
  will also need to know some questions that they want
• 25:40
  answered. The bank will need to know how
• 25:42
  much money for what. How does your business make
• 25:46
  money? What business are you involved
• 25:47
  in? Who are you?
• 25:48
  What team do you have? What is the background of your
• 25:50
  team? What is your sales and marketing
• 25:53
  plan? How do you expect to sell this
• 25:54
  product? When are you going to invest
• 25:56
  this thing? What are the horizons for return
• 26:00
  like? When do we expect to start
• 26:01
  seeing money back? You have to answer all these
• 26:03
  questions in the business plan. Now, the reason why I say
• 26:07
  customers are the best support for your business is because
• 26:09
  there is no loan, there is no interest.
• 26:12
  Your ownership of the business is still your own.
• 26:16
  You don't have to go through the cumbersome process of writing a
• 26:18
  business plan. However, I still advise people
• 26:21
  to write the business plan anyway because the process of
• 26:23
  writing a business plan forces you to think about some things
• 26:26
  and forces you to put some critical assumptions on paper.
• 26:30
  And then also a sales and marketing plan.
• 26:32
  They usually have one small chapter inside that is devoted
• 26:36
  to sales and marketing. That is the best part, in my own
• 26:39
  opinion, for a business plan because there you have to say
• 26:43
  this is the product we're making.
• 26:45
  These are the people who are the ideal audience.
• 26:47
  This is where we find them. This is how we're going to meet
• 26:50
  them. These are the methods that we're
• 26:52
  going to use to try and sell to them.
• 26:54
  These are the channel partners that we're going to partner
• 26:56
  with, you know, to do the selling.
• 26:58
  These are the marketing. Whatever we're going to do,
• 27:01
  we're going to run Instagram advertising like this.
• 27:03
  You have to spell all that thing out.
• 27:06
  Now, the reason why that's the best part of the marketing plan
• 27:07
  is this of the business plan is this when you wake up in those
• 27:11
  days and your morale is low, very, very low and you don't
• 27:15
  know the way forward and you're confused, at least you can look
• 27:18
  at the business plan and you can remember that, OK, two years
• 27:21
  ago, this is what we thought, this is the direction we were
• 27:24
  heading and this is how we thought we're going to solve our
• 27:27
  sales and marketing problems. And you can now take dressing
• 27:29
  from there. Now, OK, we thought we would do
• 27:31
  it like this, but this has changed.
• 27:33
  So because of that, we need to do it like that.
• 27:35
  So the business plan actually is an important document.
• 27:38
  So the long and short, what's the long and short of what I'm
• 27:41
  saying today's of? To be honest, I'm never sure
• 27:44
  what the long and short of today's episode is.
• 27:46
  But bottom line is, yeah, you can get support for your
• 27:49
  business any which way. Don't count on benefactors
• 27:52
  because they're hard to find. If you find a benefactor, make
• 27:55
  sure you do good stakeholder relations and also deliver value
• 27:59
  to the person investors or the debt option will involve you
• 28:04
  will make you to have a business plan and remember that it has
• 28:06
  obligations that are wrong with it.
• 28:08
  The only one that doesn't have any kind of extra obligations is
• 28:10
  your customers, which is why I really think if you're in
• 28:13
  Jerry's situation in Apple, your solution is not to look for a
• 28:18
  benefactor. Your solution actually is to
• 28:20
  look for more customers. That's the easiest thing.
• 28:23
  Look for more customers. You're in the snack business,
• 28:25
  look for more customers. Don't look for benefactors.
• 28:29
  But if you happen to see a manufacturer, please by all
• 28:32
  means keen and accept, accept the help, accept the money, any
• 28:39
  help you get, it's all good. So that's it and that's all for
• 28:42
  today. Remember, if you'd love to
• 28:44
  connect, you can do so by calling, sending an SMS or the
• 28:48
  WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you for your time and
• 28:54
  attention. I'll catch you next time.
• 28:57
  Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.